To say that you definitely CAN make a rod for your own back when it comes to sleep, and it’s unreasonable to tell first time parents otherwise?

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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!

People typically sleep train around 6m. At that age it's frankly dangerous and irresponsible to have a baby sleeping in an adult bed with you. It has killed babies, even when done as safely as possible. So that's one good reason why if the choice is between sleep training and bedsharing (which it isn't, but you seem to imply it is), the former is a far better option.

I see it all the time. But how they feed will make no difference how they sleep. Each baba is different. My son is breastfed and slept through from 11 weeks and still a good sleeper, but read some breastfed babies not sleeping. Vise versa with FF. It does help tho breastmilk has got a sleep hormone in it and my son always fell asleep on the boob when I fed to sleep. I didn't always feed him to sleep tho. He learnt to self settle.

I wouldn’t smugly presume that the way your babies slept is all down to the training/parenting you have chosen. I was a Nanny and Maternity Nurse for many years and set up a really good sleep routine for my first - she slept through the night at 6 weeks old and I was so smug that it was all down to my experience and routines. Then I had baby 2 and 3 who firmly put me back into my place 😂 who were terrible sleepers who needed to by my side 24/7. I patented them in exactly the same way, tried to do sleep training with them - but 2 and 3 it just didn’t work. They didn’t sleep through til they were 18m ish. Baby 4 was again a dream baby and slept through very young and slotted straight into a routine.
I would be very wary advising mums of newborn babies about how it “should” be done. You likely had no1 difficult sleeper, no2 great sleeper……. Whatever parenting you did with them!

Anyone who has a 18 months old child waking 4 times in the night for a feed has definitely made a rod for their own back!!

How is advising parents to breastfeed ‘judgy’?

That's not being judgy at all.

100% agree with you OP. You don’t sound smug at all. You’ve done it both ways!

I’m sure it’s been said upthread but these poor buggers lying on bedroom floors or with 5 year olds that can only sleep with mummy holding their hand HAVE sleep trained their babies. They have sleep trained them to have no ability to self soothe when they go to sleep or move through the sleep cycles.

Occasionally I’ll meet a AP parent who is totally fine with the co-sleeping but waking 5 times a night to feed / get kicked by little feet - and that’s amazing. I think it’s a wonderful thing and of course the child usually learns to sleep independently, eventually.

But more often than not I’d a scenario akin to the OPs friend. People brought to their knees through exhaustion and with a massive toll on their relationship. All these kids who don’t sleep through til they are 3 or 4. Because they are so petrified of damaging their kids because they are lovely caring parents.

Teaching good kind sleep habits from day 1 is such a gift for babies and their parents. Parenting is hard enough without doing it on broken sleep and no evening with your partner. It doesn’t need to be like that and it makes me sad for parents who think this is the norm.

I just tried to get them into a routine after a few weeks- it's a balance, I wouldn't do sleep training if it was massively upsetting the child. I wouldn't do baby led stuff if it was massively upsetting me.

I did a routine early on too. It's what they need. They thrive on it. You get parents twisting months/years down the line because they didn't bother to give them a routine.

I agree with PP that its not that simple. Some babies and some mums do better with contact naps/feed to sleep/co-sleeping.

Although there's no evidence that sleep training is harmful, that doesn't mean there aren't any effects, there are research gaps. Current research suggests that sleep trained babies dont wake up less, they just 'signal' less to their parents as they've learnt crying =/= caregiver.

I feel people who sleep trained and it worked are a bit unfair trying to push other people to do it. You never hear from the people who left their baby to cry and it still didn't improve their sleep (of course there are more 'gentle' sleep training than CC).

Of course if the way that their babies are getting to sleep becomes impractical and is no longer working for the family, the should be encouraged to make changes or 'sleep train' in ways that they feel comfortable with .

DS has just turned one, currently I fed him in his room then put him into his cot. Sometimes awake sometimes asleep and go back to the living room. If he cries (which he will) DH will go and sit with him until he falls asleep.

Any tips on how we could do this better? Very occasionally he will just hug his teddy for a bit, yell out randomly (not trying, chatting) and fall asleep.

I completely agree with you OP! In my NCT group, the two parents who sleep trained at 12 weeks have 5 year olds who have slept through the night since that point (bar illness and weird developmental leaps). The other parents who co-slept and fed to sleep have 5 year olds who have never slept through the whole night. Some might call it a coincidence or luck that somehow fell into the lap of the sleep trainers but I think it’s more the case that the sleep trainers created their own luck.

