Need positive stories about not sleep training

[Remy87]

Hi everyone, my 6 month old has been a terrible sleeper since 12 weeks old, while we’ve had improvements from waking every 45 mins (!) we still have wakes 4-5 times a night. I just feel like I’ll never sleep more than 3 hours again and need to hear it gets better :(
Everyone around me seems to sleep train which is not for me but i am struggling to keep the faith!

I haven't sleep trained and my son started to sleep through the night at about 9/10 months. We had a really tricky 4 month sleep regression and then it gradually got better from tthere. So down from every hour wakes to one wake to sleeping 9/10 hours now.
He can sometimes be tricky to get to sleep (around vaccines, leaps and teeth are especially bad) but otherwise he's ok. All my NCT friends had sleep consultants galore and I honestly don't think it makes that big of a difference.
I did read the book Precious Little Sleep and took on board some advice from that but my experience is the sleep gets better as they get a bit bigger.

I exclusively breastfed and have never left him to cry it out if that is useful info.
Wishing you all the best, sleep deprivation is torture after all and it is so tough. I couldn't let me little one cry either.

My friend is in a similar position with sleeping patterns with her little girl. They’re having her tongue looked at as she looks to have a posterior tongue tie which can impact sleep. She also has some signs of low iron levels. Have you had those things checked?

Sleep training works for some babies but it’s not the magic bullet it’s made out to be. I have friends who sleep trained and had babies that slept through but at 3 started to need much more help to get to sleep.

Bottle feeding isn’t the magic answer either. I thought my DC2 would sleep better when I stopped breastfeeding at 10 months but it made no difference at all! As they get older they get better, I know it’s hard now though!

I don't want to dampen any hope that the previous poster may give you, but I didn't sleep train (we tried briefly at 6.months and again at a year, but my husband couldn't bear it and my son is a child of stongly held opinions like his father!) He's now 3 and still sleeps dreadfully through the night, needs someone whenever he wakes up, my husband regularly has to spend 1 hr or more in the room with him in the evening. I also have a 11 month old who is also breastfed and a not great sleeper, following a common pattern much like yours. He's not sleep trained either and I have had to cope doing everything on my own for him over this first year becsuse of the support tueneldest needs, and it has been very hard.*

If I had my time again I would have sleep trained the eldest: a) because I didn't think about the ramifications of what you do with the first on the second child- hasn't been able to have the early bond with his father, but having wanted to treat both the same so don't feel i should sleep train second either and b) despite inveitable setbacks (teething, illness etc) thar occur even with sleep training, I now firmly believe the long term being able to teach a child how to sleep well and independently is invaluable for their health and development and the parents.

Anecdotally my friends who sleep trained have MUCH better sleeping toddlers now, and I feel sometimes wlthat we have done a disservice to our child who needs so much more support and is forever in cycles of waking up too early, tired all day, grumpy, shifting bedtimes and naps.

Also one tbing I didn't properly take on board, but I firmly believe: the later you leave it the harder it will be. Imo 8/9 months may be the sweet spot.

But I didn't manage it, so no judgement from me! Also I know that's totally not answering the question you asked but I just felt it might be useful to know our experience in case it goes the same way for you (to prepare yourself!)

*fyi for context no medical or weight issues in either child, they are thriving otherwise and are both very clever active boys ahead on all milestones.

Good luck to you xx

I have 3 DC, the youngest is 9 months and terrible sleeper.

However the older 2 were sleeping through at 8 months and 16 months respectively, without any sleep training. They did both have dummies though whereas my youngest, the worst sleeper of the three so far, doesn't. So I do wonder if that might be part of it.

I haven’t sleep trained and my LO started sleeping through at 16 months - she would wake once or twice before that

We didn’t sleep train either of our children. Dd1 didn’t sleep through until she was around 3! And DD2 who is 14 months woke 9 times last night and I’m pregnant again ! 🥴

all my friends children seemed to sleep through from 10-12 months. I think all children are different to be honest, they all get there eventually.

