To sleep train or not to sleep train

[nmhermione]

My baby boy is 6 months and yesterday morning we decided the time had come to start sleep training. We're using a mixture of Ferber and Pick Up Put Down and don't leave him to cry for more than 5-10 minutes. The first few times we tried it was very hard, but we've had some small successes as well (where he fell asleep on his own after only 5 seconds of protest).

For the past few months, when we put him to sleep during the day, we've bounced him to sleep almost every single time. At night we've been co-sleeping, which really helped out with feeding him throughout the night (he's EBF).

Last night was our first night with him in his own room, and that was very sad and really lovely at the same time.

I've felt a lot of guilt at not responding to his cries right away and I've now made the mistake of researching online and am more confused than I was when I started. There are so many contradictory opinions and I just don't know what to believe anymore, so I decided to post on here (this is my first post).

The information I've gathered seems to broadly suggest the following:

PROS of sleep training

• Babies sleep better at night, which is good for their night rest and also the rest of the parents.
• Babies learn to self soothe, so they don't rely on parents anymore to put them to sleep, which means they can fall asleep when they're tired rather than asking for help.

CONS of sleep training

• Babies don't self soothe, they just learn not to cry when they wake up, so they don't actually sleep more, they just lie awake on their own.
• Babies learn that their parents won't respond when needed, which can damage their development and the bond between baby and parent.

These are very broadly speaking the findings of my online research and I just don't know what to believe. Obviously I don't want to cause any harm and the thought of him lying awake at night not crying because he knows we won't respond anyway, makes me extremely sad. On the other hand, if all that's not true and he would actually sleep better if we get through these few days, I think it's worth it in the long run for both him and us.

At the very least, we'd like our bed back so we can read a book at night and roll over and stretch whenever we want. We don't necessarily need him to sleep through the night just yet (lovely as that may be) as I do want to keep feeding through the night for now (and with him starting on solids this week, hopefully he'll need less milk at night soon). So I didn't mind waking up a few times and going to his room to feed him (rather than feed him in our bed, which was a lot easier), but he did cry for a few minutes after every feed when he was alone in his cot and I don't know how to feel about that.

Apologies for the very long and possibly repetitive post. Thanks for making it to the end if you have. I'm just very confused and want to do what's best for our family.

I agree that you should only do what works for you.

I was never faced with having to sleep train as all my kids slept in their own beds from day 1 and they all went down differently, one needed to be asleep (by rocking), one sleepy and one had to go down awake and they slept well pretty quickly.

I had to participate in sleep training at my child care job and I hated it. I paced anxiously outside the bedroom, but it was literally all over and done by the 2nd day and never took more than 10 minutes, and the little guy napped for 3 hours every afternoon and 11 hours at night.

I don’t think careful and controlled sleep training is harmful, but I also don’t think it’s an easy thing to do.

Sleep training was fantastic for our family and has provided a legacy of good sleep/habits which is still with us. We've seen real benefits to DC in always being well rested.

I have a theory that "sleep training" isn't really a "thing". When babies are ready they sleep through. Sometimes this coincides with something the parents do- so they conclude that it works. We are a culture that approves of self soothing, so we are inclined to talk about the "successes" of sleep training. Naturally we hear much less about the cases where training "fails" or where the parents don't even try. It's all part of our "children should be seen and not heard" culture. "Six months and not sleeping through? Oh, dear. What are you doing wrong?"

Always find it amazing how a parent can't work out how to put there children to bed and get them to sleep without using weird methods. With our 2 year old twin girls they were in cots in there own room from day one and I had a single bed in there. Theyve only ever co slept when ill. There now in there own little bed and perfectly happy because they were used to there own room and not being fully dependent on me. Our sons they did share our room because of lack of space till 6 months then we moved and for the first few nights in new house own room we read stories and they had a night light and singing bear each so had no problems

@Ladyj84 You were very fortunate if you had babies that slept. Mine didn’t. Sleep training (controlled crying) probably saved my sanity as I hadn’t had a decent night sleep for months. (I actually find your post slightly condescending. Mums with babies who don’t sleep are struggling already and don’t need these posts criticising them and making them feel inferior).

Sorry I clicked as thought your post was going to be about whether to catch a sleeper train 🤦🏻‍♀️ ahh well, on question of whether the leave baby the cry it out, as ma of 5 I can totally understand getting to end of tether over sleep and as you can imagine have tried it all over the years. No I wouldn’t recommend leaving them to cry it out at only 6 months as just doesn’t seem right and they do all sleep eventually but have friends who did and think the best thing ever

Some kids do just sleep easily, I’ve had both types so don’t think as simple as your making out, you were probably just lucky

Thanks everyone for your replies. Yesterday we decided to continue what we were doing for at least one more night, and if it was too hard on him or us we'd switch to a gentler method rather than Ferber.

Amazingly, my boy seems to have really taken to it. He fell asleep after only 5 minutes of whimpering (I wouldn't call it crying even) and he then slept for 6 HOURS! He's never done that before. He cried for food and I immediately fed him. He then woke up once more 3 hours later (and again cried for food), and then again 3 hours later in the morning. Both times when I put him back down in his cot he immediately fell asleep.

Only a couple of nights ago, he would have woken up at least 5-6 times, often needing a feed to settle. Because he's 6 months I know he can go 6 hours without feeding, so he must have just fed for comfort before, he didn't really need it.

I'm still a bit apprehensive as well, to be honest. I do hope he knows that he can cry if he's ill or hungry or had a nightmare etc. The two times he woke up with hunger he did cry and I went straight to him to feed him, but when he woke up this morning he was quiet in his cot for a little before we went to get him. I guess he wasn't feeling very hungry yet. But it does make me a bit concerned and makes me think if there were times at night when he woke up and kept quiet even though he needed comfort?

It's hard to know these things, but I guess the choice has been made now because my boy has taken to it so well - I can't believe the changes in sleep after only 2 days of Ferber. He seems perfectly happy at the moment, chatting and playing and smiling lots. I'm sure there are also massive benefits for him for having slept 12 hours with only 2 wakeups, as sleep is key to a baby's development and that's when they process and learn things.

Without more research, I guess we'll never really know if some kind of damage has occurred. All I can be sure of at the moment is that he's had an amazing sleep, and so have we, and we're all in great spirits. So I'm holding onto the fact that if there was any negative effect on his trust or confidence it'll be outweighed by all the benefits from a full night's sleep.

Thanks for sharing your experience, and for sharing that link. It was very informative and eased the guilt I was feeling somewhat. We just had a really good night’s sleep, which surely has loads of benefits for baby as well as us parents!