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.

Not exactly sleep training - but I had a baby who cried constantly. And I genuinely mean when they were awake they were crying. They slept for 30 minute intervals overnight & during the day it was about 10 minutes if I was lucky. I was on my own as her dad worked abroad until she was 6 and only come back 4 days a month. I had quite significant PND & had to let her cry to go for a shower/eat etc. I was a mess. I sometimes used to put earphones in when out with her in the pram/tidying with her in the sling because I couldn't listen to the crying anymore. There were times when I realised why people shake their babies & if I hadn't left her to cry I would have lost it. I think people who respond to their babies with only care and love are very fortunate to be in the position that their babies aren't crying 24/7. Anyway, the point of this is that we turned a corner at about 8months old & our bond hasn't been affected whatsoever. My DD is now a pre teen & we are very close, she is confident, social, outgoing, clever & kind. In no way has our bumpy start affected her until now. I don't know if it will lead to problems when she is older but we did what was necessary to survive at the time.

"Just like humans"

That's the thing, sleep training is such a broad term.

I used aspects of Gina Ford and the Baby Whisperer for my DS who is 1 since birth. I've never used controlled crying such as Ferber but I did use the pick up/put down method (way before 6 months) to teach him how to self settle and I've always encouraged a strict routine.

That's sleep training to me but people generally seem to think it is always the likes of Ferber.

We did gentle sleep training with DD at 11 months. No leaving her alone when she cried but we stopped rocking or feeding her to sleep and patted her back instead. She really didn’t like it but at 3 she’s a great sleeper.

Her little brother is 12 months and still co sleeping. We will try the same with him when we have a time when both DH and I are less exhausted.

I have no idea if there are long term negative effects. I think the answer is no, DD is a happy little girl who loves us, but (a) it’s too early to tell and (b) you’ll never know whether a negative thing later is an effect of sleep training, one of the thousands of other parenting decisions you’ve made or nothing to do with you.

😂

That was me 😂

I suppose I should have said “just like adults….”

I promise I gave birth to human babies 😂

Once upon a bedtime has links to some papers.
The thing about them just learning their cries won't get a response is nonsense. My kids have been sleep trained and they still woke up and cried after sleep training when there was something wrong that needed attention (eg dirty nappy). It just put a stop to all the endless wakeups that arose from the feeding to sleep association.

I think it depends on the child to be honest. I have friends who sleep trained and their kids were fine, got it in 2-3 days and that was it. Others had to "re train" after every illness, holiday etc.

I regret doing it with mine. It didn't work - we read the book, did it all properly, were consistent with it all. But he's a sensitive kid, he never soothed he just screamed and became scared of going up to his room so we stopped and carried on feeding, rocking, cuddling to sleep.

He's 4 now and has recently started sleeping really well after falling asleep with a story.

Some of the friends who sleep trained as babies are now struggling with 4 year olds who are hyper or kicking off at bed time and they're struggling because they're suddenly having to be in their room again to help them settle down.

I think it's all down to the individual.

Ds1 had 3 nights of sleep training, he fell asleep after 20 mins the first night, 15ish, the 2nd and in under 10 the 3rd night. If it had been any longer the first night than 20/30 minutes we might not have continued. Dh and i were sat on the stairs crying

up until then he had been sleeping in our bed for a year (king size, dh slept in the floor 😀) and we really needed him in his own bed

he was certainly as attached as any other two children who didn’t have sleep training

With controlled crying you DO attend to their distress, you just have periods of time waiting to attend to them. The whole idea is that they learn that you will come back.

There are myriad reasons why babies are not immediately tended to during any instance of crying day or night. Siblings that need attention, showers needing to be taken, cooking dinner, pet broken a vase, <insert thing that needs taking care of here>. How do you think twins cope when the solo parent has another newborn to attend to at all times of the day and night?

My dc is same era and it was Gina Ford/Baby whisperer. I wouldn’t say I sleep trained my dd and I certainly didn’t leave her to cry but it was all about establishing a feeding and nap/sleep routine so she thrived.
It never reached omg baby won’t sleep I need to sleep train stage.
Sleep does get overlooked, it’s essential to good health and baby’s development.

That's quite a leap! The toddler may have been sick in their sleep and just carried on sleeping then sat up when they woke up.

