To not sleep train my baby

[Bizawit]

My baby has just turned 8 months. She’s not a great napper. We have a pretty regular bedtime routine (bath, change, pjs, story etc.) that ends with me feeding and cuddling her to sleep. We co-sleep. She’s mostly ok at night. She wakes up sometimes to feed but then settles back to sleep. The time between around 7.30 (when I put her to bed) until I’m ready to sleep is a nightmare though. She wakes up constantly and cries, and I have to come get in bed and feed her back to sleep again. She only really settles when I’m ready for bed myself and I fall asleep next to her.

I’m so exhausted hearing of all the other mums sleep training their babies. Apparently these babies all sleep through the night. They are put in a cot with the lights out and they settled themselves to sleep! They take a nap at the same time everyday and sleep for two hours in a go! Apparently the research says that sleep training is fine - beneficial evening. Apparently it is healthier for my baby to get more sleep and everyone will be happier if I just leave her to cry until she learns to sleep.

I cannot bear the idea of abandoning my baby to cry until she gives up and falls asleep. I just can’t get my head around the idea that this is what I am supposed to do to be a good mum. AIBU?

Thank you @gaffamate. 4am and we’ve barely slept and I’m sick :(. To be fair most nights aren’t like this, but I’m definitely losing my mind on this occasion.

I know it's different for all babies.

My DS now 2 has slept through from very very early on and there has been no regression. I feel very lucky but it is hard to know whether it is just pure chance he did that or it's the little things that I did. I suspect it's pure chance but here is what I did anyway which I suspect helped!

Until nursery, I didn't have set bedtimes or nap times. I still don't have a set nap time. When he looks tired and does the cues I take him up. Sometimes this is pretty late and I don't get an evening but so be it. It does though mean that he can get grumpy when we are out if he gets tired because I don't know when his nap is and we could have been mid baby class or activity.

I have never been rigid. If he stays up late so what? His bedtimes have been much later than other people I know but it's not like he has school or work the next day!

When on mat leave I would nap when he napped. When he was young he would cry mid nap so I would bring him into my bed and co sleep and then he would be fine. I didn't have to do that for too long though maybe only a few months.

I have a single bed in his room next to him (even now). Early days I always slept in his room and I still do a lot of the time. When he wakes he can see me and goes back straight away.

If he does cry on the odd occasion mid sleep, if I'm still downstairs I will bring him down with me and he sits with us downstairs for a bit regardless of the time. If I'm asleep, I let him come into my bed and we have a chat and cuddles for 5 mins and I put him back in his bed.

As I say it could be that this all has nothing to do with anything and he happens to be a good sleeper but I don't think controlled crying and a sleep routine are essential. The babies want to feel secure. When I was on mat leave I just followed his lead and he was then secure enough that by the time I went back to work to not need reassurance.

It's sucks when the nights are bad. DD was a terrible sleeper but I know wouldn't respond to sleep training. I once tried for 3 minutes to not feed her to sleep and ended up in hospital the next day as she'd screamed so hard on those 3 mins (with me holding her) that she'd caused a rash on her face that resembled the one you have with leukemia! She's 4 now and sleeps through, no issues.

DS. Is 5 months and I'm just doing what he needs at the mo. He's a little easier as he will be put down unlike DD who only slept on me for years.

I would like to point out im only awake at 4am because the dog is being sick, so whatever you try to do, the universe will conspire against your ability to rest!

It's entirely up to you.

We didn't do any sort of sleep training with DS. He was an absolutely horrific sleeper, wouldn't sleep unless on me and needed to be held constantly until he was about 18months. As long as he was held he'd sleep almost instantly, but wake immediately on being put down/ rolled away from. From 18 months he'd sleep holding mine or DHs hand/ arm and snuggle in for a cuddle every so often.

He's 4 now and sleeps through about 50% of the time, in his own bed and goes to bed at 6.30/7 so we have our evening. We tend to sit with him until he goes to sleep (about 15minutes) but he can cope if we don't/ can't.

