To tell you all how much of a crock of shite sleep training is...

[Butusernamessuck]

And how unreasonable it is to propagate that utter torrid hell onto tired and desperate parents.

2 hours into what is labled as "gentle sleep training" with my ebf Velcro baby and my entire family will never be the same.

The baby in question is distraught despite constant physical and verbal reassurance from me. He's vomited all over himself, me, his cot and my bed. 35 minutes after giving up he is still shaking and sobbing (and dry heaving) in between frantic breastfeeds. Hes scratched his face to the point of bleeding and cried himself hoarse.

I was present the whole time. Shhhhing, patting and stroking as per the "suffle" method. Picking up and soothing and putting back down with a kiss and reassurance. He just screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

At the 2 hour mark he threw up and choked on it. Thats when I gave up.

Not, however before deeply traumatising my baby, myself and all my other kids.

He obviously woke them all up. The 5 year old has fallen asleep crying in my bed, the 11 year old stormed off back to bed with headphones after telling me he thinks sleep training is abusive and the 9 year old sat outside my room, shaking the whole time. Once I gave up and begun cleaning up the vomit he asked me if I did that to him as a baby. I told him no, this baby is the only one I've had as a single parent and as a result of the disrupted 3 or 4 hours a night I am really struggling. I tried this out of utter desperation because I had read on here that although it may be a bit hard going, it really works and is torally harmless.

9 year old just sighed and said he doesn't think the baby will forgive me as he couldn't if i did that to him. Hes not sure he can forgive me for doing it to the baby, apparently he didn't think he had a mean mum.

So. My review of sleep training someone who simply cannot rationalise what's happening.. Snake oil bull shit that ruins lives.

If it worked for you whoopie friggin do .. You lucked out .. Implying to parents on their knees with exhaustion that it is a one stop cure all for naughty babies manipulating love and affection is barbaric

Hes finally asleep .. Still making sobbing noises .. Or maybe that's just one of the other kids. Or me.

Really sorry you have just had such a shit experience. It sounds like you have a lot on right now.

It did work for me, but people have very different parenting styles (not for all the tea in China would I have co-slept), and I was very routine based right from the start.

If you are feeling desperate about sleep, perhaps try again in a couple of weeks, but for a shorter amount of time, increasing it slightly each time?

Only thing I would say is maybe give yourself a break about being immediately responsive to everyone’s needs - you sound like a great mum - but that’s a helluva standard to hold yourself to. Hope you get some sleep tonight.

It's there anything else you can do to help him sleep through? A fuller stomach before bed? I'm so sorry this happened. I used to respond to DS immediately except twice (couldn't stop the car safely in traffic and he threw up, and another my brother plugged out the baby monitor). He's not traumatised. It's all going to be ok.

On the plus side your older two have very clear ideas on right and wrong and they're not afraid to communicate those with you, they know how they feel and how to express it. That's a gentle parenting win.

It sounds rough for you OP.
Gentle sleep training, shush and pat did work well for me.
But we weren't co-Sleeping which was going to help.
And baby wasn't left alone in distress at any point.
So it didn't cause any distress, although it took a while.
There isn't one magic solution for every baby.
I hope you find your solution soon.

I would maybe also explain to your dc that you are the adult and working on making sure that you and baby get enough sleep so everyone can be cared for.
Your older dc seem quite free with their judgement which is unusual given their quite young age.

God poor you, everyone sounds fried and especially you. I so know what you mean about the weird rabbit hole where you can't turn round, it's ghastly.

Fucking pandemic. Wishing you the best.

Oh OP, that sounds so shit. We had success with Lucy Wolfe’s sleep solution, which is very gentle, but abandoned it the first time we tried as it just wasn’t the right time.

I do think it’s hard to do anything like that alone, as you need moral support. Would funds allow for you to hire a night nanny for a night to do it with you?

