AIBU to wonder if sleep training negatively impacts a child (attachment theory)?

No sleep training here. We respond to dd with love and warmth and understanding whenever she’s under stress.

Well, we respond with love and warmth etc to our son at bedtime. He's still an overwrought mess of emotion, bless him, and until he's been through a bit of crying with my husband, he won't actually settle down at the moment. (Four month sleep regression, so his daytime naps aren't cutting it)

We're hoping to avoid sleep training - after all, he grew out of co-sleeping naturally when he was ready at 3 months. But we'll take it into consideration once he's older if we can help him learn to sleep without getting stressed.

It was the opposite for me, all the ones talking about you must be
'baby led' to be a good parent, you'll be 'nap trapped' for hours but that's just what you do to bond with your baby and how babies 'need' to co-sleep is what caused me anxiety and stress. I was relieved when I realised that it actually didn't need to be that way and certainly doesn't mean you are less bonded with your baby or don't love them as much.

I wouldn't recommend sleep training a tiny baby for this reason. Some people say first three months are the fourth trimester and babies want to be around at all times.

As you go back to check on them they know they are not abandoned anyway. They may sound like they are abandoned but that's just theatrics. Much better for a child to know who's boss. Sleep training works fast if done properly.

Much better for a child to have a non exhausted caregiver for secure attachment. Secure attachment means child knows caregiver will come back and not be angry with them. Easier to be present and positive for a child if not exhausted.

Every method I have seen of sleep training seems to ultimately boil down to a baby/toddler being able to go to sleep alone and when it wakes up it the night (which they all do sleep trained or not) go back to sleep on its own

this is part of the problem on these threads, different people meaning different things

so in our case ds1 couldn’t go to sleep initially, after 3 nights he understood that being in his cot meant he needed to be asleep. Part of the problem may have been that i kept him in bed with me for a wee bit too long…poor dh slept on the floor 😀

ds1 didn’t really wake in the night but when he did we would go to him and settle him back down.

We sleep trained DT’s - what makes you believe the bond you have with your DC’s is greater?

exactly

i have a brilliant bond with all my children, you’d never be able to tell the one who we ‘sleep trained’ apart from the two we didnt

in fact i know exactly which child you’d guess at and you’d be wrong 😀

No, it's not obvious at all and actually the pro sleep training people I encountered (including things written on mumsnet) when my first was little caused me great anxiety and stress, to the point I was becoming depressed because I felt I was doing something wrong and I had a 'difficult' baby.
Having a bedtime routine is not sleep training, nearly everyone I know has had a bedtime routine for their children including co sleepers etc. Every method I have seen of sleep training seems to ultimately boil down to a baby/toddler being able to go to sleep alone and when it wakes up it the night (which they all do sleep trained or not) go back to sleep on its own. Methods to do this do infact include putting your baby down at 6pm and letting themselves cry for hours, something I have read some pro sleep training people say they have done multiple times on mumsnet.
Of course not all sleep training is that harsh and as I said in my previous post, I totally understand if people really need to take action to get some sleep because I have been there, very little sleep trying to work etc but people who do it need to stop being so defensive and understand that actually, it's OK if others don't believe it's right for them.

We sleep trained DT’s - what makes you believe the bond you have with your DC’s is greater?

It’s obvious - they are meaning that their child has a set routine and those routines are precursors to signal to the brain that it’s time to sleep. They are not meaning - we throw the baby into a cold cot at 6pm and leave her there to scream herself to sleep.
Growing is a developmental thing, and along with a healthy diet, we all need quality sleep to continue to grow.

I assure you I am not misinformed.

I agree - that’s why children who haven’t been taught a sleep routine struggle when they’re older.

You’ve described my granddaughter to a T. She was sleep trained at 6 months once she became more settled on her meds. Took about 4 nights. She now sleeps for England, and loves a good nap in the daytime too. She’s 5.

There are some misinformed people on this thread - sleep training js not about not responding to small vulnerable children. And it's clearly not as simple as just a developmental thing, given all the stories of people transforming their shattered and miserable children into well-rested and happy children in the course of a few days.

