Anyone else feel like a fool for not sleep training?

[Lelophants]

I think I know the answer to this because every baby, mum and relationship is different. I also don't want to make this a judgemental post, but would like to hear from any mums more similar to me and see how your kids turned out! Do you regret avoiding the whole sleep training fiasco? Were you also the only one you knew not to do it?

I dont want to sleep train for various reasons and I am happy with that, but it's starting to get me down how I'm the only one out of my friends who hasn't and I keep wondering whether I'm just being stupid.

It's just me still breastfeeding, going to bed early, missing out on late night chats and consistent naps. A few local friends who were similar are now starting to sleep train their 1 year olds (who were adamantly against it before). My friends who have had babies after me are also now doing it. One of these has a 3 month old and she keeps going on about how well it is working and giving me sleep tips, which is driving me a bit mad tbh. She keeps gently patronisingly telling me how basically really I should've done this by now as my ds is 1 and her 3 month old (I know ) is great and I need to toughen up and do it.

I feed him to sleep, still breastfeed and frequently bedshare at night. Naps are up and down and yes I am tied to the pushchair during rain or shine and sometimes I tear my hair out a little bit, but I still find it better than the alternative and I want to do what's best for him, which is what we are doing currently. I feel comfortable parenting this way but sometimes I am made to feel like I am being a bit of a soft idiot.

Sometimes I wonder if I should just try it for an easy life. I can't look forward so can't see how he will turn out and what is best for him. I guess I'm looking for some reassurance that I'm not an idiot for doing what I'm doing and my ds will be OK! And worth missing out on the 12 hour stint at night.

Same @3wildones I find it odd that everyone assumes sleep training= leaving baby to scream.
I thought the same myself before we started doing it because that's how everyone talks about it

@3wildones can you share more info about this then please? How much help did your child need to get to sleep before you started and how long did it take?

@Restingpotato before I started I was feeding my babies to sleep. So to start instead of feeding to sleep I would feed until drowsy and then rock to sleep. Then I would start rocking a bit earlier in the process every couple of days. Once they were rocked to sleep then I would rock until drowsy and then cuddle to sleep and then start cuddling earlier in the process every few days. Once they were happy being cuddled to sleep I would place in the cot but sit beside them stroking or patting. After a few days I would start to move away from the cot occasionally to tidy up but always returning if they were upset. I would gradually increase how much time I was away from the cot and start to leave the room briefly. I then just extended how much time I was out of the room until I could kiss goodnight and leave.

It’s such a personal decision I feel I can’t give any advice. During the darkest times I tried sleep training a handful of times with DS1 but I couldn’t go through with it. Didn’t bother with second child.
I did my research and liked attachment parenting the most so I stuck to that even before they were born.

I just accepted the fact that with each child I will not sleep a solid 5 hours for two years at least. I would have to wake up every two to three hours every single night to breast feed.
Incidentally I am not having anymore children. A total of four years of broken sleep nearly broke me.

The kids seem happy and well adjusted. So far mentally robust with good confidence, school reports always mention how happy and social me they are. I just hope my sacrifices are worthwhile because man oh man attachment parenting is so damn hard on the parent.
Guess I will find out in a few decades when they enter the stressful twenties/thirties, whether they can handle the inevitable stress from life or will they have mental issues.

Whether they will sit in a psychiatric office and talk about the impact of their childhood on their mental well-being 😂 “tell me about your childhood...”

Haven't sleep trained and absolutely no regrets even though there have been nights I hated. It was never going to be forever.

Last night, tucked DS in, said night night. He called out at midnight to be tucked back in (and even as I did so, said night night to me!) then nothing til I woke him at 8.

Until recently, was bedsharing after a wakeup as I was lazy but gradually moved to holding hands rather than cuddling for sleep and leaving room before he's asleep, but explaining before just doing it.

He was 3 in June

@Harrysmummy246

Haven't sleep trained and absolutely no regrets even though there have been nights I hated. It was never going to be forever.

Last night, tucked DS in, said night night. He called out at midnight to be tucked back in (and even as I did so, said night night to me!) then nothing til I woke him at 8.

Until recently, was bedsharing after a wakeup as I was lazy but gradually moved to holding hands rather than cuddling for sleep and leaving room before he's asleep, but explaining before just doing it.

He was 3 in June

See, I'd call that gentle sleep training! You took steps to change the way he slept.

Reading with interest. My baby has never slept through the night (as in, she's slept over 5 hrs at a time a handful of times, never more than 7, and mostly she wakes every three hours.). She goes down absolutely fine on her own but wakes twice, sometimes three times to feed.

