I've come to think that anti-sleep training hysteria on here is alienating and potentially harmful.

[INeedThatForkOff]

Having read countless threads in which sleep training (and let's not be euphemistic - I mean controlled crying) is denounced as cruel and damaging, I've resisted it until now.

DD is 3.6 and DS is 10mo. I am on my knees with exhaustion and have to return to work. My mum is seriously ill and frankly it's all affecting my mental health.

I got myself a referral to the HV-run sleep clinic. The HVs are Millpond trained and although they often get slated on here I've never met a bad one in my area

DD is responding brilliantly to bribery a reward-based approach, but obviously DS is too little for that. Instead CC with intervals of 30 seconds to 20 mins was suggested, and it is transforming the quality of our family life already.

DS is napping in the day, and although I am well aware of the links between crying and its impact on neurological development, I am convinced that learning to sleep will far, far outweigh this.

He's only slept through once so far, but is staying in his cot and sleeping for longer and longer periods at night.

I'm so sad to have wasted my maternity leave on feeling so down and exhausted. I think perhaps the critics ought to consider the improvement in quality of life that sleep brings to the whole family. I really regret having heeded them for so long.

I would also recommend Andrea Grace - 200 pound very well spent and it did save my sanity. I still don't really agree with cc. But I was diagnosed with PND and probably would have had to give up bf to take anti depressants had we not sorted out the sleep.

My dd is five now, and is a lovely, happy little girl - a typical five yo girl as far as I can see. No, I don't see any long term damage form the few days we let her cry a bit.

I worry a lot more about other things I do or say now.

What like OnaPromise? The things I find myself saying ('shut up' or swearing to myself but in the DCs' hearing) and doing (mild self-harm) out of sheer exhausted frustration are what eventually prompted me to seek help.

I have to say that tonight is not going well and neither did last night, but there has been one sleep-through and I'm hoping we can get there regularly.

I'm loathe to use the term co-sleeping, but that is what I've done with DS up to now, and previously DD, but neither of us sleep particularly soundly that way, and it makes me feel very distant from DH as our bed simply isn't big enough for all of us. We don't have space for a spare, so he ends up on the floor.

I will always advocate at the very least, a trial and error approach. I can't understand the rigidity with which so many parents stick to a particular approach with anything, and yes, the holier than thou attitudes get right on my tits.

And while we're about it, I can't abide the notion of 'natural' or attachment parenting. I may not be a lentil weaver, wear my baby all the time or use cloth nappies (2 hr hot wash cycle, anyone), but there is nothing unnatural about my parenting. That's a term I hear in RL, and again, I just find it alienating and the language of it offensive.

Rant over

I did cc with my first three boys. Ds1 and ds2 were sorted in 2 nights. Ds3 was a bit tougher but that's the same for everything with ds3. He is adorable and people really warm to him but he is also a very determined chap!
With ds4, I did something I had never done with his brothers.I decided early on that 9pm was "bedtime". I would put him down at 9pm every night. With the others, I didn't have a set bedtime, I would feed them to sleep and then gently transfer to cot, do the same when they woke up a few hours later.

Now "bedtime" didn't mean that I expected ds4 to go down for 12 hours, if he woke again at 10pm that was fine but I maintained the routine of putting him down at 9pm regardless.

It actually worked. He went down happily every night and gradually ended up sleeping for most of the night. Didn't have to do cc with him at all.

We did the Sears method for dd1 at 13 months & dd2 at 9 months. I think that was a better time but prob wouldn't do it with a smaller baby. It was relatively stress free each time. 2 hours the first night, less than an hour the 2nd night, 20 mins the 3rd & done.

The anti sleep training thing on here is v weird, given the usually balanced approach.

Not disagreeing, but there can also be a preachy mode from advocates of CC along the lines of 'If you REALLY loved your baby/ were a more organised and determined parent/less of a sap, you would be making sleep training work for you!'

YANBU

I think that posts which spread malicious lies about the 'damage' sleep training does should be deleted. The posters who do that are targeting parents who are at the end of their rope.

I was also on my knees. My DS was 15 months, and due to silent reflux, could only sleep in his pram, on an incline, with approximately 45 minutes of vigorous rocking, walking in figure eights etc. to get him to sleep. This was after daytimes that involved wearing him for 5-6 hours in a carrier, and power-walking for miles to get him to nap.

