Any other adults who were sleep trained (as babies)?

[BigPinkBall]

So I’ve seen a few threads tonight about sleep training with some people claiming it damages babies brains and others saying it has no affect.

I was born in the 80s when Feberising was the “in” thing and my parents are very proud that they used to leave me to cry myself to sleep, my mum tells me about how she’d do the hoovering to drown out the noise. She also told me that when I was little and I wanted to get into their bed she’d tell me to bring my pillow and lie on the floor next to their bed.

I think it did affect me, I can’t go to sleep if it’s quiet or dark, I need to have the tv on to be able to fall asleep, what are other people’s experiences?

I was sleep trained (PUPD) and I too need to listen to a podcast or something/have always had trouble falling asleep since late childhood. I also have suffered from sleep paralysis! Not sure if it’s all linked

Oh I forgot I sometimes sleep walk too, just around the room though! I used to find things moved in the morning and sometimes I’d phone people or buy random things on Amazon!

My sister and I were sleep trained and we are both awful sleepers. My sister survives on very little (just gets up again) but she’s not well on it. I’ve tried various techniques and have fared better health wise.

We both have thoughts crowding our minds and so find it hard to relax. TV, internet, reading until totally exhausted, helps.

Im not 100% sure but don't think I was sleep trained. I need complete silence and darkness to sleep my OH needs noise so he wears earphones. I just assumed it was because I never had a tv in my room where as he did so he got used to it.

In theory I think if you were sleep trained you should be able to fall asleep without any "help" as you were "taught"this was the way.

I was sleep trained.

I like silence when I sleep. If there is noise I need to drown out, like someone else watching TV or listening to the radio, I need to have white noise to drown it out.

I don’t think it damaged me to be honest.

Hmm, I’m not sure. Not exactly the same but I was born in the 70s and my mum told me the feeds were very regimented (I was breastfed). This sounds odd to me - I BFed mine on demand - but she said they were told not to feed between midnight and 6am - which is crazy! So I’d be up in the night crying from hunger, and they’d rock me to sleep or take me out in the pram to get me to sleep. It’s nuts!

However, this has not affected my sleep at all. I sleep well and I fall asleep very easily. Whether it has affected me in other ways - who knows 🤷‍♀️ I’ve always done well academically but who knows if there have been psychological effects.

My parents didn’t only to lock me in my room when I was 4-5 years old while I screamed and screamed (and pissed in the corner because I couldn’t get out to use the bathroom). When asked about why they did this (understandably it was traumatic for me) they said because I wouldn’t stay in my room of an evening and go to sleep.

Personally I think had they done it earlier it would have worked out better.

My mum just left me to ‘self sooth’ from the first night and describes how proud she still feels that she didn’t gave into my crying. As an older child I remember calling her and she never came. For a while I managed to sneak downstairs and sleep with my gran, she’d wake me at 6am so I could creep back to my bed. My mum found out and locked the door to the stairs, I still remember finding it locked and being frozen in place in the dark unable to go through and unable to walk back.

I had problems sleeping well into adulthood. I had to sleep with a light on and various cuddly toys. I had night terrors. Luckily things got better when I got a dog and started sleeping with her but I think there was a link between my mum’s - torture - sleep training and the sleep problems I had as an adult.

I was ignored! My mum tells me frequently that I should do this with my kids. I don't think it damaged me but I do hope that I enjoy a healthier relationship with my my kids as adults than the one I share with my mum now.

This is interesting. I was sleep trained, but I’m not sure to what extent. My dad says that I was just left to cry and they turned up the TV, but I can’t imagine my mom being on board with that. Unfortunately, she died years ago so I can’t get her version. In any case, unless I’m exhausted I have to listen to a podcast to go to sleep. It gives me something to focus on because otherwise my thoughts are too intrusive.

I’m 53. I don’t think the term ‘sleep training’ was invented when I was a baby. Pretty sure we were just left to cry it out. I like the dark for sleep, but it is t necessary. I’m a great sleeper most of the time - any issues I would lay at the door of my dad who was a bit obsessive about sleep routines and being in Khios own bed’. DD was born in the mid 90s. She was sleep trained (bit of that, bit of cry it out). She can sleep anywhere. Sleeps really well. She’s a shift worker now, and not even that can disrupt her sleep.

Not quite the same but my mum thinks I'm mad for having a set dinner-bath-bool-bottle-bed routine with my 19 m old. She says she had no routine, bedtime was when she felt like it and I was a really flexible baby/child. I think these days it would probably be considered a chaotic household.

As an adult I suffer anxiety and like to have a plan/routine at all times 😂

I was left to cry myself to sleep. Even remember it when j was about three. I am absolutely fine.. In fact I need dark and silence more than any background noise if I leave bathroom extractor on that bugs me.
Touch wood I've never had to use any methods for my dcs they're good sleepers

My mil used to rock my dh to sleep and he always went off to sleep easily

I was sleep trained and I can sleep on a clothes line, my children were and they sleep like logs too. It was controlled crying though not cry it out.

Well to add to the anecdata, I wasn't sleep-trained. My parents stayed with me until I went to sleep for a long time. I had issues with getting to sleep on my own intermittently until I left home at 18, I had school refused for a period of time because of separation anxiety and had generalised anxiety and depression until I was in my mid-20s.

I sleep trained 3 of my 4 children; all happy, well-adjusted and confident teenagers.

I was sleep trained and my sleep habits are fine.

@Tartsamazeballs that’s interesting, I don’t have a routine for dd, I just feed her when she’s hungry and let her play until she starts yawning then she falls asleep in my arms and she’s always slept through from the day she was born, but I know that’s unusual!

No sleep issues. My mum never followed advice and coslept and breastfed me till I was 3.

I did controlled crying at about 8 months.

I was born in early the 70s, the youngest of four and like many other babies at the time I was bottle fed and put down to sleep on a regular schedule, including in the pram at the end of the garden. I sometimes have insomnia issues but mostly get to sleep just fine. When I go through phases of insomnia I need my room to be very dark and very quiet. Having looked at the advice for overcoming sleep issues this is very standard (remove distractions to encourage relaxation).

My aunt and my eldest sister followed attachment parenting principles with their children many years later (I spent a lot of time with my cousins when the youngest were tiny) and having observed how exhausted they appeared to be with children who wanted their needs addressed immediately I decided to follow my mum's approach instead.

My suspicion is that many styles of parenting so long as there is love and affection are just fine for the vast majority of children. Some have different needs that require parenting to be adjusted but there is no one perfect way, and parents should stop martyring themselves or beating themselves up if the diverge from whatever parenting fad is in fashion when they happen to have their children.

I was born when all babies were taken into the hospital nursery and night and left to cry. According to my parents I slept through the night as soon as I came home from hospital

I have always found it harder to get to sleep and I hate having to go to sleep in the dark.

I was sleep trained. And 36 years later I love my bed. In fact DH hates the fact that I can drop off easily because I beat him to the snoring (downside to putting a few lbs on) No TVs, white noise or complete silence or darkness, just night time required.

I sleep well and I sleep all night long just like my 3 kids. No unreasonable early risers and relatively easy to get to bed (no TVs or distractions and a nice early bedtime)
I didn't do strictly CC or anything but if bedtime got turned into a piss take them yep, they were left to it and it wouldn't take long.

The only child I didn’t sleep train is the worst sleeper of all,of ours.
We were all left to settle (as was called back when I was born) most were. We are fine.
The research is clear that sleep training does no harm and might actually benefit children and parents.

I was

Legendary amazing sleeper here. Head hits pillow. Asleep.

Did the same with my two and honestly they love sleep. 7am-8am