Sleep training didn't work on my kids. DD was stubborn as a baby and is still stubborn today as a young adult. I believe she would never have submitted to sleep training. We did try! It was painful.

So, bedtimes were long, we'd often go to sleep alongside the kids or get into bed with them when they woke up

But it didn't last for ever. It did last a long time! but not forever.

You can do sleep training without the cry it out method. I’d take dd back to bed and lay on the floor next to her stroking her nose then I’d say “mummy’s going to go and have a cup of tea now” (anything else and she’d want to come too but cup of tea was boring enough she’d let me go just as she was drifting off). You need comfort to get to sleep? Sure, I’m here. They are little for such a short time.

My older two are just turned 4 and just turned 2. Baby is 4 months but seems, so far, to be similar! All EBF until around 14m. All have co-slept to varying degrees. All have slept pretty well as little babies, with 1 or 2 night wakes… But then stayed exactly the same into toddlerhood and beyond. 😂

So, whilst friends have had babies who woke up every 30 minutes at some points, they all now sleep through the night. My 4yo has never once slept through, has religiously woken up once since he was about 8 months old, immediately back to sleep with a cuddle - or now will often just be found in our bed in the morning. Middle one sometimes sleeps through, usually wakes once, occasionally twice. They go back to sleep pretty instantly and have never been early risers so it’s not too bad. Sleep training isn’t for me, personally.

I haven't sleep trained either of my DC it just wasn't for me. my firstborn slept through from 5 months old, my second was still waking 2/3 times a night until she was just over two. The only thing I did differently was co slept with my first, I'd have co slept with my second but she liked her own space and slept much better that way as much as she was still waking multiple times.
I just kept telling myself that it wouldn't be forever, as hard as it is at the time, they do all get there eventually.

It took my ds until he was 4 to sleep through.

Thanks everyone, a real mix! And to be clear I’m not expecting baby to sleep through but an improvement on waking up every 1-2 hours would be great…. I’m really struggling right now and just don’t know how much longer I can cope with it. Was just interested to know if / when it gets better!

Have you tried co sleeping? I know it’s not for everyone but it saved me when I had 4-5 wakes up a night . She did improve to 1-2 wake ups at around 1 year and then slept through

Yes I have done / do when it’s obviously going to be a rough night but baby now likes to roll back and forth a lot so not too comfy for me 😂 I can’t tell which is worse, dozing with him smacking into me all night or having to keep getting up but with some sleep in between!

It gets better! I have 4 and never sleep trained any, they all sleep eventually:)

Mine is older now - 3.5. Of the 5 mums I was closest to in the NCT group, 3 sleep-trained...continously. It seemed to get knocked off all the time by illness or holidays or whatever and they were always talking about restarting it and different techniques they were trying, but they all amounted to letting baby cry and learn to "self soothe" really, and I couldn't bring myself to do it. I am not mentally strong enough to hear my babies cry and choose not to help them.

The other mum's daughter started sleeping through reliably before mine.... it took mine a pretty long time. But he sleeps the best now. Goes to bed quickly and well, sleeps for 11 hours, doesn't usually wake and if he does, it's pretty much always because his duvet has fallen off and he's back asleep instantly once he's tucked back in. And I sleep a lot better knowing that if he needed me, he'd shout or run through.

They get there. Co-sleeping made the early years bearable for me - once that rolling bit is done!

My son's sleep vastly improved at 9m, just before I went back to work - one or two brief wakes, down from 3-4.

But we did sleep train at 14m, because he was getting cold after cold at nursery, giving to us, and it felt like he wasn't getting good enough sleep to feel better.

I'm only sharing because sleep training for us went as well as you could possibly ask for it to go. We did pick up put down at intervals.

In 25m, he spent half of it being cuddled and half of it fussing the first night. Then 3m fussing before being put down the next night. A couple of episodes of this in following nights before he slept through the majority of the time.

He still cries for us in the night occasionally, and we still respond to him - no BS about him "learning nobody's coming".

His health vastly improved when he was able to sleep better, and so did ours.