I accidentally let 3 month old cry to sleep - feeling terrible!

[maria199]

This post is mostly for reassurance that I am not an absolutely terrible mother. My 3 month old baby usually feeds to sleep (breastfed) and will usually sleep for a few hours in the first stretch. However, the past week maybe I have been putting her down and around 10/15 minutes later she is waking up again and I need to settle her again. This is usually after around an hour of bed time routine / feeding etc so it is really taking a lot of time just getting her settled.

Last night I asked my husband if he could try to settle her as this was the 2nd time she had woken up and I had already fed her so much I didn’t see what else I could do, I was also getting stressed. He said he would, just to give him 5 minutes as he needed the toilet (typical). Anyway, by the time he was done she had finished crying and was asleep. I felt terrible that she had fallen asleep this way but I honestly couldn’t deal with her at the time and I think I would have stressed her out more.

Fast forward to tonight and it’s a similar story. I put her down asleep from feeding but she woke up almost instantly. I hadn’t had my dinner so again, husband said he would go in. He went in, soothed her and then left when she was sleepy but she woke again. I didn’t realise this but he said he left her for a few minutes as it worked then night before and then she fell asleep.

I am very conscious that it’s 2 nights in a row where she has been crying and then after about 5 minutes she has gone to sleep herself. I worry that she is too young for this but equally I don’t want her to have no ability to sleep independently. Does anyone else have similar experiences and reassurance that this will not cause some lasting harm (I know I sound pathetic!!).

Overnight she wakes several times and I comfort and feed each time.

*Just to add that my baby has decided herself that her bed time is around 6:30/7pm as she gets so tired. She sleeps in the same room as us, we have a camera and I spend an hour downstairs without her to have my dinner and some chill time before I go to bed. I am aware of the guidance but this works for us so I am not inviting comments about this set up, thank you.

Regardless of what you may read some posters here say, there's absolutely no evidence that sleep training - even cry it out - has any impact on children's development or mental health in the short, medium or long term.

Relax.

She is ‘crying down’ as she is dropping off.
The thing is we always equate babies crying as a bad thing. It sometimes isn’t. This is the only thing they can do. If we are tired we recognise the feeling and will say so. She can’t do either yet so all she can do is cry. It doesn’t necessarily mean there is something wrong.

Has there been any research into the impact on the parents who do CIO or sleep training for their children, and the resultant mental health of the parents? I'm just curious!

I read a book years ago called "Bringing up Bebe" it was about raising children in France. They said that the French think children have to learn to connect sleep cycles by around 12-16 weeks or they won't do it until much later. As someone who had to pay a night nurse to fix their child's sleep closer to age 1, I think this might be right. 5 minutes is probably right to let them try to self soothe at this age.

I can't remember where we got our research from when we did controlled crying, but it worked very quickly. When I read about people on here whose 2 year old or whatever still doesn't sleep through the night, I just can't imagine how they can cope, honestly. I do think there's something in it, doing it early (not too early) or you miss the boat and it's too late

I very nearly did!!

We did this by accident too, although my DD was a bit older maybe around 7/8 months. She had previously been a brilliant sleeper but was going through a regression for some reason and waking regularly. We would always go in to soothe her until one night when DH and I had both been struck down with D&V and were both too ill to go to her right away. By the time my vomiting bout had passed and I went through she had fallen asleep again. It seemed to sort the sleep regression out and she was mostly able to self soothe back to sleep from then on.

Absolutely this. The anti sleep train/self settling message is everywhere and is so aggressive and bullying. We sleep trained at 5 months because my son was waking hourly and absolutely hated being rocked and fed to sleep. He was so much happier when he could go to sleep independently in his cot, he slept more and for longer and was happier when awake. My mental health was saved.

It makes me so worried that new mums are being told they should endure hourly wakings and horrendous bedtimes with no sign of an end because they should be there to assist their child to sleep at every wake or they are not a caring parent. They should respond within seconds 24h regardless of how tired they are. That kind of sleep deprivation and pressure is so bad for maternal health, a fact that these people dismiss to a point of callousness.

OP your baby will be absolutely fine from this. 5 minutes to self settle with all needs met is totally appropriate at this age. Be kind to yourself!

as an aside, any formal sleep training should only be done from 4 months or older as this is when babies have developed a more mature sleep architecture.

New mothers are now terrified to let their precious child cry for even a second. Their scooped up the second they squark. Most with common sense can distinguish when the baby is unwell, hungry, wet, in pain or real distress etc.

If it was harmful we would see a lot more problems in second born, third born etc children or those who have a sibling with a disability or additional needs. It's only with a single baby you can react to every whimper straight away.

As we don't see these trends, you can conclude that babies don't need to be tended to immediately and don't need to be the constant centre of everything. It's nice if you can, but not essential, as your baby is showing you.

When I do sleep training with a mum I always time it

i always ask then how long they thought it was and many say 30mins +

they are amazed when I show them my phone /timer an it’s more like 5/6mins

crying when tired and emotional sounds much louder /longer then it is