To think controlled crying is cruel

[KazMa]

DH would like to try controlled crying/sleep training but I am totally against any sort of crying/leaving DS on his own upset. Any advice?

Here is current scenario:

DS just turned 7 months old and we have been co sleeping since the dreaded 4 month sleep regression, he also breastfeeds to sleep - will go to sleep without it but needs a lot of patting, rocking and walking around so it’s easier just to BF.

For a month now I am able to BF to sleep and then leave him in his cot in his own room for nap times and he will sleep 45mins to an hour per nap (3x per day).

At night however he will wake up and only go back to sleep if he is laying & feeding next to me in my bed. (Eg, bedtime at 8pm but he’ll wake at 8:45 and won’t go back to sleep.

Yep it's usually their own issues causing it.

Of course when they are teeny you have to meet those needs quickly but fucking about trampolining on me at 3am.

Nope -back to bed!

Some of this stuff is just absolutely crazy, at either extreme.

No, sleep training (calming, leaving, returning, teaching good habits rather than letting them scream for hours on end) does not cause harm even remotely comparable to a Romanian orphanage. Indeed, for those who would otherwise fall asleep driving, hurt themselves or hate every waking moment with their children it is absolutely the best decision they could possibly make - to leave things out of a misguided attempt to soldier on and win additional mum points is harmful and neglectful, because ultimately baby needs a mother who can meet its needs and likes being a mum (most of the time!).

No, it isn't essential to sleep train - if you want to sacrifice sleep in order to sing your kids to sleep and you are happy doing so and can weather the hit from a health perspective (some people get ill if they don't sleep well, some get depressed, some manage fine) that is your prerogative. Just please don't label others neglectful or engage in hyperbole to justify your own choices - it is cruel and unnecessary. Mum guilt is bad enough at the best of times - mums who felt suicidal without sleep don't need to be told they failed to meet their child's emotional needs and should have considered that before they had kids.

Bad sleep correlates with behavioural difficulties in kids and with dementia if for a prolonged period in adults - there is a reason why sleep deprivation is used as torture - so it isn't crazy to care about sleep hygiene, but it also isn't the be all and end all for everyone.

Not really. It’s coercive. Rewarding a child to go against their natural thoughts/behaviour because yano, they’re a MEGA young child. Also singing your child to sleep is nothing more than responsive parenting - try it sometime 👍🏻

Not all natural behaviour is good or healthy, and sometimes children need to be trained out of it. For instance my daughter's natural behaviour at 4 years old was to bite, hit, kick, and various other violent actions (in part, this was due to poor sleep) and her psychologist told me to use a reward chart system to train her out of this behaviour.

Honestly my gut reaction to the idea of singing my child to sleep in the middle of the night every night is fuck hat shit. I am not a children's entertainer.

A child has wants and needs.A child may not want the day to end it WANTS play , attention and cuddling sll night.It NEEDS sleep and parents who ate decently rested

See, you sound like you had very easy babies. Some will scream and scream within milliseconds of being put down, whatever you do.
You have had 3 kids, you think you are an expert, you're not you just got lucky

It’s because you’re probably not doing it properly. Controlled crying requires a build up to it and you have to combine it with other things like feeding / patting / white noise. Picking up a book and blindly applying what you’ve read will always lead to problems.

I had a screaming baby. I applied controlled crying in a gentle way and by 6 mths he was quite willing to play on the bed (we coslept and still do - the controlled crying was for my MH as he was still breastfeeding 8-9 x a day at that point.

It's not cruel and personally I think people who are getting no sleep and are at breaking point but refuse to sleep train are making life difficult for themselves and their babies...but it's an individual decision and there's no right or wrong answer.

Personally, I couldn't cope with no sleep so I sleep trained and my kids were sleeping through within a few days. Happy days. Ironically, if you don't want them to cry, they do a lot less crying once they're sleep trained than they do when they're waking up crying for you through the night.

One of my family members didn't sleep train and their 4 year old still wakes up every night. They always talk about how tired they are!

So yes it's an individual choice and some people are lucky and don't need to do it, but I definitely don't think it's cruel. Any more than vaccinating is 'cruel' because it makes babies cry, when the alternative is potentially catching a nasty illness.

Ah lovely smug post, silly relatives being so precious and not sleep training, they deserve their tiredness. Pat on the back for you that you were a sensible parent who saved your child from hours of crying.

Also, not really sure you can compare vaccinating a baby for a potentially deadly disease to CC.

It's not smug at all - if they wanted to, they could have done it. As it is, they constantly say they're tired, which is a result of the choice that they've made. I made a different choice.

Just an innocent observation was it?