DD we are sleep training, but don't leave her to cry. She's a much better sleeper generally and is much less needy overall. Different personalities. She needed, and wanted, help to sleep- she doesn't settle any more easily in bed with us or being held/ rocked - she puts herself to sleep and always has. She comes off the boob, rubs her head back and forth, has a winge/ little cry then drops off. She does this in the pram, carseat, my arms, on DHs shoulder, being cuddled, rocked, patted, in our bed and in her cot. So we just make sure she's in her cot to do it at night as it makes no difference. She likes us to be there whilst she does it though, so we are.

Different kids need different things. Do what yours needs.

YANBU your baby your choice, however sleep training works for some and isn't everyone's cup of tea. Your current routine wouldn't be my choice. Whatever you decide to do I wish you all the best, sleep deprivation is hard!

Those nights are TOUGH. We've all been there. Of course I'd love DD to magically sleep 7-7 too and have evenings to myself. But I think talking about sleep 'training' as achieving that is a lie. Like PP said you can't 'train' something that is developmental. Sleep training just advocates ignoring baby's needs during the night, but sells it as something positive or even something parents 'need' to do. A whole construct of powerful cultural myths to justify something so alien to our mother instincts.

Thinking about it, by now I don't even wish DD slept through just yet. I value those precious cuddles and feeds and would miss her.

Just do what feels best to you.

@Sunshiness Great you value getting up in the night and having those cuddles, it works for you.
But I do think the negativity towards getting kids to sleep through just makes life a lot harder for mums. Your child will not be damaged by sleep training. If you have twins or two babies very close in age, you have to leave one to cry at times anyway to do basic things like change nappies. Do you really think all those kids are damaged?
Do what works for you, but don't stress over ridiculous ideas that a baby crying will be damaged as a result.

Sleep training is essential.

In most cases babies/children employ a learned behavior based on what they know through the choices we make.

If you carry them all the time they will want carried, if you co sleep they will always want to co sleep, if you keep them up till 11pm every night that's what they will get used to, if you feed them only junk food they will only want junk food, if you dont toilet train them they will never know how to use a toilet etc etc.

All these things are choices we make as parents and of course as a parent you are entitled to choose what you do, however, there are of course better choices than others that will benefit your children more.

If we dont teach our children then they wont know, the same goes for sleep training.

Think how you feel getting up all through the night and having uninterrupted sleep because thats how your child feels and its not really fair.

@starlight86 you obviously haven't met my child! Everything you said couldn't be further from the truth with him.

I hate sleep training. IMO its cruel. yanbu

Presumably these other mums are telling you in response to you saying something about sleep being bad. If you present with a problem and someone gives you a solution, you can't really be that offended.

YABU for saying that sleep training is 'abandoning' a baby to cry, that's very emotive language and shows you don't understand that there are lots of different sleep training methods. You're implying that other mothers deliberately upset their children for no good reason and that's unreasonable. There can be lots of factors, such as return to work, baby disturbing other children, mother having MH problems etc.

If it's not for you, then fine - continue with interrupted nights until your dd sorts herself out naturally. Other mothers might need to sleep train for their own sanity, don't judge them for that.

I don't see why a baby waking and crying multiple times a night for years is better than a baby crying a lot for a few nights while they learn to get themselves to sleep. Sleep training involves less crying overall. It's just shifting the baby's expectations of what happens to get them to sleep.

Why don't you read up on the subject then make an informed decision?

Fine if you want to get up multiple times a night for years february knock yourself out. I know parents of kids with 7 year olds still not sleeping through the night. I think the parents are crazy. But not my business.

@firstimemamma, thats why i said in most cases, of course children have their own personalities. My first DD never threw tantrum, my second DD bloody loves a tantrum.

