Honest view on sleep training

[Emmajane1987]

Hi all,
I have a nearly 4 year old son and a 6 month old baby girl and they’re both driving me to the point of insanity/ depression with their terrible sleep.
We did a small amount of Cry it out with my son when he was about 7 months and it seemed to really work for about a year and a bit, but since turning 2.5 until now he’s been terrible. Multiple night wakings/ early mornings and now will only sleep in dad’s bed (but still wakes up etc)
Im in another room with the baby who was until about a month ago sleeping great. She now wakes up 6-7 times a night. I am absolutely exhausted/ depressed and feel suicidal most days just because I want some sleep.
Im considering cry it out or similar for the baby (god knows what I can do about the toddler now, feels too late)
some mum friends say to do it and that it worked for them really quickly. But also reading it can cause emotional stress/ damage to the developing brains. I have to survive and keep my sanity so I need sleep but equally I’m worried about damaging the kids development. Anyone have any experience in sleep training and if you think it’s ok or did it even work etc? I’m a wimp with crying so I’m not sure I can hack it anyway but I’m at my wits end, and dreading another night x

When our children were about eight months old we did some element of sleep training. Not crying it out, but we changed from feeding them to sleep, to having a strong bedtime routine and putting them into their cot awake. This was a game changer for us as they had never learned to self soothe, and learned to go asleep by themselves. So if they woke in the middle of the night, they knew how to go back asleep naturally themselves without intervention. As they got older, say 4 or 5, we had a beaker beside them so if they needed a drink or something like that, then they could just get one without waking us for it

I think sleep training is always assumed to be just leaving a child to cry, but there are many ways that are not like this. Helping your child develop a means of getting to sleep and staying in bed is not barbaric, it is teaching them a vital skill for a healthy life.

In my view parents failing to deal with their (otherwise healthy) child’s broken sleep and martyring themselves in the process is far worse.

Try Ferber. Gentler than cry it out and worked quickly for our 6 month old

Risk v benefit? We did it and both slept through reliably from four or five months. I was not prepared to become depressed or taint their childhoods and my experience of childrearing with sleep deprivation. Now early 20’s. All bonded just fine.

I did controlled crying with my 9 month old when I was absolutely broken. I don’t think my health, or
my marriage could have coped with the sleep deprivation anymore. I was in such a dark place.

And people forget that sleep is just as important for babies as it is for adults too.

After sleep training, my son was getting over 6 hours more sleep per 24 hours than he was before the training and that is a very significant increase that he absolutely benefitted from.