Sleep training - just my experience (success!) and thoughts
So I’ll start by giving my back story on how my thoughts on sleep training have evolved.
I’ll preface by also saying that I’ve had an extremely difficult motherhood journey after experiencing a neonatal death with my first child.
I’m lucky enough to be blessed with another child who is now 2.5 years old.
Before the birth of my second child, I spoke to a few friends who were already mums about the baby sleep thing. I had no idea what to expect but I vaguely knew there was such a thing as sleep training and “cry it out”, I didn’t know much more.
You hear all the time about babies and children not sleeping and I remember thinking “it can’t be that bad”, as I have always suffered from a bit of insomnia from time to time and manage quite well on little sleep. (Boy was I wrong!)
A couple of my friends said they wouldn’t ever consider sleep training, branding it cruel, unethical, unnecessary, that it “didn’t work” and how could anyone ever possibly leave their baby to cry themselves to sleep???!
I absorbed these comments - eager not to do anything whatsoever to “damage” my new baby.
Anyway, baby arrived, we got through the first few weeks where I was extremely anxious given that my first baby got an illness and passed away within the first month.
My new baby slept for 2 hour stretches during the night maximum, if I was lucky. I was breastfeeding round the clock as lots of new mums do.
The level of sleep deprivation after a while was just awful. When I say 2 hour stretches I don’t think it was even that.
It felt like I was up constantly and baby would not be put down anywhere, least of all the next2me crib we had carefully chosen. If he did go in it I could guarantee he’d wake up within 40 mins.
People kept telling me it would get better, the longer stretches would come. But when?? 8 weeks went by, 12 weeks.. 16 weeks. When were the longer stretches meant to be coming?
I think we got to about 17 weeks, perhaps in the midst of the 4 month regression - although I didn’t notice a regression as sleep was so bad anyway.
I knew something had to change.
I felt at breaking point and no longer able to safely function as a person.
We enlisted the help of a sleep consultant / sleep trainer.
I was reluctant to do any kind of controlled crying but felt I had no other choice if I wanted to survive and not dread every single day and night. We did a modified Ferber with short “check ins” every 5 mins.
I couldn’t believe it, the first night we did this he slept for a 6 hour stretch. Things just got better from there and soon we had a restful full nights sleep. My baby was no longer crying on waking all the time during the night and I was much happier and more patient, just an all round better version of myself than I had been previously trying to function on little sleep. I noticed my baby was happier in the day as well having had a full nights sleep. Naps were trained too and at last I had some space from the endless contact naps, able to do some bits around the house or go to the toilet without a baby strapped to me.
I had questions about the sleep training so decided to go digging and researching myself. Had I just “broken” my baby?? Had we caused some sort of mental or emotional damage that would be discovered years later? I wanted to find some answers. At this point it was already done so I accepted that even if there was a negative consequence of training I justified it by thinking that I would rather that than the intense sleep deprivation that was pushing me to the edge and potentially he could have ended up with a suicidal mother.
The more I read the more I came to realise that there is so much misinformation around sleep training.
The big studies (with good methodology) point to no difference in parental attachment between sleep trained and non sleep trained children. No difference in mental health outcomes,
IQ outcomes etc.
There are studies quoted by the “anti sleep training” crowd which do not have good methodologies and I think it’s really hard for the general public to distinguish “good” studies from “bad” studies and that’s where a lot of the misinformation comes from. Not all studies are equal.
I have a science degree and still found it confusing the amount of information and studies available. It’s only when I started reading more in depth and looking at the studies critically that I started to understand where a lot of the misinformation had stemmed from.
In summary, I did a complete 180 from my initial stance on sleep training once I delved into the research.
The “pro” sleep training crowd do acknowledge that there is an argument that cannot be disproven to say what if it does affect them later in life and we haven’t been able to quantify it with a study. I mean that is a possibility but it seems unlikely, all things considered and all studies that have already been conducted. It’s also something that is extremely hard to disprove.
There seems to be a whole generation of parents who have been told that teaching a child sleep independently is damaging somehow. These parents are convinced (as I once was) that the only way to be a loving parent is to keep cosleeping or assisting their babies / toddlers / children to sleep. Any kind of crying is neglectful.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with assisting your child to sleep if that’s what you want to do and are happy with how things are
What I’m saying is there are options if you are not happy with the amount of sleep you and your children are getting.
The anti sleep training crowd seem to be very vocal and accusatory, and of course no parent wants to think they could be damaging their child.
I see so many forums and so much content on social media that seems to be on one side or the other.
