Gentle sleep training?! Is it possible?!

[Aw12345]

We have decided we absolutely have to do something to help our 9 month old sleep better. We're all completely shattered and most importantly LO is tired/grizzly all day because we can't get him to sleep anywhere near enough for his own needs.

Has full bedtime routine, bath etc, goes to bed about 7, normally takes about 2 hours rocking him in the pram to get him to sleep, wakes about 5 times a night for feeding (ebf) and then awake for the day at about 7am. Naps for about 2 hours during the day (also very difficult to get him to sleep at all in the day, feed to sleep/rock in pram/drive in car etc).

We're trying "pick up, put down" and "stay and support" but he is crying lots and it's breaking my heart 😪.

Is it normal to cry so much with these methods?

Any help/wisdom needed. We feel so guilty that he's not getting enough sleep, and feel guilty about the sleep methods too 🤷😢

[Mississippilessly]

I've just started gentle sleep training and I wish I hadn't opened this thread.

[Whatnameisgood]

Genuinely interested in those who say sleep training is never ok (even, for example when the baby is never left alone to cry), what would they say about a 6, 7, 8 month old baby who is waking every half hour/40 minutes through the night and won’t be fed back to sleep but needs rocking back to sleep each time? How can a mother in that situation cope with that kind of sleep deprivation? It just can’t be sustainable or the right thing for mother or baby. My babies weren’t as bad as this but I’ve heard of those who were

[Whatnameisgood]

#mississipelessly - I’ve started gentle sleep training too. I honestly believe it’s the best thing. My current situation isn’t sustainable so something needed to be done and I didn’t want to leave baby to cry alone. and although baby isn’t impressed I am right there with him and he’ll be ok. I’ve been round and round it in my head and there just isn’t another option. I’m sure you’ve thought really hard about the best thing for your family including baby, other chikdren and yourself

[Sunshiness]

If a situation isn't sustainable anymore I completely agree something has to change. Every parent has to listen to their own instinct to know what's right for their own situation.

However, what I think is very wrong and damaging is that the myth is being spread that sleep training is not harmful for babies, or even in their interest.

Imagine how confusing it is for a baby if you're sitting right next to them but don't pick them up when they cry - they learn that they can't rely on you, that you'll sometimes (during the day) comfort them but sometimes just don't.

When my DD's sleep got very bad around that 8 months mark, well we started co-sleeping (but I realise it's not an option to do safely for everyone, e.g. smokers or those needing medication). But I also just went to bed myself at 7pm, 8pm, as early as I needed to get through the night. As crazy as it might sound, I found accepting the bad nights (no longer looking at the time, just rolling with it) made them so much easier to deal with. It always gets better again eventually.

Like I say, though, no-one can ever know what it's really like for another family and all children and situations are so different, so it's completely pointless to judge others for their choices or make blanket statements! It's just that parents should be able to make informed choices, rather than being further confused by false promises etc being thrown around by "sleep trainers" that want to get money off vulnerable people like this. It is impossible to "train" away a need that a baby has - the need for comforting at night - rather this gets easier by itself as baby develops. All that they learn through sleep training is that they mustn't express their needs by asking for help. I believe no-one should feel guilty for having done it, as it's so easy to fall for the very powerful sleep training discourse in today's society - it's everywhere and becoming entrenched. But if you read up on it, you realise we're being conned. It's this misinformation that I think is so wrong.

[NewAccount270219]

Could you provide evidence for the claim that sleep training is harmful? Actual studies on sleep training, not someone's blog where they misuse evidence that is actually about severely neglected children in orphanages. I'll go first - here's a study that found no evidence of harm:

pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/137/6/e20151486?sso=1&sso_redirect_count=3&nfstatus=401&nftoken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000&nfstatusdescription=ERROR%3A%20No%20local%20token

[NewAccount270219]

Sarah Ockwell Smith doesn't count as 'scientific evidence' by the way - she has an undergraduate psychology degree, not any form of clinical qualification, and her misapplication of science is appalling

[DippyAvocado]

I wish I had sleep trained both my DC. I trained DC1 - shush pat and gradual withdrawal. I didn't do it with DC2 as I didn't want her disturbing DC1. She still wakes me every night at the age of 6 and can't get back to sleep by herself.

[Haz1516]

I sleep trained at 7.5 months. I wasn't a good mother being woken every hour all night to put a dummy back in. I was expecting it to be traumatic, but actually he fell asleep within 5 minutes of doing spaced soothing - which is less time and crying than anything else I'd tried. So it's not always some hideous thing. We then night weaned just recently at 10.5 months with my other half going in, which seems (fingers crossed) to have worked. We are all happier for it. I've discovered that if I try and stay in the room with him then he becomes far more distraught and won't sleep.

