Sleep Training And Being Trained

2026-08-16

Our youngest is almost two and he used to sleep well through the night every night. We did sleep train him when he was about 6 months old and he would cry and we would go to him every few minutes and reassure him. It worked well until a few months ago when we think he started to realize he was alone and started to not want to sleep unless we were in the room.

So for a few weeks either my lovely wife Sneha or myself would sit in his room while he would fall asleep (or not) and we would wait 30, 40, or even 50 minutes (or longer). If we got up before he was fully asleep he would cry and stand in his bed and then we would have to start over by calming him, getting him to lay down, and then continuing to sit in his room.

In addition to this sometimes he would get up during the night, realize he was alone, and call out to us. Usually this was only once a night but sometimes it was none and sometimes it was twice. And one of us would go to him room, console him, and sit in the chair until he went to sleep again. Sometimes Sneha or I would lay down next to him and try to sleep on the ground.

We did this for a few weeks hoping it would be temporary but as weeks turned into a month we wanted him to try to sleep by himself. So that is the stage we are at now, where it doesn’t seem that temporary and we want him to relearn how to sleep by himself. So at night we will let him cry for a little while and then come in every 5 or 10 minutes and comfort him, let him know we are still there. Here is a link: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/baby-sleep/ferber-method

And it is going ok, we aren’t as consistent as we could be, but he is learning slowly.

But he still gets up sometimes between 3 and 5 AM and I will try to go soothe him. There is no sleep training at 5AM so I go sit in his room until he falls back asleep. And oddly enough I feel I am learning to go back to sleep after waking up. Before this I was not good at falling back asleep once I get up, I would mostly sleep through the night and wake up early. But after all of this broken sleep I needed to learn how to fall back asleep and I am steadily getting better at it. I also feel like I am being sleep trained.

And that is it, I hope it will get better soon but we will see.

-Gary