I do believe however sleeping and eating are key things to maintain good health and well being for a child and therefor we need to make good choices regarding these, for example, DD2s tantrums are waaayyyy worse if shes had alot of sweeties.

@corduroyal I agree totally with you. And kids who sleep through are generally happier because they are getting a decent nights sleep.

I don't know whether it would be worth the money to you or not. I know it was worth it's weight in gold for us, it had an immediate positive effect. We still have always gone to her if she cries, but I'll wait to see if she settles herself back to sleep and if she doesn't I cuddle her back to sleep. She's held until she goes to sleep and then I put her in her cot. It feels gentle to me.

I'm personally irritated by the martyrs who seem to imply that if you aren't sleep deprived and miserable then you aren't meeting your babies needs. You can't meet their needs during the day if you don't get any sleep. There are things you could try and see if it makes a difference other than leaving them to cry, and if you feel desperate I'd urge you too. Just pick something you feel comfortable with or you won't stick to it anyway. The little ones programme worked for us because it was her daytime sleep causing nighttime issues.

I fed DC1 to sleep for all naps and bedtimes until just over a year old. They fell asleep on me and transferred to cot asleep. Didn't really learn to self settle until I stopped bf at about 14 months.
It worked for us, probably had 1-2 wake-ups a night at that stage. Bedtime wasnt till at least 8.30pm though, if I had needed the evenings I guess we might have done things differently. Nobody I knew at the time claimed to have a 7-7 sleeper so I didn't know any different!

My DS is 10m and he has been a terrible night sleeper his whole life so far.

I'm planning to start sleep training as soon as he has finished the developmental leap he is in (which has made his sleep EVEN worse), because I can't physically cope anymore on 2-3 hours of broken sleep a night anymore. It doesn't make me a bad mum, and no I won't be 'abandoning him to cry himself to sleep'. There are lots of ST methods.

Of course YANBU
I would never sleep train either. I believe it is cruel and damaging to babies.
If it helps my twins also used to wake constantly before I went to bed when younger (I also co sleep) However they are now 16 months and rarely wake before I go to bed.

@thedrowners And if they were still constantly waking up throughout the night would you do anything? Because it sounds like you have kids that are naturally good sleepers.

‘Sleep training’ is a very british thing. It has very limited success. Biologically a baby’s brain is physically unable to ‘self-soothe’ - the brain is not developed enough until a child is around 3 years old for anything like this to work. I’ve lived all over the world and in most countries leaving an infant to cry in order to try to ‘teach’ them to sleep sounds like utter madness and very cruel. I would never, ever sleep train my babies and they both sleep very well. I think kids either sleep well or they don’t but leaving a small baby frightened and distressed is never a good thing, in my opinion.

And like a PP said - it’s very much unhealthy. If the sleep ‘training’ does work, it’s because your small, vulnerable baby, who wants nothing more than to feel your touch, has learned that no matter how distressed they get and how much they cry, nobody will come for them. That’s not a healthy lesson to learn, it’s ‘learning’ that you’re insecure and unsafe and when you call for help you won’t get it. Ugh it makes me want to cry even thinking about it.

It's not about leaving a baby frightened and distressed.

Sleep training is about shifting the baby's sleep associations. If you always give milk and cuddles, the baby will think that's what it needs to sleep. When it wakes and no milk and cuddles are available, it will cry.

Typical sleep training might be shushing and patting the baby in its cot when it wakes, instead of picking up and feeding. It's not abandoning the baby in the dark. The baby might be pissed off because its expectations are not being met but within a few days it changes its sleep associations, you shush for a shorter time or just lay your hand on instead of patting etc.

The baby always knows you are around, it just isn't being fed or rocked to sleep.

I go to bee a 7pm with my dd because I have no idea what the night will bring.. she wakes at 5am and the inbetween can be busy.. I'm exhausted. It's ok

One day I dream she will sleep through and wake at 7am.....

@Poorolddaddypig I lived in a country with much stricter sleep training than here as the norm.