The other thing I’d say is not to worry about the older kids - I have an incredibly judgemental 6yo and I’ve learnt (mostly) to let her judgements wash over me! They don’t see the bigger picture that we do and I do think the analogy of sorting your own oxygen first is a very useful one to remember. This one episode isn’t going to change anything permanently for any of them. Ease up on yourself

I only want to say that any kind of pick up/put down, shush/crying intervals etc would have made my dc super upset too. For her, us coming in and out or shushing but not picking up, etc, has always upset her wayyyyyy more than just leaving her. It sometimes feels really wrong but is so clearly what she needs. Point being, fine to carry on as you are but also there are other sleep training methods that might work better for your kiddo. In our case CIO was what made sense and resulted in 10-15 minutes of actual crying. Two months of shushing and patting or not getting enough sleep because she struggled to nap long enough resulted in a very tired baby and A LOT more tears.

YABU.
Just because it didn't work for you doesn't mean it won't work for anyone else.

In the past if one of the older ones had a rough patch of.sleep issues id catch up during the day but home schooling and single parenting means I can't. Which if im honest is the real issue, not.my poor baby needing his mum.

The older ones are 11, 9, and 5. You say they are concerned about the baby crying. Can't you give them the responsibility of playing quietly for 45 minutes during the day so you can get a quick nap? Sit them down in front of TV, hand out a snack and set a kitchen timer. Don't bother mom until the timer goes off. Mental health is more important that an hour of homeschool. Eleven is old enough to be a help with the younger ones, if not the baby.

Yanbu.
Have you any input from the children’s dad to help with the time to nap? If not, could you schedule in time for kids to chill with the 5 year old while you nap with the baby? Sod the school work and let them eat sweets and watch a film if that’s what it takes. Earlier nights all round? Be a team and just apologise and tell your kids you made a bad choice but that doesn’t make you a bad mum. They should know people make mistakes but families move on and love each other when we make mistakes.

That sounds hellish your poor things

Why are you waking to feed? At 10 months baby should be essentially helping herself & you should be getting better sleep. Do you need to change what you’re wearing in bed?

In extremis I used to feed baby to sleep on the floor with my older kids & nap/crash out with baby right there on the floor while the older kids played around us

Hope you’ve all had lovely cuddles & a better sleep

Completely understand you OP. I think it depends really on the kid.

HATE the sleep training idea that any one solution fits all babies.

My DS1 just didn't take to it. At 2 he never settled in a crèche being apart from me. Now as a teen he's sort of needy and needs to be reassured a lot about things. I'm sure it was just part of his personality from a newborn, and he really found it hard to be alone.

Some babies will never settle into sleep training till they decide they feel secure.

My second and third children were fine and sleep was not a problem. They'd cry for 30 seconds or so then decide that was enough and go to sleep.

I really feel for you, it's so hard and you are amazing for battling it as a single Mum.

My goodness, sounds like you’ve had a terrible evening, I really sympathise. I’ve never tried sleep training, but I have tried more gentle methods to encourage my babies to sleep better (eg gradually putting down more and more awake after a feed over a space of a few weeks, and easing off on rocking the pram for naps etc).

Given what you’ve said about cosleeping and your other kids reactions, I suspect the issue here is that you went from one extreme to another - so basically a velcro baby who got what he wanted when he wanted regardless of impact on you, to the complete opposite. No judgement at all there, you sound exhausted and I couldn’t do what you were doing previously.

I would forget the formal sleep training, but do try more gentle methods of getting him to sleep on his own if you can’t continue with what you were doing before. I’d suggest starting with nap times, easier to have a clear head in the daytime.

Don’t beat yourself up, the baby will forget tonight. Bigger issue is likely to be your older kids. I’ve no experience of that age group yet, but I’d sit them down, explain you were exhausted, you tried a different approach and it didn’t work. I’m sure they’ll understand.

YABU-Im also a single mum and did it with both of mine,so sorry nothing like what you've described. I reckon you'd all have PTSD after that.

Think you're an amazing mum, OP! Wishing you a peaceful rest of the night x

Will he take a dummy? Mine all cried themselves to sleep, it's not abusive (never lasted for 2 hours though)They do need to learn to self settle at some point.

