Reddit reviews The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5

You can absolutely sleep train him using a gate at this age. There will be crying and anger, but it's only going to get harder from here. We did it with our daughter at 2 with a toddler bed and baby gate, and I had the same fears. She did cry at the gate and she did play with her stuffed animals a bit but eventually she always went to bed. Life is so much better now that we all get better sleep!

I suggest this book

Edit: I forgot to add that we were also afraid that at that age she'd be able to climb the gate or push it off, so having a video monitor helped in that respect. She got close a couple times!

The Sleep Easy Solution if you haven't read it is straight up cheating.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0757305601/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_QV6rDbGPZM1G9

This book worked really well for us. Your situation is complicated by the fact you don't have your child every night.

I suggest you find out what the bedtime routine is at the other house and mirror it to the extent possible. Then be consistent.

Also, when you put them to bed and they get up, just like the other commenter said, be as calm and boring as possible. No extra songs or stories, no extra snacks or watching the show until the next commercial. Just calmly redirect back to bed. We counted seventeen times one night with my daughter but after a couple days of that, she's not had a problem in the last four years. Nothing to see here, may as well go to sleep.

For crying I found myself comfortable with something short of total cry it out. This idea is from that book and it strikes a balance between "I love you and don't want to see you suffer" and "you are a competent human who can put himself to sleep." We chose an interval, two minutes for us, and let her cry that long before going into her room. Didn't pick her up or do anything extra, just said "daddy is here, will still be here when you wake up, I love you goodnight." Then left and let her cry for four minutes. Repeated the process, adding two minutes each time. The longest we ever went was sixteen minutes and then she never really cried at bedtime again. My daughter was much younger so you may choose a longer interval and expect to have to do it over a few more nights with a two year old.

If crying and screaming sometimes works, think of it like the lottery, he'll keep playing but if it never works he'll eventually stop.

If you've been co-sleeping don't jump straight to Ferberizing.

I read maybe 7 or 8 sleep training books that ran the gambit from Weisenbluth Extinction method, and Ferberizing Cry it Out, to the Dr. Sears cosleep until they don't want to or Sleep lady shuffle out of the room.

We eventually choose the Sleepeasy Solution from Waldburger and Spivak. It's not too extreme on either end. It does, however, take preparation and planning. You analyze sleep patterns and habits first and then make a plan that works for your family. We felt like the analysis and planning before was what made the sleep training part work in about 2 nights. It took awhile but my LO sleeps like a champ now.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sleepeasy-Solution-Exhausted-Parents/dp/0757305601

You'll get your groove. A lot of times I kicked my husband out of bed or slept in the guest room. He snores so friggin loud and I have no advice for that.

I highly recommend this sleep training book I'll link below. Start at about five months. We tried a few methods with my son before landing on this one and it's the best method. If you switch to formula, you have to get the baby brezza. It's like a keurig. Bottle in ten seconds.

The Sleepeasy Solution: The Exhausted Parent's Guide to Getting Your Child to Sleep from Birth to Age 5 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0757305601/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_FsNyyb2TQ2WD2

We used The Sleepeasy Solution for sleep training and it went really well. Basically it's just a modified cry it out method with check ins at 5, 10, and then every 15 minutes after that. Supposedly it's most helpful for naps if you also work on night sleep at the same time. I don't know if you are ready/want to stop co-sleeping though. But it sounds like he needs to learn to fall sleep on his own without nursing, which is the goal of sleep training.

EDIT: I have heard that it's much tougher if you are switching from co-sleeping to crib sleeping though. We never co-slept so unfortunately I can't give any advice in that area.

I will say this; every child is different.

We tried the No Cry Sleep Solution, followed it meticulously, and it was a complete failure. Decided to do the The Sleepeasy Solution and within two nights, he was sleeping the night. Now he's sleeping 11 hours a night.

It took us two rounds of sleep training. The second time we did this method: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0757305601?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage and it finally fucking worked! Now my kid finally sleeps well 90+% of the time and I feel more like a human.

I went through multiple night wakings to breastfeed for a whole year and I nearly lost my mind. I finally sleep trained at 12 months and my baby's mood improved SO much. He was sleeping a solid 12 hours and I was sleeping 8. My mental health improved, I had more patience, I could get more accomplished during the day, and I eventually stopped resenting my husband. I stopped hating breastfeeding because I no longer associated it with a lack of sleep. Life improved dramatically and I wish I had done it sooner and spared myself a lot of struggling. I used this book and it only took 3 nights! I couldn't believe how easy it was and I couldn't believe I waited so long to do it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0757305601

Hang in there! June is only a few weeks away. Once your baby is in daycare you can have your housekeeper come more often. I cannot be at ease in a messy house and it's so much worse when you work from home because you don't get a break from the mess!

Mine was this way until 5mo old too. Then we followed The Sleepeasy Solution method to get him to sleep and it worked SO WELL. He's like a different kid, one that can actually sleep in a crib.

We just did this with our 10 month old. The book we read was The Sleepeasy Solution. The book goes over dealing with older children also (up to age 4 I think).

It worked incredibly well, I can't recommend it enough.

we followed the http://www.amazon.com/The-Sleepeasy-Solution-Exhausted-Parents/dp/0757305601 also. I read several books, but this one was most straight forward. What I had to learn was that sleep training isn't an event, it's a lifestyle.

We started when the girls were ~5 months. Most of the time they are asleep within 10 minutes nap or night time. Sometimes they still cry, it's upsetting every time for us, but we know that the ALMOST 11 consecutive hours of sleep they get per night is good for them and us.

We dont really allow pacifiers and we stopped swaddling kind of as part of the process - like you mention - when babies proved they could turn over.

at 4 months, they had also regressed, we were waking at LEAST twice a night and no one would go back down. the night time routine was taking some 2-3 hours of nursings and rockings. It was torture. We are all so much happier now.

Any advice from you probably won't be taken very well. Your gf might get defensive. It's tough being a single mom. Anyway, my daughter was a late talker. It turned out to be that she had fluid behind her ear drums and she wasn't hearing very well. They put those tubes in her ears and she caught up amazingly fast. She's 11 and totally normal now. As far as the sleep thing is concerned, my youngest is 18 months old and we're slowly transitioning her to her own bed. Right now we have her toddler bed at the foot of our bed. She didn't immediately take to it but after a few days she finally fell asleep in her bed. I'd say she gets up and crawls into our bed in the middle of the night probably once or twice a week but those other 5 or 6 nights a week are great. My husband and I can actually cuddle and I can actually sleep comfortably instead of having to sleep in a pretzel shape because my daughter is all over the bed. Anyway, there is a book we got called The Sleepeasy Solution. It had some decent info. Also, getting a book for your gf isn't as confrontational as a discussion of how she is failing as a parent.

My wife and I have used this book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0757305601/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_J6V6wbRBYXZK2 We started sleep training around 6 months and oh my god it's made a world of difference for us. A lot of it has to do with timing naps properly and keeping a very strict bed time schedule.