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.

I think whether it affects the child depends a lot on personality. I have two DS - one is 5 and still wakes up nightly and needs cuddles. The other is 1, happy to fall asleep independently and mostly sleeps through the night. Both had their bedtime exactly the same. If I tried to sleep train DS5 I believe this would be damaging to him and would cause a lot of attachment issues. If I sleep trained DS1 he probably wouldn't kick up much fuss and would just go to sleep by himself happily after the first night.

I did sleep training with some of my kids and not others. Mainly due to changes in thinking and experience, and my circumstances.

I don't think it negatively impacts attachment, tbh. I've actually become rather suspicious of some of the elements of popular attachment theory. If it was really that easy to interrupt parental attachment, I don't think we'd have had much luck as a species.

One of the things that really changed my mind on this was after trying it in desperation, and realizing that my child had basically been desperate for sleep and sleep deprived, and after sleep training there was overall far less crying, and just better mood generally. It's actually not great for a baby to need to be in contact with mum every time he or she comes to the top of a sleep cycle, it results in interrupted sleep.

I would suggest, OP, as far as timing - I think 8 months might be too late, though it's often recommended. But my observation is that it is way harder by then. Twelve weeks is too early, but I'd be looking to gently push towards a routine now, and sleep training can probably start close to the six month mark if you decide it's necessary.

My toddler cried more today without me being able to comfort them, than they ever did during sleep training. They cried all the way back from the supermarket (about 8 minutes) because I’d not put a certain toy in the car before we went to the supermarket. They also cried for shorter periods and I couldn’t immediately console them when they bit their finger and I was in the bathroom but they refused to come to the bathroom. Or when I had to sort out their dinner and they wouldn’t climb their stool to help me and so they lay on the kitchen floor sobbing.

Now maybe all these short bursts of time when I can’t or haven’t consoled them might cause attachment issues. Even though the rest of the day they had a cuddle when they wanted, we played, we sang, I changed the words of their favourite nursery to their name, we’ve read books. I have done everything else within my power today to make sure they are feeling loved and well looked after. If those little bits are going to cause attachment issues then there isn’t anything I can do about that, I can’t stop the car and soothe them every time they cry.

@Naptrappedmummy

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.

I think there may be some truth in this. I would never leave a baby to cry but do believe they need to learn to settle themselves. It might be the reason that currently teens can't cope with life as well as those 20+ yrs. I've noticed a massive surge in mental health issues & poor behaviour since I started teaching over 20 years ago.

Seeing as you have a degree. Why not look at some academic journals? It’s such a divisive topic here, will you get only get very extreme views. I personally thinking babies and children need to learn to sleep well, for their own benefit, however you get there.

Aren’t all loved and well looked after babies left to cry sometimes? Because you’re in the loo, they’re crying in the car seat but you’re driving the car, a sibling needs something more urgently etc. I don’t know what it is about helping everyone get a decent night’s sleep that gets people so riled up. My first did so much crying in the car, a hell of a lot more than you’d get from 3 nights of Ferber but maybe I should have refrained from ever leaving the house IDK.

I had PND/PNA and part of this was because my son didn’t sleep and wouldn’t nap unless he was on me. It was hell on toast for about 2 years.
In this state I had also got it into my head that any type of training would ruin his attachment and that I would be guilty of neglecting him.
but then after his second birthday we really couldn’t take it any more. We were all broken people. I described myself as a “dried up husk”. I used to shout at him a lot, he was increasingly not a happy child.

we trained using the batelle method.
my only regret was not doing it earlier, at 6 months or so.
it wasn’t cruel at all. The method is attachement theory focused and teaches adult and parent new methods of attachment to wean the child on to a different method of attachement for sleep and to help them understand that their parent will always come for them when they need them. It also teaches parent to understand the difference between need and want. It was hard work for 7 nights and then it was done.
can’t recommend it enough!

