to sleep train my baby?

[chickpea1982]

Ok, so I'm only partly asking if AIBU, more posted here for attention!

I have a nearly 8 month old baby, breastfed, who co-sleeps with me at night. During the day she usually sleeps in her pram, or in her car seat if we are out. Sometimes in my bed. Other than when she falls asleep in the car, she is almost always breastfed to sleep.

At night she will sometimes wake a couple of times, have a feed, and go back to sleep. But sometimes she will wake constantly, need feeding/cuddling to go back to sleep, and I end up barely getting any sleep myself as a result. My husband has been sleeping in the spare room since she was born as we can't all comfortably sleep in the bed together.

The thing is, I'm going back to work in a week, and my husband is taking over parental leave. He needs to be able to get her to sleep without feeding her. I also need to get better sleep at night so I can be on the ball for work. We also can't keep putting her to sleep in her pram - as she gets more mobile it won't be safe without strapping her in (which risks waking her up). She has a cot in our room which she has pretty much never used!

I'd like to get her sleeping in her cot, both for naps and at night, and to be able to sleep at night without needing cuddling, so I'm thinking about trying sleep training. I really can't bear her crying so I'm finding this quite daunting. I think maybe I could cope with some controlled crying, as long as it didn't last too long and I had the option to pick her up and comfort her. There are so many different methods out there, I'm just so confused about how best to go about it.

Does anyone have any experience to share of sleep training and how it worked for you? Or AIBU for even thinking of sleep training?!

Could you try gentle methods first? It seems unnecessary to jump straight to any sort of controlled crying before trying other options.

one of the main things they recommend is having the partner do some settling without feeding so worth a try just with that. I know every baby is different but we did a gradual approach so first try rocking to sleep if baby is usually fed to sleep (helps if someone other than the mum does this) then putting them down. Then working layering something else like patting and shushing, then move to holding still to sleep with the shhhing and patting. Then work on putting them down earlier and earlier so almost asleep in your arms put down and continue shushing and patting until asleep. All so they can self settle.

also, my baby I was feeding back to sleep every single time she woke and it turns out she was full and uncomfortable and they feed as they think that will make them feel better! One night I just had my husband do the first settle without feeding (she woke up an hour after her bottle so I knew she wasn’t hungry) and she slept for 6 hours immediately!!

there are many things to try before any intense sleep training I think.

No, you can't definitively say that it causes no harm - so yes, perhaps I took a parenting decision that will contribute to future anxiety. The thing is, that's true of almost anything you do, day in and day out. All of us, no matter how much we try, will make some wrong calls and all our children - like every other human who has walked the planet - will have some hang-ups and weaknesses they can trace back to their childhood. Maybe that'll be sleep training - though, frankly, it seems unlikely. As noted, mine are only 5 and 3 now and it still already seems bizarre to me now that there is so much angst about this (even as I remember agonising it over myself) - it's so ludicrous to imagine that a few nights when they were babies would have shaped their character permanently and definingly either way.

But anyway, one very, very clearly proven risk factor for poor mental health in children is poor mental mental health, so ultimately the healthiest gift you can give your children is probably to not worry too much either way about small parenting decisions in the context of a loving, caring childhood. I absolutely don't think sleep training is necessary (I don't believe babies 'need') to learn to sleep but I also think that it can make the whole family happier and more functional in some circumstances and I'm perfectly happy weighing that up against an unproven, purely notional risk.

Please read about the realities of sleep training. There are many “sleep training” consultants (with zero qualifications I might add) who will tell you it’s “gentle” etc, but it’s really not. Sleep training does not “teach” a baby to sleep, as sleep is not a skill that can be taught. Instead, it is teaching your child not to cry out. This is a behavioural manipulation technique called extinction training. All of the underlying needs of your child are still there. They are simply taught not to cry out for you, as you won’t come and help them. Infant distress and raised cortisol levels also destroy neural pathways linked to their attachment to you.

