Sleep Training

[LanguageAsAFlower]

I've gone 20 months not sleeping more than 2 hours at a time as non sleeping breastfeeding DS was up all the time! I hated the idea of crying and sleep training but I bit the bullet. I'm on day 4 and this is the first night I've done bedtime rather than my partner and it was bloody horrible. 25 minutes of crying and protesting.
Am I doing the right thing? I keep telling myself we all need to sleep, I needed to stop breastfeeding as it was driving me crazy and DS does need to be able to settle himself, but despite all that logic I still feel like shit. Any encouragement vipers?

You deserve a medal OP, that would’ve sent me over the edge Yes you’re doing the right thing, try not to feel bad. Sleep is a basic need just like nutrition and it’s really important for babies / toddlers to get good quality sleep, as well as you too of course!

Separate BF and sleep first. About that age I night weaned DS but very slowly and there were honestly hardly any tears when we stopped, and only 3 nights til he stopped asking.

There are always alternatives to letting babies cry. If it doesn't feel right, then it isn't right for your family. I haven't sleep trained and won't ever but we get one or two wakes now and he largely just puts himself to sleep lying besides one of us now

Can you co-sleep? It's the only way I've managed to get decent sleep and still meet baby's needs.
If it feel wrong to leave your baby to cry then it probably it. You should trust your instincts.

My son is 3 and just started sleeping through 50% of the time and is in his own bed every night now.

There's a Facebook group called the beyond sleep training project that really helped me!

Yeah I'm on that fb group. I do feel like I've tried everything. I've coslept the whole time, but the last few weeks he's been still waking 7+ times... and when he wakes and doesn't want to go back to sleep he'll pull at my hair and face until I get up... it's untenable really, I almost got to the point of thinking of giving up work, it's made my partner not want another child that I dearly want. I feel I'm at the end of the sleep road.

Hats off to you for being alive I would actually be dead. I’m that cold uncaring mother who left their child to cry aged 15 months because I was run ragged- now we get 11+ hours solid sleep a night. No matter how hard it was it was so so so so worth it. And DD has had no long lasting effects and loves bedtime so clearly hasn’t scarred her. Sometimes I think all that ‘protecting’ them from crying ends up with them waking multiple times which isn’t good for them either at all.

How are you sleep training OP? I felt comfortable leaving my DD to cry and going in every 2mins/ 5min/10mins and every 10mins after that. I personally think you but more importantly your DS needs uninterrupted sleep, it’s very unlikely he is waking for need but rather habit. Best of luck

I had a TERRIBLE sleeper so I feel your pain. For us, sleep training was necessary for all of us.

I know it's so heart wrenching. But my little boy is now able to put himself to sleep on his own with no tears. He sleeps through 4 days out of 5 and has just turned 1. Hang in there - it was so worth it and it changed things very quickly for us.

If you need some support have you considered a sleep consultant?

Keep going. You need sleep and so does your child. You can do this x

I sleep trained when we put DS in his own room at about 10 months. I wasn't breast feeding but he was still having one bottle which we dropped. It was hard but so worth it. We ALL felt better for it, and did the right thing for us which is what's most important.

He now sleeps through 90% of the time and only needs a quick 'shh sleep time' if we do ever go in (we had a weird regression at about 16 months where he woke up every 2 hours for about 10 nights, we were away at the time so it made it harder to stay consistent but as soon as we got home he snapped out of it). He has milk, teeth, story and then we lay him in his cot and he generally goes straight to sleep. He's very happy in his cot and there is no 'lasting damage' that I'm aware of I did the 2/5/7/10minute thing and was very strict with it. If he calmed I reset the timer. Good luck!

We have a sleep consultant- I'm currently following her plan. He just woke at 10 and was crying for an hour. Well still is, DP got home and I've popped to the shop to get some air because I'm crying too. I've got two kittens sitting outside the room looking at me like I've been murdering him. I'm supppsed to sit just away from his bed and say "sleep sleep" and only touch to comfort if he goes past protesting and onto really crying... I'm just shit at it though

It doesn’t sound like this method works for him. Could the sleep consultant offer any other ideas?

When I night weaned my daughter I offered her all the comfort she wanted except for the breast. That seemed to work pretty well, by the third night she completely understood that she wouldn’t be fed to sleep and it became a quick and easy process. I also didn’t feel as awful as she was being offered cuddles and comfort instead (though she didn’t really want it!)

With regards to night feeds, we didn’t go cold turkey, the first night I wouldn’t feed any more regularly than 3hrly and then gradually extend the time from there. I didn’t even have to worry about that though, she immediately stopped waking hourly and was just waking once in the night to feed at 4am, then back in to bed and to sleep. I phased that feed out after about 2 weeks.

She was 16 months when we did this and it was life changing. She now sleeps through reliably. She was waking hourly for most of her life, it very nearly broke me, so I know where you are. If you think what you’re doing isn’t working ask the sleep consultant for another strategy- though consistency is key.

Do yourself a favour and don’t join the beyond sleep training fb page, it’s not helpful to be encouraged to continue with debilitating sleep deprivation just in case your child cries.

Good luck- once you get an improvement you won’t look back

We had a sleep consultant, she suggested shh pat and sitting in the room with him. This didn't work! He was awake for hours, happy as Larry in the end (when he realised we were partying with him), with us patting his bum half asleep with achey arms. I realised it wasn't working and did CC. He slept through in about 4 nights.

Thanks for the encouragement. Tonight has been (so far) much better... hope I haven't cursed it by posting that!