Am I harming my baby?

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Posting here for traffic. Thanks in advance for reading.

I have an 11 month old (and an older child with SEN). My baby has needed a bottle of milk to nap and sleep from around 5mo. He was sleeping independetly and through the night until then. He has since woken up numerous times for milk overnight also. Now things have settled with my older child, I want to tackle these habits with the baby. He won't rock to sleep. I cannot stay with him until he falls asleep since I cannot leave my older child alone for long. For the past 2 nights I've been feeding him outside of the cot then placing him in the cot awake but tired. I stay with him for a couple of minutes then leave. He cries a lot and I check in on him every 3 minutes until his crying becomes intermittent. On the first day this took around 10 minutes. Today it's taken 4 minutes.

I've paid for a sleep coach to help with both children but I'm struggling with her advice. She's saying that I shouldn't leave him if he sounds upset? He does sound upset and distressed when I leave. I wish I could stay with him which is what she suggests but it's impossible as a single parent. I did for my eldest child and now I'm stuck with a 2 year old who is addicted to her bottle all day and cannot sleep without it. I really didn't want to make the same mistakes with my son but equally I don't want to harm him, give him an attachment disorder later in life, or dysregulate or overwhelm his little nervous system.

Please talk some sense into me!

Cry it out is an awful way to sleep train. There is also nothing wrong with feeding to sleep. It’s very normal for the majority of babies.

So...what is the solution then?

There are no long term effects of babies crying for 4 minutes.

It was 10 minutes not 10 hours. How can anyone ban it? Does the government put cameras up in new parents houses to make sure they comply?
I did controlled crying with my eldest, checking on her every 10 minutes and cracked it in 3 nights.
She's 19, well adjusted, doesn't appear to have affected our bond or her in any way.

Right?! Pretty sure the long term damage of my being permanently frazzled was more impactful on us both than a few minutes crying. And she still cries in the night when scared so I know she hasn't internalised that we don't care and won't come back to help her.

If crying for 10 minutes causes long term damage then literally every baby who has ever been in childcare is damaged.

I doubt it will be 4 minutes only daily consecutively , in fact OP said it was longer the first day .
Its up to the op to do what she wants but the fact is raised cortisol is connected with lost of issue including making people prone to auto immune diseases, cancer , anxiety etc . So why risk it .

Honestly probably just all babies. Sometimes they just won't stop crying, even with mum, with milk, with all the best things. Or maybe that was just my baby. Or just me.

Do you have any evidence that 10 minutes of crying causes any long term harm to babies? Or even short term harm.

Sleep trained my baby, took a week.
Now 21, travelled Asia on her own at 18, thriving at university.
Take from that what you will!

Definitely all subsequent babies. And twins/triplets.

You are fine OP, there is nothing wrong with a baby taking 4 minutes to settle.

Heck, I grizzle that long when I get into bed.

I think that staying around longer in a situation like yours, where the baby is really settling quickly, can actually prolong the time the baby is unsettled and they don't end up sleeping as well.

I would either cosleep or use a dummy, you need sleep

@freakingscared consistently raised cortisol has long lasting impacts yes, from situations that are repeated and /or traumatic. 10 mins of crying one day and then 3 the next doesn’t qualify. If you’re on a motorway and the baby is crying, you’re going to pull onto the hard shoulder within 3 mins so its cortisol levels don’t raise? I don’t think so, and neither should you.

Of course there is no evidence. And no real way to run a controlled experiment like that, it's all massively speculative.

People have raised cortisol all the time, for all kinds of things, 10 minutes as a baby is really a drop in the bucket.

4 minutes is nothing, it takes me longer to get to my twins sometimes (because I’m with the other one or their siblings) same room too, just not enough hands. If your an otherwise responsive parent it’s not subbing to worry about.

It's a problem when the baby won' fall asleep any other way, and needs to feed at every normal night waking, which happens several times in the night for most people including babies.

I wouldn’t do it, I’d have you all in together. I can’t see why you’d need them in separate rooms? That’s making life harder for yourself. I’m all for the co-sleeping for everyone.

Babies and toddlers are meant to wake and it’s really hard. I think reframing sleep as not something that needs to be”fixing” though
is important.

And sleep consultants are toxic snake oil selling fuckers who prey on vulnerable people. I’d put them all in the bin.

10 mins is nothing. I left mine for way way longer. It saved my sanity. They are now a happy and well-adjusted teenager. Go for it.

I know I have one. It’s still normal.

Some nights my two cried for way longer than 10mins when I was actively holding them and trying to help them go to sleep! Or in the day when I was trying to soothe them, or in the car, or in the buggy...

We did CC (not CIO which is different) with both of them, a little more structured than the OP but still the same idea. It worked in 3 days and they've both slept solidly every night for 6 years and 11 years, respectively. Neither of them remember it. And neither of them think "nobody comes when I call" because guess what? We do. If one of them calls out in the night, we go straight away because they obviously need something.

You're doing fine, OP. You won't damage your baby by helping them learn how to fall asleep.

I believe that unsettled children who haven’t learnt to sleep are much much more damaged in the longer term than children who have a short sharp shock and then learn a skill for life

I’d just all sleep in one room and laze about until the kids fall asleep. I could never be faffed with sleep rules and routines and getting out of bed to see to them in the night.

While mine were young enough to need me at night, they stayed in arms reach. Crying it out is a western thing, other cultures don’t do it at all as they don’t leave kids in separate rooms.

🤣🤣🤣 have you ever met a child that never learnt to sleep?! Children don’t need to be taught to sleep, they know how to do it from day 1. What you’re referring to is adults wanting young babies to be silent when they’re stressed which is damaging.

I have met countless children who never learnt to sleep. They drop off but they don’t go asleep. Under-slept kids is a real issue and often leads to traits associated with adhd - not adhd but the associated traits. I was that kid. It took me years to learn how to sleep , I learnt this as an adult