Why do I have to sleep train my baby?!

[Squirrel81]

My DS is 11 months old. He has ALWAYS been a terrible sleeper but me and my husband work very well as a team so although it’s not been easy we have managed. He also rarely is able to sleep in his cot for his naps in the day so I have to contact nap a lot which is challenging.

My priority, of course, has always been DS and I’ve done pretty extensive research on sleep training and concluded for my family it’s not suitable - I prefer to be responsive to my baby, and the research suggests that the impact on baby of leaving to cry is inconclusive - but I have decided for myself that there IS sufficient evidence it raises their cortisol and can impact brain development. I do not personally want to risk this, even more so because I have a sensitive baby (which people also eye roll at, as if I don’t know my own child). I do however have friends that have sleep trained and I respect their decision - and also understand not everyone has a set up as manageable as my own in terms of disruptive nights.

So my question is - why does everyone feel the need to tell me I HAVE to sleep train. I must do it or my DS’s sleep will be doomed for eternity. I feel incredibly judged for not sleep training, as if I am weak because I can’t allow my baby to cry & not responded to. As if I am not doing the best by him because if I did sleep train his sleep would be better quality.

I am so tired (no pun intended) of the criticism and it is making me doubt myself.

I don’t know, I haven’t done it nor am I sleep consultant - but I hear things like linking sleep cycles and teaching how to self soothe. Like how you teach a baby to hold their wee until they are at a toilet - I’ve got no idea how you do it, but invariably parents seem to.

Maybe like I did with the dog, which was sleeping close to her and moving further away until she was fine with me out of the room - at first she wouldn’t settle if I wasn’t touching her, within a few days she went 12 hours overnight without a peep.

I can’t comment too much on the sleep training as I also did not do it with either of mine! But I do have sympathy for the sensitive child and the eye rolls. I have 2 boys. My first DS was and still is a sensitive child and I used to think am I just doing something wrong when people used to judge and comment. But now I have my second DS who is not sensitive I know that it’s nothing I was doing they are just different and that’s ok!!

Basically ignore the eye rolling because you know your child and you’re doing a great job.

Yes, but that was likely because you had easy babies. I had one too. I’m just not foolish enough to believe that it was my doing. She was born that way and slept through from 6 weeks old.

I had the exact same routine with my second. It took him 6 months to sleep through. Still not bad going but now where near as easy as my first.

I am currently taking an advanced course with statistics, looking at human behaviour. Lots of discussion about how small effect sizes are, confusing correlation with causation, biases of various kinds, fallacies of various kinds. It’s pretty obvious how a book telling parents to do any random collection of things will result in some of them doing the thing it says will happen. If I tell someone flipping a coin while standing on one leg singing God Save The King causes heads, 50% of the time I will be right. Which I’m willing to bet is a better hit rate than those books.

And you can’t do research on babies. RCT would be both ineffective, and unethical. But what a lot of actual research says is that sleep is heritable, genetic and therefore hard-wired. Of course you can’t believe ruin a good sleeper but you can’t make a good sleeper out of a bad one in 6 weeks.

But you can believe in any number of unscientifically nonsensical theories. Homeopathy, flat earth and anti-vaxxing are all the same X = Y because I reckon so thinking. Anecdata and my mate thinks stuff.

I was sleep trained (pretty close to ferberised) I am not in any way anxious, can sleep anywhere but I do have high sleep needs. My sister was not, she keeps insane hours, has terrible sleep with just a handful of an hour a night, awake to the early hours, huge anxiety/mental health issues.

With just that subset of data, sleep training is a no brainer.

That’s

Not

Meaningful

Data

FFS I swear everyone should be Clockwork Oranged into learning statistics.

I think they are trying to give you the benefit of their experience, but if you don’t want it then just smile, nod and avoid the subject.

It sounds as though you don’t need to sleep train as you have a nice long mat leave and it sounds as though your partner can work on very little sleep too. But most people don’t have this luxury so for them sleep training is invaluable.

If you don’t want to do it then don’t, but I’d still listen to their experience if they are older than you and have children who sleep well.

Some babies are sleepers others are not - I got two of the not kind. I also don't believe in CIO or gradual withdrawl or whatever claptrap people told themselves to leave a crying baby. No other animal would leave their babies to cry…. It would attract predators!

I too had a husband who worked as a team with me to manage nights to allow everyone to get enough sleep.

i ended up like you getting fed up with others preaching their views, I ended up telling MIL milk teeth are called milk teeth because you’d still be having milk from your mum, gorillas feed up to 7 years, as that is when they get their adult teeth. Humans are the same age for milk teeth loss there is nothing abnormal at breastfeeding at 18months. She kept her opinions to herself about parenting after then.

Sorry - that was exactly my point! You can’t just look at a handful of examples and draw a conclusion!

I think you’re massively over thinking this !!! You do what you want it’s your child . For me I know sleep and having enough of it was important for me .. from the day I came home from hospital I put my child to bed upstairs after there evening feed 7 ish and came down stairs and left them asleep until they woke 2/3 hours later . Obviously got up with them through the night but didn’t have them next to me down stairs till I went to bed. My friends thought I was mad but guess what no sleep training needed even now at 11 and 9 they go to bed perfectly. You do what you want to do but I would t complain your tired in front of them. You’ve only done 11 months what till your 2/3 years in and wish you had listened x

You don’t have to.

