Why doesn’t everyone sleep train?

[Goldstar88]

I know there’s always debate about the pros and cons of sleep training. I personally haven’t with my 13 month old (and they do still wake 1-2 times but sometimes sleep through). I often have friends telling me I just need to sleep train. My DC self settles, even in the night after a feed, so I have never thought it that necessary, albeit I’d like to have a reliable solid night’s sleep (wouldn’t everyone!).

I’m genuinely intrigued as to why if sleep training is the silver bullet it is touted to be by sleep experts and lots of parents, why doesn’t everyone do it? Surely it would be taught by every midwife etc and no one would ever face sleep deprivation after the newborn stage?

Am I, and lots of other parents, just being naive and missing out, making it hard for ourselves?

To be clear, I really don’t like the idea of leaving my DC to cry and I’m holding on to the hope they will eventually just sleep through as they get older…!

Structuring daytime naps (weirdly, the better they sleep in the day the better they seem to sleep at night) and cluster feeding in the early evening, ideally at both 5 and 7pm.

Full tummy = a good night’s sleep in my experience.

Oh, and I also believe the mythical ‘sleep regression’ at four months is often because they’re hungry and need more than breast milk.

Exactly.

Routine, routine, routine for me and putting baby down awake when possible. It meant that I only had to do some gentle sleep training to encourage self settling rather than having to break several bad habits.

Yes, definitely always put baby down awake. This makes so much sense to me - it must be so disorienting for them to come into a lighter sleep and not remember where they are.

I also put them down for all daytime naps in their cot. They loved it and soon learnt that cot = sleep.

we sleep trained 15 years ago and 19 years ago. It was fine and short lived.

I think guilt gets the better of too many parents to their own detriment tbh

Same here. Good naps = good night sleep in our case.

This thread is mad isn’t it:

poster 1: ‘yes we sleep trained using shush and pat method, very gentle, no crying and only took a few nights. Adult children are now perfectly well adjusted.’

poster 2: ‘omg I can’t believe you tortured your baby by leaving it for hours to cry alone in it’s cot until it vomits, leaving it forever traumatised and unable to form bonds as an adult!’

People are being ridiculous over things that literally no one is saying that they are doing or indeed that almost no one ever does outside of seriously neglectful parenting! Get a grip people, sleep train or don’t, neither makes you a better parent than someone else or means you love your kids more.

(I didn’t sleep train btw)

*edited for spelling

Treating the causes of poor sleep.
My daughters sleep goes horrendous when her reflux isn't adequately treated or if she has been exposed to her allergens. If she gets a cold her reflux kicks up if she's been upset before bed she reflux is worse. It's such a delicate balance. She's 4 and can have a month of sleeping through every night but at the same time can wake hourly because of reflux/allergies/illness

Her sleep going bad is often the first sign of illness. We had a night recently where she was up 9 times. She didn't complain of being ill but she was sent home from school ill by 11 having been sick twice.

Those of you who devoted most of the evening to peaceful baths and hair wash, books then stories (then eyelid stroking) then lying next to little one until they've fallen asleep - did you have other children? Did you live on takeaways? Did you never have a babysitter and go out? One mum on here carried on until child was '8/9' (years presumably).

Makes me think of my mother in law "in my day they were on rice pudding at 12 weeks old and it did them no harm" 😂

Planning on sleep training DS soon - he is nearly 2 and still wakes me multiple times a night. By sleep training we don't plan on leaving him to cry, he can be comforted but we're stopping the breastfeeding. I'm still expecting it to be hell but I'm starting to really struggle with the nights now, and I think it's affecting me at work. I think sleep training is more training them to not need milk in the night?

I weaned DS off the breast with the never offer never refuse method.

It really helped for night weaning and eventually he self weaned during the day too.

The four months regression is the only regression based in scientific fact. It's to do with a change in how they produce melatonin post birth.

It's nothing to do with hunger.

None of mine ever went through the 4 month sleep regression.

That doesn't mean that the change in melatonin production didn't happen though. Only that it produced no significant effect on your baby's sleep.

The four month regression was huge for my baby - he was on one wake before it, and several long naps in the day, happy sleeping anywhere. Then up on the dot every two hours through the night and 30m naps only until he settled down again. Others had it worse.

None of the other "regressions" happened for us, though we have had the odd up and down.

I haven't experienced any regressions with mine so far. Once they started sleeping through, that was that except for things such as illness or teething.

I do think a lot is made of regressions by people peddling sleep training, to explain the natural variations in baby sleep because of illness etc, to sell a solution.

Whilst my son was badly affected by the change in melatonin production, I can't say that he ever regressed. Changes in night sleep were usually due to his day sleep needs changing.

Hmmm. Try increasing their feeds during the day or giving them some solids and see if it still happens…

My baby is 15m old, but that doesn't mean that the science changes. And my baby was fed on demand.

Honestly, I didn't fancy extinction myself but for some babies check ins ala Ferber actually cause more distress, and the evidence says they're equally effective, so it's down to what the parent feels they would do best with. I loved Ferber as it was reassuring to be able to continue going in and letting my baby know I was there and loved them and it was time to sleep, but if it was making things worse I can see why parents go for extinction. Probably works quicker in some cases with less crying!

Your story is exactly why I will always talk about our experience with sleep training and recommend it, you might get a few aggro commenters who don't agree with it (absolutely fine, don't do it then, see how things go) but I strongly believe new parents deserve to know their options when dealing with terrible sleep. It was a revelation to me to find there were things I could proactively do once our baby was 6m. Everyone I knew had just told me 'stick it out, it gets better at some point' when I felt like I couldn't survive another night. The people that judged tended to have babies that woke a few times per night for 10m a time, which would have been heaven for us. Our kid couldn't sleep longer than 45m for six months. It was such a relief to find that sleep training is effective and safe with no evidence of any long term deleterious effects. One of the best things we've ever done for our child. I am so, so glad we did it. I rarely talk about our kid's sleep pattern now at 5yr as I don't want to cause other parents to feel bad!