Please do not listen to the scaremongering you will hear throughout your parenting journey. I gave my child milk until she was 3 and I also co-slept until a similar age. She grew out of it herself naturally. It DOES end, despite what others will tell you (mostly out of guilt as they try to convince themselves they “had to” sleep train theirs - they didn’t).

Sleep training is harmful. Your child is sooo young. Please do not even consider this.

Do it. You will be a better parent if you’ve had sufficient sleep. “It doesn’t last for ever” …well it can feel like it, my 8 year old would have me in his bed every night if I agreed. I don’t! Your baby will be fine. I have no anxiety or attachment issues nor do my 3 siblings we were all left in a pram for our naps. Crying or not. Nothing wrong with getting your baby in a routine and used to sleeping which is one of the most important things we need to learn to do. Sleep! I’ve seen so many tired grumpy babies who have awful sleep routines due to their parents thinking they need stuck on a breast every time they so much as squeak. I breastfed with a routine and babies were happy and easy to deal with, I knew when they were hungry and when they were tired. Babies need taught….they can’t lead the way they haven’t learnt yet!

This is so true. My child was born in the 90’s and we sleep trained her. We started letting her cry for 30 seconds then went to her and soothed her. Eventually she started sleeping through. I know more modern mothers would be horrified and probably crucify me, but it was what was advised at the time. We never left her to cry for any length of time without going to her. She didn’t sleep through fully until she was about twelve weeks old then there was the usual sleep regressions as she got older.

Im glad I’m not raising a tiny baby in this day and age of social media. There’s so much judgement and comparison and so many “experts” telling others they are doing wrong.

Sorry but she isn’t waking “for” the bottle, she’s waking for you to “give” her the bottle. It’s habit, she may be drinking the whole bottle but it’s for comfort not being hungry. Try giving more food in the day and reducing the bottles at night, she’s waking up due to habit.

@S251

’Sorry’ but you are just incorrect. I am not a first time mother, this is my second baby, my first slept through the night from 6 weeks. I too was very pious and smug with my advice, and thought everyone else whose babies didn’t sleep through must be doing something incorrect. Despite doing the exact same thing the second time round (routine, distinguishing between night and day, weaning etc), my daughter does not sleep through. I now look back and cringe as I’ve realised every baby is different, a lot of the time it is just luck (with some contributing factors of course).

I’ve tried giving my baby more food and bottles during the day. She either doesn’t accept it (not hungry) or worse, she has vomited it up when I’ve tried to insist she eats it. Her stomach clearly cannot handle the volume of food. She drains entire 7oz bottles throughout the night, that isn’t ’habit’ or ‘comfort’ she’s clearly hungry as, try as I may, she will not take those calories during the day.

Yes, I realise that some babies are a lot more difficult and perfectly prepared to concede the method might not work for some babies. Larger babies, I mean ones born a bit on the larger side, are probably easier as well as they can physically take on more milk. Both mine were really slow feeders and if you gave them that extra 5 ml they turned into projectile vomiters which meant a huge clean up and then they were hungry again because they had empty stomachs. One of my friends tried giving my child a bottle and she told me afterwards it was nothing like feeding the orphaned lambs on the farm!

You’re wrong. We always gave milk if our daughter woke up - even at 2. She grew out of it without any intervention at all. To say that babies/children wake for milk as a “habit” assumes that people have the power to control when they wake up. They don’t.

Really not. Your baby wakes up, rather than try and soothe the baby you give milk. Then the next night the baby wakes up the same time if not more through the night for more milk. Hence you have now created that habit.

It’s interesting to read this thread..

Those who have successfully sleep trained appear to be in unanimous agreement that sleep training has changed their lives for the better. They believe sleep training made them happier, more present parents with the pro of parent and child being well rested.

Those who refuse to sleep train haven’t slept a wink in years with DH shunted to the spare room. All in the belief that if you don’t want to live in this form of purgatory it must be because you’re a bad parent.. based on literally no evidence?

Pick your poison OP, I know which one I chose 😅.

Again, you are assuming that humans have the ability to control when they wake. They don’t. Also, if I created “a habit”, why doesn’t she wake for it now? You’re just wrong.

