Why do I have to sleep train my baby?!

Do you raise the subject a lot? If so, I suppose it's possible that what they really mean is "You HAVE to stop telling me about this". I mean, if you've made your mind up, there's nothing to discuss, so perhaps . . . don't?

I don't think I've ever met anyone who actively taught their child to walk. I mean, I can see how it could be necessary to intervene for kids with disabilities that affect walking, but kids generally just get up and walk when they are ready.

I do think that in all this talk about sleep training, the parents who sleep train say that it was great and their children sleep really well and the ones who don't say that their children would be traumatized but it, and I think that in the vast majority of cases, both sets of parents are right.

If you are a parent who is in tune with your child and wants the best for them, you will generally try to give them a good sleep environment with good routines and sleep hygiene. For some babies and toddlers, that's enough, and there's no need to go any further. For others to they respond well to the routine, but they need more quiet, or alone time, or are the sort of sleepers where they will respond well to the lack of stimulus of a sleep training routine, and will find those coffees really helpful in going to sleep for three next free years. And some kids really struggle with sleep. Sometimes they are neurodivergent, or have undiagnosed pain or discomfort, or sleep needs that are atypical, or are just a bit behind developmentally when it comes to sleep. And those babies respond really, really badly to sleep training, and it's miserable for all concerned.

And some parents aren't in tune with their kids, and leave their babies to cry alone until they vomit for weeks at a time, or give them no routine or stability and interfere with their natural sleep development, but I suspect that the parents who ask for support on parenting forums, or read up on infant sleep so that they can do the best for their baby generally know their babies well and are pretty competent at interpreting their wants and needs. And they down that path of increasing levels of sleep intervention until they either reach a stage that works for them, or they reach a stage that indicates that slept training is not something that will be positive at this time, for this baby.

So often a child who isn't sleep trained and goes on to struggle with sleep in later years isn't that way because they weren't sleep trained, but rather wasn't sleep trained because sleep is something they struggle with, and they need a longer, slower process than that in order to develop good sleep.

Creating the environment, modelling and supporting are all critical components of teaching so I would consider that you did 'teach' your child/ren those skills.

For your other questions I can't really answer those as I am not you or the people you have these conversations with and I think this thread demonstrates people mean different things by the terms.

I think for me a lot of these more controversial baby/parenting topics come down to the fine line between avoiding discomfort myself and allowing my child to experience enough frustration to meet their developmental needs. It's tricky, sometimes it's hard to know where your needs end and theirs begin, but personally I find following any kind of theory or style too closely separates me from my intuition. And there have been times that has told me stepping back, even if it causes momentary upset, is the right thing to do.

My daughter had periods as an infant and woke every 30-45 minutes, she’s 4 now and sleeps through the night. I have friends who did sleep train whose children now don’t sleep through. Sleep training as an infant (or not) doesn’t mean they will or won’t sleep as older children!

FWIW many neurodiverse children have a lot of trouble sleeping through the night so if an older child is still waking frequently this may be something to consider as a factor.

Cool. So we disagree. No problem there. Bye

I think it’s weirder that you believe you taught your child to do something that children have learnt to do for millennia!! Are we the only species that you believe teach our offspring to walk?

Oh Jesus I remember one colleague saying "you don't need to respond to your crying baby straight away, let them cry" like wtf

For some reason people who have had their own children love to impart their “wisdom” on new mothers who they see as less experienced. It’s not just sleep but sleep is a big one for some reason.

My daughter was an abysmal sleeper and your journey thus far sounds similar to my experience. If you are happy with what you are doing just carry on. Eventually I just started telling everyone she slept well to avoid the unwanted input as people can’t help themselves!

As it turns out my daughter has lower than average sleep needs so she genuinely needs less sleep than most children her age. Georgina May’s sleep advice changed my life! “Effective” sleep training, for my daughter, would probably have meant her lying awake quiet for hours each night as she genuinely doesn’t need the twelve or whatever hours most people aim for with sleep training so I’m really glad we never went for it.

My daughter is 4 now, she sleeps through the night (albeit from a much later bedtime than most other children) and is developing beautifully.

Yes re: creating an environment that supports their development. But that is not “teaching”
and they would learn to do it by themselves anyway. It’s supporting, modelling, whatever you want to call it but it is not “teaching”. Same as I didn’t teach him to eat, I just provided the food and the environment. To me saying you taught your child to walk is like saying you taught them to chew. Clearly I helped.

wrt to sleep, I think this is where a lot of the disconnect comes in the discourse. I did not “sleep train” my child as is commonly understood ie I did not withhold my presence at any stage. I did of course support his growing independence by putting him in his cot to go over to sleep when he showed/told me he was ready. But I didn’t “teach” or “train” him to do this. Anyway he’s 3 and is currently waking overnight. Obviously I am waiting a few moments to see if he settles himself/am
going in and reassuring before leaving to see if he can get himself back to sleep, but if he calls me or cries I go to him. If that is not “sleep training”, then why do people say when they hear I have a 3 year old who needs me at night “you need to sleep train”? If what I am doing is, apparently, sleep training?

i suppose what I am getting at is that generally people who are pro sleep training or who tell me I “need” to sleep train, insist that sleep training is just gentle encouragement and does not involve leaving a child to cry but still tell me I’m not “training properly” since he’s still calling for me at night. So what is training properly? Usually at that point it becomes clear they do actually mean leaving him to cry by himself! There’s sort of a bait and switch somewhere.

fwiw I don’t have a problem with him waking and am happy with our approach. It’s just that people ask if he sleeps through or if he’s a good sleeper and I say well he still wakes but it’s manageable or whatever, they immediately say “you need to sleep train”.