I have tried not feeding her and this gets her really upset despite cuddling, she won't calm down and won't fall asleep for hours... Decided it wasn't worth the pain and hoped she'd get there on her own, slowly. But we seem stuck in a pattern. Keep umming and ahhing over whether to try training ('we'll see where we are next month...').

The thing I don't understand is that the things I've read say if they're hungry, feed them. How am I supposed to know if she's genuinely hungry or just in a habit? She drinks for about ten minutes each time. I hate the thought of letting her go hungry/thirsty... So yeah, I got round in circles and nothing changes. I am really tired from 8m of broken nights, though...so yes, I'm in the same boat. Will I regret not doing it sooner? I worry about going back to work and being this tired.

My little one is just over two and we bedshare and he nurses to sleep. I don't understand the obsession with sleep training. It's barbaric in my opinion and I could never do it.

@avocadotofu

My little one is just over two and we bedshare and he nurses to sleep. I don't understand the obsession with sleep training. It's barbaric in my opinion and I could never do it.

Good for you! Come back to me when you've crashed your car into a wall with your baby in the back seat because you haven't slept more than 30 minutes at a time in six months. Otherwise, maybe keep your nasty judgements to yourself.

Sleep training and baby sleep is so different for everyone and every baby. There is in my opinion no right or wrong. Some babies sleep well of their own accord. Some babies respond well to sleep training. Some don't. Whatever suits you and your family is right.
DS is almost 1, he sleeps well most of the time, he's still in our room because if it's not broke don't fix it. If he hadn't been a good sleeper I may have considered sleep training.

@PorridgeOaf

Reading with interest. My baby has never slept through the night (as in, she's slept over 5 hrs at a time a handful of times, never more than 7, and mostly she wakes every three hours.). She goes down absolutely fine on her own but wakes twice, sometimes three times to feed.

I have tried not feeding her and this gets her really upset despite cuddling, she won't calm down and won't fall asleep for hours... Decided it wasn't worth the pain and hoped she'd get there on her own, slowly. But we seem stuck in a pattern. Keep umming and ahhing over whether to try training ('we'll see where we are next month...').

The thing I don't understand is that the things I've read say if they're hungry, feed them. How am I supposed to know if she's genuinely hungry or just in a habit? She drinks for about ten minutes each time. I hate the thought of letting her go hungry/thirsty... So yeah, I got round in circles and nothing changes. I am really tired from 8m of broken nights, though...so yes, I'm in the same boat. Will I regret not doing it sooner? I worry about going back to work and being this tired.

At 8 months, if she's getting plenty during the day, she shouldn't "need" night feeds at all, from a nutritional standpoint.

Mine was the same - it was definitely a comfort thing for her, as she didn't know how to go to sleep without feeding, and then she'd stay there drowsily suckling for comfort, for ages. Like you, I had a job to return to, and that level of sleep deprivation was not tenable for me. Once we sleep trained her, she was perfectly able to sleep through the night without needing to be fed, and if she wakes she can go back to sleep without being fed. She has a long old "breakfast" feed first thing, though!

@melisande99 can you briefly summarise what you did and roughly how long it took? I think I need inspiration/hope in order to try again

@PorridgeOaf

Reading with interest. My baby has never slept through the night (as in, she's slept over 5 hrs at a time a handful of times, never more than 7, and mostly she wakes every three hours.). She goes down absolutely fine on her own but wakes twice, sometimes three times to feed.

I have tried not feeding her and this gets her really upset despite cuddling, she won't calm down and won't fall asleep for hours... Decided it wasn't worth the pain and hoped she'd get there on her own, slowly. But we seem stuck in a pattern. Keep umming and ahhing over whether to try training ('we'll see where we are next month...').

The thing I don't understand is that the things I've read say if they're hungry, feed them. How am I supposed to know if she's genuinely hungry or just in a habit? She drinks for about ten minutes each time. I hate the thought of letting her go hungry/thirsty... So yeah, I got round in circles and nothing changes. I am really tired from 8m of broken nights, though...so yes, I'm in the same boat. Will I regret not doing it sooner? I worry about going back to work and being this tired.

Hi @PorridgeOaf, we did night weaning at the same time as sleep training. If they have enough calories during the day, they should be able to go all night without a feed. What we did was pick 2 times about 30 mins at even periods throughout the night (10pm and 3am) And did a dream feed then. That way, I knew whenever she woke up otherwise from then she wasn’t hungry. Then gradually dropped the number of minutes she nursed for on the 3am feed until I stopped it all together. This was from a baby who was waking every hour or two to feed, it showed me it was for comfort rather than for hunger.