I recently saw on Instagram a mum who refuses to sleep train because of how cruel etc it is, but always complains about her children's sleep. She recently did a story saying how she couldn't get her 15ish month old to sleep in the middle of the night. So after rocking, feeding for about an hour wasn't working, she gave up and left him to cry for apparently 40 mins. Sleep training is far less traumatic than that.

[Sunshiness]

NewAccount I just read that article and it's appalling. The results section reports the change in stress levels (measured by cortisol) in the baby from before sleep training to at the 12 months check up, reporting that it has decreased in the graduated extinction (controlled crying) group. Meanwhile the graph supplied shows that the baby's stress spiked upwards very significantly at the 1 month mark!!! Look at Figure 3 in the article you've linked to!! It shows controlled crying to be the most stressful method for the baby - it's mind-boggling to me why the authors chose to report that there was no more elevated stress 12 months later rather than reporting this increase in stress at the time of the intervention.

The article also reports that overall sleep time increased over that year for all babies, including those who did not do sleep training.

Meanwhile there is lots of research that shows how excessive stress in babies affects their developing brain. Sarah Ockwell-Smith cites loads of studies, as do books such as The Science of Parenting and Why Love Matters.

[Sunshiness]

The article also links to the sleep advice that the control group received. It says sleep training is harmful and it is important to make babies feel safe - see screenshot

[Sunshiness]

It's from here
www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetails.aspx?p=114&np=122&id=1900

[Sunshiness]

My DD is now 2 yrs old and her sleep has always been up and down depending on teething, illness etc but it is getting better overall the older she gets, without any intervention or training. But all children are different so it's impossible to infer from one case what will happen to others

[Mudcakemaniac]

My baby HATED any “gentle” sleep training methods. He would literally scream if I was in the room. His sleeping problems started when he was around 3 to 4 months old and it wasn’t until couple months after that I started doing sleep training. At first I tried doing gentle methods like pick up put down but he would just scream. Honestly it was awful. And because things didn’t get any easier after couple of weeks I decided to do controlled crying and it only took one night and one nap and then he started falling asleep on his own without any crying!! And those few times it was more like tired crying that screaming.

It broke my heart seeing my baby so tired all day because he didn’t get a good nights sleep (because he woke up like every hour or so) because I didn’t have the guts to do cc. I knew the gentle methods weren’t working but leaving baby alone to cry just felt awful. I’m so happy I got the courage to do it. My son’s been a great sleeper ever since. He’s so happy and social and loving and I definitely don’t think cc “damaged” him one bit. My sister didn’t do any sleep training to her first her born even though she was crap sleeper and she still is and she’s 5 now. Only sleeps like 7h a night and is so like moody (though I don’t if they’re related; moodiness and sleeping so little). She sleep trained her second child and she sleeps really well.

[Sunshiness]

There is a developmental sleep regression at 4 months - it's not "sleep problems"....
I'm very glad to hear you are happy with your situation and your DS is happy, but I think it can be misleading to others to suggest controlled crying is no biggie. It will have been very stressful for your DS that night. Maybe he cried rather than screamed because he just gave up, whereas with the gentler method he still had hope you'd pick him up. You conclude that the gentle training not working must have meant it was "too gentle", my reading would have been even the gentle approach was "too much sleep training" already especially at that young age. I don't mean to have a dig at you personally at all, just trying to give a different perspective for the sake of others reading. So many parents bitterly regret doing sleep training, too. Also it can happen that you have to do it again each time baby is teething or ill or in a new environment etc

[HoneyWheeler]

In my experience gentle methods take longer but it worked for us. In the end though, although he was sleeping through it was taking ages for him to go to sleep so we ended up with two nights of crying before bed and now it only takes him ten minutes. It sounds like a lot, but in the forty minutes it was taking him most nights we'd often have kids of crying (from both of us) so the short sharp method in the end work for us. I'd recommend Little Sleep Stars on FB/Instagram, and also Little Z Sleep podcast/e coaching. The main thing I had to learn was to be utterly consistent. Giving in wasn't fair to him and was confusing. Being strict is not in my personality so I had to reframe it in my mind and saw that it was about being fair to my baby.

[Ohyesiam]

Have you seen The No Cry Sleep Solution?

[HoneyWheeler]

And I just want to say that it's ok if you need help and you're not coping with the sleep deprivation. I couldn't, I needed help with sleep and I needed support

[Hollowvictory]

Rocking for 2 hours in a pram? Why are they even going to bed in a pram? This makes no sense! I put mine I their cots (twins') in th dark, left room, job done. Occasionally popped back in if one was crying e.g teething.
Why why why do people train their children to sleep like this? Two hours rocking would drive me insane.
Please get help to resolve this or you'll end up exhausted 💐💐💐💐😵

[Mississippilessly]

Sorry but that is a ridiculous thing to say. People dont train their children to sleep like that. They get them to sleep like that because they cant get them to sleep any other way. Your twins just fell asleep on their own in the dark - lucky you.