Once the reflux was gone, I did gradual retreat. He is now a fantastic sleeper, and I won't hesitate to do it again with a similar aged toddler (not least because I developed an autoimmune condition after pregnancy, and with zero family nearby, you can bet your bottom dollar that my mental and physical health will count just as much this time around).

You ate confusing CC with leaving a baby to cry it out. CC has 'rules' methods etc. the other doesn't.

I have no issue with CC. I have every bloody issue with the other.

Good for you OP.i am a firm believer in cc and don't care what people have to say about it!!!

I have also read just as judgmental posts about co sleeping as i have cc or cio. My ds us 2.5 and doesn't sleep through yet. He starts off in his bed and then wakes around 1 or 2 and comes in to our bed. I'mhappy with this, as is dp and ds is well rested and happy. I get constant judgments about our sleeping arrangements.

Cio isn't for me but I do think all the cries of it will damage your child are mad, I think that comes from neglect, not a week of a toddler crying at bedtime.

If this were the case ds1 and 2 would be damaged due to the month of crying they both did every morning when they were dropped of at nursery

There isn't a single aspect of parenting that is immune to judgement and derision by others. Not one. It's disheartening IMHO.
Although, I have to say that the "millpond" philosophy and techniques are not strictly akin to cc. And certainly very different from the CIO method that gets ppl (understandably IMHO) so upset.
You will feel so much better when you start getting some sleep. This I know from personal experience.
My ds didn't sleep through until he was about 2 yo. I was/ am a "no cry sleep solution- muddle through- go a bit mad-" person.
Then gorgeous DD came along
She is a little more considerate already

I think your last post was a bit mean OP. I am very pro sleep training but am also pro bf and carry DS in a sling all day, in fact I had DS1 in a sling till I was 4 months pg with DS2. It's not one size fits all.

The thing is that parenting styles tend to be trends and these trends basically sell books etc.

Wouldn't it just be better to talk to each other, trust our instincts and find what works for us. Every child and family is different?

When did carrying a baby in a sling become 'attachment parenting' - it just helps me get the housework done. I find it hilarious that random mums refer to me as Mama on the basis of this.

When did sharing a bed become 'co-sleeping' ?

When did helping a child learn to settle himself become 'controlled crying'?

It's not fucking rocket science, it's being a Mum, it's hard, we get it wrong, we get it right, we find our ways. For christ sakes.

Anxious and uncertain parents are a captive audience and therefore there will always be someone pitching one style against another. It's easy to become evangelical when we find something that works. Some of us turn parenting our children into a hobby. Other of us have work, caring responsibilities other commitments that we have to juggle along side. We all have different ways of doing things. Unless a child is being neglected or abused or is in distress, i think it's fair to say it's no ones business but our own.

Some people get incensed at everything.

As someone else pointed out CC is not letting the baby cry for hours on end.
Nor is sleep training simply CC.

With DS it worked to let him fall asleep on his own at night, using gradual retreat or CC from 1 min intervals onwards. He used to cry for up to 5 min in total. Surely that's not damaging.

He had periods of bad sleep rather than being a bad sleeper.

DS is 8 and still likes to climb onto my bed on occasion. But is perfectly capable of sleeping on his own and sleep away from home or me.

I don't think you can hold mn responsible for how you spent your maternity leave. You read other people's opinions and then you decide how you are going to proceed. I understand how desperate you can feel regarding poor sleep, but don't feel you can blame your choices on mn.

Wrong chocolate, I would argue it is a necessity for some who need some sleep.

And the babies need to sleep too.

I have adult children well one still a teen but I had to do CC with the adult one she just would not sleep on her own she was never left to scream and it was done in a proper way she isnt scarred people like to point fingers and wag them and take bits of information about letting children cry and blow it out of proportion imo

sleep is a necessity not a luxury, so within reason, whatever works for you to get baby to sleep properly is fine, and op you are doing completely the right thing. All children are different, and not all like co sleeping, my ds certainly does not, and does not like cuddling up to me to sleep like my dd used to when she was a baby/toddler.