Day 12 Ferber - Gave up

Baby is 5.5 months. 3 naps a day, 2/2.25/2.5/3.

We tried Ferber, hired a sleep consultant, were 100% committed to riding out the difficult first few days. After a few bumpy days we got a 4 day stretch where she slept through the night or only woke once. I wish I could upload a picture of my huckleberry app to show the chaos around day 10, but she suddenly started waking in the middle of the night and could not go back down for hours. Day 12, she was up from 10pm - 3am. We followed the check in schedule, but she simply wouldn’t settle. A few times she went to sleep for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, the longest for 18 minutes, but kept waking back up and screaming. I got 3 hours of sleep that night and threw the whole Ferber process in the trash. I’m now bed sharing with her because she just simply will not settle on her own and we can’t live with that much crying and that little sleep.

We put her down drowsy but awake in her own crib and 90% of the time she falls asleep by herself and the longest she’ll sleep is 3 hours, but then she’s awake and inconsolable. That is not normal. Something has got to be wrong. This doesn’t follow the whole ‘be consistent, your baby can do it!’ vibe. She will constantly wake, get settled back down, then be up again between 5 and 20 minutes later. The sleep won’t stick. And we’ve done it all, have it all: blackout curtains, white noise, many sleep sacks, feeding before bed, not feeding before bed, a super consistent relaxing bedtime routine, experimented with temperatures, etc.

It feels like I’m the only person whose baby won’t sleep train.