To sleep train?

[Eeffy]

He's one. Still not sleeping through although he's come close a few times so I know physically he can. I'm tired and back to work full time in a few weeks

He's still bf at night - normally 2 feeds. I could cope with 2 quick feeds but recently he's not setting after 45 mins and we often end up cosleeping just to get some sleep

He's never self settled - rocked or fed to sleep. Cries the minute he goes in cot awake and can really ramp up the hysterics quickly. Won't lie down just stands up and shakes bars

Hate my baby crying and don't know how I feel about sleep training but I feel he's sleeps gone backwards recently and I've not had a solid nights sleep in over a year. Aibu considering it?

In your view it's incorrect but I beg to disagree. The research is that little ones need consistent, secure early relationships but also that they need to learn to self regulate in the se half of the first year for enduring emotional health. They need to learn that they can be distressed and come through that to calm happiness again to build appropriate patterns of behaviour. Failure to allow this by trying to create a perfectly happy, calm always means the infant is more likely to become anxious because they don't know they can cope with being distress.
www.cpsccares.org/system/files/Early%20Relationships%20and%20the%20Development%20of%20Young%20Children.pdf

I'm sure we could both find articles that support our opinions. Toddler tantrums are an entirely different beast to leaving a young baby alone in a cot to cry (and sweat and vomit ) themselves to sleep, But it's just one of those things parents have wildly different opinions on don't they.

I don't like watching babies cry. I am interested though: what do people believe is the long-term damage?

It's a tough one as there have been no long-term studies to prove/disprove harm either way. The most widely cited shows the levels of cortisol in saliva are still as high in babies that have 'settled' via sleep training as when they are still crying. I don't think there's been anything to show the evidence of this stress on developing brains, but I would assume it's not going to do anything good!

Either way, for me, lack of evidence of harm does not equal harmless! And I think doing something as a parent that goes against your instincts so much that it actually leaves you so upset you're in tears, as another poster has mentioned, is not the way to go.

The thing is lack of sleep IS well documented as harmful, both for babies and adults.

The difference in my son post sleep training was staggering. He was so much more cheerful.

I suspect the reason it runs contrary to your instinct is short-term, as we are programmed to experience distress if a baby cries, as otherwise we would fail to respond to hunger, pain, thirst, fear etc. That doesn't mean it causes long-term harm, does it?

@Trifleorbust yep you are possibly right, I guess my issue is how do you know your baby isn't crying because they are distressed, hungry, thirsty, etc when you're sleep training?

This is all just gut feeling for me, we haven't tried sleep training and likely never will (although I do find myself wondering at those 3am wake-ups!) I'm not sure it would work for us anyway - at the minute our issue is getting DS to stay asleep, as he settles well first thing. We've struggled with dairy allergy and eczema so it's usually being itchy or windy that wakes him, so it's not really a situation where we could leave him to cry, even if we wanted to sleep train.

I would night wean as a priority - 1 year olds don't need to eat at night. If you want to keep BF then keep going as long as you want but as long as you are rewarding night time waking with food then he will just keep doing it.

InMemoryOfSleep:

Well, you feed them, check for illness, change them and comfort them within reason, and after that you're working on instinct, I suppose. I'm not sure if I could do it, but I think we have to be careful about saying it's harmful. It's only crying.

I've no idea if it's harmful long term, but like you say, my instinct when I hear my baby cry is to comfort them, when my toddler cries because I gave them the wrong colour beaker then I know I can ignore that! I don't think babies are irrational in that respect, if they want comfort then I'm happy to give that, even if it means being tired.

I could not and will not listen to my baby cry for hours, it just sounds absolutely awful to me.

I think saying 'it's only crying' isn't exactly true when sleep training. What you're actually doing is leaving your baby to cry until they think no one is coming, and then they shut down. For me this does not equal settled, and it's not the same as ignoring tantrums in the day.

What you're actually doing is leaving your baby to cry until they think no one is coming

Totally untrue. What you've just described is cry it out. Not controlled crying.

It's all very well citing 'instinct', but that harks back to a time when families were larger so you could easily hand baby over to someone and take a nap to catch up, and also a time when mothers did not need to be alert to do their paid jobs properly.

There is definitely a place for sleep training in modern western society, whether you like it or not. Blame that, not mums.

InMemoryOfSleep: I fully agree that this wouldn't be okay long-term. For a night or two, I'm like, meh.

Totally untrue. What you've just described is cry it out. Not controlled crying

Well people have suggested both on this thread.

Please don't do Crumbs method. That's "cry It out" and not advocated by anyone anymore.

So we started last night, he ramped it up to full on crying within 1 minute of being put down (he always does this) and not gonna lie it was hard, very heartbreaking. Couldn't bear to do the double the time thing, so we increased it by 2 minutes at a time and never left him longer than 10. Gave him a big cuddle until he calmed then told him night night sleep time and put him back in the cot.

It took 45mins, which was actually a lot less than i expected. He woke at 1 for a feed but i took him off the boob when he was done actively feeding, he grumbled and rooted for the boob but actually went to sleep (hallelujah) then slept until 6.

He woke a few times in the night but grumbled for a few seconds and went back to sleep. Not a bad nights sleep, hopefully there will be less crying tonight

I don't want to give up breastfeeding and i would never do cry it out

Well done Effy. If my experienced was anything to go by tonight will be a lot easier. Good luck.

2 minutes of crying tonight followed by 4 minutes of grizzling and asleep by 6 minutes let's see if it lasts!

Well done Eeffy, that sounds promising.

Well done! Fingers crossed it continues but great start nonetheless.

YANBU. It's hard enough going to work when you have children but when they don't sleep it makes working even harder and more stressful! Some good sleep training advice on here. You can't be feeding through the night when you need your brain alert for work the next day. Do whatever I takes

I've had three children all horrendous sleepers . Co slept bf in bed. I briefly tried controlled crying but even one minute of my baby being so distressed was too much . The gradual retreat method is much less stressful for the baby . Personally I wouldn't leave an adult crying so why would I leave a baby who can't express their needs? I would have loved mine to go to sleep in their beds however sleeping alone isn't really a natural instinct plus there's much research on stress levels of baby's when the cc method is used. I lookedi to a fair amount as part of my paediatric rotation and found I certainly wouldn't be happy trying it again. Cio and leaving a baby to cry themselves to sleep is absolutely disgusting. Yes most of us have suffered from sleep deprivation but as seen on this thread there are methods to try that are much kinder on a very small baby. 5 months is still very young to expect them to sleep through the night

Tried it with my girl and she only slept through when she turned 2. HV said we had to just accept that she wasn't going to be a good sleeper. She's almost 3 now and sleeps through. OP - don't worry, they all sleep through one day!

Gentler methods didn't work for my child. We had weeks and weeks of distress and exhaustion. CC worked in 2 days. My only regret is not doing it sooner.

All children are different and respond to different things.