Sleep training from an adults perspective

[Soubriquet]

link

Made me feel a bit sick reading it tbh but AIBU to think this isn't really accurate.

Most adults wouldn't leave their baby to sleep in sick and wouldn't send their children to bed hungry

Sleep training is usually the last resort for most parents and the advice is always to only try it if the child is well in themselves, clean and full.

That article is ridiculous, the parts about being put in time out and not being allowed food until the next day because dinner wasn't eaten were absolutely crazy.

Children need to be taught how to behaviour, it's not abuse it's how to act in the real world. Imagine what sort of adults would be created if people listened to this drivel and never told their child off.

Precious snowflakes usually turn into vile adults, living in and out of prison because they can't follow the rules they were never taught.

Behave* not behaviour

There are lots of different approaches.

The one we did was to start off lying on the bed with DS until he fell asleep, then we moved to lying on the floor next to the bed, then sitting in the middle of the floor, then the doorway, then the hallway, then the top of the stairs. Every couple of nights we moved closer to the door, if he got out of bed he was put back into bed with a firm reminder of "it's bedtime", and the end goal - which we achieved - was to settle him comfortably into bed and then go downstairs. He spends part of the night in our bed which we don't mind but he wasn't sleeping, he was there purely to wake us up so had to be sleep trained for that too. The way we did that one was if he started jumping on us, chatting, etc he'd be told "it's bedtime" and expected to lie down quietly. If he didn't then he was taken directly back to his own bed with no further warnings. He likes being in our bed so he very quickly learned that if he wanted to stay he had to sleep. He now sleeps 7pm to around midnight in his bed then midnight until around 7am in our bed (he just brings himself through and climbs in, most nights he manages to do it without even waking us and we only realise he's there when the alarm goes off next morning) whereas before he'd be awake until gone 9/10pm, up and down all night, in and out of bed, jumping up and down at 3am, and awake for the day at 5am.

My babies grizzled and whimpered before they fell asleep its totally normal 1 of them hated being held she would scream and would settle once she was put down, I did have to sleep train dd 1 from about 8 months but it was retreating gradually over 2 years not shutting the door

Yep it's a load of rubbish. Realistically how many parents would actually let their child cry till they were sick and then leave them to fester in it? Not many and I think everyone would agree that those who do are not good parents.

I sleep trained my eldest and yes it did involve some crying. I don't regret it at all, it worked. She went from waking hourly to waking twice a night and then eventually started sleeping through on her own. Didn't sleep train my youngest because we didn't need to, she was a much better sleeper.

It's just another way of making some parents feel guilty, some feel superior and others feel like that endless sleepless nights are something they have to put up with for fear of damaging their child's development in some way.

I had a twat so called friend that casually assumed, and repeated to others, that I'd done it in this way. I was furious about it. I think leaving them to scream to the point of vomiting, holding the door shut and all of that, is really cruel!! I'd say most people that have established good sleep routines, have done it much more gently - myself included. Mine was a slow retreat, clear and firm but gentle and reassuring. Lo and behold, my kids all toddle off to bed every evening, after lots of loveliness, leaving me with my sanity intact.

I don't really understand this attitude. If you don't sleep train AT SOME POINT how does your child
Learn the self disipline to go to bed and stay there?

I was completely baby led with my 2 YO, eventually co sleeping and it's the biggest regret I have of her upbringing. She refuses to be alone at night and cries and thrashes herself to sleep every night despite being in bed with her parents. I think we've been remiss in not teaching her how to get off to sleep and deeply regret it.

Precious snowflakes usually turn into vile adults, living in and out of prison because they can't follow the rules they were never taught.

Not always in and out of prison. Sometimes they end up like my childhood friend and her siblings who all still live at home, in their childhood bedrooms (with the same wallpaper even!), and can't function in the adult world because their parents never taught them any sort of independence. None of them can cook, operate a washing machine or plan a budget. They don't work and they still get pocket money. There was a reunion a while ago and they had to ask their parents for permission to go, dad then dropped them off at the venue and collected them afterwards because "you never know who is hanging around on buses and at taxi ranks". It's very weird and sorry for derailing.

I can relate to your very very gradual retreat MrsJayy - took me about 6 months to make it to the bloody door.

Big step forward for me was when I was allowed to sit with my arm outside the cot.

Children need to be taught how to behaviour, it's not abuse it's how to act in the real world. Imagine what sort of adults would be created if people listened to this drivel and never told their child off. Precious snowflakes usually turn into vile adults, living in and out of prison because they can't follow the rules they were never taught.

If you spend any time with people in prison you will see that they are definitely not full of people who were never told off.