@avocadotofu what makes you think sleep training is barbaric?

Do it! I spent 20 months waking every 45 mins and trying to work full time. My mental health was fucked.

I spoke to a nursery nurse from the health visitor who said I need to do it for my own sanity.

Three nights of gentle sleep training and night weaning improved things greatly to only two wakings, one which I don't have to use my boobs for.

We have set backs when she's ill but overall much better

[quote PorridgeOaf]@melisande99 can you briefly summarise what you did and roughly how long it took? I think I need inspiration/hope in order to try again[/quote]
For us, the main battle was getting her to go to sleep on her own at the beginning of the night - so well done on having achieved that already!

In terms of night weaning, what made the big difference was moving her into her own room. When she was in with us, she'd wake at the slightest rustling, then see me and want to come to me and feed. Once she was in her own room, she woke less anyway. When she did wake and cry, my husband was the one to go to her. Essentially, if I'm out of sight then I'm out of mind! That was pretty instant on moving to her own room - she still wakes occasionally in the night, but her dad is the one who goes to her and she will generally go back to sleep before too long.

@melisande99 @ShirleyPhallus thank you!

She is in her own room already and we still have the wakes... My husband goes in to her but she doesn't calm down until she drinks. We haven't done it consistently though (two hours of her crying was enough for me!).

She's already down to two wakes but stubbornly settled on those... so maybe we should try getting that second feed shorter and shorter. God I miss sleep!

@PorridgeOaf aw, I'm out of ideas then! I'm sure you will hit upon the right technique eventually, or get there gradually - or she will naturally grow out of it! Best of luck.

Well, actually, I have one shred of remaining advice - I think you're right about consistency being the key. We hit a plateau in the early days of sleep training because we drifted away from our plan once we started to see results. Then things deteriorated till we got back on track.

Hi, I have three little boys (5,2 and 10 months)and sleep trained them all to a certain extent. We were very lucky when they were babies as they all slept through by 4 months. All went through phases of night waking and were kindly ignored as I like to call it and absolutely no harm was done. I used to sit and tell myself they’re fine, they’re fed, they’re warm, they’re and tired and in bed and where they need to be. I found waiting for them to settle themselves back to sleep easier if I kept reminding myself that I was being kind in teaching them how to sleep properly overnight. If anything if me or my husband ever went into their rooms to try and settle them it made the whole thing worse and drew it out for far longer than it would go on if we left them. All 3 boys now go to bed at 6:30 and that’s them til 7am. Also I wouldn’t worry about them not crying because they think you won’t come. All my boys know we will come if something is wrong and cry if they’re poorly, teething, need the loo etc.

@3WildOnes thanks for sharing, this seems like the level of 'training' I'm comfortable with!

Good for you! Come back to me when you've crashed your car into a wall with your baby in the back seat because you haven't slept more than 30 minutes at a time in six months. Otherwise, maybe keep your nasty judgements to yourself.

Why do you keep saying good for you, come back when...
Why is it a nasty judgement to be against sleep training but it's an acceptable opinion to be against natural parenting?

It's the same with breastfeeding. You can't say anything without someone racing to the bottom. Oh, you're only saying that because you don't have it as bad as me. Bullshit. I've not had one minute away from my dc, I've changed all nappies, she's never had a bottle of breastmilk. I'm tired, I'm knackered, but I won't teach my dc that I won't be there for them during the night. It's possibly to practice biologically normal infant sleep and be tired. They're not exclusive.

I've not RTFT but you're not a fool for doing what you believe is best for your child.
Let everyone else do their thing and you do yours. We all have opinions on what we believe is best of course. Sometimes those ideas change as we get more experienced as parents, or as more evidence becomes available and sometimes they don't. There's no one size fits all answer to anything really - all we can do is our best in the circumstances in which we find ourselves and with the information that we have available at the time.

Totally agree that different things work for different children and you have to find what works. I’ve tried most gentle sleep methods but DS is just a very light sleeper. He has no “drowsy but awake” setting. He wakes in a second and is sat up crying/calling for me. I’ve tried shush and pat, gradual retreat etc... but what I’ve never understood (and what is never explained) is what do you do when they don’t settle? Does anyone with experience of these methods have advice? The other night DS cried for nearly an hour with me in the room, coming over to shush /pat every few mins but just getting more hysterical. I can’t go on with a method that doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve read up so much on it and I’m pretty sure I’m doing it right, but what do you do when they don’t actually drift off or become drowsy?! How many hours do you let them cry? (Because DS would definitely have gone on for longer than an hour!) It’s my ultimate question that I just can’t get an answer to!