You cio or your child wakes up forever

SEN will take longer than other kids. My SEN child was 7 before sleeping through, compared to my other child who was about 18months. It’s tough but you will get there eventually.

Eldest has sen and at 7 needs melatonin and lots of I put to go to sleep including an iron clad routine we can't deviate from.

Youngest is 4, declares it bedtime, brushes teeth, gets pyjamas on story, song, cuddles in a goes to sleep. Likes company but can do it herself.

Noone was sleep trained

Really? I want my DD to know that she can always come to me or someone else she trusts when she's dealing with hard emotions. Teaching children to keep their feelings to themselves and deal with them alone doesn't have great outcomes.

That poor little girl!

That’s so sad. These ‘methods’ have done untold damage.

Bullshit thread title. Never left my two year old to cry, she happily goes to sleep by herself now. She’s securely attached and happy.

I never did CIO I hated the idea of it. I just followed a loose routine of bath, nurse and down in the cot. They all just slept well unless they were ill with something. they woke in the night once or twice and settled quickly when told to go back to sleep. The first child took the longest he'd shout me once a night till he was about 4 but I'd just say go to sleep and he'd go back to sleep. Other two never called me at night unless ill.
I'm sure I remember reading some baby book or something that said Sleeping through the night was considered a 5 or 6 hour stretch of sleep. Not the 8 we all would like.

Learning to tolerate uncomfortable feelings is part and parcel of life, by jumping in every single time your child feels the tiniest bit of upset you are not teaching them any skills in managing feelings. In fact you are teaching them that feeling upset/scared etc should be avoided as you don’t think they can cope with it.

Im not suggesting leaving kids to cry for hours but gentle reassurance that they are fine and safe and are around is all a 6 and 2yo should need.

Building resilience and some autonomy in children is really important otherwise they will be terrified without you which is not fair on anyone imo.

Your not alone hun my 5 year old was a great sleeper untill she turned 5 i have no idea what changed and now she will not go to sleep without me or her dad .we have tried everything. I have my suspicions about sen needs there too.
Just remember what works for your family is what is best for you.
You will get there x

Your not alone hun my 5 year old was a great sleeper untill she turned 5 i have no idea what changed and now she will not go to sleep without me or her dad .we have tried everything. I have my suspicions about sen needs there too.
Just remember what works for your family is what is best for you.
You will get there x

At 14m, we were all getting absolutely hammered by colds and bugs. None of us sleeping, multiple wakings a night. And he was often only sleeping 40m during the day at nursery.

Sleep training consisted of pick up and put down. It lasted 25m the first night, half of which was being cuddled by my husband. The next night it took 5m and one visit. Night weaning done at the same time, one or two visits by my husband for a few nights.

Boom, done. He did occasionally wake when teething, and we went through a period of early mornings. But in spite of him sleeping properly, night and naps, happily going down (he actually said "happy" as we put him down this evening), drastically better health and better days, some would still characterize this as "horrible leaving to cry".

I don't subscribe to the idea that those 25m and one night undid all the other times we've come to him immediately - after all, he does still cry if he needs us.

We haven't done any formal sleep training but we have step by step encouraged more independent sleep. It's been an up and down process at times as my daughter as physical health problems that impact her sleep. When they flare up she needs more comfort to get to sleep then we have to work on getting her back to the point she was before. When she's doing ok we try to push her to be less reliant on us for sleep. We have tears but we are always there just slightly removed from where we were. For example sat next to her bed rather than lay in her bed.
She's just turned 5 and now nearly always sleeps through the night but still needs to in her room to fall asleep. There was a time when she only slept being cuddled by us but now we sit in the corner of her room and she goes to sleep in her bed.

My twins woke up every time I rolled over. Putting them in their own room made them sleep miles better.

Various posters here are saying they won't need breastfed forever, as an adult people can sleep independently etc which of course is true but how long did they need help/support sleeping. My sister used to lie down beside her boys at bedtime, they would also come and sleep beside her in the middle of the night. Between the two kids I don't think her and her husband had a full night's sleep for 10 years. They would also have to give up half an hour to an hour of their evening to get their children to sleep. Maybe I'm selfish but I need my sleep and I need my evenings for my sanity. I didn't CIO per say but I just let my two cry/whinge a little and I'd go in and check on them periodically. They weren't been fed or rocked to sleep (though they did use a dummy) so they gradually independently fell asleep. They go to bed now with a story and a good night. It's absolutely fine to breast feed, co-sleep if you're happy to do it but I wanted a little bit of my life back and to enjoy a couple of hours to myself every evening.

My ND stepson is 8 years old.