There are plenty of posters on here (myself included) whose children have been sleep trained and will always call us when they are ill or need us for some reason.

I was utterly broken when my 12 month old continued to wake every hour to be fed back to sleep. She was also incredibly sleep deprived. I look back at photos of her and she looked so tired bless her. We were both much happier once we started to get a full night's sleep.

Just my experience but I honestly wish I had never discovered heysleepybaby. She is so judgemental about sleep training and I was in absolute fear of doing it with my second because she convinced me I would permanently damage my child. I was at absolute rock bottom until logic (and desperation) told me that I had sleep trained my first child and he was absolutely fine so it was okay to do it again. I have noticed that the sleep training accounts I follow don't criticise people who choose not to sleep train but the anti-sleep training brigade are on some sort of a crusade to convince everyone that it's child abuse. I would spend nights crying because those accounts convinced me I had damaged my first and kept me from sleep training my second. Also, nothing that heysleepbaby suggests resulted in ANY improved sleep for me and my baby (I tried it all!).

I totally agree. Mine is 15 months and only sleeps through the night maybe twice a month. The rest of the time, she can wake up anywhere between 2 and 10 times a night. We tried The Ferber method for 3 nights but it just made her even more upset and she became hysterical even just going near her bedroom, so we had to scrap that.
She is a very strong character with a huge vocabulary and can express her wants and opinions very well. I don’t see how we can get out of this cycle with any form of ‘training’ until she is old enough to understand verbal explanations as to why she can’t keep doing this. There is no way she would do half the suggestions on here, such as lying down and being soothed until she drops off.
A while ago, we were able to wean her off the night feeds and being fed to sleep by having only DH attend to her. We thought she would soon realise there is no gain to waking up, but alas no. The rocking to sleep we could handle, as long as the rest of the night was unbroken, but no such luck. And owing to winter illness and molars cutting through for the last two months, she is back to requiring breastfeeds and wakes up the rest of DC by shrieking for it!

She is a very strong character with a huge vocabulary and can express her wants and opinions very well.

That’s remarkable for a 15 month old.

Very interesting. It seems to always be unfairly understood as a zero-sum question: you either sleep trained your baby, or you were a good mother who attended to the needs of your baby. I fed and changed my newborn just as she was stirring throughout the night, so I avoided her really properly waking up. After a few weeks this became a routine, so I was able to pre-empt her needs even more fully, which turned into dream feeds on a schedule. As a result, she was sleeping through the night by 8 weeks old - still being fed, of course. Not sure if that’s classed as ‘sleep training’, as it doesn’t fit the ‘cry it out’ narrative, but it sure did train her to stay asleep. After a while she rejected the night feeds, one at a time, and by a few months old was satisfied with a last dream feed at 10pm. By six months she’d rejected this too.

@Naptrappedmummy It really is. One of my other DC was the same. She has at least 100 words that she uses consistently and in an appropriate context. But she can’t even pull up to stand yet — my DC seem to develop this part of the brain before their gross motor skills.
Having said that, it definitely doesn’t make for an easy time raising them 😂

Also just want to add that I have parented this baby the same as my other 2 DC, yet the others slept through by approximately 6 months. Half the time I beat myself up by wondering what I’m doing wrong, and the other half I convince myself it’s just her nature to resist any form of structure.

Mine is the same age and is the opposite! He has a handful of words but runs all over the place. 😅It's funny how so different they can be at the same age.

Thanks everyone for your experiences. I think the general idea is that if you're there for your child generally and decide to sleep train to help the child (and yourself) then it can actually be quite a good thing.

In terms of my DD I've got an appointment booked for her to see the GP on Thursday. I believe that her CMPA issue needs addressing before I can do anything with her sleep (obviously not sleep training at the moment, but even a routine kind of fails because of her symptoms and I think she has random flare ups?!) Annoyingly, apparently a paediatrician has to prescribe Neocate so I don't think the GP can do much as she's already had Gaviscon (for her reflux issues) and she's currently on Omeperazole.

Did anyone's LO have very short naps? Like 30 mins maximum? Ive read that poor day sleep results in difficult night sleep too. How can I help her sleep better during the day? Again, is this a result of her being uncomfortable from the CMPA symptoms?

