Sleep Training - yes or no?

[Zoe1825]

My 9 month old has never slept through since the day he was born, not once.

However we’re 9 months in now and currently going through a stage of maybe 5 wake ups in a night and it’s starting to get too much.

I’ve been looking at sleep training online, but I’m just not sure about it all. The Ferber method seems to be the most favoured. But I’m not sure it’s for me?

Any advice or tips or anything would be hugely appreciated!!!

Xx

We got to 7 months and gave it a try. It is distressing to hear your child crying and not go to them. But it did improve his sleep (although it was not a magic solution, i.e. he did not sleep through reliably from then onwards).

I wouldn't do it as I think if they are waking looking for me then they have a need, even if that need is 'just' physical closeness with mum. I meet their needs during daylight hours so feel it's still my responsibility to do this at nighttime.
I say this as mum to a child that never slept a full night until she was just over two years old. It was exhausting, there were times I thought I would die of sleep deprivation. For this reason, I completely understand any parent choosing to sleep train their child. I got through it with Co-sleeping and coffee. So that's my experience but you really just need to do whatever works for you and your family.

No, I think it’s barbaric to leave a young baby crying alone in the dark.
I’ve had three and they usually start sleeping through around 18 months/2 years. They all get there eventually!
What babies need is cuddles and love... if you can soldier on, go to bed early yourself and tag team with your partner, you’ll be pleased in the end that you didn’t leave them to cry.

I was in the same boat - absolutely desperate for sleep after months upon months of literally 10 wake ups a night. In the end I did the "Taking Cara Babies" online program (didn't sign up for the phone consult, just the online class). It was a really gentle 5-10-15 approach and honestly although it cost money, it was some of the best money I spent. The author is kind and purposeful and advocated against anything scary because she genuinely seemed to understand what was best for babies. Our LO now sleeps better than our three year old who's sleep I never cracked and it was all sorted in 2-3 weeks. It was literally the kindest version of sleep training I could finD and it really didn't seem to phase him much at all. Worth looking at, anyway. I really feel for you - sleep deprivation is tortuous. Good luck

No.
I took my babies into bed when they woke it...it went for about 10 months on each.
They are all adults now.

I also did the taking Cara babies method and it works amazingly. We did the newborn class which is a no cry approach and then we also did the sleep training at 6 months old and my little one has always been a great sleeper. It's such a gentle approach to sleep training compared to the Ferber method which I just found to extreme, even though it works very quickly. Hope this helps.

Not in a traditional sense of sleep training, I think it’s distressing for both baby and parent to be left to cry and does not send them the right message about bed being a safe place and you being a trustworthy caregiver. However I think there are ways to make good associations with sleep and bedtime. My little one started mostly sleeping through at 18-20 months but we still have times when she wants more reassurance during the night and cosleep when she needs it like when poorly. It’s tiring but I don’t like being alone all night so why do we expect young babies to?

Just no. It's abuse.

I sleep trained my oldest to get to sleep at 6 month old but tended to her if she woke during the night.

Your child is still a baby. If he's in a separate room on his own bring him back into your room and if he wakes up more than twice in the night co-sleep with him.

My LO is just over a year so a toddler. Early this morning was the first time in 3 weeks I co-slept. She will be sharing a room with a sibling around the time she is 2.

People will spew all sorts of hyperbole on here about this but we did it and it changed our lives. My son was completely unrecognisable after he started getting proper sleep, it was staggering. He's 3.5 now and still a fantastic sleeper.

Sleep training, contrary to popular belief, is NOT just shutting the door and letting them scream.

I've just been on a sleep training course for professionals

After 6m you can train

But it's now controlled comforting
You go back every 2 minutes for 5 rounds
Then up to 3 minutes for 5 rounds
Then 4
Then 5

You stop at 5 minutes. Not leaving them longer than 5 mins before you go in and settle them
You can pick them up but they shouldn't fall back to sleep in your arms

HTH

Take a look at Lucy Wolfe's book - it's a lot gentler than Ferber but worked really well for us! All power to those who can survive getting up 5+ times a night for months and months on end, I think you're amazing and obviously made of far sterner stuff than I am. That would be the end of me, and no way in heck would I be safe driving with my DD in the car on that little sleep, as well as being able to be a good parent with her during the day. I need sleep to function.