He cosleeps at his mums house, and doesn’t at ours. We stay with him until he falls asleep, and go back in for wake ups to resettle him, but nobody gets in anyone’s bed.

The first step was getting off his bed when we put him to bed. We sit either on the floor, or on a chair now. That’s his bed, we don’t need to be in or on it at bedtime. He knows it’s his bed, because that’s the message he’s been given.

I don’t really “get” how cosleeping helps separation anxiety. Surely it makes it worse, because it encourages children to believe they need their parents 24/7 when actually they could be independent if encouraged.

DS didn't sleep through the night until he was almost 3 and we put him in a full size single not a toddler bed. Never did CIO etc he was cuddled to sleep , then we'd sit in a chair next to his bed as he got older, once he got his big bed the chair had to go but I'd sit in the bedroom next door and go in if he needed me. He has a yoto player which helps. He's 6 now and sleeps 7:30-7:30.
I do think in your case it isn't as simple due to the SEN.

I never trained her to do any of it. She decided what she was ready for when she was ready for it. I'm pretty sure I know what my friend's views are on bringing up babies and none of us were silly enough to think that leaving a crying child alone teaches them anything.

Babies are not all the same!

I have not sleep trained any of my four.

Eldest: nightmare sleeper. Severe sleep apnoea, resulting in waking every 30 minutes or so. Operation to fix it not long after her 2nd birthday - amazing!!! I fed her to sleep until she was 2.5, then changed to singing/cuddling. Started to leave her to drop off just before she was 3 - did have a nightlight that slowly changed colour and gentle music playing. I never once left her to cry. She did cry for about 2 minutes the first night I didn't feed her to sleep, but thay was it. She used to wake up for a wee until she was 3.5, and we had a patch of nightmares when she was nearly 5, but other than that she's a great sleeper.

Twins: They had dummies. Amazing invention from my perspective! Kept them till their 4th birthday for bedtime. They did wake up and cry in the night for about 4 days after removing them, but were cuddled back to sleep. Only cried for nightmares/illness after that. (Do still have to wake the one with additional needs for a wee every flipping night though..... hope he eventually grows out of that!).

DD2: unicorn baby! Fed her to sleep, still doing so and she's coming up for 2. She wakes around 5am for another quick feed, and occasionally doesn't bother with that. She's just a very deep sleeper.

I've never sleep trained. I thought about it a few times (when the twins were a year old i thought about it a LOT) but never bothered. So no, I don't think most babies just cry forever until sleep trained. However, I think the age at which they stop varies widely. Children with additional needs it may be MUCH later than ideal. Sleep training may help it along.

If its what you need to do for your sanity/sleep, then there's lots of information out there. If you prefer not to, that's also OK - you wont harm them/prevent them from sleeping independently if you don't. You need to think about what you are most happy with and what works for your family circumstances.

I don’t know if this is a method because I was a first time parent and I had no idea. I did this thing where I let him lie in bed with his bottle crying and stood with my hand gently on his chest. Then when he stopped crying and drank his milk I gave it a bit of time, and I’d lift my hand off his chest and stay bent over. And then I’d gradually stand up. And then that one step on a bit. And then another step and then another step and eventually I’d get out the door. It was hard for about two weeks because sometimes I have to do the process two or three times. But it worked like magic. I think the reassuring hand and just keeping him there so he knew that he was safe but he knew he wasn’t going anywhere worked.
I’m pretty hardcore though. I would’ve done that method for two months if I thought it would work. Some people can’t bear to hear their baby cry, but I was stood there with him with my hand gently on his chest. I just had to stick it out and then go downstairs and have a glass of wine.

You must have a very small circle. Let’s be honest, you have no idea if that’s true or not.

You’ve literally just described a form of sleep training after saying you never did it.

ND child, but I think the boundaries and expectations early on really helped.
Friends/relatives who are really struggling didn’t have consistent routines (often because of shift work or large extended families to visit so out of their control) or because they don’t seem to set boundaries.

Pause method from a few weeks old plus a consistent routine from a few months. I’d seen what happens if you don’t do something early on (years of disturbed nights being normalised) and knew I didn’t want that for my family.

Simply paused for a few seconds if baby started to stir and observed what happens. About half the time she’d then show hunger signs so I’d lift and feed. The other half she’d fall back asleep, which meant she learnt to connect sleep cycles on her own. All feeds before 7am treated as a night waking (dark, no eye contact, no interaction, just feed), all daytime feeds fun, lively, talking, eye contact etc.

She’s never been left crying, always been responded to (but in an appropriate way). Has slept brilliantly since a few months old.

i have co-slept since birth with both my kids, including together. Saved my sanity and they slept better too!