Thanks,

OP, I really feel for you. I don’t have any experience with CMPA, but my DD did 30 min naps max for a long time. It would take longer to rock her to sleep than her actual nap lasted. A few weeks ago I started doing only one nap; it took a few days for her to get used to staying awake longer, but it meant that the rocking was much shorter and the nap longer as she was more tired.
Since each day varies wildly in terms of how early she will choose to wake up for the day and how long the nap is, some days she still needs a short second nap, but on the whole we have a bit of a longer stretch.
I also got DH (who WFH) to rock her back to sleep when she woke after a very short time, instead of just taking her out of her cot and assuming she was done. Eventually she started staying asleep for longer.

Often the reasons for disturbed night sleep are the same as the reasons for short naps. I think the idea that short naps massively impact night time sleep is probably overstated. It's all a bit of a vicious cycle and if there is something underlying like CMPA then that will affect daytime and night time.
Incidentally my LO would only do 30 minute naps before she was sleep trained. As soon as she stirred, she was up because she wasn't linking sleep cycles.

I've read the whole thread and it seems that 95% of responses are from people who sleep trained, so I'm not quite sure it's a balanced view.

I think PPs recommending sorting your baby's tummy issues are 100% correct, as no one sleeps well with a sore tummy! So any sort of sleep training before she's comfortable would be pointless.

Sleep training has been such a big business for a long time. I think many take advantage of exhausted, desperate parents. The strictness that some imply is necessary is crazy to me - "wake windows" and the pressure to get your baby to that mysterious sweet spot so they're ready to go to sleep (oops! Sorry! You overstimulated your baby! Now she's overtired!). It's enough to send anyone mad. What are the qualifications required for a "sleep consultant" by the way?

Personally, I don't see sleep as something that I can "teach" my baby to do. It's something that they do when they're developmentally ready and that's different for every single baby. There's no "walking consultants" offering their fool-proof method to get your baby on their feet in just 3 days ("my baby was so much happier once she could move around independently!").

For the PP who mentioned that we wouldn't have got on very well "as a species" if babies couldn't be left to cry for a while, I really don't think our ancestors would have required Ferber. They kept their babies with them, and they surely weren't being put to sleep in the next cave.

I think work habits have a lot to answer for. You have to work to get paid, you have to be somewhat alert in order to do your work, so baby must let you get the sleep you need. And if you're at home, I think the vast majority no longer have that village around them that would let them catch up on sleep. You're required to do it all alone.

It's obviously an emotive subject for lots of people. Everyone wants the best for their baby!

When I think about sleep training, I just imagine myself crying because I'd had a bad dream or perhaps I was struggling to get back to sleep. Would I want my husband to come in, pat and shush me without making eye contact then go out? I don't think I'd feel very comforted by that.

This is an odd analogy. Actually adults wouldn’t do at all well with someone trying to get them to sleep. If I have a bad dream I need a bit of sympathy and then to be left alone.

But actually I don’t think we need to reason based on what science says or cavemen did. I think we can trust our own judgement about what the baby and the rest of the family need. That’s key imo- the baby is hugely important, particularly early on, but is not the only member of the family with needs.

I completely disagree about sleeping not being a skill. Perhaps more accurately it is a habit. Everyone needs to learn good sleep habits. I know plenty of adults without them. But obviously all children learn at different rates and need varying levels of support to learn to sleep.

@MrsFernsby I partly agree with you that working has an impact but that's true of lots of parenting decisions and approaches. Also, I chose to sleep train on mat leave because my mental health was so severely impacted. Catching up on sleep during the day would have made little difference. What I required was a long stint of consecutive hours of sleep.

Sleep deprivation is used as torture. It is a fundamental human need. Months and months of broken sleep made me feel like a shell of myself. I was the opposite of a responsive mother because I was so depressed and I had stopped feeling anything. I often feel like a failure because other mothers just put up with it and still manage to be good mothers.

I don't think anyone should sleep train if they don't want to but I really feel so sad that others are made to feel like they are damaging their children if they do.

There is also no need to spend money on sleep consultants. There is plenty of free information on how to approach sleep training online.

I will stop posting now as I am taking up too much of this thread. I guess it all just takes me back to a period where I felt very, very low.

I have sleep trained both of mine, but you can't tell whether a person will have attachment issues when they're a child, so anecdotes about 6 year olds are pointless. It's the adult that they become that you want to keep an eye on