Is sleep training necessary?

[Deensaf]

Have a 14 week old who’s waking up every 2 hours and won’t go down unless is fed back to sleep - I think she’s going through her 4 month sleep regression but everywhere online says that I need to start sleep training or this will continue. Is this true? Does every baby need to ‘learn’ to self settle or does this phase eventually smooth out on its own?

Sleep training is for babies aged six months and over. You can try putting her down drowsy and awake but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t work. Look for solutions for your sleep that don’t depend on the baby (e.g. a nap for you when other parent returns from work) and don’t try and fix her sleep, you’ll just make everyone miserable and it probably won’t work yet.

Sleep training is more for the parents benefit than the baby. I don't even mean that in a judgemental way, sometimes parents get to the point where they can't cope with the sleep deprivation and manage their waking life. Sleep training can be necessary for some.

Most babies will start to sleep better on their own, without feeding and if the parents are coping with the sleep they are getting then that's fine.

4 months is usually the paediatrician recommended age to start in the US, not sure why a lot of people say 6 months in the UK. Is there any evidence for that? But OP if you’re reading a lot of stuff that says 4 months I’m guessing it’s American so there’s probably more of an urgency vibe about it because it’s expected you would be back at work already so are probably losing your mind. If you’re on a British maternity leave you might manage better as you can always nap when the baby does.

Anecdotally though I’d say that babies I know fall into 3 camps: Sleeping through within weeks without anyone really doing anything (the minority), parents who have done some sort of sleep training (the overwhelming majority, can be with gentle methods doesn’t need to be cry based) or that they’re poor sleepers well into the toddler years.

You could always start by doing some research into various methods and then going from there.

In my experience, you get people who are very pro and very anti sleep training, and it’s easy to get caught up in the noise.

You don’t HAVE to sleep train, you do what’s best for you and your family. There really is no right or wrong answer, but it’s not compulsory.

I never sleep trained DS, firstly because I think there’s not enough research into it but also because DS could put himself to sleep from a young age, but he still woke up several times a night, so I knew it wouldn’t work for him. I also know others where it hasn’t made a huge difference, but I know others where it saved their sanity. It’s one of the first few difficult decisions you have to make for your child, but go with what you think is right, not what others tell you (and there is a lot of guilt tripping from either side of the debate!)

Thank you all for your replies! Sorry I hadn’t really given much info in the original post.

I’m very lucky that I don’t have a need to rush back to work and have somehow gotten used to the sleep deprivation 😂. My main concern is for the baby. She’s always been A high sleep need baby, which was fine because she used to sleep well at night (naps have been a bit rubbish though since 6 wks - max nap length is 45 mins and that’s regardless of whether it’s a contact nap/crib/stroller. And I do attempt to resettle but it only works sometimes)
but for two weeks now the constant wake ups have affected her sleep and the entire day you can tell she’s just irritated and extra sleepy, which naps don’t help with nor an earlier bedtime/later wake up.
so really the sleep training aspect was for her, would it help her get better sleep? Or will she eventually adapt to her sleep changes?

(first time mum if you couldn’t tell 😂)

I had a baby that would put themselves to sleep in their cot and then wake regularly through the night and want to be fed/held. And I had a baby who needed to be rocked/cuddled to sleep snd who would then sleep all night from 3 mths old.

So no, sleep training is not essential IMO. My baby who needed to be rocked was able to transition to going to sleep by herself when she was about 16 mths old, with no crying or going in and out of the room.

Ah glad to hear! I’ve primarily rocked baby to sleep, which I’m more than happy to carry on with - was just concerned because I started to read that the reason why babies keep waking is because of that and potentially I’m causing an issue with their sleep. Hence why I posted because wanted some unbiased advice from parents who weren’t also selling some sort of sleep training package.

I don’t find the nap length too short at that age. Concentrate on the wake windows rather than the nap length. They do seem to sleep better when they start to join up the sleep cycles but she’s a bit young for that. I weaned the first baby off rocking fairly easily but found it annoying as she got heavier so avoided it completely with baby no. 2.