[NewAccount270219]

sunshineness they reported at the 12 month check because they were looking for evidence of lasting harm - which they didn't find. I don't think anyone claims that the initial period of training is stress-free, the issue is whether that has any lasting effects. We subject babies to all sorts of short-term stressors - their first time away from their mother, vaccinations (the most crying DS has ever done is the night of his 8 week injections, when he cried, in arms, for six hours straight. I suspect that was the most stressful night of his life so far, far more so than sleep training; still worth it for the protection the vaccinations gave him), being in the car even if they don't like it, etc etc - the issue is whether those things cause lasting damage. The evidence is no. The studies you mention (citing Sarah OS again) either look at children who have been subject to chronic, long-term stress (the Romanian orphans) or animals who have been, for example, removed from their mothers and raised in a cage alone. Those are not comparable situations to sleep training. No study of sleep training has shown any lasting effects. That includes on sleep itself - as you point out, the studies show that sleep training significantly improves baby sleep in the short term, but long term they all start sleeping better, sleep trained or not, so it evens out. The benefits for maternal mental health, for instance, are therefore temporary - but they are significant for that period.

[Hollowvictory]

No, I sleep trained them. Otherwise I'd have been up all night every night. When they were tiny there were nights I didn't even get into bed let alone go to sleep! Premature twins are no picnic I assure you. But it's not unreasonable to suggest that a decent sleep routine be established that allow parents to get some much needed kip and not rock a pram all evening! At 9 months! Sleep deprivation is torture as we all know

[NewAccount270219]

hollow obviously OP and her partner didn't sit down and go, 'ok, how shall we train DS to sleep? Two hours' rocking in the pram? Sounds good'. I'm sure it evolved slowly (at a guess, they were rocking in arms and he got too heavy) and because at every stage it was the only thing that worked. It's ok to want to change it, but OP doesn't have to feel any guilt about doing what's worked for her child so far.

[Hollowvictory]

It's not working though is it? Everyone is exhausted

[NewAccount270219]

I agree, and I've been very supportive of OP trying gentle sleep training to change the situation; it's also what I did. It was your attitude that OP had somehow done this deliberately or been stupid to get in this situation ('Why why why do people train their children to sleep like this?') that I thought was unhelpful and unsympathetic.

[Mudcakemaniac]

Hi sunshiness. I didn’t know about the sleep regression when the”problems” started. If I remember correctly it was about a month after that I started googling why my son is waking up every hour and won’t fall asleep without boob in his mouth. At first I tried being very gentle and taking the boob out of his mouth before he fell asleep and stuff like that but nothing helped. Trust me I read every single book I could get my hands on about gentle sleep training. Of course I wanted and still want to be a good mother and not do things that might harm my son’s (mental) health. He was 7.5 month old when I finally did CC and the first night he cried about 40mins and the next day when he went to have a nap he cried like 15mins. But honestly I tried so hard to try to get the gentle methods work. He would just scream and want me to pick him up and pretty much all the books said not to pick him up but just pat him and sush. If I’m honest I wish I hadn’t done the gentle sleep training because it was honestly so awful. Maybe it was too early (he was around 5 months when started doing something to help him fall asleep on his own) or maybe it just didn’t work for him. I co-slept with him. Oh and I didn’t sleep train him the whole time from 5months to 7.5. For example I tried PUPD for 4 days or so but I just wasn’t getting easier and I’m not joking when I say it took me hours to get him to sleep!! So I’d go back to nursing him to sleep every hour. I know consistency is key but I found it too difficult to spend hours trying to get him to sleep. I tried something else some time later when I felt like I had enough. I always did at least 4 days of that specific method before giving up.

You said something in your previous post about imagining how confusing it is for a baby to have a parent sit next to them and not picking them up when they cry. I think that’s why he hated when I was in the room. The first night I did CC, I just said night night and left him in the cot, he didn’t even put his hands up like normally (you know when he wants you to pick him up) he just laid there and cried what sounded like tired cry. I honestly thought it was going to be worse. I don’t blame parents not wanting to do something like that but I don’t think they need to be judged so badly for doing that. Normally CC or CIO is the last resort. I doubt many would do that first without trying something else first. I’m so glad those times are over as I remember how unbearably tired I was. And how tired he was! It was awful not getting a child to fall aslee. I’m glad I didn’t have other children to look after as well. He’s 2.5 years now. He may wake up at night if he’s poorly and I let him sleep in my bed. He then happily goes to own bed the next night. He doesn’t wake up at night otherwise and still has a nap.

I’ve started saying to friends who get pregnant to read info about the 4 month sleep regression. I wish I’d known so I wouldn’t have let him fell asleep with boob in his mouth 😁 probably easier to prevent sleeping “problems” if you know what’s going to happen and nursing to sleep isn’t probably gonna help.