With two babies, I’ve had completely different experiences.
The first refused to breastfeed (I have a crazy fire hydrant letdown) so I had to pump milk for the first 10 months. I followed the Baby Whisperer method of never letting her nurse to sleep, but putting the baby down when drowsy, and following the routine every single time of wake feed play sleep. Also, put the baby to bed at night in her own crib at pretty much exactly the same time every day. I highly recommend the Baby Whisperer for your next child. With these methods, she was sleeping through the night around 3 months (8 pm to 6 am) and never had night wakings, nightmares, etc. She always napped for 1.5 to 2 hours, starting at 3 times a day, then reducing to once a day as she aged. I kept the routine for the first few years, enforcing naptimes at the same time every day, and things were easy. It requires quite a sacrifice to your social life, but it can be done.
The second was the opposite. I called her “alert baby.” She wouldn’t sleep more than 30 minutes for naps and 2 hours at night without waking!!! TOTAL NIGHTMARE. She was breastfed. I was determined not to go the same way as my first, thinking it would make it easier for me. Big mistake. I did nurse her to sleep and I also slept with her in my bed because I was so damn exhausted. She was sick almost all the time with a cold. I can only guess that was because she never slept well, so she never recovered much from one cold to the next. I read that you can sleep train at six months, but I waited until 9 months because she always had the d*&* cold. At 9 months, she still had a cold (runny nose, congested), but I decided that it could be because of the lack of sleep that she never got better, so cold or not, I was going to do something about it. She was undersize and underweight… She was at the very bottom of the bell curve.
I read 5 pure sleep training books. FIVE. To find a solution. Agonized over what to do.
Sleep trained her (modified cry it out… I would go in if she cried and pat her on the body, but never pick her up-- also increased the amount of time before going in and comforting her) within 1-2 nights. It was really really awful and agonizing to listen to her cry, but if you relent and pick her up, you’re teaching her that if she cries hard enough, you will give up.
BAM. From then on, she slept 9-10 hours without waking at night and immediately got better and healthy. Rarely sick at all. As for me… I got my life back. Until then I was sleeping no more than 2 hours at a stretch, some times only 1 hour… Both kids have been sleeping in their own rooms/beds since infancy. Works for me, because I have my privacy with my husband and the freedom to go to sleep when I want. (And my youngest is still at the bottom of the bell curve, but she is healthy and has a body of steel).
Sleep is key to your child’s health, learning, everything. Even now, I wake my kids up once a week, for their 7:15 am Sunday morning swim club, but other than that, they wake up by themselves because I put them to bed at the same time every night, 8:30 pm. As I said before, it ruins your social life, but the payoff is incredible. Only on vacations or special occasions such as weddings do I let them stay up past 8:30 pm.
I hope this works out for you and you make a decision you are comfortable with.