AIBU to wonder if sleep training negatively impacts a child (attachment theory)?

[user666555]

Hi,

So this isn't a thread to bash anyone who has sleep trained. I'm genuinely curious of people's experiences with sleep training. I'd genuinely like to hear people's opinions especially those that have sleep trained.

A big part of my degree was child psychology focused and I learnt about the attachment theory and how children require stable attachments with their caregivers during the early years of their lives in order to go on to form secure attachments. However, I'm curious as to whether sleep training impacts this? I understand that in hindsight it's a small part of a child's life where they're being taught to self soothe. However, everything I've always been taught in relation to psychology has always focused on the importance of being present and not allowing a child to stay in distress in those early years (if you can help it, of course this isn't always possible).

So my question is, AIBU to wonder if sleep training impacts children in the long term?

Again, I'm not opposed to gentle sleep training (at an appropriate age of course) however, I've always wondered this.

P.S. I was once having a conversation with my DDs health visitor who was telling me about babies who have mums that do not tend to their cries (often due to drug abuse/abuse in general) and those babies stop crying as much. She said this isn't because the babies have soothed themselves. It's because the babies learnt that their needs won't be met by crying so they developed avoidant attachment styles as they felt as though their needs are unheard. She mentioned that work has to be done with these babies and children to allow them to rely on caregivers again - I know this isn't the same but I found this so heartbreaking.

There is no proof. In fact studies have found there is no difference between sleep trained and non sleep trained. Unless I’ve missed something? I did it with one child of my 3 children. Ds was a terrible sleeper so gave it a try. Best thing I ever did!

Sleep training is not abandoning your baby. It does need to be done at certain ages. One point is when babies no longer need milk throughout the night.

I "sleep trained" my twins when they were 10 months old.
No crying it out.
The disappearing chair routine.
Lie them down, sit so they can see you with your back to them, 5 mins later, lie them back down, say good night, I love you, time to sleep. And repeat.
Took 3 nights.

Before that they were waking up inconsolable between 20-30 times a night and taking up to 2 hours to go to sleep.

My sanity was at breaking point, my marriage on a slippery slope and I was that exhausted I was afraid to drive some days.

They are now nearly 3 and go to bed themselves and sleep 12 hours straight and are happy loving confident wee individuals

Best thing I have ever done

The studies you refer to related to extreme levels of neglect, in Eastern European orphanages where infants received only functional care, that’s vastly different to sleep training.

The outcome of so much research into child development is that parents (usually mothers) beat themselves to death if their child so much as whimpers without immediately being comforted. Which is simply not realistic, or indeed ideal because children never learn coping strategies if they never have to self soothe, learn how to self regulate etc.

I waited until 11 months as it felt like she was old enough for some reason, before that would have felt too early. Also it was getting harder to rock her to sleep!

Only took 2 nights, first one we went in every 10 minutes and she fell asleep in 25 minutes. Second night she fell asleep just after the first 10 minute visit from us. Third night no crying and hasn't been any since. She's a perfectly happy and securely attached baby.

I'm starting to get really fed up with seemingly intelligent and educated women asking bullshit like this. It's stupid, inflammatory and frankly, offensive to the kids or now adults that do struggle with attachment issues due to their upbringing. Upbringing that often involves abuse and/or neglect or something like a lengthy hospital stay. Basically, a traumatic event, not mum (or dad)having a shower , or not picking them up right away , or introducing some kind of sleep routine/training.

Unless your idea of sleep training is shoving the baby in a room ,turning the light off and shutting that door and leaving them like that all night, every night then no, it won't cause any attachment issues.

Interesting responses. Glad to see it's not all doom and gloom and that it can actually be quite a positive thing.

My issue is my DD has very short day time naps. She naps for 30 mins at a time (hardly longer, can also be shorter). This makes her extremely cranky and by the time it's bed time she'll be so hard to settle. Even though I watch for sleep cues and try and get her to sleep, she fights sleep a lot. I do the bath, bottle bed routine. But I feel as though her (lack of) day time naps has impacted her night time sleep. She's just very easily woken. Even the slightest sound of a door opening/a tap coming on etc wakes her up. She does have CMPA so I'm sure some of it is her being restless and in pain (she's not on a completely cows kill free formula - so I suspect this may be an issue to look at too).

Has anyone got any tips for better naps during the day?

Would she nap if out in her buggy?

Like others have said, most of the responses will be anecdotal. It's so difficult to measure as there are many many other factors which could be at play, it would be nigh on impossible to be able to attribute any one outcome to sleep training or not. My own personal view is that I was concerned about this and haven't done it, but I don't think we will ever be able to say one way or another!

