To ask if anyone has ever successfully sleep trained a 10 month old. Really???

[tinymeteor]

I've always had massive reservations about sleep training, but am finally knackered enough to be considering letting DD cry it out. She's gorgeous all day but I bloody dread nighttimes. Multiple wakings, can't self settle any more, and bedtimes, which have been in a smooth routine since 4 months, are starting to go to hell too. We are entering "something must be done" territory.

But does CIO work when you try it on a strong willed 10mo whose favoured position in the cot is vertical screaming? Or am I going to go through a week of hell that only serves to reinforce her hatred of being put to bed?

Some good points there Dougal - I do agree that it any really categorically be said that. No 10-month old needs to feed at night. If you feel she still needs to, OP, whether for nutrition, comfort or a combination of the two, then you have to do what you have to do.

*it can't really categorically be said that no 10-month old needs to feed at night (sorry, fat fingers)

The mere fact that you can implement strategies like 'drowsy but awake' means you didn't have that bad a sleeper before you started.

yes penguins I love you for saying this. I've tried this from birth with both of mine. Dd1 it took about 2 weeks of dedicated work (gradual retreat type stuff) to get her to do it at around 5-6 months. Dd2 is 16 weeks and so far every bit as bad a sleeper as dd1 and then some. I'm still trying drowsy but awake with her and occasionally it works but only because I'm using a dummy! Which is imo the same as feeding to sleep except you can leave the room.

penguins may I ask what kind of child your dd2 is now?mine does the hysterical screaming anytime she goes to anyone else including yep dh. My first was a bit like that too but not quite as bad. I'm not at all precious about my babies going to other people, I'd love it if they went happily but the screaming and tears are just not worth it

Yes, I did CC with my eldest at around 9 months. She went from waking every 20 mins to sleeping through within a couple of days. Saved my sanity and changed her into a happy smiling baby from a miserable sleep deprived one.

Greenstone - she's fab She is nearly four. Still has a temper (tantrums were EPIC), feisty, independent, the most determined child her age I have ever met. Never gives up. When she works herself into a state still buries herself into me to calm down if I am there - you feel her little muscles all relax. Imaginative, observant, sparky.

She sounds gorgeous penguins my clingy non-sleeping dd1 has actually been very independent, calm and biddable since about 1. I have a feeling dd2 will continue to be a feisty one but maybe it's too early to tell!

Thanks everyone for weighing in on this. We're going to sit down and have a good think about which, if any of the various sleep training methods might be right for us and DD. I realise I originally said CIO, which is rather extreme - put it down to the pit of sleep deprivation I was in that day. After a couple of slightly better nights, I'm taking a deep breath, going back to basics on the daytime routine, and taking advice from friends who've been through it without permanently scarring their children. Will update when we've made a decision, but we won't go ahead with anything for a couple of weeks when she's shaken off all the winter sniffles and we're ready to be 100% consistent with whatever we try.

disappointedone, I don't know if you're trolling me or simply feel strongly about this subject, but I have read the piece you linked to and want to respond as it's important. This...

(Seriously, why have a baby if you don't want it to behave like a baby? They wake at night for reasons other than to
piss off their parents!)

...I'm not going to dignify with a response.

For those who are interested in parsing the evidence that sleep training is harmful, read on. Otherwise skip it - this will be long and nerdy.

So, disappointedone: Your link is to another blog post from someone who co-writes with the first author. The quote you selected is also from that blogpost, and is the author's personal take. The 'plenty of scientific links' they provide actually break down as follows:

1. A link back to the rather questionable Darcia Narvaez blogpost you first signposted
2. A summary of an academic journal article - more on this in a moment
3. Broken link, possibly a further ref. to the same article
4. A link to the author's website inviting you to pay for her wisdom on the subject of baby 'science'
5. Wikipedia
6. Psychology today, and Darcia Narvaez again

So let's talk about the one piece of reputable research in the bunch, the article in the journal of Early Human Development. The researchers looked at the cortisol (stress hormone) levels of babies undergoing sleep training in New Zealand. They used a method somewhere between CIO and CC, with nurses, not mums, doing the night shift. Mums were in the next room and could hear the babies but not go to them. So a pretty hardcore version of sleep training. The babies were also fairly young - 6.5 months on average, some as young as 4 months.

Cortisol swabs on day 1 showed that both babies and mums were stressed (duh). Swabs on day 3 showed that the babies, who had all stopped crying, were nonetheless still stressed. The mums' stress levels had dropped when the crying stopped.

That's as far as the research piece goes - they weren't looking at the impact of sleep training on infant wellbeing, so don't investigate the question any further. So it does beg the question of whether sleep training just teaches babies to keep stress to themselves, and could be harmful in ways we don't realise.

BUT - that's all it does, beg the question. And frankly, if I go ahead with sleep training, I'd expect my baby to still be stressing on day 3. It doesn't mean she is destined to be scarred for life, any more than a 1 year old whose cortisol shoots up when starting nursery is permanently scarred. And the authors of the article themselves note the possibility that the babies' cortisol levels might well go on to drop with more time.

I could go on, but the scientific evidence on this stuff is quite thin. What research does exist on cortisol and brain development is largely derived from extreme cases of neglect, abuse and attachment disorders, and therefore its relevance to the short-term sleep training of otherwise loved, healthy, happy babies is questionable.

Please think twice before you dump links like that on sleep deprived parents trying to do the right thing by their much loved children. Just because it suits certain 'experts' to overinterpret the evidence to sell their wares, doesn't mean it's right. And just because a webpage has science in the URL doesn't mean that's what it is.

Great tesponse tiny.

Agree - wonderful.

million yes sorry, I perhaps wasn't clear. I didn't mean that you should stay or should leave. Merely that the logic of CIO is about your baby needing to be alone to sleep to self settle. And wanted to chip in my anecdotal evidence that that is not necessarily so.

Your story reminds me of my aunt talking about walking my cousin about desperately for months trying to get him to sleep, when finally out of desperation they put him down and left him. And - he slept.

Haven't read the thread, but didn't sleep train ds1 (think young mum, interfering granny, still living at home)

He's 18 and has always been a dreadful sleeper, no bedtime routine or actually discipline in other areas of life.

Ds 2 and 3 (twins) I sleep trained at 11 months. I was bf still, plus co sleeping in my double bed, so I did rapid return (lurking outside bedroom door peeping through door crack and going and putting them back on the pillow each time they reached the edge of my bed) it took about three weeks, and after that, it was frikkin' bliss

They are brilliant sleepers, I also did the same with the daytime naps, and I still bf, but no longer to sleep. It saved my sanity, they started sleeping through the night, and now they are ten, if we have weird occasions where the routine has gone out of the window (camping or something that means bed times have fucked up) they take themselves off to bed when they feel tired I know, I know, it's like I'm making this shit up.... Except it's true!