This. Mine was so much better after I sleep trained at 8 months. Started sleeping about 5 more hours a day? Given sleep is so important for development I'm glad I did it. Sleep needs the whole routine, so also naps at the right time to enable proper sleep at night. Part of it is also gauging the cries, so if it's more grizzling or actual distress (in which case you wouldn't leave them to cry). I used a version of the Ferber method and only left my baby to cry for 3 min maximum. I'm a huge advocate for it. I also don't think it's helpful to co-sleep as this seems to create a dependency but each to their own

@NeverDropYourMooncup baby has been prescribed Aptamil Pepti 1 but because she does still gain weight (although on the smaller side but she was born three weeks early) no one seems to take the other symptoms serious because they're just concerned as to if she's gaining weight or not. The fact she cries for hours every day, has explosive poops, has pain when passing wind, is restless, has bad reflux issues all goes out the window. I always get the 'ah first time mum - yep, babies cry, they'll grow out of it' although she's on the Pepti 1 - I don't see that much of a difference to be honest.

Pretty much same here

I’m also in the camp that not having a proper sleep routine negatively impacts a child far more than a short period of time following a plan to encourage decent quality sleep. Sleep training isn’t leave baby to cry for hours with no one coming.

I wonder about this too. Of course there have always been parents that just don't bother and let their kids do whatever, but I see a lot of families now just let their kids play or watch tv till they fall asleep in a heap or on the couch. At 10 or 11, waking up with the sunlight. These are sort of average families who would have had kids on a routine 30 years ago, sleeping 10 hours a night.

It has to affect the kids, I really wonder if it's implicated in the attention disorders that seem so prevalent now.

When you have young children VERY close in age and no other help available to appease the other kids crying, you have no choice BUT to "sleep train" ie leave one to cry whilst you dash to the other to rock them for a while etc, then dash to another etc. One is inevitably left to cry. Mine are all fine shrug.

@user666555 ask away op. I absolutely know what you're going through. With my older one and being a first time mum, we were just out of our depth and figured out the issues long after bad habits set in. My ds just became a very clingy child because that's all he knew. We carried and rocked him to sleep because that was the only thing that comforted him. So it was just a vicious cycle. We did try sleep training when he was over 1 but we gave up after the first night because we thought we were distressing him. But then again, that's all he knew so off course he would be distressed and we did not persevere.

My dd on the hand is 14m old now and we recognised her cmpa, colic and reflux immediately. And again we were given the usual run around about babies crying and wait and see. But we went the private route and got her on the right stuff immediately. She was on Neocate, with Omeprazole, Carobel thickener and BioGaia probiotic. This helped settle her so much.
The very next thing we tackled was her sleep because we recognised the bad habit from my DS. So at around 10m we sleep trained and we did the best thing ever for us but mostly her.

Tonight for example, she is teething and yet I lay her down in her cot and left the room and she took 20min to fall off to sleep. In that time she just rolled around playing with her comforter and eventually slept. In the very same 20min I lay with my 7yo till he goes off to sleep. He will at least sleep in his room for the night but has that intense sleep association of needing dh or I there to fall off to sleep while a baby puts herself to sleep.

My anecdotal experience with twins was that babies can be over stimulated by the soothing techniques. they lie quietly while you’re holding or stroking them because they like it, but it doesn’t necessarily help them actually get to sleep.

I discovered this when, with two crying babies, who I initially tried to juggle soothing, one day I decided I just needed to concentrate on getting one down and when he was asleep I would try the other. The one I was leaving fell asleep long before the one I was soothing. I tried for several days with different twins being left. It was always the one not being soothed who went to sleep first.

For non-anecdotal research, there appears to be no difference in outcomes (including in parent-child relationships) between children who underwent gentle sleep-training methods and children who were not sleep trained at all (see: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/130/4/643/30241/Five-Year-Follow-up-of-Harms-and-Benefits-of ).
And in another study, researchers found no difference in attachment between parents who left their children to cry more those who left their children to cry less: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/mar/11/leaving-babies-to-cry-does-no-harm-study-finds (Sorry, can’t find a link to the actual paper quickly, though I’ve read it in the past so it’s on line somewhere) I believe this study has come in for some criticism about the conclusions it has drawn on the strength of the data - i.e. that the data says what it says but isn’t sufficiently robust to draw strong conclusions. The inference being that concluding that babies aren’t hurt by cryin is a strong conclusion because theories suggest they should be. However, it seems odd to me that those criticisms aren’t more concerned about the lack of hard data supporting theory that is heavily relied on within the discipline, which makes such support for such theory seem more like an ideological rather than scientific stance.

