First time round I bought into the whole gentle sleep thing… there’s no such thing as making a rod for your own back, sleep training is evil, it’s completely developmentally normal for children not to sleep through the night or sleep in their own beds until they’re off at uni etc. etc. (hyperbole, obviously). Parents are supposed to be completely exhausted and if you can’t cope with that then you’re selfish and don’t love your child enough to just put up with it.
I fed to sleep, contact napped and co-slept for 7 months at which point I was a zombie of a human with no relationship, sex life or me time. My child was entirely reliant on me to fall and stay asleep and had no sleep skills whatsoever of their own. I then had to sleep train which was much harsher than I would have liked ideally, but I was at the end of my tether. My baby and I were both exhausted. I barely had the energy to interact with them and we were both grouchy and miserable all the time. Once they slept through the night we were both so much happier and my baby started to thrive.
We went away with friends a few months ago who are in a similar position with their 18 month old. She spends hours feeding to sleep and then spends every night on a floor bed with her child while her husband sleeps elsewhere. Child wakes up 4+ times per night to feed. Friend confided that the strain it’s putting on her relationship with her husband is such that she feels they could separate over it, and yet she is adamant not to sleep train because of the damage she feels it could do to her child. She isn’t planning on having any more children because of how hard sleep has been for them.
I’ve recently had my second and was determined to do things differently from the start - minimal feeding to sleep, baby puts themself to sleep (no need for leaving to cry because we’ve done it since day 1), cot naps about 75% of the time in the day and always at night, co-sleeping is rare. Baby naps well and is waking once to feed each night at 3 months old, occasionally sleeping through. Baby is well rested, calm and easy to comfort. It is so much easier this way. So, so much easier. I actually feel so angry that I wasted the first 7 months of my older child’s life being so exhausted, frustrated and unhappy.
Why do people continue to argue that you can’t create bad sleep habits for your child when you so clearly can? And by doing so you’re likely to be either setting yourself up for years of utter exhaustion, or for some very tough sleep training later down the line? It’s like a horrible trap that first time parents are being tricked into.
I’m aware this is going to be very unpopular with a lot of people, so I’m bracing myself for the anti sleep training brigade to come at me!