What to do with sleep training during teething and separation anxiety?

[CluelessMama567]

LO is 9 months. Sleep training using controlled crying 2 months ago, which worked well and quickly. LO did really well and not too upset. 2 months on, he’s now teething and separation anxiety at bedtime is at its peak and he’s sooo much more upset than he ever was during sleep training so it now feels wrong leaving him to cry in intervals. We’ve crumbled a few nights now and stayed with him until he’s fallen asleep. He’s still fallen asleep on his own in his cot after calming with my hand placed on his back, and then removing and just sitting by the cot. Although one night he was so hysterical we did pick him up but placed back in cot awake and stayed with him until asleep. Whilst this isn’t too bad, it feels like we’re creating habits that are moving backwards from being able to place in crib awake and leave and he happily falls asleep.

For those that have successfully used controlled crying, what did you during bouts of teething and separation anxiety?

Sorry I can't offer first hand experience, but I don't think it's taking steps back if he is in pain and needs your presence for comfort 😥He obviously needs you there at the moment

For us, teething didn't really stop until his canines were through at 14 mo. We did have a brief month's respite, but other than that I just kept going. He was waking hourly for a while so I had no choice but to keep trying to get some sleep. None of us were doing well at that stage.

I don't know the "right" answer I'm afraid. If he's waking multiple times a night then I kept going. If sleep is generally okay then that's another matter.

We basically did whatever was needed for comfort during the teething/ anxiety phase and then re sleep trained once the phase was over. The re training tended to be quick. I am comfortable with sleep training to fix a feed to sleep/rock to sleep type habit and teach them they can get back to sleep by themselves (actually think it’s in the best interests of all) but not if there is something wrong.

We were quite generous with the medication if we knew ours were teething - eg would sometimes give a pre emptive dose of medicine if we knew they would otherwise wake up with pain, to avoid the wake.

Just sit with him Jesus Christ. He's such a tiny baby and he's in pain and is anxious. Just be near him whilst he falls asleep it doesn't last forever. Poor kid

@minipie thanks for sharing. Did you find supporting more at bedtime created more wake ups before sleep training again? How long did you find the anxiety lasted for? I know teeth will be an issue on and off for a couple of years now but unsure about separation anxiety?

I don’t think it made any difference really. We sleep trained to fix a specific issue which was that sh’d got used to being rocked back to sleep every sleep cycle. She never went back to that - we never rocked her when teething etc.

How long did it last - hard to say - one of mine seemed to be teething constantly - but never had separation issues. The other was a better teether but had an awful sleep regression/separation stage of maybe 4-6 weeks (with ups and downs in that)? Felt like forever!!

I think there are some babies who are naturally deep sleepers (often have at least one deep sleeper parent) who get through these things easier, sadly DH and I passed on our light sleeper genes…

He needs you. Just stay with him.