@FinallyFeb wakes up after around 30 minutes. Whether it's buggy, car seat, bouncer/swing, my bed (all supervised naps btw) she wakes up

DD was chronically sleep deprived (as was I) because I wouldn't do sleep training with her and she very clearly suffered from it - the difference in her when she got prescribed melatonin at nearly 6 (because she STILL sleep like shit) and finally slept was amazing, like a completely different child. I still feel guilty that I didn't help her sooner.

I truly don’t think there’s anything wrong with sleep training (which doesn’t mean cry it out! There are other ways)

In fact I think there comes a point where allowing a child, who is no longer a newborn, to wake up multiple times per night becomes almost cruel. Sleep is a skill and some children need help to learn how to do it effectively and on their own.

In an otherwise secure and loving parental child relationship I cannot see how a couple of nights of sleep training could break down the attachment to such a level that there’s any long lasting damage.

You ask about daytime naps, what do you do at the moment? Does she sleep in her cot for them or on you or elsewhere? One of mine needed to be in the cot in darkness for daytime naps or sleep would be so disrupted.

Mine always napped much much better if they were outside. I used to walk them back and forth in the garden in the pram until they fell asleep and then let them sleep outside. With my DD I would start rocking the pram again after 30ish minutes when she'd start to wake up to sooth her back to sleep again for another sleep cycle.

Obviously, it depends what you mean. Leave a small baby or toddler (or indeed child) to scream for hours? Abuse, and will negatively affect them.

Create a safe, familiar bedtime routine that teachers them to settle themselves to sleep? Absolutely fine and in fact incredibly beneficial for everyone, including the child.

Gentle, caring sleep training involving gentle methods such as going back in at very regular intervals, reassuring etc. Fine.

Honestly, I truly believe that once a baby physically does not need a feed (milk) overnight, the benefits to that baby/toddler of having solid sleep are so huge. And for the parents, it is often just not sustainable to have broken sleep for years and years.

We sleep trained DD1. She's 4.5 now and a really good sleeper. But if she wakes in the night (maybe once a month), she will call or come in, so she hasn't learnt that we won't comfort her.
But after a cuddle, she's very happy for us to leave and to go back to sleep by herself.

Obviously it's all anecdotal, so doesn't mean much for me to say "oh I think she's fine!" But, for what it's worth, I think she's fine.

How old is she?

My advice before doing any sleep training at all would be to rule out any other potential issues and in your case, that would be the CMPA. If that is sorted such as changing milk etc and nothing changes then I would have a look at wake windows for her age and see if that improves anything since if she isn't in pain, I'll bet that she's overtired which can so easily happen and then they fight sleep even more so it can get tricky. Sleep cues can be great but sometimes they can happen when baby is already overtired, ideally, you'll want to get her 'sweet spot' where she's tired but not too tired.

You have a solid bedtime routine already which is great so the other thing I'd look at before sleep training is how she goes to sleep and if she is rocked or goes to sleep with a bottle then that is something else to work on or can also be the first part of sleep training.

DC1 (ASD) was an horrendous sleeper, they were attached to me 24/7 and would scream constantly, not just as a baby but throughout the toddler years. The first time they slept through the night was at 4 years old! I really don’t know how I got through it.

With DC2 & 3, literally from birth I would feed them and put them down to sleep. I didn’t cuddle or rock them to sleep ever. Both slept amazingly, rarely cried and would go off to sleep in a couple of minutes. They’re adults now and still love their beds!

I've sleep trained both my children. Had to use ferber with dc1 after trying everything else and trying to save my sanity. He didn't sleep through solidly until he was 6!!! But, ferber done properly and consistently helped reduce the amount of wake ups and extended his sleep.

New baby and I wasn't messing around this time. Started sleep training from 8wks old. I checked out alot of American publications on sleep training and what they do. Often American mom's are back to work 3-6m pp. Baby is now 10m and sleep through solid 7pm til 7am since she was 12 wks old. ( minor disturbances during teething, a bout of covid and the dreaded 4 m regression)

The techniques used are very gentle and baby led. Lots of shushing, patting and cuddles. Responding immediately to their cries so they know you are there for them. It took around 4 wks of being consistent to get to the stage where she sleeps through.

Putting them down when they are sleepy but awake to now I can put down awake near the end of a wake window and she will put her self to sleep and self sooth when she's wakes up in the night.

