Look, I’m just going to say it: sleep deprivation and ADHD is like mixing gasoline and a lit match. Except the match is your brain, the gasoline is your already-tenuous executive function, and the explosion is you crying in the Target parking lot because you drove there without your wallet. Again.

And now you’re staring down the barrel of sleep training your eight-month-old, which sounds about as appealing as organizing your junk drawer while someone plays a kazoo directly into your ear.

But here’s the thing, mama: you’re not just tired. You’re ADHD-with-a-baby tired, which is its own special circle of hell that Dante forgot to mention.

When Your Brain Was Already Running on Fumes

Before the baby, your ADHD brain was probably doing that thing where it needed approximately seventeen reminder alarms to remember to eat lunch and genuinely couldn’t recall if you’d already shampooed your hair in the shower. You know, normal stuff.

But sleep deprivation takes that baseline chaos and turns it up to eleven. Suddenly you’re putting the milk in the pantry, the cereal in the fridge, and honestly, who even knows where the baby’s other sock went. (It’s in your pocket. No wait, that’s yesterday’s sock.)

The research is pretty clear on this: sleep deprivation hits women with ADHD harder than our neurotypical friends. Our working memory, which was already doing its best impression of a sieve, basically gives up entirely. Our emotional regulation, which on a good day requires the kind of effort most people reserve for running marathons, just peaces out. And our ability to focus? Forget it. You’re now trying to remember what you walked into the kitchen for while simultaneously planning dinner, worrying about that weird rash, and wondering if you responded to that text from three days ago. (You didn’t.)

The Sleep Training Dilemma

So here you are at eight months, which every baby book and your baby’s pediatrician and your mother-in-law and that smug mom from Instagram say is the perfect time for sleep training.

And theoretically, you know this could help. You understand that if the baby sleeps, you sleep. And if you sleep, you might actually remember your own phone number and stop putting dirty diapers in the diaper bag instead of the trash.

But sleep training requires consistency. Structure. Following through with a plan even when your baby is crying and your heart is breaking and you can’t remember if this is night two or night five and did you even start the method you said you were going to use or did you accidentally invent some kind of chaotic hybrid that would make sleep consultants weep?

For those of us with ADHD, consistency is like… well, it’s not our strong suit. We’re more “vibes and hyperfocus and pray something works” than “carefully documented sleep logs and rigorous adherence to a schedule.”

But Here’s What I Want You to Know

You are not failing because this feels impossibly hard. Sleep training is hard for everyone, but it’s especially hard when your brain needs three times the effort to do anything that requires sustained attention and emotional regulation.

Some nights you’re going to follow the plan perfectly. Some nights you’re going to cave at the 10-minute mark. Some nights you’re going to forget you were even doing sleep training and just do whatever gets everyone back to sleep fastest. And you know what? That’s okay. You’re not ruining your child. You’re not a bad mom. You’re a human being with a neurological condition trying to survive a genuinely difficult stage of parenthood.

Strategies That Might Actually Help

Here’s what I learned, through many tears and even more coffee:

Make it stupid simple. Whatever sleep training method you choose, strip it down to the absolute basics. Write it on a Post-it note you stick to the door. “Put down drowsy. Leave for 5 minutes. Go back. Repeat.” That’s it. No complicated charts or 47-step processes.

Use timers religiously. Because you will absolutely lose track of time while you’re standing outside the nursery door, stress-eating crackers. Set a timer for the check-ins. Set a timer for when you said you’d commit to trying this before giving up. Set a timer for literally everything.

Lower your expectations into the basement. You’re not trying to create a baby who sleeps 12 hours straight and takes perfect naps and never cries. You’re trying to survive until your child is old enough that they can pour their own cereal. That’s it. That’s the goal.

Ask for help with the other stuff. Sleep training is going to use up every single drop of your executive function. This is not the time to also be trying to deep clean the bathroom or respond to non-urgent emails. Let everything else slide. Order the pizza. Wear the yoga pants for the fourth day in a row. Watch the TV. Survive.

The Truth About ADHD and Mom Guilt

The hardest part for me isn’t even the sleep training itself. It’s the shame spiral that came with it. The voice that said I’m a bad mom because I couldn’t just “stick with it” like other moms seemed to. The guilt about needing sleep so desperately when motherhood is “supposed to be” about selfless sacrifice. The fear that my ADHD was somehow hurting my baby.

But here’s what I finally realized: taking care of your brain isn’t selfish. Getting sleep so you can function isn’t weak. And struggling more than other moms because your neurology is different doesn’t mean you love your baby any less.

Your baby doesn’t need a perfect mom who executes sleep training with military precision. They need a mom who’s getting enough sleep to be present, patient, and not crying in the Target parking lot.

You’ve Got This (Sort Of)

Will sleep training be harder for you than for your non-ADHD friends? Probably yes. Will you mess it up sometimes? Definitely. Will you question every single decision you make? Absolutely, that’s a sign of being a good mom.

But you know what else is true? You’ve already survived eight months of parenthood with ADHD, which means you’re basically a superhero. You’ve already figured out how to keep a tiny human alive while your brain actively works against you. You’ve already done impossibly hard things.

This is just one more impossibly hard thing. And you’ll get through it the same way you get through everything else: imperfectly, chaotically, and with way more love than you knew you had in you.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll get some sleep.

(And then you’ll actually remember where you put your keys.)

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You’re doing an amazing job, mama. Even when it doesn’t feel like it. Especially when it doesn’t feel like it.