Whilst I’m with you in general..I think temperament plays a huge part and is often ignored when people are shelling out advice (including yourself!). You say newborn settled themselves from the beginning hence minimal crying. I’ve just had my third baby and if I just left them to it they would scream! I have to gently rock them to sleep or their cry would just escalate and escalate. So it really is down to temperament.

However in general I totally agree with your post, you definitely can make things difficult for yourself and I am very pro sleep training when it’s done properly and is age appropriate.

I sort of agree with you, specifically the idea that sleep training is viewed very oddly by some.

Shouldn't sleep train at 12 weeks. That's awful. Poor babies

I agree. I've done it both times with my children. Third baby coming soon.. and will be doing what you have done!

Mainly YANBU. I'm a big believer in- if somethings not making you happy, give something else a go. I know that babies are different, have different needs, but on the whole, they are similar little creatures.

What I probably find the most annoying is people who are clearly not enjoying the sleep habits of their children now, they're tired, they're moaning (we all moan about being tired, so no use pretending they're not), sometimes you get those little digs when you say you're tired because of a late night, and they chip in with 'you should try having two of them getting up all night', that kind of thing. Well, no thanks. I went through that too, the 4 month sleep regression lasted until 9 months. Until, guess what, I did a bit of research, chose a method of sleep training that seemed acceptable to me, and got on with it. 2 days later we were back to getting sleep more often than not. She wanted to be sleeping on me/ in our bed, I decided it wasnt an option any more and put a stop to it, well I guess I'll sleep in my own bed then.

I've got a friend with an almost 4 year old and a 1.5 year old. The 4 year old is waking up twice in the night for a full bottle of milk still. Now the 1.5 year old is doing it too. I suggested they switch it out for water during the night, 2/3 nights and they won't bother waking any more. But she said it's just easier to give the milk. How? Waking up 2/3 times every night for the forseeable future, vs having 2 or 3 nights of kicking off followed by every night of rare or infrequent wakings. I know which one I would choose. I know its hard to psyche yourself up to do it when you're already tired though.

OP, I said this before I had children.
I used to get the eye rolls.

Two kids later, best decision I ever made was to do as you have done for your second child. My siblings have all had kids. All bar one child has slept through and is thriving. Guess which one isn’t?!

Babies do not know any different. You cannot tell who is breast/bottle fed the same as you cannot tell who is contact napped/left in a cot. We need to think about the needs of baby and the mum. Mum needs sleep and recovery time.

I'm the reverse to you. Bought into the whole "put them down drowsy, never feed to sleep, never let them cuddle to sleep", day 1 was a total shit show. Baby up for 5 hours !!!!! Red eyed, screaming and looked like total shit. Not much improvement for 3 months until a midwife told me to just try rocking chair, white noise, blackout blinds. Improvement was huge. He was finally able to learn how to sleep without screaming himself to exhaustion. Stop judging other mums now that you have a baby that sleeps👍

Like PP said, bad sleep habits are subjective in my opinion. Babies are meant to wake up in the night. It's natural instinct.

The more I look at my friends, the more I've concluded that their baby's sleep patterns had very little to do with what approach the parent took and everything to do with the baby's temperament.

Telling a parent of a higher contact craving baby that they're making a rod for their own back by cosleeping and meeting their baby's needs is unhelpful.

Telling a parent who finds their baby thrives on a set schedule and cot naps that they're awful and unresponsive is also unhelpful.

I've got no time for smug fuckers who think they should have a medal over a baby's sleep patterns though.

I've three children and honestly I think a lot is just luck. Some children thrive on a routine and will fall into it easily. None of mine slept through the night properly until three but they were great for heading off to bed and falling asleep easily.

I think it’s incredibly cruel not to teach babies how to sleep well for large blocks of time and also cruel to subject them to sleep training at a later age. Lack of sleep affects my ability to do just about anything properly and it similarly affects young children.

The people in my nct group that did this have children with the exact same sleep habits as mine. The only ones with babies that sleep through are the ones who did it themselves a few weeks in.

I agree with you. So much of parenting at the moment requires you to be a martyr - I have friends who still lie with their 8 year olds to sleep. I did the whole 'this is developmentally normal' thing with my first, and I was deeply tired and miserable. Second time and he has slept in his cot from very early.on.

I co slept with both of mine, slept through from 6 months . Friend sleep trained, still wake up several times a night at 4. Completely anecdotal but my point is often it’s more about the child than the method. Neither of us judge each other, just recognise there are different ways to do things and we all do what’s right for our family.