If you want quick results, Ferber is probably the best option - you can tailor it to have shorter intervals of checking at first too.

What gets me about this sort of thing is it's not only you that needs sleep to function, your child does too.

All well and good if you have got a baby who will happily co sleep or whatever. Mine wouldn't. I would have to walk upright with him for a minimum of an hour and a half before he would nod off. He would sleep for 20 minutes (whether on me, in my bed or in his cot, whether with a dummy or white noise or anything else you care to mention). Then he would wake and the whole process would start again. I genuinely felt suicidal, I couldn't function.

We did controlled crying (or controlled comforting, it seems like the same thing to me) and within three nights he was sleeping all the way through the night and, bar illness or teething (when I always go to him and comfort him etc), he has ever since.

I felt I could enjoy being a mother for the first time and he was so much happier - he actually laughed and played with you rather than just grizzling and rubbing his eyes all day.

Yeah my DD is a hot mess when she has a bad night of wake-ups! We both are

It depends what you mean by sleep training. Cry it out is a no go for me, it's damaging no matter how it's wrapped up. There are gentle ways to do it though. I would look for a gentle approach and try it out. It's really a developmental thing though there are things you can do to help. Just make sure you do plenty of research

Very much what @lula said ^^

I agree with @LulaLandry too.

If your child doesn't co-sleep you have nothing else left! Mine can't because we wake her up if we so much as move an arm ...

Also I think for some children crying can be part of their 'process' to go to sleep. DD (9 months) just doesn't want to go to sleep as there's too much fun to be had. She always cries during our bedtime routine and wind down as she knows it means bed, then quite often will scream/shout for a couple of minutes when put down in the cot but within 5 minutes (usually within 30 seconds) will be asleep. Very abrupt transition from screaming to sleep, I don't understand how she does it!

@DoraNora DD is the same. I read somewhere, I forget where now annoyingly, that's it's quite common. It's like an emotional release and de-stress before bed, and not because they are distressed.

OK I'm fully prepared for flaming. The basis of what's happening with so called "sleep training" is simple. Your baby is born with the instinct to cry in order to communicate their needs and thus those needs are met. If your baby cries and you refuse to meet those needs you are simply "training them" to understand that if they cry for you you will not come. No more, no less. They learn that their crying is useless so they give up. Some children give up sooner than others.
This unfortunately does not sit well with the "sleep train/cry it out" brigade who will therefore respond angrily and defensively with various comments, none of which change the facts. For a nice clear example you can look at babies in orphanages that not only learn not to cry at night but also when hungry/wet/unwell. They don't cry as it is a waste of energy. All they need to do is give up hope of getting what they're crying for and you're sorted, nice quiet baby.
You may also be interested in the damage caused to their developing brain by the high levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Or you may decide all these things are terribly inconvenient in which case denial works wonders. Up to you OP.

The cortisol research is, I believe, based on research done in Romanian nurseries where babies were left to cry not for three or four nights for a couple of hours, but for hours ever day and night. It's fine to not want to sleep train, but there's no contemporary and relevant research to say it's harmful (in fact there's research to the opposite effect).

A baby who is loved and cared for will not suffer any ill effects from three or four nights of sleep training. Nine months of attention and love do not get wiped out in a few hours!

In addition, sleep training does not equal closing a door and leaving a baby to cry for hours. It's a spectrum, with CIO at the extreme end. Stuff like graduated extinction is a lot gentler.

www.health.harvard.edu/blog/new-study-says-okay-let-babies-cry-night-201605319774

I'm anti sleep-training as I believe it causes psychological harm but each to their own. I want my child to know that if he cries, I'll come to see him as opposed to him thinking 'why bother crying if no-one is going to come?'.

The studies on sleep training being harmful are utterly unreliable; they were done on orphans who had no bonds with a primary carer.

Also, as others have said, sleep training is not simply shutting the door and your baby and leaving them to cry.

@Zoe1825 My first son was the same. I did gradual withdrawal with him. I started around 12 months. Within 3 months he was falling asleep in his cot on his own and sleeping til 5am. This was a HUGE improvement. He'd wake at 5 and get in bed with me for an extra hour or 2. Let me know if you want to know more. (I did it very gradually, no crying )