I look forward to seeing the certificate!

She only needed the melatonin to learn how to fall asleep without stress, once she was falling asleep regularly at a normal time we were able to stop the melatonin (she does still have trouble sometimes, she's always been a night owl and nothing could have changed that but she has the ability to fall asleep now) so I do think that some form of sleep training early on, before the problems got so bad, could have done the trick too, and avoided the years of suffering.

The case against you have described - drug addicted parents never responding to children’s needs is pretty extreme and yes, I’m sure drug addicts sleep training their kids by ignoring them completely are doing a lot of harm, without doubt. But surely you can realise sleep training is a sliding scale and what the vast majority of people do as sleep training is not this? Textbooks are black and white but real life is not.

I couldn't do it. I tried it for one night. I lasted 10 minutes max. Every fibre of my being was screaming at me to go in and comfort my baby. I'm so glad that I listened to my instincts. We have the best bond.

I don't think there's much scientific evidence about long term effects but I didn't do it with my previously bad sleepers as it didn't seem right to leave them as such small, vulnerable children on their own and not respond to their crying which is their only form of communication.
I can totally understand people doing it when things have got really bad and their mental health is suffering, sleep deprivation is no good for anyone then, but I fail to understand some of the comments about how they have actually 'trained' their baby to sleep when sleep is a developmental thing.

@mightymam I think culture can play a big part in how people view what's "normal" behaviour in babies and children. I think British culture (and I guess "Western" culture in general) really emphasises independence and getting the child not to rely on their parents as soon as possible.

Why are things such as cosleeping and longer term breastfeeding seen as bad things for kids? Why is there a need to push children away from you?

I need to add also that I'm from a non-English culture and it's very normal in our families for children to cosleep with their parents until the age of 8. Mine are luckily in their own beds now.

I'm a psychologist and didn't sleep train my Dc. In fact, I threw out all those bastard books I'd relied on for my training and learned to trust myself to do things that were right by me and my baby. I do believe how you treat your child in early childhood becomes their 'normal'.

I was adopted at 8 months, not sure what life was like before then obviously but my adoptive mum said I was a great sleeper from the day she got me. But I wasn't, I regularly woke during the night, I would just stay in bed quiet. Even when I was sick I never went to find her I just stayed in bed and suffered in silence. Never really thought about it until I had my own children but I'm assuming I had just learned not to bother anyone as no one was coming. Probably an extreme viewpoint but I haven't sleep trained mine because I want them to know I will always be there when they need me. Sleepless nights are tough, I have 3 and none have been good sleepers as babies but I couldn't bring myself to sleep train.

This. I think it's detrimental for a child to sleep train if they have poor sleep. Sleep is absolutely vital to development and good physical and mental health.

"The science has been proven that it’s harmful"

References?

@Natsku I'm sorry you went through that. It sounds difficult. But if your DD needed medication to help her sleep, do you think letting her to cry (for however long) would have made a difference?

@ThisIsOk Yes, I already said that working habits and the lack of a "village" make it difficult. Sometimes untenable for many parents. That doesn't mean that sleep is something that needs taught. It means that the baby needs an extra push to adjust to your desired schedule.

Bertiebotts- whenever I see a really well written and thoughtful post on the site, I always scroll back to check the username and it’s always you! 😊

@MrsFernsby yes they still maintain cry it out was great. They were commenting on the fact she never calls out, when my husband said (it’s his brother and wife) it’s likely down to cry it out and they said of course not, they’d use the same method with their next baby. I think it’s like a lot of things we all do with parenting, in an ideal world we would make the perfect choice, but we don’t live in an ideal world and you do what you need to make life easier. A lot of people justify doing that “thing”, whatever it is, to themselves saying it’s a brilliant thing because it makes them feel better about it (I really mean that not judgmentally as well, as I fall in that category, I’ve seen friends do it too. I think it’s generally an issue with modern families, mostly 2 parents need to work so there’s all sorts of compromises people make that they wouldn’t if their situations were different)