Sleep problems: did anyone just go with the freaking flow and not sleep train?! And if so did it eventually work?

[PenelopeChipShop]

Anyone out there who isn't doing some sort of plan? My 7.5mo is a terrible sleeper. I won't even bore you with the details. Just think every bad habit in the book and 1-2 hourly wakings. I do all the nighttime parenting so am just doing what I can to survive, feeding, co sleeping, rocking, whatever. Friends tell me things will never improve if I don't either teach self settling or do some sort of cc. Frankly I appreciate the theory but in practice I am just too tired at 3am when up for the fourth or fifth time to do anything but feed back to sleep. Are these people right? Do I have to change things or will he grow out of it?

Is there actually anyone out there who just muddled through? To clarify I am not against sleep training or judging it all, it is just that I am too knackered to put it into practice.

[Greensleeves]

I did nothing in terms of sleep training or routine or anything like that whe they were babies. I was too fucking tired and shell-shocked, and so were the babies. We just muddled through it. There were crap times, but we basically liked each other so we got through it on cuddles, dummies, the odd hopeless crying fit (me and them). They're 8 and 10 now and they go to bed at 7.30pm

[BeehavingBaby]

Here, worked brilliantly IMO with DD1 and 2, who both slept 7 til 7 from somewhere in the middle of their second year, and have always gone to bed with no fuss, never come to us in the night (ever!). DD3 however is 26months and still in with us every night, will try and sort in the summer, she is too good a hot water bottle to give up right now

[BeehavingBaby]

I mean that DD1 and 2 haven't come in to us since they started sleeping through, we bed shared from 1st waking prior to that.

[Rooneyisalwaysmoaning]

Yes totally didn't sleep train at all. I co slept and that was frankly enough, they settled really well next to me and fed on demand.

I don't hold with having to train kids to sleep, it just happens. It's a pile of money making, guilt inducing shite imo

Mine are 9, 5 and 6 weeks.

[Rooneyisalwaysmoaning]

Oh and forget about bad habits and all that. It's not, that's purely another dubious construct to make us feel like we're failing unless we buy the book and do the routine.

Babies just don't sleep at convenient times. It's how it is. He's not a terrible sleeper, he's just a baby. Don't worry and try to roll with it as much as possible...this time is precious and won't last very long. I mean how many school age children do you know of who still cry and feed all night?

[Jeggie]

This is a reassuring thread! My 14mo doesn't sleep through but we cosleep from first waking around midnight usually (7-8 bedtime in cot - goes down ok now we sorted a calm "routine"). Some nights are good ie wakes for feed 4/5am then back to sleep, some nights aren't so good - wakes up for a couple of hours now and then. I'm usually ok with this but I do have my wobbles wonderibg if she will ever sleep through. No cry sleep solution book has helped when I've felt I needed to make a step forward.

[Eskino]

Co-slept (bedsharing) til 14 months when during the summer ds was too hot and cranky to settle to sleep with us in our bed and found his own cot in his room to be much nicer and cooler. It was a short hop to where we are now, 2 years old and sleeps undisturbed from 7pm til 8 am.

ie, we muddled through.

[5madthings]

No sleep training here. Co-slept etc. My.elder four are 13, 10, 8 and 4 and all.sleep in their own beds in their own rooms. Dd is 26mths and is in with us, she generally sleeps well, goes to.bed at 7:30 and gets up at 7-7:30


They all went into.own beds at 2-3 yrs old no.problems.

[IHeartKingThistle]

I take my hat off to anyone who can wait 2 or 3 years for their child to sleep. We did sleep training (not CIO or She who must not be Named, don't flame me!). It worked. We all got sleep. I don't think my children were damaged or traumatised by it.

But it's whatever works for you, isn't it?

[5madthings]

Not doing sleep training doesnt mean you dont get any sleep tho, we sleep well precisely because we didnt do sleep training and we kept them.close in our bed so if they needec a feed or were teething or poorly its very easy to comfort them.

[5madthings]

But yes its what works and there are sleep techniques that dont involve cio or cc. The no cry sleep solutions book is ok and gradual retreat, shush pat etc there are lots of things you can do. I am lazy and went the path of least resistence...

[naomilpeb]

We didn't do any sleep training with DC2, but due to DP not being able to co-sleeping we haven't been able to use that as an option. He has, just about, sorted himself out at 2.4 years! From about 18 months there have been some very good nights and some very bad weeks... I never fed to sleep at bedtime, but always fed back to sleep when he woke, and then after he stopped BF at 18 months we cuddled back to sleep and still do if he wakes now. Yes, sometimes it can be 45 minutes at 2 AM which I don't love, but most of the time it's ten minutes and not every night.

I have no issue with CC if it works, but rather like you we were too tired to do it with him, and I knew that I would 'give in' in the middle of the night, so to try and start it was unfair on him. We did CC with DC1 when she was 11 months, which had mixed results, and it seemed that during her first 2 years we were constantly having to re-train after colds, being away somewhere etc etc, and we eventually gave it up as too stressful for all of us. Which is not to say that this is what happens whenever one does sleep training, it was just our experience. Anyway, DC1 sorted herself out properly (as in reliably sleeping 7.30-7/8) by 3.5. Hope that helps.