The thing is people who are into sleep training are mostly saying “hey, there’s this thing you can do where you leave your baby to settle themselves / another sleep training method and if you get their daytime schedule on track you can actually have a pretty good shot at some decent sleep. Don’t worry if not though”
Whereas the anti-crowd are generally (not always) name calling, telling parents they are abusive: neglectful etc. so many passive aggressive comments like “I could never!!!!!!”.
There’s lots of buzz phrases they use around sleep like “biologically normal” - yes it is biologically normal for young kids to wake up a lot but there are a lot of “biologically normal” things that modern life has overcome, and possessing the knowledge we do, we know that there are certain things that can be done to improve sleep. Sometimes even daytime schedule changes can have a significant effect on nighttime sleep.
What about children who naturally sleep through the night very easily early on, are they not “biologically normal”?
I have a friend who has convinced herself that she’s not sleep deprived but her sleep is “fragmented” which I think is another buzzword from the anti crowd. She sure sounds tired and sleep deprived, assisting their 12 month old to sleep throughout the night because they want her to feel “safe and secure”. I feel like the implication is that she thinks sleep trained babies don’t feel safe and secure going to bed.
My toddler seems very happy to put himself to sleep in his own bed and we have the most amazing and loving attachment.
The anti crowd also argue that things will get better eventually without training. And they will. Of course they will. Eventually most children will sleep through the night on their own.
And like I said earlier, if you enjoy assisting them with their sleep and are happy with that, then you go Glen Coco.
If you’re miserable with sleep deprivation then I hope you’re open to some sleep teaching, it can be life changing.
It does seem to be a bit of a lottery as to when your kid magically sleeps through on their own without any intervention and I do know parents with older toddlers/school age kids and have heard of parents with children up to 8, 9, 10 years old who still need lots of help either getting to sleep or during the night. (Again fine if you’re ok doing that, nothing wrong with it!). Some parents like to feel extra needed and treasure the nights they are up comforting their kids, that’s totally fine.
Personally I am happy not to do this on a regular basis. I do of course go and tend to my child if there is illness or anything causing them to wake unusually. However 99% of the time he is content to sleep soundly through the night and wakes up in the morning happily chilling in his bed for a little bit.
The argument about sleep training “not working”.. let’s talk about this one. There might be instances if your child has a medical condition or potentially some neurodivergent children will absolutely not respond to sleep training. However the vast majority of children DO respond to it. The problem is largely when parents are not consistent with the method they are using. They give up too quickly or send mixed signals - settling the child sometimes and then other times expecting the child to settle themselves. Perhaps they aren’t aware that daytime sleep is linked to nighttime sleep and the child is inadvertently getting too much or too little daytime sleep. Or they might be using a method not suited to their babies temperament- some kids find frequent check ins over stimulating and it doesn’t allow them the space needed to settle themselves. Perhaps the check ins are too long and again over stimulating. Most of the time check ins are meant to be very quick just to let baby know you are still there.
I also acknowledge that training methods differ by age and what works for younger babies doesn’t necessarily work for older babies/ toddlers.
Sleep training is also not just a “one and done” thing. Often there are times when children might need retraining such as after illness when they might have been up a lot in the night and of course you should comfort and do whatever you need to do with kids sleep when they are ill. Perhaps you’ve been on holiday and sharing a room, you might find that baby has become used to this arrangement and will need a period of adjustment to go back to their own room on return.
There’s so much information it can be difficult to get it right. That’s why there’s a multi million £ sleep industry with sleep consultants raking it in! I personally think the information should be free and available to all, in the uk I think it should be on the nhs. My health visitor offered me an appointment with a sleep clinic but only at 8 months!!! There’s no way I could have coped for that long on such little sleep.
So in summary, if you are a sleep deprived parent and wanting to change this and are on the fence about sleep training, I implore you to try it. The absolute key to it all is consistency so make sure you have a plan and stick to it, and if you have a partner make sure you are both 100% on the same page! If you have the budget for a sleep consultant then do it if you feel you need it, the support and hand holding can be invaluable. If you don’t have money to spend, get on some free resources, FB group “evidence based sleep training” - is a really helpful group with so much info.
If you’re sleep deprived and don’t want to change anything / dead set against sleep training then scroll on by.
If you think I am a neglectful parent for letting my baby cry for a few mins at a time to settle themselves to sleep and want to roast me for it then Fuuuuuuck you a million times over, you big bag of judgemental arseholes. I have absolutely zero regrets.