This thread is full of people who saying don't call people who sleep train cruel, do you not care about mothers' mental health and wellbeing. Which I 100% agree with btw.

What I don't agree with is that posters who then, often in teh same post, decide to ridicule how others deal with their (non)sleeping children, or even worse call them silly or neglectful. Or implictly (or directly) state they've made a rod in their own back.

I really struggle to see why only the well being of CCing mothers is important on this thread (past the first few pages which obvs are responding to the OP), and why only they deserve not to be judged on their sleep training (or not) choices.

@Layersoftaytoes

lol at singing your child to sleep

yeah, no

so you’ve never sung a lullaby to your child? Ok 😂 Too above you I imagine. Very unattached parenting but you do you 😘

@Layersoftaytoes

i would never do it for ages in the middle of the night for an overtired toddler no

This.

See also the implication that non-sleep trained babies are sleep deprived and/or their parents care less about sleep hygiene.

I've chosen not to sleep train and my baby gets an appropriate amount of sleep for his age. He doesn't show signs of being overtired and he's hitting all his milestones (some a little early, actually). Yes, he needs support to sleep and wakes up for feeds overnight but at 9mo both of these things are totally normal.

There have been times when his sleep has been trickier, but I've trusted the process and his sleep has improved significantly recently, including some self-settling overnight. I also recognise that circumstances mean I have been able to make a choice not to sleep train (not everyone is in the same position).

I wouldn't judge any parent for choosing to sleep train, but to suggest that not sleep training (on the whole) is detrimental is false. The study I shared previously showed that sleep trained babies woke up overnight just as much as non-sleep trained babies, their parents just didn't report it. Presumably because they were enjoying the break!

Then once calmed back to bed.
Tucked in ,night night ,leave.
Repeat
This really show how different children are. You say once calmed, but mine would not calm down at all. It would just get worse and worse, cries turning into sobs, hicups, face fill of tears and snots, and the I my thing that stopped it was falling asleep from the utter exhaustion of it. I left to that stage once when I was on my own, very poorly myself and just couldn't get myself up. It was horrible and distressing, and I never did it again.

Totally different to a child who cries, stops when you go in, and just starts again but not as urgently as before until the cries become more gentle.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'innocent observation.' They chose not to sleep train, their child doesn't sleep through the night, and they're tired. When my child wasn't sleeping and I was tired, I chose to sleep train, and as a result they now sleep through and I am no longer tired.

If parents are fine not sleeping, or their babies sleep through on their own, then great.

If they are struggling with sleep deprivation, though, my opinion is that sleep training isn't cruel and is a straightforward solution that is better in the long run than exhausted parents and children.

@heartbroken22

proper laughing at the idea that you’ll get put in a shitty home when you’re old if you do controlled crying - and that youd deserve!

you’re funny 😄 can you post more?

@georgarina I have a friend who didn't sleep train. She night weaned at 18mo (no tears) and her child sleeps through. I have another friend who did sleep train and at 2yo old has been been having nightly bedtime battles.

Neither of these examples are conclusive evidence for or against sleep training.

This is why sample sizes for scientific studies are generally much, much greater than 2.

It worked for me and all the other parents I know who've done it. Like I said, if you're not having issues then great, but if, like OP, you're exhausted, I would go for sleep training. I don't think it's cruel and think it's better for both of you overall than being sleep deprived for years. If, for whatever reason, sleep training doesn't work for you/your child, that's another matter.

We are literally in exact same situation now 6.5months and a hellish 4 month regression. I'm keen to try but with slightly gentler intervals...tell me more xx

Actually, I was left. I know because they taught me to read from a young age so they didn’t have to comfort me. I would wake in the morning with the book on my face. When I wasn’t allowed the light on, I remember lying in bed scared looking at the wallpaper and making up stories to comfort myself. The wallpaper had bits of wood in. I still have to make up stories to comfort myself to sleep and I have a baby of my own. I still have shit sleep.

I don’t mind if others do it to their kids, all kids are different but I couldn’t do it. But I also don’t think it’s a fool proof method. I was just scared and alone.

It really depends. We did everything we could think of to send ds to sleep without crying. Rocking. Singing. Talking. White noise. Rubbing his back. Nothing worked. Nothing. Finally one day I realized I was about to lose my mind and couldn't trust myself to go in to him. So I let him cry. He cried for ten minutes, fell asleep, and finally slept without waking up. Turns out, that was what he needed. Months later his experienced daycare person said to me "you know I've noticed he doesn't like if I stay in the room with him when he's trying to sleep. He needs me to leave, he yells for a few minutes to blow off steam, and then he sleeps." Exactly.