Is anyone else not sleep training?

[HuntGather]

I have an 8mo who is a terrible sleeper and has been for many months - the most I get is a 2 hour stretch, and that’s with cosleeping. I'm not keen to sleep train but I seem to very much be in the minority with this and people are always telling me to do it. I've had my moments where I've considered it but it really doesn't feel good to me.

Is anyone else in a similar boat?

But for the 1000th time, sleep training doesn't always involve leaving a baby to cry.

It can also absolutely be for their own good.

It's unavoidable for your baby to cry in all kinds of circumstances.
However when your baby is crying in the car, pushchair or whatever it might be, the object of this is not to teach "self soothing" (which can't be taught it's a developmental faculty, the part of the brain that deals with self regulation does not mature until age 25), you would be soothing the baby with your voice and giving connection and reassurance straight afterwards when it's possible to do so.

I'm not going to successfully wean my baby to solids by sticking a bowl of porridge in front of them and leaving them to cry in the high chair until they figure it out.

It's no one's business but your own if you want to go down a sleep consultant route (I haven't come across any that don't advocate controlled crying in a fancy re-packaged format) but do so fully informed and don't defend it by using these silly analogies that just don't apply.

To add - a lot of what people are labelling "gentle sleep training" seems to be just tweaking routines, naps, and night weaning when appropriate which has been done since the dawn of time, so not really seeing why this now falls under "sleep training" category rather than just adapting to circumstances.

To add - a lot of what people are labelling "gentle sleep training" seems to be just tweaking routines, naps, and night weaning when appropriate which has been done since the dawn of time, so not really seeing why this now falls under "sleep training" category rather than just adapting to circumstances.

What's the difference? Whose definition is this except your own?

My one year old was waking every single hour at worst for breastmilk and was unable to self-settle and get back to sleep. I night weaned and had to train him to self-soothe and sleep through. He was not hungry, he had linked the tiny bit of milk he was taking to comfort and drifting back to sleep. I gently trained him to get this comfort from his favourite teddy and be able to drift back to sleep himself if he woke. He was never left to cry on his own.

If my son had been waking that often and it wasn't to do with the breastmilk I'd still have sleep trained. But because it was night weaning it wasn't training? That doesn't make sense. I couldn't just take the milk away and he suddenly would go "oh that's fine, I'll sleep now thanks." He had to be trained to be able to a) stop waking and b) drift back off if he did wake.

All was done gently and without him being left alone without comfort.

I adapted to the circumstances by sleep training him.

I'd call that night weaning not sleep training. I don't think it helps that there isn't one single definitive definition so it's very vague and subjective and each person may interpret it as they will. Most people do associate sleep training with some element of CIO whether or not parent is in the room or not.

Extract from the Google ai overview:

Some sleep training methods include:

Crying-it-out: A method where parents don't immediately respond to their baby's crying.

Controlled crying: A method where parents don't immediately respond to their baby's crying.

Pick-up-put-down: A method where parents alternate between picking up their baby for soothing and putting them down awake in the crib.

These websites do seem to suggest a difference between night weaning and sleep training:
https://www.tweetdreamzz.com/post/can-you-sleep-train-and-keep-a-night-feeding

https://www.babysleepsite.com/sleep-training/night-weaning-sleep-training/

Regardless of all the arguing over what does or doesn't constitute sleep training - to answer the actual OPs question: I have not sleep trained either of my children. I found the beyond sleep training group resources and members really helpful for advice on how to best cope with and support infant sleep.

I'd call that night weaning not sleep training. I don't think it helps that there isn't one single definitive definition so it's very vague and subjective and each person may interpret it as they will. Most people do associate sleep training with some element of CIO whether or not parent is in the room or not.

Not a bit of logic in that. My son couldn't sleep just from night weaning alone. He had to be trained to be able to sleep through.

That did not involve crying it out.

And if you class simply crying as "crying it out" then all parents are doing CIO on their children all the time. Posters on this thread say that sleep training = shutting the door on your child and leaving them to cry themselves to sleep. That's utter bollocks.

Of course your child will cry if you're training them to sleep through without whatever it is that's waking them up: milk, wanting to be in your bed, not yet knowing how to drift back off on their own without being rocked, or, in the case of older toddlers, just generally dicking about at bedtime or through the night.

How you deal with sleep training is what matters. You can do it gently or you can shut the door on your child and stick earplugs in. I doubt many parents are doing this.

Hi

I agree that elimination, as they call it, is going way too far. We used a sleep training method where we went in to comfort her every 2 minutes and on night 1 it was all over in 12 minutes. Night 2, 7 minutes. Night 3, 3 minutes. She's slept through the night pretty much ever since with some hiccups usually associated with nap transitions or sleep regressions, which unfortunately hit our little one like a truck! But I understand that the choice to let your child cry is a very difficult one and not everyone can do it, so it's a very personal thing. Also as several have said, it depends how you are coping - with wake ups every 25 - 45 minutes during the 4 month sleep regression, and me being back at work (am the main breadwinner so no choice there) we simply couldn't cope. I was so sleep deprived, I wasn't able to drive safely. You do what you have to to get through the tough bits, eh!

I didn't sleep train, not out of any real moral/ethical view (although it never felt natural to me to not offer comfort pretty much immediately). It was mainly just couldn't be bothered having lots of rules and what felt like more complex ways to get them to sleep, when bf and lying with them seemed to do the job pretty quickly. We've always been pretty relaxed about where they slept with just a bit of a nudge towards them sleeping in their bed, not ours. I did have to proactively night wean my first, although the second just gave up on his own accord. The oldest is 4, mainly sleeps in her bed but occasionally gets in mine, doesn't wake up in the night unless ill, will sleep till 8am if I let her. Her sleep got much more consistent about 3. The younger is 22 months, has slept through from earlier, maybe 18 months, but not consistently. Happier in his cot. Main issue with him though is 5:30 wakes which I'm struggling a bit with. I preferred the child who woke a couple of times a night but just needed a quick cuddle and slept till 8am. Both still need help to get to sleep, we sit with them and sing/hold hands. Would be nice if I could put my 4 year old in bed and just leave, but it's not unmanageable. I've generally felt like I got enough sleep. I have had times I wished they were less dependent on my/DH to go to sleep.

Bit of a stretch. There are different reasons for crying. And if my baby is sobbing uncontrollably in the car seat then I stop as soon as I can and get her out. Are you saying you don’t?