You cio or your child wakes up forever

[Newsenmum]

Posting for traffic and a wide range of views. Never sleep trained my six year old. Hell and sleep deprivation for many, many years. He still needs cuddling to sleep and is in my bed the second he wakes. There are sen needs so maybe that’s part of it but loads of separation anxiety, despite me doing everything possible to stop that!
Nearly two year old needs feeding, cuddling to sleep. Wakes every hour when sees Im not there. Tried comforting her in cot, being there but shushing and other methods but just really upsets her.

I guess my question is, how on earth do you all do it? Every thread I see goes on and on about how demonic it is to let your child cry. What do you do then? Genuinely?

Personally I found two nights of controlled crying to be overall far less distressing for my DD than ongoing sleeplessness and upset. The alternative was in and out of bed and usually ended up with crying anyway until she eventually exhausted herself and fell asleep. I also think the ability to sleep well is a really important skill for your whole life, not just during early childhood.

People say it's "demonic" to let your child cry but don't acknowledge it's "demonic" to not provide your child with the ability to sleep healthily.

If a child wanted ice cream for dinner every night and cried until they got it, would those people say it's "demonic" to let them cry? No.

There's a difference between dumping a newborn to cry for hours on end and explaining to a 3+ year old child that they're going to bed and staying in bed - much like there's a difference between not allowing a hungry newborn more milk because it doesn't fit your personal schedule compared with not allowing a 4yo to eat nothing but sugar...

I'd sleep train....in fact I did sleep train. I saw it as marginally preferable to me losing my sanity.

I think letting a baby cry it out and putting in boundaries with older kids so you don’t go mad are two very different things.

By cuddling him ti sleep ever night, you are just feeding his anxiety about being left alone. That doesn’t mean that you should just close the door and leave him screaming. Introduce the idea of him going to sleep by himself, set a date and start moving away from the bed each night. I used to come in and out the door putting clothes away for a while. But even if you start by holding his hand and then moving to a chair the next night ect….

Same with the two year old. If you cuddle them to sleep and then once she lightly wakes up she realises you are not there and cry’s out for you.

I found these projector lights really useful to encourage independent going to sleep at that age.

We never sleep trained but by 14m was fairly consistently sleeping through without waking us unless poorly or teething. We night weaned by sending dad in to cuddle back to sleep. When he dropped to one nap he was knackered so slept through and bedtime cuddle took 5mins. Now he's 2.5 and is back to waking once or twice a night but we attribute this to him soon needing to drop his nap as he's not tired at bedtime either. I had success with not trying to hope for too much sleep (10-11hrs overnight rather than 12, which is still the average). As far as I can see sleep training has many forms and none of them are found to cause harm, it just wasn't for us as I personally couldn't cope with the crying and would find it ups3tting. Once they're a toddler leaving to cry is not recommended anyway, gradual retreat approaches are the norm but take longer and still involve crying.

We did similar. Left our nearly 3yr old for a minute or two while I went downstairs to get something “I’ll be back in one minute, just need to pop downstairs” followed by “I need to get the washing in from outside but I’ll be back in 5 mins” and just expanded that out. She’s 6 now and we say goodnight at 7 and don’t see her until the next morning (unless there’s an issue like illness of course).

I hope I don’t get jumped on for this because I know it’s come from a place of love and care but my friends child was like this and I personally felt like she pandered to her child TOO much which fed the anxiety of mummy not being there.

I can’t comment on the SEN part as I’m not educated in that department and wouldn’t want to give advice on that

I know I sound mean but
by rushing to your child’s side every time they cry cuddling, hugging, not encouraging independence in their sleep you end up being the reason they wake constantly wondering where mummy is.

I’m not talking about letting a 3 month old cry for 2 hours I’m talking about helping a child over the age of 1 for healthy sleep habits and independence, a 2 year old and 6 year old are old enough to be told “you are going to sleep in your big boy / girl room from tonight”

We went for short term pain long term gain.

Sleep training isnt one and done though... you need to revisit it periodically.
Overall less distressing for everyone

It’s motherly instinct to hate hearing your child cry and when they are small it is normal to want to pick them up and comfort them but you do have to teach independence too xx

It’s motherly instinct to hate hearing your child cry and when they are small it is normal to want to pick them up and comfort them but you do have to teach independence too xx

Sleep really varies from child to child—there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Everyone has different needs, and I think I’ve just been fortunate. My firstborn eventually learned to settle himself (and that hopefully will stick), and while we never did bedsharing, I always breastfed and put him back down once he was deeply asleep. By around 18 months, sleep was mostly sorted—aside from the usual disruptions like teething, illness, or travel, which seem pretty reasonable.

