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?

Following with interest as I have a 12 week old who is showing every sign of following her brother into the bad sleepers hall of fame...

People must do what works for their family but I'm quite shocked by a PP leaving a 9 week old baby to cry until they are 'inconsolable' before patting and shushing them. Fair enough at 9 months but at 9 weeks?!

Yes, regardless of your thoughts on sleep training in general, nine weeks is far too young. I read that and was surprised more people haven't commented on it! Nine-week-old babies are supposed to wake up frequently and crave close contact.

Yanbu, it wasn’t for me either. However, DD was never a particularly bad sleeper and I don’t judge those who do sleep train. Sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture for a reason!

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/JcD5PTht2Gst2FzjK2137H/whats-the-best-way-to-soothe-a-crying-baby

This was interesting.

Yanbu.

Not read full thread.

We've had a few shocking nights at times but so have my ff friends.

At 21 mo I prop him and me on different pillows for best position, haul out the longer boob and feed him to sleep. Most nights now I'm not aware of him waking till around 3 or 4 and we go back to sleep like that.

The hard times have been teeth and he was bloody windy for ages.

When he's ill I find it very useful as I still do skin to skin and can actually get some sleep with him lying on me feeding.

I don't like getting out of bed for anything!!!

I did this with ds1 but spent all night worrying I was doing the wrong thing. Now I love it an sleep so much better!

I have sleep trained both my children who self settle and sleep through fine. (Both early risers though...up between 5-6am every morning no matter what time they go down) minimum fuss and minimum crying when we did start sleep training.

Despite this I think you have to do what works for you. If you fundamentally do not like the idea of it then I don't think you should do it just because its work for others. You know what's best for your child

I sleep trained my twins (controlled crying method 1 minute, 3 minutes, 5minutes etc.) because I had no choice really, I couldn’t look after two at once when they were going through unsettled nights.

If it doesn’t feel right to you OP that’s fine, but I wanted to comment to balance out those saying that sleep training is cruel, damaging etc. The cry it out method is very different to controlled crying - I would never opt for the cry it out method, even when my twins were really small and crying in stereo every couple of hours throughout the night (incidentally this was when I looked up sleep training ).

I hope it eases soon, to quote a MN favourite that I’ve repeated as a mantra since I first read it here, this too shall pass

I let all 3 of mine self sooth and didn't have them in bed with me very much and it worked perfectly. All 3 children have grown into bright happy adults and lovely parents. Each to their own and there is no right or wrong way! But of you work and have other children it's important to get a good night's sleep so allowing baby to on/off breast feed will leave you exhausted and sore.

Can't stand the sleep training culture... It just feels so unnatural.

Western culture is a bit selfish really and is obsessed with forcing babies to sleep independently, self settle and sleep all night. Unrealistic expectations have been set and normal biological infant sleep behaviors are looked as abnormal. I find sleep training the abnormal thing. Especially anything involving crying... So unnatural to ignore a child in need.

You are definitely not being unreasonable for meeting your childs needs and not forcing them to do something they aren't naturally ready to do.

"Sleep training is essential" what a load of bollocks

OP if you are on Facebook join The Beyond Sleep Training Project... Full of research and information regarding normal baby sleep and a very supportive community. You're certainly not alone and you certainly don't have to go against your instincts and sleep train. Good luck.

Also check out Sarah Ockwell-Smith and Pinky Mckay... They advocate a more gentle approach for those struggling.

Interesting article by Psychology Today

www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/moral-landscapes/201611/sleep-train-baby-don-t%3famp

That article is so annoying 😂

That article talks about nomadic foragers breastfeeding for 4 years as a fact. In reality breastfeeding terms vary between tribes. Some will do this, others believe that you cannot feed tow babies so will stop feeding a baby when a second one comes along, another I am aware of stop after a year.
I hate blanket statements like that as if every nomadic tribe in a number of continents do exactly the same.

I said it was an interesting article as a referred in another comment about Western Culture... I find the difference in cultures interesting, not that I agree with it fully...

*As I referred

You don’t need to leave your baby to cry to get better sleep. There’s lots of ways to do it. In my (non expert opinion) though the best time to work on this is around 4 months when they are coming out of the fourth trimester and haven’t settled into a sleep pattern yet, you can gently help them at this point. Once they get older and into sleep habits I would imagine it becomes more difficult. I’m no expert though obviously.

I think whatever you are doing as a parent - feeding time sleep, co sleeping, rocking etc etc - if it works for you then that’s absolutely fine, but the issue comes when it’s not working for you any more and it seems you’ve hit this point.
It’s perhaps worth looking at some small things to change that might help, rather than doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable, such as working on daytime naps first of all.

In some cultures it's strange for a baby to sleep separate from it's caregivers... I have a diverse multicultural group of friends and its amazing how different the ideals are with raising children. Most of my friends shudder at the thought of sleep training and can't understand why the western world is so obsessed with it. They say they signed up for whatever they need to do the moment they had a child.. Other cultures seem to have better support networks, family is important and "It takes a village to raise a child" is taken seriously. Its tough as a parent when you have little support and I can understand why some people think they need to sleep train especially when so many so called experts put unrealistic expectations on baby sleep then push them to sleep train.

I started to panic when my child who use to self settle started not being able to, wouldn't sleep in her cot when it had not been an issue before, all because of the bullshit that sleep trainers and "experts" spout... I thought something must be wrong, I needed to "train" my child. But like with everything, I like to do my research, get different perspectives... The more I researched the more it resonated with me that it was completely normal. My child had separation anxiety which was very common at that age and training her wouldn't have helped, it would have fueled that anxiety. That's when we decided to Co-sleep and so glad we did. She's such a confident and independent child, sleeps brilliantly and no sleep training involved. Sleep is developmental. More research is being done, even Unicef don't recommend it, NHS is slowly advising against it (my local one advises that you shouldn't). Durham University are constantly doing research and BASIS doesn't recommend it as a result from recent research. More people and professionals are actually swaying this way now which is interesting... But the sleep training culture is still rife. I think sadly until we have better support networks that some will still push this ideal and pressure parents to sleep train.

You talk a lot about your daughter but how are you op? If you are fine as you are too then just carry on. My first ds was the same but we were both fine with it

I can recommend Sarah ockwell Smith the gentle sleep book, I found it very reassuring

OP my motto is “you do whatever suits YOU and when it stops suiting YOU, you change it”
I still lie down with my two to get them to sleep...they are 4 and 6, they don’t necessarily need ME, it can be dad or granny etc and there are plenty of times they have and will fall asleep without me (or dad) BUT I do it because they ask, because they like it, because I want to, I know it won’t last forever so I’ll treasure it to be honest! So in short OP, if you’re happy doing what you are doing then who cares what the “norm” is or what others say. It’s your life, and your baby!!

I’d love to read this research that says sleep training is good for babies. As far as I was aware the research says the opposite.

How much does your baby sleep during the day? Could it be that she’s over tired at bedtime which is why she wakes a lot in those first few hours?

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There was "research" to say CC wasn't harmful and helpful but that research is flawed and has been debunked by many. The thing is about sleep training research is it's hard to get a definite answer to how harmful it is as it would be unethical to do this to a baby... That alone speaks volumes I think.

We always put ds down and allowed up to 10 minutes for him to settle himself down. If there was nothing wrong then he would settle himself to sleep within this time. Yes he cried for a few minutes but we had the video monitor so could see and hear him.
I never saw a problem with doing this or found it difficult. It's not abandoning them at all. He self settled from birth and was sleeping through from 3 months.