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 have to read to fall asleep, unless I'm exhausted. I often wake in the middle of the night & think there's someone stood in the doorway until my eyes adjust. I do wonder if it's memory of my mum or dad standing in the doorway waiting for me to sleep

Sleep trained here - I can actually remember it, that feeling of abandonment, total desolation and terror that no one would come.

No surprise I have issues with anxiety and in particular, people not turning up when they say they will.

Subjecting ANY brain but particularly a developing brain, to distress, particularly repeated distress, to the poitn where the subject exhausts themselves or experiences learned helplessness to any degree (but even if not!) does damage the brain, affecting the way the subject will cope with stress in the future, predisposing that subject to experiencing higher levels of anxiety/fear/phobia and generally processing stress far less well.

In adults we'd be putting this under the PTSD label.

I hate how sleep is used as a guilt trip and bully pulpit by parents (usually mothers) on sites like this. There is zero evidence that sleep training or lack of it affects psychological health, neuroreceptors in the brain, adult relationships, mental health or any of the rest of the claims. It would in fact be marvellous if it did, who wouldn't love to solve a host of mental health problems with one simple solution.

There is also the question of the risks of not helping a baby to sleep. All mammals need sleep, and infants tend to need the most. Sleep deprivation does indeed affect the brain and can have harmful affects on health. So if a growing baby can't sleep for longer than a short spell, he or she may be missing out on the benefits of deep sleep. To my mind, it's a responsible thing to do, do encourage babies to get healthy amounts of sleep. The same way we encourage them to get healthy amounts of food, or exercise or stimulation when older.

Any anecdotes about sleep training also suffer hugely from selection bias. I haven't sleep trained my children, because they are both largely ok sleepers. The eldest is a great sleeper and always has been, the younger struggles a bit, but is largely fine. So any account of my situation would say "no sleep training = good sleepers" but the fact is they were good sleepers to begin with and so didn't need sleep training. My nephew on the other hand, has always been a terrible sleeper. His parents sleep trained for their own sanity and for his wellbeing. He is now a good sleeper, but in his case, he needed sleep training to get there. And the various stories on this thread of children who weren't helped by sleep training - again they are children who were poor sleepers to begin with.

I refuse to believe the choices we make in babyhood are as significant and enduring as competitive parenting forums would have us believe. I was a great sleeper, I have no idea if I was sleep trained or not. And then I suffered a very traumatic event and was insomniac for several years in my late 20s. So am I a good sleeper or not?

We used controlled crying with DS1 (23) when he was 10 months old. I’ve never known anyone like him for falling asleep. He can sleep anywhere, and he does. We’ll be watching TV in the afternoon, 10 minutes in and he’s snoring. HE can sleep for the length of a trans Atlantic flight.

He’s in the army so regularly has to sleep outside even that doesn’t interfere with his sleep. He wraps up warm, beds down and is out like a light.

He’s the most laidback, least anxious person I know.