You have my sympathies, I can't imagine how hard it is as a single parent to do this. My two DC have both been babies I just knew it wouldnt work on, velcro ebf babies, they'd go from 0-60 if I even tried to shorten their feeds. At 18 months dc2 still feeds to sleep and has epic screaming if I try not to. There's nothing you've done wrong with your technique so ignore the "you just didn't do it right" responses, it's just some babies arent going to respond well to sleep training.

I'm with you OP. My DD was a terrible sleeper and didn't respond well to sleep training. The night she threw up on herself four times we gave up thinking it was for us. It was a few rough years but they are over now.

Why on earth would anyone sit and watch their kids throw up on themselves?
That's insane, just put them back in your bed.

You poor thing. I’m so sorry it was such a traumatic experience for you all. From your post though I’ve taken that you’re shattered (we’d all be too) and you’re trying bloody hard for LO. You had no intention of upsetting your baby, you were only trying to help. You’ve raised your kids so well that they’re so sensitive and caring towards their baby brother. Even though their sleep was disturbed they’re more worried for him...you should be so proud of them and of course of yourself.

Babies are all so different and one size doesn’t fit all. My first used to wake every 2-3 hours for months. Then he’d have two naps or one very long nap in the day which didn’t help.

From the age of 5 weeks old my second used to sleep from 6.30/7pm - 10am! I used to wake to offer her a bottle in the night or at 5am but she’d just refuse it and sleep through. I used to feel terrible when I’d have to wake her to take the oldest to school, but she’d never grumble. She just slept like that until she was about 3 years old. Although she stopped having naps as soon as she could walk at 11 months. She was bliss and my oldest was a pain.

I didn’t do any sleep training with either - it just wasn’t for me. They just slept according to their routine. My two were bottle-fed. Please don’t take this the wrong way because I’m not at all making a judgment or anything but would you consider bottle feeding? Just because it will make LO less clingy to you and you’ll be less exhausted from feeding and hopefully LO will feel a bit ‘heavier’ so hopefully sleep through longer/better.

Today maybe get a nice chocolate cake or other treat for you to all tuck in to. Put a movie on and get the blankets out and let the kids chill out to that in the day so you can wind down a little too xx

We found with DD that the gentle stuff just didn't work. She was hysterical that we were right there, but weren't cuddling her. So we just left her to it. Worked a lot better.

Do you have a support bubble who could help give you a nap?

I doff my hat to you OP. I think you are amazing for managing for so long. I have just spent the night co-sleeping with my just turned 1 year old. My partner is still sleeping with my nearly 4 year old. It must feel impossible trying to do this on your own!

Like others have said - do what you have to in order to get through.

Oh, bless you. I think in future, a good rule of thumb is if what you're doing feels wrong, it probably is.

Are you on the 'Beyond Sleep Training Project' group on Facebook? It's a gentle parenting group based around responsive approaches to encouraging sleep. You might find some ideas there, or at least some comfort.

I agree that going from co-sleeping to putting in a cot alone and awake was never going to work. You need to break that down and it won't be a quick fix unfortunately. First you'll have to start getting your little one used to the cot- transfer asleep to start, respond immediately when he wakes. Then start to put him in asleep but drowsy'. Expect him to immediately awaken and yell at you- just pick up and soothe until asleep then transfer asleep (I find waiting for eight minutes before transfer helps). Just repeat every naptime and eventually he will just fall asleep in there.

My sympathies, it sounds brutal.

@Butusernamessuck your baby won't remember don't worry. We had the same experience (only it was our first so no other children around) but our baby ended up vomiting and distressed. It's not about 'doing it wrong' as some other posters have unhelpfully suggested. All babies are different and some find sleep training more stressful and are more resistant.

After that one horrific night we didn't bother any more and just co slept our way through the unsettled phases. It stopped naturally when DD was 2 or so and she has slept like a log ever since.

I reckon the people who find sleep training works are those with easy going and reasonably sleeping babies. I'm not convinced that self settling is something you can teach. It's a massive industry so of course there is going to be real reluctance to admit how little control we have over our baby's sleep.

It sounds like you had a really traumatic experience and I agree with PP about getting your older kids on side to see if you can have some quiet time to catch up on sleep.