Why doesn’t everyone sleep train?

Hi, what was your approach please? Did you follow a specific book/ advice etc? I'm pregnant with my first and need to work out what to do!

Because sleep isn't something you can train.

You can train your child that you won't come if they're crying and upset though, which goes against every parenting instinct I have.

In the history of child rearing, that's a new fad.

Yeah, it's disgusting. He also says even if your child vomits from the distress of crying and believing themselves abandoned, just clean them up with no eye contact then carry on.

He's a paediatrician, not a psychologist, and it shows.

It's not.

This is where I’m at with exhaustion and whilst we haven’t sleep trained her yet (mostly because my DP is away with work a lot at the moment and if I’m in there all she wants is milk) there have been a few nights when I have to just put her down and walk away as she’s so worked up. She’ll either grizzle and fall asleep or after 3 minutes or so of crying immediately fall asleep if I pick her up, so I can see it probably would work for her.

Whats put me off is her waking her sister while we go through it, and the fact that we sleep trained my eldest who got unwell a week later and then slept worse for 7-8 months.

Agree...We lived next door to a woman who did ''controlled crying'' which basically meant her leaving the poor little thing to shred his lungs for hours.

But sleep training is more than just leaving a baby to cry.foe ages.

I'd put mine to bed , if they cried then I'd go in and comfort them by patting ,shushing etc but light wasn't switched on nor did I pick them up

Also found it helpful to have something that smelled of u nesrby

This x100!!! Almost exactly the same experience here with my first. My second never needed help and has always loved to sleep. They are all different but a rested caregiver and baby is the best recipe for a happy home!

Because it's cruel.

I want to add, babies need sleep even more than adults do. Their developping brains need it. I can't help but wonder if all these diagnoses (many of which are linked to sleep disorders) aren't related to this issue. Getting babies to sleep is important and not just for the convenience of parents.

Beautifully put and I agree. I had the same experience with my three. Well, actually it took a bit longer, they started sleeping long stretches at 3 months old and consistently sleeping through the night (9pm to 8am) from 6-8 months.

I think not everyone does it simply because a lot of people think they have to jump the moment baby stirs - sometimes waking them up when they might have just gone back to sleep on their own. There is a window of opportunity to establish sleep patterns and if you miss it, you're potentially in for years of pain.

This is exactly what we did. It’s a process that starts straight away and not when it’s got to a point where there’s an issue.
All babies have a natural routine and If it’s followed from the beginning there’s no crying involved.

The advice on timings and natural sleep patterns were invaluable and from a lot of research.
We noticed our boys fell in line with those exactly so we simply followed them. Putting what they needed to the forefront.
Each to their own.

With mine it felt like they were just crying as they were tired and needed to sleep. So picking them up would be counterproductive. I was using my instinct rather than something I'd read in a parenting book. It certainly wasn't leaving them to cry for long periods when they needed comforting.

What a load of judgemental OTT bollocks.

We sleep trained at 8 months after our son was waking up every hour. No crying involved. Gradual retreat done over three weeks. At the end of it I had a baby who slept at night and had naps in his cot at predictable times. It changed our lives.

'because they put their needs above their child's'. Lord above.

We have full time jobs to attend to without being fired from, cars we need to drive safely, a relationship we wish to preserve without being tired and snappy, two children, one more elderly mum on one side who we need to look out for…we need sleep. It took a couple of days. Now we are all happy. Settled and secure children, rested parents. All good.

Because I will never ignore my babies cries.

There also isn’t one way to sleep train, I also wouldn’t leave mine to cry indefinitely. I got lucky, brilliant sleeper always then one night around 18 months he wouldn’t go to bed. Point blank refusal, screaming. Got more and more tired and more and more agitated. Settled on me so I did an asleep transfer. Each night it got worse till they weren’t going down till 9.30 so each morning they were tired and sad, it was doing them harm. I did what I still think was a kind technique, left them for one minute went in and patted, then 2 mins, then 3 mins. Got to 4 mins for two nights and then it never happened again. I can’t see what’s cruel in that but I’m aware there are other techniques too

Depends on the baby. At 4 months mine started waking up EVERY 40-60 MINUTES. ALL NIGHT. Not 2 or 3 times a night. But 10-12 times a night.