We all have a circadian rhythm that regulate our sleep patterns, our routines can effect this e.g drinking coffee or alcohol late at night can impact our routine. I think that is what @S251 is driving at. The milk becomes a routine and signals your DCs body clock to wake.

Ok. Again then, why has she stopped doing this at 3.5? Also, why did she do it some nights but not others? If what you say is true, she would’ve woken at the same time every night, but she didn’t. Can you explain any of that?

Ultimately though, I don’t care why she did it. It didn’t bother me. My baby had a need and so I met it. I’m not driven by what’s a “bad habit”. That’s just scaremongering based on old fashioned beliefs about parenting, that lazy parents use as they don’t want to get up in the night.

I refused to sleep train and instead co-slept from halfway through the night. We all slept amazingly. Got way more sleep than any of my friends who were spending the night trying to get their babies to sleep in their own room/sleep train 😂

Oh dear, I am glad you find being a parent so easy and not sleeping for 3.5 years a breeze, but I’d like to argue that stuffing your DC with milk to get her back to bed quickly instead of soothing her back to sleep may be considered, lazy parenting 😉

I see you can’t answer any of my questions…(because you are wrong 😂)

As I’ve said above, we co-slept and all got way more sleep than a lot of parents we know who were trying (and failing) to get their kids to stay in their own room/sleep train. It’s a myth that those who don’t sleep train don’t get any sleep. We are just more caring parents who care about our child’s emotional health 😊

Edited to add: I don’t think you soothed your child back to sleep either. You sleep trained!

Exactly this

We had a horrendous sleep regression with my daughter at 8 months and after 4 weeks of being awake all night while working full time we got a night nurse for a long weekend. It was lifechanging. She sleep trained our baby for us. She did it gently, i.e. didn't leave her to cry it out for more than x minutes. She would gently pat her to reassure her etc. She made adjustments to the placement and volume of our white noise machine etc. I will say that our daughter could absolutley go through the night by 8 months, and fussed ever so slightly on night one, and by night two was self soothing, night 3 onwards she was set. We were told by all the sleep trainers we looked at that your child has to be 14lbs and 4 months to begin the process (both, not just one). Research gentle sleep training methods, and there is a book bringing up bebe about how the French sleep train their babies that I found helpful. Ultimately if you want your child to go through the night you might have a little crying, but it doesn't have to be brutal, there is a middle ground. You have to do what is right for you, and for your family, and i'm sorry because this is MN you're probably going to get a lot of criticism for not immediately soothing your child. One final tip I received was to use a night nappy that is one size up from that you would use regularly so that if they have drunk a lot/peed it won't bother them as easily. I hope you are well rested soon!x

Ok, let me try and explain this a different way. Your DD likely self weaned at 3.5, but she would of been capable of learning the skill years prior to this. Would you let your child piss herself in nappies until she is 5 and decides to self potty train? Or would you as the adult with the fully developed brain, recognise that she is capable of learning this skill before then?

You’re right, I did sleep train.. by gently soothing her back to sleep in 3 minute intervals, rather than just stuffing her with calories so I could get back to sleep.

I genuinley worry for your child’s emotional resilience long term if you think settling her without milk her at 3.5 years old is going to damage her emotional heath, good luck 🤣.

Cringing for you

Genuinely would like someone to explain how my first child slept through from 6 weeks, but my second child (using the same ‘sleep training’ techniques) doesn’t. My current 7 month old is waking for full bottles in the night, and physically won’t take that milk / solid food during the day, how exactly do I wean her off waking to feed? I have tried to fill her up during the day, offering bottles frequently, also solid food (to the extent she has vomited when I’ve tried to be insistent with it). Her body physically cannot take all of the calories she needs in the 12 hours she is awake. So, what should I do?

Very intrigued as to how the martyr/superior parent attitude will hold up at the school gates 🤭

Hi! Perhaps if you feel she is not physically able to take the calories in during the day and she still needs them at night, it’s just too early for night weaning? Solidarity Samba, it’s tough. Perhaps just a few more months of survival mode and you can try to reduce her bottles by an oz each night?