[Rooneyisalwaysmoaning]

I sometimes wonder if sleep training is just a way of compressing the horridness of no sleep into fewer nights...so a few hideous nights of screaming, then re-training every time you have a holiday or an illness etc, as opposed to every night being a bit hit and miss.

I don't know.

[Rooneyisalwaysmoaning]

I mean, does it even out, sort of? Never had the awfulness that comes with cc/cio, but just low level stuff, for longer? ! they all sleep in the end. surely no one's baby actually sleeps MORE than someone else's in the long run? More jst at different times of day.

[TempusFuckit]

I started sleep training, in a very gentle shh pat fashion, when DS was 7ish months. But I did it for bedtime, then naps first, so I never really had hideous hours of no sleep at night. He still woke frequently until we moved him into his own room, when he gradually stopped waking of his own accord.

So I guess I'm a halfway house. Never trained for night wakings.

[KatieLily12]

I'm finding this really interesting as I am starting to believe some babies are just better sleepers.

We tried NCSS for newborns around 6 weeks and had a blissful week of day naps, and went down twice in evening but woke an hour later both times. Never done either since.

Phrases that are wasted on me:

Put them down when drowsy- nope, wakes up and smiles confused why I'm putting her down

Watch where they naturally drift off- has never drifted off. Ever

Let them cry- nope, she'd cry till she puked and not stop. I can't do that to her.

We're at 14 weeks and I'm feeling pressure from everyone to get her into a routine but I kind of feel she's not ready so thank you OP and all the other posters here for reassuring me. In now off to settle down with her as she only sleeps on me....

[BeaWheesht]

I didn't sleep train, I didn't have the energy .

Ds was an horrendous sleeper and I mean really full on horrendous. Slept maybe 11pm - 2am and 5am until 8am on a very good day and had 2 naps but only if being pushed non stop in buggy.

Then one day at 17 months he just started going to sleep at 8pm and pretty much sleeping through until 5am. He got better again at 2 and since he was 3 he's slept 7-6 consistently most nights (he's 6).

Dd is 2 - I never sleep trained her either but she loved to sleep as a baby - for the first 13 months that's pretty much all she did it was great . I did nothing different with her to what I did with ds it was just like he didn't understand how to go to sleep whereas she used to just lie in her Moses basket / cot and drift off to sleep. She's still not normally too bad now. Self aettles etc.

[BeaWheesht]

Ps ds once fell asleep in his playpen aged about 14 months and dh woke me up to tell me (my lie in) and I was so amazed I spent the next hour watching him breathe in case he was horrifically ill because that was the only possible explanation I could think of for him falling asleep unaided.

[LittleBallOfFur]

To answer your questions: yes and yes :) he started sleeping 9-7 briefly at 10mo, then was atrocious again for a while but then from about 15mo (as bf started to reduce I think) he slept 7/8 till 6/7.

Hang in there and do what feels right for you.

[Iggly]

Yes. Well with ds we were fighting a losing battle (he sleeps fine now).

So with dd, I thought sod it. I'm going to get as much sleep as I can as had her plus a toddler to deal with.

So coslept from day 1. She napped in the sling from birth until 4/5 months.

Now she's 14 months. Sleeps through most nights. Settles like a dream at bedtime and for naps (feed, cuddle, stroke her back until she drifts off or relaxes). A MILLION times easier than her brother despite having reflux etc which does still wake her if we get her diet wrong.

I did make an effort to put her in her cot but if it didn't work, went back to her in my bed. Same for naps - if she didn't nap in the cot, I'd give up and go for a walk or try again later. I couldn't spend ages trying as ds who was 2 needed me!

Her sleep isn't perfect but I know that's because she gets reflux at night when she's inadvertently had too much windy veg or accidentally had dairy but that's something I can deal with.

[PoppyWearer]

Still muddling through here with 18mo DC2. Although we plan to be done co-sleeping by Easter. Probably.

[AndMiffyWentToSleep]

It can happen without sleep training!
My DS was a crap sleeper. When at his worst (up every 45mins at night), I tried The No Cry Sleep Solution and it did seem to work but I didn't keep it up (who know why but I only did it for about 4days, til I saw the effect) and he went back to waking several times a night.

He suddenly slept through from bedtime to morning at 11 months. Still does except when ill or growth-spurting.

I've also felt the pressure to sleep train but you just don't have to!

[WhispersOfWickedness]

Muddled through with mine. They were terrible sleepers for the first 6 months, then not great sleepers for another few months until they started moving around and by the time they were 12-13 months, they were mostly sleeping through. I co-slept until they were about 5ish mo. No sleep training, they just started sleeping more when they started tiring themselves out with crawling/walking

[RightUpMyRue]

I didn't sleep train but I did night wean at 16 months and DD slept through once there was no longer any BFing on offer. We continued to co-sleep until she was 3 then the transition into her own bed was easy peasy.

The night weaning only took 3 or 4 nights of offering water and cuddle instead of a BF and she decided it wasn't worth waking up for. She still fed to sleep until we gave up BFing completely at about 2 years.