Those who didn't sleep train, when does it get better??

[Utterlyincandescently]

I'm lucky that my baby slept through the night for the first five months, but then she suddenly started to wake 3 times a night and has done for the past 6 weeks. She's usually asleep by 7:30 and then wakes at 11, 2 and 4, and then she's up for the day at 6:15.

She's always been a terrible napper but this was manageable when I was getting a full night of sleep. We're lucky if we get one decent nap a day now. I'm just so exhausted, with so few breaks. She needs constant entertaining when she's awake or she'll grumble and cry.

Will this get better?? How much longer do I need to do this for?

What hyperbole?

My stance isn’t to push sleep training, which bizarrely so many have decided it is and are getting wound up at me over. My stance is that there’s nothing wrong with sleep training if you need to do it, and crippling yourself by sticking to your guns about it during the worst amount of night wakings is not good for mum or child. Nonsense about it damaging the child’s attachment is the worst advice to give the OP. Now it’s being equated to physically assaulting your child on this thread.

I completely agree that people sometimes have to change their position. I said at the beginning of the thread that the OP would do well to remain open minded that there might come a time when she’ll rethink her stance.

I don’t have “a position”. If my child didn’t need sleep training I wouldn’t have done it. It was a parenting tool I used to look after my child’s and my own best interests. And that’s kind of the whole point with sleep training: they’re not compliant. So yes, if the second isn’t compliant I will gently sleep train them.

Right ok… but OP’s baby could just as well go back to sleeping through, as wake up so much that the OP is going to crash her car. It hasn’t happened yet and it may never happen.

This is a thread about what happens if you don’t sleep train - a subject you have no experience of.

The fact that someone is asking this question isn’t a judgment on you.

Your post was basically saying the options are 'sleep train or die' - my children between them woke up every hour for nearly 5 months and I managed not to die, work full time and be a parent. Was it hard? Yes. Would I change my parenting approach in hindsight? Nope. Sleep training along with physically punishing children are a red line for me.

You say that you aren't here to push sleep training but you seem to be pushing it quite a bit on this thread. Your way isn't the only way of parenting and like a pp said, you have no experience in not sleep training. My children are now older and sleep through exactly the same as yours. We've done things in our own way but I have experience in not sleep training, you do not.

There might be kids who have genuine problems and might need sleep training, I think it's possible. Many will naturally learn to sleep through the night but it might take time. Some people are able to function better on little sleep than others so might be able to manage. I think people will do what suits them. I didn't sleep train. Took 2 years for my kids to sleep through the night but I don't need much sleep so I was fine. Plus I didn't expect to sleep through the night anyway so it felt normal to me

I know this probably isn't helpful, but a couple weeks ago I'd have killed for only 3 night wakes! 😅

My DS is 7 and 1/2 months old currently and slept through 8 hrs solid till roughly 6 months old then out of nowhere started waking between 7 and 10 times a night every night.

We thought it was because he was too big for his crib so moved him into a cot bed, but nothing changed - then at 7 months we ended up having to lower the cot bed as he'd grown again, but then I couldn't put him to sleep anymore without waking him as I'm so short!

In the last few weeks we've had to use our travel cot for him instead which luckily is a sort of halfway size between his first crib and his big Cot bed, and touch wood, he's been sleeping through with only between 1 and 3 night wakes now - my DH and I refuse to sleep train, so if its something you have or can afford to get I'd recommend seeing if the size of your wee ones bed could be contributing?

It fully could just be coincidence, but the change was so night and day and so immediate that I can't just dismiss it as nothing !

Hope the best for you, stay strong, you're doing great! ♡

Is "Now it’s being equated to physically assaulting your child on this thread" aimed at me?
Because smacking isn't legally physical assault in England (not sure where you are). It might be assault in your opinion, as it is in mine. It might be a hard line for you that you're not willing to cross, as it is for me. But for many parents, it's something they do in order to fulfill the work of parenting the best way they know how, because they don't have any other tools.
Sleep training is the same - a tool thst some parents choose, I believe because they don't have any other tools or feel that there is no other option. We who have used other tools are offering some of those tools to the OP.
You insisting that she needs to "keep an open mind" about an approach she has said she is not open to is no different to if someone had posted looking for advice about their child's behaviour and one poster just kept repeating "Well, if you don't want to smack them, just let them run riot and risk them becoming criminals, you do you. I smack mine and they're fine!"
And FWIW, all of my siblings do smack their kids (and sleep trained them) and they are broadly fine. But I still wouldn't. People are allowed to have different values to you, and different experiences. Helping your child get to sleep, and letting them do it independently in their own time may have felt "crippling" or downright dangerous to you, but it doesn't for everyone.

Well of course they were different babies with different needs, but the needs of my first baby were unmanageable for me which is which is why I had to make changes to his sleeping behaviours and sleeping patterns.

With my first baby I hadn’t really applied any kind of sleep/bedtime routine so there were positive sleep associations and as a result he was entirely dependent on the breast to sleep, didn’t nap in the day and was awake for hours and hours overnight. I was absolutely broken and I couldn’t continue, which is why I did sleep training with him.

When my second one came along he was naturally a bit of a better sleeper, and whereas co-sleeping hadn’t worked with my first baby, my second baby took to it well. I think I was also a bit more resilient to lack of sleep with my second baby compared to how things were with my first. I didn’t feel the need to sleep train my second as his night-time wakings were manageable as they occurred 1-2 times a night and they were quick as he easily settled after a feed.

If my second’s son’s night behaviour had been similar to how my first son had been, then I definitely would have used sleep training again.

