AIBU not to sleep train my baby? Is it very bad for her development?

[Secretlifeofme]

My DD is nearly 11 months and she is breastfed and co-sleeps with us at night. She also has her naps in my arms or in the arms of her lovely nanny (I work full time and so does DH). Currently she has two naps a day, one at about 9am for an hour and one at about 1.30pm for an hour and a half to two hours. Then she sleeps at night from about 7pm to 6am, waking between two and four times a night for milk.

My question is, is it bad for her development to leave her like this? Do I have to sleep train her and if I do, will it make her sleep better? I kind of assumed her sleep was bad and she needed training to sleep independently, but DH is of the view that she will naturally stop wanting to co-sleep eventually and we should just go with it. He thinks the only reason people sleep train is to benefit their own lifestyle rather than it actually being beneficial for the baby. He points out that DD is very happy, rarely cries and is developing well (all of which is true) so why change things?

I'm just not sure! For example, will she eventually night wean naturally, or is this something I can only achieve with training? And does it matter that she isn't sleeping through the night? There are so many different schools of thought that I'm getting very confused... Any advice would be appreciated!

Keep doing what you are doing. Follow your instincts. It’s biologically normal to breastfeed to sleep and for your baby to need you at night in the early years. You are creating a strong attachment.
Sleep training, in its many forms, does not teach a baby to “self settle” and “sleep through the night” it teaches them that no-one is coming when they cry 😢 They will still wake up and have raised stress levels, they just give up hope that their parent is coming and will eventually go back to sleep.
If you wish to gently night wean then wait until your baby is at least 18 months old. Otherwise, keep doing what you are doing, you’re doing a wonderful job.

I have too much to do to hold a baby for daytime naps so I’d probably sort that out first as I really don’t think that’s practical long term. She could be napping till she’s 3.
However if you’re happy with the overnight situation and can manage then I don’t think there’s a rush to change it if it works for you.
Personally, I’m a much better parent when I’m alert and focused and so I worked on DS sleep as soon as he was out of the fourth trimester and he transitioned into self settling with minimal fuss. We were quite lucky but also it took a lot of calmness and patience.
It had nothing to do with my ‘lifestyle’ and everything to do with the fact I’m terrible without sleep and it’s better for all of us including DS who gets the best of me because I’m rested.
But if you don’t need your sleep so much and DD is happy then there’s no panic!

I never sleep trained.

At about a year we moved so DC were next to DH and not me so the night wakings for BF cut back a bit.

But we've all slept reasonably well and now are older and sleep great in their own room.

@Snowoctopus You’re entitled to your opinion of course and I do agree with you, but I never left my DS to cry and I always see to his needs. You don’t need to leave them to cry. I don’t know why everyone things this.

Some people think sleep training is all about ignoring your child’s needs and leaving them frightened, stressed and giving up hope of comfort.

Fortunately many of us who managed to establish a routine which enabled our children to feel secure Settling and falling asleep in their own bed, know differently.

I didnt sleep train any of my 3 in the way you're saying. I did however, start with things from the start. So naps were always in pram/moses basket/cot. I would of course settle them to sleep by cuddling but would always put them down to have the nap. Like others have said I couldn't have done anything else in that time otherwise! With my youngest (2yr) he would have a 2 hour nap in the afternoon when my other 2 were in school. This was my one and only chance to actually get anything done in the house.

I am a firm believer in helping children to self settle. This does not mean letting them cry it out etc. But if they wake naturally at night you want them to be able to get back off to sleep themselves. We all naturally wake sometimes at night

With DS1 it never really happened - he always just slept on his own in his moses basket and later in his cot, he was never a particularly tactile baby, though, so had no desire to be held constantly. The only time he's ever slept in our bed is when he's been unwell, and even now at 14 that's the only time he doesn't sleep.

DS2 wanted to be held constantly and rather than fight it, I went with it. He slept with us til around 2 and a half and we encouraged him to sleep in his own room, but never did any kind of training or forceful 'you must sleep here' thing, he just loved his bedroom and gradually slept there more and more. He's 9 now and every so often I'll wake in the night and find him next to me; it's less and less frequent and I'm sure there'll come a point where it stops, but I honestly believe that if we'd tried to fight it, we'd have ended up exhausted by lack of sleep.

Go with whatever works for your family; what worked for one won't work for the next and to be honest the whole concept of sleep training sounds like harder work than just going "fine, sleep here kiddo" and I'm a bit too lazy for any kind of nighttime shenanigans.

Aren’t you tired OP? When I was being woken several times a night I was exhausted.

If it’s making you exhausted, that is a good enough reason in itself to try to change things. You’re important too.

Do you go to bed with her at 7pm? Would she spend a few hours in bed alone.
Co-sleeping is great if you can eventually get them out some times it can take years she'll be use to sleeping against someone.
If you're planning another DC.
I'd train her in the day naps to sleep independently.

This was my first baby and I was happy with it at the time but by 18 months I was totally done. I was a nursing student on full time shift hours with essays due and waking 4 times a night and exhausted. So i continued co sleeping but wore a big jumper to bed and every time he woke offered a cup of water and his dummy and a cuddle. By the morning we were weaned and in 2 years from then he has slept through since. About a month after that he was taking an hour or so to fall asleep so we left him to it and he fell asleep without our input or tears so could finally self soothe. It was only once I was through it that I realised how much it was taking out of me. At nursery he was bounced to sleep ona bouncer at first with a scarf of mine and then he slept on a crash mat on the floor but nursery workers are magic at getting babies to sleep.

With my second I was very sure that I didn't want to get into the same situation so we have prioritised getting him to sleep independently from birth. Obviously that has meant a lot less baby cuddles but it makes life much more manageable when I can just pop him in his cot, turn on his music and close the door. I don't leave him to cry but I dont run in too quick either and usually he just shouts himself to sleep.

I sent my kids to daycare, and that sorted naps out as much as they were ever sorted out. My daughter really never did strong sleep cycles together, but that was fine, because she slept at night.

Honestly if I could go back and tell myself one thing it would be to not fight over the sleep stuff. They figure it out in their own time. Anything else anyone does in the meantime is mostly about telling themselves that they are doing something in my experience, unless that something is a really hardcore version of cry it out that it looks like you wouldn't be comfortable with, OP