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

I think people just hear "sleep training" and think that means "cry it out". It absolutely doesn't, there are millions of different methods.

I agree with the PP who said it's not just about you getting enough sleep! If cosleeping works and everyone sleeps that way then great, but not all babies like it. Neither of mine did/do, except when they're ill which is different. And some babies do just start sleeping on their own, but so many kids don't and then families end up with awful sleep for years and years!

We did CC with DD when she was 14months. Up until that point she was crabby and exhausted all the time from constantly waking up in the night, and having shit naps. After CC (four days or so) she slept like a dream and was a different child. She came on leaps and bounds after that. She's 5 and doesn't remember it, still sleeps pretty much perfectly, loves her bed.

Then we did it was DS at 7 months. A lot earlier, but he was waking up every 20mins, and waking everyone else up as well. DD was starting to struggle at school so we had to get it sorted. Cosleeping didn't work for him either, so we did CC. He got it even quicker than DD and is now a champion sleeper for the most part. He's 14 months and chats himself to sleep.

Theres a world of difference between CC and CIO. Leaving a baby to shout in anger for three minutes at a time isn't the same as leaving them to cry indefinitely. One is cruel, the other is helping them learn how to sleep.

My SIL still sits with her 6 year old DD for up to two hours every night while her DD messes around, because said DD never learnt to sleep on her own. SIL absolutely hates this and she and BIL haven't had an evening together in years for this reason but they won't do anything about it. I don't understand it. We put so much effort into teaching our kids healthy eating habits and so on, why does sleep get written off?

Note I am not advocating sleep training as standard, whatever works for you, be that co sleeping or whatever - whatever gets you sleep. Sleep is so incredibly important.

Yes. It took 3 nights of going in after 2 minutes, 4 minutes, 6 minutes etc... to teach DS to get himself back to sleep. Everyone got sleep. Everyone was happier. It wasn't abuse. He didn't learn we wouldn't respond to his needs. He still cries if he's sick or upset, but can now get himself back to sleep if he just randomly wakes up in the night without our help.

So much hyperbole around sleep training.

Apart from the obvious fact that a baby shouldn't be "trained" to do anything, there really is good, clear evidence (and not from protracted crying in Romanian orphanages) that responding to your baby's emotional needs is crucial in developing a healthy emotional response and the ability to self-regulate. Google work by Sue Gerhardt, Mary Ainsworth and Lewis, Amini and Lannon's A General Theory of Love.

At 9 months babies are going through so many developmental changes, some physically obvious, like becoming mobile, and others which we just can't see (apparently between 9-12 months their neural development really accerates) and these must impact on their sleep. Who knows how many weird and unsettling they dreams they might be having? A crying baby is a communicating baby and I'd hate it if I was ignored when trying to tell someone I love that I want them to comfort me.

My DS1 was waking every 45 minutes at 9 months so we started co-sleeping and that really did sort out sleep for both of us. When I had DS2 we co-slept from birth and apart from waking briefly to feed when he was a baby I have never had a nght disturbed by him in 10 years.

There's no other developmental life skill that babies need to learn where people use crying to teach them. No one uses controlled crying to get their baby to eat more, or learn to crawl or talk, but somehow to get them to sleep it's OK?

But responding to their emotional needs is an ongoing thing. OP has been responding to her child's emotional needs presumably for nine months and will presumably keep doing so post-sleep training, which, if you do use a method that involves more crying than is usual for your child bedtime, is generally very short-term. You don't just stop responding to a child's needs by doing three nights of sleep training! And a child also has sleep and developmental needs.

If you have a look at the peer-reviewed study mentioned in the post I linked that specifically looked at sleep training, it found no ill effects on babies and actually lower cortisol for babies who were sleep trained as opposed to those with sleeping issues.

Crying while learning new skills or doing something you don't want to is common. There will come a point when your child cries for half an hour because you left the park before they were ready, but the solution to that isn't to sit in the park for three more hours to avoid tears.

At the end of the day, we do what we can. I'm fortunate that I've got a good sleeper and haven't had to do sleep training other than some very gentle bedtime training. But I would not be getting up 5+ times a night for months and months on end with a baby who no longer needs night feeds - it would make life terrible for us all.

I read a post on here the other day from someone who had almost crashed their car because they were so sleep deprived. That is ridiculous and incredibly dangerous not only to you and your child but to other people on the roads. And I refuse to believe that people who are so sleep-deprived are parenting to the best of their ability and fulfilling their child's and their own emotional needs during the day. You can't run on empty and something will give, whether it's that you are unsafe to drive, you are short-tempered with your child, you aren't able to do activities with them or enjoy them...

Oh and co-sleeping is always trotted out as this magic bullet to solve every sleep issue. My DD actually sleeps worse when co-sleeping (as do I). We wake each other up. And while I love breastfeeding, I would not enjoy having a baby on my boob on and off for an entire night. It makes me feel all touched out and I would wake up every time she latched on (plus I don't really understand how it works, does the baby feed off the same boob all night? If you have to switch sides every time or put the baby on another side, then that's pretty disruptive, so hardly the idyllic 'I just lie there and baby feeds while I barely even wake up' I've been led to believe )

No one uses controlled crying to get their baby to eat more

Training my child to eat well has actually resulted in a fair amount of crying on his part because if left up to him he would exist on breadsticks and yogurt, and I don't allow that.

We sleep trained at 19 months, I wish we'd done it much earlier! We used the Ferber method, within 5 nights he slept through and has done ever since.

It worked beautifully with my niece. She has reliably slept through the night since her parents started sleep training at about 7 months (she's nearly 2 now). But I think every baby is different, so it's not necessarily magic.

Ignore comments calling it 'barbaric' - that's just unhelpful mom shaming. It might not work for everyone or be the right choice for everyone but trying it certainly doesn't make you a bad parent!

@Celebelly thank you for mentioning the co-sleeping as a 'magic solution' everyone who feels sleep training is child abuse advocates. My DD is exactly the same, she hates to co-sleep. We have just got back from a holiday where we HAD to co-sleep and 5 nights of that had turned her from a baby that woke up once or twice a night to a baby that could only sleep for 45 minutes at a time and no longer self-settle. I also had the 'one side' boob issue

It's all very well if co-sleeping means you get sleep, congratulations that's lovely! But what about when it doesn't work and your child screams more if you are in the room at all? No Sarah Ockwell-Smith devotee has ever been able to provide an answer.

OP, I found Lucy Wolfe's book really helpful for an idea of structure and how children sleep. She's also 'gentle' in the first instance. Her actual 'stay and support' method didn't work for my DD and we ended up with controlled crying which did. Good luck! I hope you both get more sleep soon.