Tarla - can I ask what you did if they woke in the night? That's the problem we have, they can go off to sleep but wake up alone and it's hysteria for what feels like hours

Wolver, if he wakes in the night he just comes and gets into our bed. If he wakes up crying then one of us goes and gets him. We've had a couple of nights recently where he's woken up inconsolable, I think he's had a bad dream when this happens because he'll chunter on about monsters or the cupboard (he's 2yo). I do what I do with my older two when it happens to them and reassure him that I'm there, that he's safe, etc. We've gotten him a nightlight which seems to be helping. It's one for the Ikea wall ones, shaped like a moon. I've screwed it to the wall at the side of his bed and then clipped the wire so it's safe (it's a really long wire!) and the switch is right there for him. I'm trying to show him that if he wakes he can switch his nightlight on for reassurance.

Agree it's rediculous to suggest prison is full of people who were simpley never told off, people beaten and abused and let down and many who were in care or who have mh problems and learning disabilities that no one has ever helped them with.

The article is writ ten in emotive language, but ofcourse some sleep training recommendation is to ignore the child 'manipulating' you by throwing up. There's a huge range of other sleep train ing also, but equally the idea that a baby must be 'taught' to sleep or will be 'spoilt' by being comforted in the night is unreasonable also. Plenty children natural learn to sleep longer when soothed in the night by nursing or copying sleeping, plenty will need left to grumble and reassured at intervals.

Oh how ridiculous.
How about this version:

Sophie: I have been waking up every 45 minutes for the past 6 months now. Husband is so tired that he almost crashed his car on the way to work. I'm of course also grumpy as hell.
Kate: are you hungry, or wet?
Sophie: No, I don't need anything, just want a cuddle. Every 45 minutes. Every night.

2 nights of sleep training where DC1 didn't cry for more than 10 minutes, and he has slept through the night ever since.

Thanks Tarla

I don't really understand this attitude. If you don't sleep train AT SOME POINT how does your child Learn the self disipline to go to bed and stay there?

Mine did/does and I have never sleep trained in the sense that's being referred to here. She co slept full time as a baby, when she was naturally sleeping longer we moved her to her own room (15 months ish) and she would sleep there until she woke around 2/3 and then cosleep for the rest of the night after that. She eventually stopped wanting milk at night and spent longer and longer in her own bed. Now she sleeps all night, in her own room, goes to sleep easily (I stay with her but it takes maybe 5 mins tops, I imagine there will be a point when she doesn't want/need me to stay anymore) and stays there all night.

And on the odd occasion she wakes with a nightmare or needs a drink, she knows she can wander through to us and we will help her. If she's poorly or feeling sad she knows she can sleep with us, it doesn't make a rod for our backs and when she's better she goes back to her own room.

She's 3, I strongly believe most kids do this in their own time, you just have to work out how to get through the hard bits (DD as a baby was very hard work and woke hourly). I decided I would rather wait it out, you can decide you can't cope with it and sleep train if you need to. But it's not a necessity.

Our health visitor when talking about sleep training said that it was really common for them to be sick, and if it happened to strip them and the bed off without a cuddle or even eye contact. It was at that point I decided to take sleep deprivation over training.

FFS what a load of old bollocks - I had a FB friend who used to post shite like this when she knew full well some people she knew had sleep trained (and never like this, as most PP have said!) She just was talking out of her arse most of the time and making assumptions that were a load of crap.

FGS there are mothers who have killed themselves over their guilt of being a "shit mother" so PLEASE can we just stop with the judgments and try to help each other?

If you have a friend who is desperate, babysit and let her have a nap! Don't just write inflammatory shit all over the Internet!!

and breathe

If you don't sleep train AT SOME POINT how does your child learn the self disipline to go to bed and stay there? - while DC1 needed intervention, DC2 was never trained in any way, just goes to bed and stays there, has slept through the night from just a few months of age.

If she was my first, I would of course assume it's my superiour parenting skills and post also those memes about how cruel and unneccesary sleep training is.

Hear hear bedtime

What ridiculous emotive guff.

See to me cheby you've not taught her to get to sleep and that's your consequence (and as above, I have done the same as you and it's mine too) you've painted it in a very positive light, but at the end of the day you have a 3 year old still waking for milk they don't need and unable to sleep alone which isn't, IMO, great (and that's why I don't like the situation I'm in with my toddler)

That is such a load of twaddle I couldn't read it all the way through.

Oh sorry cheby just read that she does now sleep through. My DC sleeps through but only in her bed. I wish I'd taught her to sleep alone. She's 2 and I think that's old to not be able to get off to sleep on their own

Only in our bed. Fuck off phone!