You certainly don't have to do it. I never did with mine, and she appears to be functioning perfectly well without it!

Could you share how you weaned off rocking? Currently she’s 90th percentile on the weight chart and I can see it becoming an issue as she gains more weight 😂

Just stopped doing it when she was six months and put up with sleeping taking longer. The key moment was when she fell asleep playing, though. After that she was much more able to fall asleep alone and join up sleep cycles.

Definitely no need if it's because the baby isn't sleeping as you've been told it should. It's all very changeable as they grow, growth spurts change sleep patterns and then it all settles down to what ever their normal is. Rocking to sleep will evolve as the baby grows, you might not have a problem that needs fixing, it sounds like you are doing a lovely responsive job.

Also, I underestimated how hard I'd have to work at getting my first the naps she needed around 4 months, she needed dark, quite and little stimulation (I ended up standing in a cupboard cuddling her) to drop off.

As our DD got older/heavier we moved from actively rocking to cuddling in an armchair while reading books/singing songs. And would move her into the cot when she was asleep.

Then once she got to about 15 months I was 6 months pregnant with DS so leaning into the cot to put her down asleep wasn’t really practical. So we moved to reading the final book to her while she was lying down in the cot and we’d let her choose a book to take into bed with her. We also introduced a comfort toy around that she took to bed as well, she used to use it as a pillow lol.

Hello - sorry to hear about the bad sleep, it's a killer. DD is 20 months now and has been up and down with her sleep, but 4 months was by far the worst patch so hopefully it'll end soon for you. We didn't sleep train in the traditional cry-y sense (no judgement, just not right for me and DD, who is a sensitive soul) and did a very gradual method insteqs when she was about 7 months that maybe helped a bit. That said, with hindsight, I'm now convinced (i) it really truly depends on the baby (ii) it depends what's up with them at the time (mine is a terrible teether) (iii) they get there in the end, whatever you do or don't do. Anecdotally, I know far more people who have not sleep trained than have, and I can't see a difference in how the kids are sleeping now as they approach 2. I'd advocate whatever feels right for you and gives you the easiest life. Good luck!

They get there in the end but it can take its toll. It took DD 18 months to sleep through. I was looking at my diaries and when she was around one, she had a handful of nights (not in a row) with one wake-up. We should absolutely have night weaned and gently trained at that stage but it was March 2020 and life became a sudden shitshow all round and we missed out window, so she merrily went back to waking all hours for the next six months. It’s only having my second baby, who slept wonderfully as a newborn and is now deep in the four-month regression, that I’m realising how sleep deprived I was, and am again. You can see it in photos – skin, hair, weight all suffered; my career; my creative career; friendships; everything. You can’t be woken every two hours for 18 months and not suffer.

This time we’re going to work with a consultant at six months and sort it out sooner, gently but firmly, before I go crackers. I believe the baby – who is high sleep needs but just shit at doing it alone – and the whole family will benefit. The freedom of cot naps! Big chunks of night sleep! Schedules! I’m a convert. First time around I got taken in by the Sarah Ockwell Smith “simply sacrifice yourself” martyr attachment guff.

Some babies naturally start sleeping for longer stretches. Unfortunately DS didn’t get the memo. He used to sleep in 2 hours stretches, which then my six months had reduced to 35 min stretches, all night. And took a long time to fall asleep too.

We did sleep training at 6 months (Ferber) and it transformed our lives overnight. He’s 2 now and I’m still so glad we did it.

We have friends with DC of similar ages who weren’t so bad, so they didn’t sleep train and they have had disturbed nights for much much longer than we have and still spend hours of their evenings putting DC to bed. We just read DS a story, leave the room and he’s asleep in seconds.

Thanks all for the responses! Nice to hear different experiences from parents. Especially since every baby truly is different so getting some real responses has helped rather than standard online information!