What I do judge, is when I have these conversations - others don’t seem to appreciate that my decision is one I have come to from doing a lot of research. They assume I am an ignorant, over protective first time mum.

The irony!

It's the parents struggling with lack of sleep, not baby

You can't sleep train

But presumably you created an environment that enabled the development of walking, and responded to certain cues your child gave (like playfully engaging with squats or downward dog), and possibly encouraged them towards greater independence (Eg not picking them up so much but instead physically or emotionally supporting them to take steps or stand).

That's what most people are talking about wrt sleep training - creating the right environment and habits, watching for cues of changing needs and noticing when you might be standing in the way of your child's development.

This is so weird 😂

I don’t believe at all that most kids won’t walk without being taught. So if we didn’t teach children to walk they would just crawl forever? It doesn’t make any sense. I definitely did not teach mine to walk. As a previous poster said,
how would you even go about teaching that? What are you showing them with regards muscles and balance? I wouldn’t know where to start.

I didn’t teach to crawl no. I did teach to walk. Most kids don’t just walk without being coached. And the crawling question…. Evolution innit

DD1 is very sensitive and as a result, she took to sleep training like an absolute pro. She’s just turned 4 now and other than being a natural early riser, her sleep hygiene is impeccable. She is so in tune with her sleep needs she will choose if she wants a story or not based on how tired she is.

Sleep training isn’t for everyone but I do agree with PP’s that sleep is also a life skill we should be assisting our children to develop (in what ever method we choose). I’m not saying people won’t have bad sleepers the same as people have fussy eaters, turbulent emotional regulation etc but with all of those things we implement strategies.

Also agree that if you’re saying ‘DC sleeps terribly’ or words to that effect, people will feel compelled to tell you what worked for them. My general approach is not to whine about my kids, but speak factually about what’s difficult (because it doesn’t do anyone good to believe others have everything nailed).

Basically - do what you want but have some insight into your part in these conversations.

The perversion with sleep training threads seems to be the older baby/toddler/child who wakes up every night crying - often multiple times - is deemed to be a much happier and well adjusted than the baby/toddler who sleeps well. Sleeping well is seen as being so emotionally deadened that you have given up on crying, rather than you just like your sleep. I feel that I’ve been lucky insomuch as while with all my babies I’ve found the first 3 months tough, and up to 5/6 months I had an expectation of a night feed, all my babies have slept well enough for me to get my 8 hours from 6ish months bar illness, teething, growth spurts . They haven’t been “trained” but that didn’t stop snarky remarks like “oh…I just really feel it’s best to be…responsive..” etc like I’m Hitler if my kids are lazy or settled. So much of motherhood is this. The helpful, unhelpful, passive aggressive advice and openly rude remarks continue to slide in and before you know it it’s changed from weening and potty training to higher education choices and mortgages. For some reason women who would happily ignore or accept unsolicited advice in other areas of their lives refuse to ignore parenting advice even when, like the OP, they are absolutely confident in their choice. They may not follow it but they don’t ignore it either. You don’t want to sleep train - don’t - but we are social creatures and a perfectly normal response to “my toddler and I are exhausted and cranky - we haven’t had a good nights sleep in our entire lives” then “you need to get that kid sleeping longer at night” is as valid a response as anything else. I suppose the secret is, if you aren’t looking for a solution, don’t share the problem.

The only times I have encouraged it are when I've had friends who are absolutely making themselves ill, run ragged, and miserable because they've heard that it's wrong to sleep train.

Normally I don't care what people do, and obviously it's up to them. But sleep training can definitely be the lesser of two evils. When I've had friends who are severely sleep deprived and not functioning and hating every second, it's just not worth it.

Yes, and I specifically stated that we don't know how dd would have turned out if we had done things differently. My point was not to suggest causation, but merely to point out that not sleep training doesn't appear to have done my dd any harm.

I'm not judging anyone who did things differently. They were parenting different children and presumably made choices that they considered to be "best" for their children.

My sleep trained DDs are also independent, intelligent, successful , emotionally intelligent and close to us too. They are also great sleepers!

I get where you're coming from, OP. My health visitor insisted that we would have to sleep train in the end. A couple of friends also said similar, but I quickly learned not to discuss it with people if I didn't have to!

My dd was also "sensitive", and I knew that there was no way that she would just cry for around 10 mins and then give up and go to sleep. She just wasn't wired that way, and the more likely outcomr is that she would worked herself into a massive state that would have just kept escalating the longer we had left her.

More to the point, I just didn't want to leave her to manage those big feelings on her own. Instinctively, I knew that that wasn't the kind of parent that I wanted to be, and I wasn't prepared to do it. That isn't a criticism of those who make different choices, but it is just how I felt.

Co-sleeping was the solution for us, and we carried on with it for as long as dd needed that security. Again, I realise that this wouldn't be for everyone, but it worked really well for us.

DD is a young adult now, and I have no regrets about how we managed that period. She is very independent, very confident and emotionally very healthy. We also have a very close relationship. Of course, we will never know how things would have turned out if we had done things differently, but I'm confident that our approach didn't damage her in any way!

Just follow your own instincts, OP - you know your own child, so do whatever you feel is best. And just gloss over the sleep question if other people ask...

Yes ours would wander in if thunder or bad dream. I’d do what my mum did and let them climb in to our bed for a cuddle and then take them back or they would actually get too hot and go back themselves!