We have a solid bedtime routine and have had one since 8wks. I think has helped massively. Also, baby was tiny was when she was born but as soon as she gained a decent amount of weight and didn't need regular night feeds helped. (Mix fed)

Sleep training may have helped or maybe I'm lucky this time around and have a good sleeper. I'll never know but I'm definitely not complaining

We sleep trained our son at 5 months. It took 3 nights and he has no lack of attachment to us in any way that I can tell. Because he's sleep trained, we know that on the rare occasion he's crying out for us in the night there's genuinely something the matter and we go in to soothe him. He became a much calmer and happier baby once he was getting a full night's sleep. We can put him down at bedtime and he happily rolls around and chats to himself until he sleeps.

Other people we know didn't sleep train. I wouldn't say their kids are any more attached to their parents (in healthy ways at least!) than our son, and many of them still don't get good night's sleep or easy bedtime years later.

Exactly, babies so severely neglected that not only did they have significant emotional and mental issues, a lot of them were left with physical disabilities too.

But sure, let's compare them (or babies of addicts, or abusive parents) with little Timmy left to cry for 5 minutes while the parents have a much needed coffee or little Sarah being sleep trained in her warm,loving ,safe home.

The thing is not that you don’t respond to their needs. You stop responding to that specific desire in a specific way. We did it with all 4 of ours at 6 months and it worked a treat.

It’s not like we just leave them to cry for hours and hours- when they were crying you had to go in every 5 minutes, shush them and walk out again. They knew you were there, they just weren’t going to get picked up for crying in this particular context. It’s not like my two youngest don’t cry- at 2 and 3 they cry like normal children, and of course we respond to their needs.

The 3 yo has recently undone part of her sleep training with the trauma of her preschool vaccinations. So it was back to settling her then going back in every 5 minutes…mostly now she cries if she’s kicked her blanket off and she’s cold.

I sleep trained my 4 year old as a baby and her reports often remark how happy and confident she is. She’s also a great sleeper, usually sleeping 7.30 to 7.

Sleep is a need. You can spot a cranky, overtired baby from a mile off. And a cranky overtired toddler. They tend to be highly strung, clingy, shrieky and just really unhappy. Sleep training is far better than letting them stay in that state for months/years.

Sometimes I wonder if some of the increase in behavioural issues noted by teachers is due to chronic and severe lack of sleep. This ‘child lead, waking 8 times a night until 11 is biologically normal’ approach may be behind this.

Regarding sleep training, you need to consider the overall balance of harm. Some gentle, age-appropriate sleep training will not harm a child. However, years of chronic sleep deprivation for the parents and the child will have a negative impact on everyone. Extended sleep deprivation for the mothers means they are more likely to develop depression, which has a negative impact on their children.

Maybe it depends on the child's personality too, I've seen alot of different parenting because I'm a childminder and have also worked in hospital.
Before I had my own children and due to seeing alot of challenging behaviour, I knew that rules and routine was the only way. I also sadly was on shift when a baby was bought in lifeless because of co-sleeping and didn't make it. For me there is nor safe and unsafe co sleeping, things like this never leave you.
With my own children I put them down and got straight into a routine, if they cried, I settled them, but always put back. I have had 2 amazing sleepers who are ready to learn and absorb, not tired and ratty. I also would not have the patience to be so overtired that I barely function. The key aspect in a child's life is their caregiver who Is willing and ready to engage, who wants to play with them and take them out, not someone flaked out on the sofa (and I'm an emotional wreck when I'm tired). As a childminder I've had some terrible sleepers, not sure why, sometimes it seems they have no routine and mum/dad lay with them until they are asleep which doesn't seem to help because as soon as they wake they cry. Others I've had where parents say they don't sleep, won't settle but I just put them to nap and they do, no dramas 🤷‍♀️ so personally I do wonder if routines, boundaries and consistency make for a much smoother experience. To give an example I have a 3 year old sobbing at drop off but so is the mum! She's hanging on the child saying I'll miss you etc and child's beside themself hysterical. 10 seconds in the door and child is 100% happy, laughing, smiling, engaged. Alot of its for mums 🤦‍♀️

My niece was sleep trained with cry it out at 4 months. Personally I think that was a bit young for proper cry it out. A gentler method maybe… anyway She doesn’t ever cry out in the night at all now, so if she vomits in the night she doesn’t cry or alert her parents. Often she’s had a temperature in the morning, presumably overnight too but no crying then either. I can only attribute this to sleep training? I’d have thought it’s natural to cry- I know my son does. Anecdotally she very very clingy to her parents and in one particular sleep toy. It’s hard to tell if sleep training has an impact on clingyness, as that could just be her personality. She’s also not very confident and very shy- I’d assume that’s personality and not linked to sleep training, but who knows, there’ll be loads of kids who weren’t sleep trained who will be the same!

Anyway the never crying out for parents at night was enough for my husband and I to know we wouldn’t sleep train our son. but not sleep training also worked for us, if he was a nightmare sleeper we might have had to look into it!