It would be easy to claim I found the magic formula and that sleep training is unnecessary, but honestly, I suspect I just lucked out with a child whose temperament made things easier. I’m not sure how I would’ve managed if things had been different!

Sleep training began on the first day of life for my DC. Not leaving them to cry but putting them down awake to fall asleep in their cribs. We probably did have the odd period of poor sleep due to illness etc but I can honestly say that by 5 weeks my eldest slept through 11-6 and was a good sleeper thereafter.

As they got older we did occasionally have to be firm at bedtime but generally they were independent sleepers from the off.

I did not believe that CIO was the right thing to do. My children now sleep brilliantly. One has SN, one does not. Yes, we had some interrupted sleep for a while. However, for my family not leaving my children to cry was the best option. I think you have to do what feels right to you.

I am just really lazy. All of my 4 have slept with me from birth until they were 4 or 5 years old and decided to sleep in their own beds (age gaps, so I’ve only ever had one in with me at a time).

My just turned 5 year old is still in with us, but she’s a bad sleeper sometimes. The others all slept like the dead. She also shows no signs of wanting to go her own room.

This time it’s okay now as I’m in my 40s and I don't bloody sleep myself these days, so I’m fairly unbothered.

They are only little for such a short amount of time though, I love co sleeping and every nap all of them had as babies and toddlers, they were on me.

It was much harder with my eldest(ASD) and he was older but we used a reward system. So initially quite a high blue reward for staying in bed, then they need to do a couple of nights, lower the value etc until it is just habit. With DS2 I started just popping out for a wee, then for 5 minutes, then 10 etc. The important thing is that you come back and they see that you will return. After a little while, I’d pop out and see if they were quiet and just wait. Or doing the hoovering worked as they could see me and the noise helps as well. My bedroom was so well hoovered for a week or two!

It depends on the child- I responded to my 4 year old multiple times a night until all of a sudden two weeks before her second birthday she started sleeping through the night now she rarely wakes and puts herself to sleep.
My younger daughter has just started sometimes sleeping through at just turned two but still needs cuddles to get to sleep.

Sorry things are rough OP!

I have a 10 month old so very early days - I breastfeed and bedshare, it’s great. Breastfeeding at night without bedsharing would be sooo hard I think.

I was only sleep deprived for the (very) short period I tried to make my baby sleep separately as everyone tells you to do - that sucked big time.

To all the PPs saying sleep training somehow “teaches” a child to sleep and without it they don’t “learn” to sleep - how in heck did hundreds of generations of humans manage to sleep before some male scientists and Instagram sleep consultants came along then 😂

6 year old is autistic and has other needs so not really about him tbh.

What projector and what do you do when they wake up snd cry?

Of course they wake up forever if you don't do CIO? How many 40 year olds do you see breastfeeding to sleep?

Do what you need to do, but there are other methods that are far more gentle than CIO (by which I assume you mean controlled crying, not just shutting the door at 7pm and ignoring all cries all night). Even the NHS doesn't recommend controlled crying anymore.

yeah it annoys me when people act like youre doing kids a disservice. Putting a baby alone in a room is 100% for the parents and people should just admit it. I get it.

I totally agree but then Im wondeing what people do?

Maybe it’s just one of those things then! Maybe itll be better when I night wean. Thanks. :)

Weaning worked for my eldest almost immediately she slept through after I weaned her. I weaned my youngest at 14 months and it didn’t help at all with sleep- she was teething and had nursery illnesses though!

I think the NHS now recommends the moving chair method, so you stay but move further away. There are lots of similar methods to that.

With DD we tried, very gently, to encourage self soothing (putting down while drowsy, etc) and she got there around 2. With DS I coslept and found I got more sleep that way.

Yeah, somehow, my 23 year old manages to sleep in his own bed, and for a period of a year, in a bed in a different country to me!

Which is baffling as everyone told me that I would NEVER get him out of our bed when he was little and we co slept. I was planning on him being in with us until he married.