Imo it's cruel not to teach a baby to settle themselves, if they're awake multiple times every night and likely not napping properly either. Good sleep is so vital for their development. Plus their days are miserable when they're tired.

I honestly think it's a really important part of a parent's job to help them get the best sleep possible, actively trying to improve things for them rather than just passively waiting for months or years. I find it a bit odd when parents who are very concerned about what their DC eats or how much telly they watch don't do anything about their sleep when it's so important for their development and health.

(I had one who needed sleep training and one who didn't. I think it's the luck of the draw.)

Excellent point. And you are right that all with siblings can be thought of as having trauma to some extent 😂 It’s part of the reason it is recommended to space your children out; that advice isn’t just to give a birthing persons body time to recover.

Imo it's cruel not to teach a baby to settle themselves, if they're awake multiple times every night and likely not napping properly either. Good sleep is so vital for their development. Plus their days are miserable when they're tired.

X100!

My dd changed massively once she started getting good sleep. She was calmer, able to play independently, just a happier baby all round. She's 14mo and will now go bring her comforter to me and take my hand and walk to her room when she needs to nap! My 2 cannot be more different.

Now maybe all these short bursts of time when I can’t or haven’t consoled them might cause attachment issues.

Attachment isn’t about being permanently attached to your child, the child needs to know care givers leave and come back again - or they don’t develop an internal sense of you which is fundamentally what attachment is. It’s about consistency of response - if the care giver consistently responds and is attuned to the child’s needs they develop a secure attachment style. Rupture and repair is part of that process ie “mummy couldn’t stop the car to comfort you, but she can comfort you now”.

My friends friend did controlled crying (so not even cry it out) and thought it had worked great. Then one morning they found toddler ds sat in his own vomit. It was very much dried in and looked hours old. He had been sick in the night and was just sitting in it waiting for the sun to come up because he didn't see any point in crying in the night.

Absolutely heartbreaking and in a typical uk home so no Romanian orphanage arguments needed to argue about how cruel sleep training is.

Of course critics of this story will argue it doesn't apply to their^^ child, their child is fine blah blah blah. But there is always the RISK the child will be damaged and for me personally that's a risk I could never take with my own children. They know if they need me I am always there.

Do you have more than one? Reality is by the time 2nd arrives you sometimes have to leave baby safe but crying for a minute or two while you tend to a toddler who needs washed / changed / has a death wish.

Children constantly learn. Learning not to cry as no one is coming would mean they would never cry out (apart from sudden pain) again, which I have never heard of. It’s like saying they never learn to feed themselves as you feed them, or they learn to only poo in their nappy. They are constantly developing, if learning was static as a baby, it would be a very different vision of humanity. Obviously neglect is completely different as that is built up over years, but teaching a baby to self soothe whilst otherwise being a loving present parent, I can’t see making any long term impact.

All those who could never leave to cry for one second - what do you do when you are on the motorway and there is nowhere to stop safely and pull over? I think everyone has left their child to cry for a bit.

@Wictc one-offs obviously are not the same as systematic, planned, deliberate occasions taking place regularly. Like with anything in parenting. I give my kids biscuits / crap sometimes and nothing terrible happens but if I did that every day they'd probably have tooth decay.

It’s all about context and how you do it. So it absolutely is that the baby learns there is no point crying and eventually sleeps. I don’t believe it’s ‘learning to self sooth’ I think it’s ‘giving up’. It’s extinguishing a ‘behaviour’ but at that stage the behaviour is actually and expression of need. It’s not great for attachment but whether it’s damaging for the attachment depends on two things;

1. how it’s done. Gentle and graded is better for their sense of security. Leaving them cold turkey until they are sick is the worst and not advisable.
2. the wider context. If the needs are met sensitively most of the time and it’s not an otherwise neglectful relationship then it’s not going to much damage to the sense of security.

I personally didn’t because I could cope with the lack of sleep and wanted to prioritise the bond. If I’d been a single parent, struggling with sleep deprivation, needing to work and at my wits end so not being so attuned at other times then I would have considered it.

Each family is unique and as long as it’s not part of a wider pattern of ignoring emotional needs it’s not going to do damage. It does challenge the attachment bond though. No doubt in my mind about that. It’s just about degree.