@Squirrel81 i was a very attachment parent and when mine was a toddler I did use the book The Toddler No-Cry Sleep Solution (there is one for babies as well). Worked great. Sat well with me. Nobody HAS to CIO with their baby. But if you want more sleep you can get it without that cortisol spike and possible attachment issue for your child.

Ok. So the only really reliable anecdata is that your crap sleeper is in no way attributable to anything you did or didn't do. Got it.

Baby sleep books are generally all pretty similar in their recommended wake windows etc. Based on observation of signs of tiredness in MOST babies and things which we know - from research - help establish and maintain circadian rhythm etc. No human is an exact science, but combining some guidance based on fairly easily obtained data with some mothers intuition probably ends up working for a majority if you're minded to stick to it.

Ooops sorry!

If you’ve done a lot of research to justify your decision.

why do you then need to come to mumsnet to talk about it?

You absolutely don't. The days are long but the years are so, so short. This is just a season in life. Please absolutely go with your gut on this one. Lying down with my 4 year old and cuddling her to sleep is the highlight of the day. I love those snuggles. Right now it feels so hard because you're in the trenches but I promise you it gets so much easier. You're doing great ❤️. P.S. I also have a highly sensitive child and temperament has a big bearing on their sleep/life needs that not everyone understands if they haven't experienced it.

You seem to be arguing a point I didn’t make. So I won’t bother any more.

Just be happy you got to sleep because you’re a better, more effective mother than us. If you could shut up about it around mums who are struggling though, that would be nice. I don’t go on threads about AFRID and fussy eating and bang on about how mine ate whatever was put in front of her from the second we did it. And that I’m just a brilliant mother who just stuck with it. (For 6 weeks FFS.) That would make me a huge arsehole.

You don’t need to sleep train.

I think sleep training is a “thing” that some people like to try or like to say they’ve done

there are perfectly raised kids who have not been sleep trained.

I know people who have spent hundreds on so called experts in sleep training at silly ages so then find in a month it all changes again. As is common with babies!!

just change the subject or lie and say they sleep great!

It’s not obsessively googling - I have done my research and gained a lot of my science backed knowledge on brain development from: ‘Why love matters’ by Sue Gerhardt.

Have you met Mumsnet?! This is kinda what it is! A place to chat, discuss, ask opinions and get some reassurance and validation.

if you can’t provide that then why respond??

she’s a tired mum feeling judged, trying to do her best.

This isn’t really anything to do with sleep training, OP, so you don’t need to go into the argument either way. It’s about people giving you unsolicited advice – pure and simple. And people who do that and who are extra pushy about it are the kind of people to do it on any subject – feeding, nursery, how you spend your money, what school you choose, screen time, etc etc etc etc.

Forget the subject. Stop arguing about it and address the real issue.

Of course you do not have to sleep train and maybe they are just offering advice. If you are moaning about getting no sleep then others suggesting things which may have worked for them is not making you do the same. It is just offering a different perspective. If you say things like sleep training is cruel that is also judgemental and very unfair on parents who maybe do not have a partner who will help out as yours does. Lack of sleep is awful for parents and children and sleep training comes in many guises and not just leaving a child to scream for hours on end without any comfort from parents.

Unfortunately over the years breast feeding and sleep seems to be the thing that parents feel most judged over on both sides along with working parents v SAHM. You can either just repeat that you don't want to sleep train and ask them not to mention it or just nod and ignore. No one can make you do anything.

You know your child and what you feel comfortable with ❤️

I get it OP. People ask if the child is a good sleeper and you say, not really they still wake a lot, and they say “you need to sleep train”. Then you say, nah, not for me, and they start telling you you are harming your child by depriving them of the skills they need for a good nights sleep.

i think it’s bollocks and sleep is not a skill, it’s a biological process. I didn’t teach my 3 year old to sleep any more than I taught him to walk.

we responded to every cry and then around 2 he started mostly sleeping through. Now at 3 he’s going through something and cries for us once each night. We go, reassure, tuck in, and if he wants us to lie with him while he goes back to sleep, we do. This is what feels right to us, and I refuse to believe it is harming him in any way. But when people hear that our 3YO wakes and needs overnight , they immediately say we need to “sort it out” and suggest leaving him to cry. Why???? I haven’t said it’s a problem for us. Sure, I’d like not to have to get up, but it’ll come.

so no one needs to sleep train. Obviously. But I agree that people who did are very invested in telling you that they “needed” to and you “need to” as well. It’s unheard of in many parts of the world which to me is a sign that it’s not a natural and inevitable part of child rearing.

You don’t .
Your baby is 11 months . She wants her mummy. I get it’s exhausting but if you don’t want to sleep train don’t.
Both of my small people slept with me until they were 18 months .
What a bloody pleasure it was. You never sleep properly and I get it’s not appealing to many . Those moments were wonderful. Tiny cuddles. They are now 6 and 7 and i would pay to shrink them down and have those beautiful moments again!

The OP is doing that and her baby still wakes throughout the night though.