Cosleeping worked for a week and then he would require to actually be latched ON all night to be able to sleep. It was awful. We weren't functioning and baby was getting bags under his eyes! He was however self settling every once in a while, randomly, so we knew he was capable. And he had also randomly slept through the night when he was just shy of 4 months a few nights in a row.

25 minutes of crying in total on night no.1

5 minutes on night no.2

Then ZERO crying from night no.3.

I don't advocate people leave babies to cry for hours or until they're sick. You know your baby. But letting them cry for a bit is not the end of the world.

And my mother in law and my mum both said "sleep training" was not in their vocabulary. But they would put baby in a room and close the door and let them cry a bit. Same thing but no need for a label.

Because all babies are different, there's no magic bullet one size fits all and I can't imagine leaving them to cry until they give up calling for you, it's heartbreaking. But even saying that, one of our babies needed a few seconds to scream before settling to sleep, we only relaised when we were travelling and he'd have a big fuss in the car before settling every time. Tried it at home leaving him for just seconds before rushing back in and he was asleep. Youngest didn't sleep well ever, and we tried absolutely everything (other then leaving to cry), still doesn't and is nearly a teen - I suspect it's to do with how her brain is wired, imagine if we had put her through sleep training and it was something she just couldn't do.

I think this is probably just anecdotal/a coincidence? Me and my siblings were all sleep trained, we all sleep quite differently as adults. I think as you get older other life experiences probably have an impact too. My brother was an excellent sleeper until he got a high powered job for example 😂

Edited to add we slept differently as children and teenagers too. I think temperament and sleep needs probably have a big impact!

I agree with you on so many levels. But just to raise the point you can do this get them brilliant sleeping and then it will fucks up. Some of us did this. I had three all sleeping through solidly at nine weeks six weeks and five weeks (by that I mean 7 -7 with a dream feed)
Two with them however decided at about four months that they would start waking up during the night. At its worst it was every fucking 20 minutes for about two months. I nearly went insane. I don't say that lightly.
Both times I ended up just doing CIO. Any attempt at rocking or patting or gentle withdrawal just resulted in an absolutely devastated child. We tried everything and our marriage and mental health was on the brink. I was an absolutely awful mother during the day, snappy, unfocused and basically exhausted as I'd had no sleep. They was wake up I'd get them to sleep ten minutes later I'll go to sleep intimate after that they always wake up again it was like torture.

Then one night need of us could get up we physically couldn't get up and the baby cried and cried for 20 minutes. Miraculously he then shut up I went to sleep until the morning. The next night we decided not to go to him and he cried for about 12 minutes and then went to sleep and the final night it was five minutes. From then on he started to sleep through again. We got our lives back, occasionally when he was ill he would slip back into shit sleep and we did. Cio again I managed to be a decent parent during the day, our marriage survived and now they are all lovely teenagers who we have brilliant relationships with. The 2 terrible sleepers are autistic, an I dread to think what a terrible mother I would have been to them if I'd had even less sleep as they were high demand and required a lot of attention.
I see some parents who are so exhausted after two or three years of co-sleeping that they are so awful to their children during the day and yet have this inability to realize it's because they aren't sleeping.the kids are knackered, the parents and that kid their relationship is shit. There's lots of shouting and crying in the day because everyone's so tired and yet it could be resolved for a few of nights of tears. I sometimes think the approach we took caused much less distress done exhausted parents making poor decisions during the day.

@MumCanIHaveASnackPlease im so jealous. I would love to do that, but at bedtime if you attempt a transfer it's game over for us!

She has to fall asleep in her cot, or she wakes at the slightest movement.

It's natural for babies to want to feed more at night.

At night our prolactin hormone is at its highest so our milk production is also at its highest, therefore babies will get a higher quantity of milk at night when feeding.

It is instinctive for babies to want to, because the world is quieter and feeding is not just a source of nourishment but stimulation.

Formula fed babies may sleep differently as Formula has larger molecules in it and it takes longer to digest.