Please appreciate the post in which I put 'terrible parenting' was a direct response to the usual 'sleep training is cruel' which had already been trotted out.

The first person on this thread to use the word 'cruel' was the person who used it to describe sleep training.

Why is it OK for those who don't like sleep training to share their advice and advocacy for their methods, but not okay for those who found sleep training really successful to do the same?

Because, on this thread, the OP had asked opinions from those who DIDN’T sleep train. You’re ignoring what the OP has asked advice on.

This is the same as if a mother had made a thread asking for opinions and advice from those who DID sleep train, and multiple posters commented on it telling her ‘to keep an open mind’ about not doing it. It seems you’re not very bright if you can’t understand that.

Your advice here is unsolicited. You do you in terms of sleep training, that’s completely your choice as a mother, but that’s not what the OP asked.

Her baby is only 7 months old. Plenty of mums haven't considered sleep training with babies that age.

I have friends who desperately wish now, with hindsight, that they had sleep trained.

There are plenty of threads on here where an OP asks for advice and states they are not interesting in Co-sleeping, nonetheless those who like it will always pile on saying 'co-sleep OP! It worked for me!'

This is an online forum. You don't get to specify beforehand what responses you are looking for, that's not the way it works 👌

That’s not what I was responding to. You absolutely can have an opinion on this, and you’re right, lots of people comment on threads with differing opinions.

You asked why, on this thread, you’re getting negative comments and why it wasn't okay for you to have an opinion on the positives of sleep training. And the answer to that is, of course, because the advice is unsolicited.

The OP doesn’t want to sleep train. She’s allowed to have a firm boundary around that. As you are about utilising sleep training to help you and your child. The OP is allowed to be frosty with you since you continually ignore her statements that she’s doesn’t want to sleep train.

Yes, but that doesn't make comments like 'sleep training is cruel' okay. If the OP wants to say thanks but sleep training isn't for me that's fine, but the first negative poster was the one who said 'sleep training is cruel'. That's not just disagreeing with a method - that's telling people who used it that they are being cruel to their baby.
For some reason apparently those advocating for co-sleeping/no sleep training are allowed to be nasty to other posters, but they can't take the same crap delivered back to them?

Oh and if anyone wants actual science about this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230830539_Five-Year_Follow-up_of_Harms_and_Benefits_of_Behavioral_Infant_Sleep_Intervention_Randomized_Trial

Basically sleep training or no, the outcomes are the same in terms of harms/benefits. So no, sleep training isn't cruel. It's for every parent to decide for themselves what method will enable their child to get the sleep they need.

My just turned 2 year old wakes 2-3 times a night. This time last year it was more like every hour she’d wake so she has improved. I’m hoping by 3 she’ll be sleeping through the night without any sleep training. Hopefully you get there earlier than me if you’re at 3 wakes a night already

The OP has never said sleep training is cruel though, in fact she said no judgement if you chose to do so but it's not for me.

I never said it was cruel and responded to a pro sleep trainer saying it wasn't kind to not sleep train when the OP has specifically said she didn't want to. It's not kind to throw words around like cruel and unhealthy when commenting on a thread for a choice you wouldn't make - that's in either direction.

People are making choices for their families and that's fine but this is a thread about not sleep training, no one (other than that poster you've mentioned which I missed) is saying it's cruel, it's just not for them.

But realistically if you say “it’s not for me” you’re saying that because you think it’s cruel. Because why else would you not do it? Both you and baby get a full nights sleep, hurrah, what’s not to like?

I actually find these threads of mums putting themselves through months and years of poor sleep/sleep deprivation (which is a form of torture) because of this, to my mind, misguided refusal quite distressing.

One thing I regret is cuddling DC until asleep. They’re 13 now and still have trouble sleeping alone.

I never said it is. I said OP would do well to keep an open mind and gave advice on how things can be if her situation should change. She’s already finding it hard and it can get worse.

Not sure why it’s aggravating you so much but you can stop replying to me at any point.

I’m not pushing it at all and my posts show that. At no point did I say the choice is sleep train or die. I shared my experience and the experience of many mothers who go through the same. Your experience was different. You are being ridiculous.

You are forcing people to explain why they didn't sleep train with this comment. That's on you, you are justifying your choices here, people generally are trying not to judge and say out loud their reasons and you are inferring that they think it's cruel.

Yes I think we’ve agreed that people have different values. Got it.

I’m Scottish. It is illegal here and I’ve been in court as witness after reporting smacking in public.

I’m not forcing anyone to do anything, don’t be ridiculous.

I’m simply pointing out that it’s realistic that considering it to be cruel is the most likely reason for refusing to do it.

I’m happy with my choice, I have a 15 year old and I’m struggling to see what damage I must have done to her by sleep training. There are other things I’ve done over the years that in hindsight I can see have resulted in something I’d rather not be the case, but sleep training isn’t one of them.

If you posted a thread saying you wanted recommendations for a U.K. holiday, and someone posted again and again with a load of tips for Spain and France saying you would “do well to keep an open mind” about your holiday destination, while making comments about how they prioritised their kids really enjoying their holidays and how sometimes it’s necessary to take them abroad because that’s what in the best interests of the family and everyone’s health and happiness….you might find it pretty aggravating too.

It's not ridiculous, you said if you say its not for you them that implies you think it's cruel and then asked the question 'why wouldn't you do it' - you are making people say out loud why they wouldn't do it and pro sleep trainers probably wouldn't like the answers

For what it's worth, It didnt feel natural to me at all, I wanted to be responsive to my children and for them to know I'd always come to them. That doesn't in turn mean I judge parents for sleep training. My children now sleep through and I didn't have to sleep train, so it's a win win for me.