Sleep training…yay or nay?
They are so precious like this…screaming bloody murder? Not so much.
I’m going to be participating in a discussion tomorrow on the Bill Good show about sleep training and letting your baby “cry it out.” A new study in Pediatrics has some “good” news:
…strategies that let babies cry it out for limited periods while teaching them to sleep on their own can help families sleep better in the short term without causing long-term psychological damage in kids or weakening the bond between babies and parents.
I “kind of” sleep trained both of my children. My daughter learned how to fall asleep on her own fairly easily. A big thing I remember, however, was that she would wake up in the middle of the night looking for her pacifier. When she couldn’t find it she would LOSE HER MIND…screaming the house down until it was popped back in her mouth. People told us we would never rid her of that habit…that we ought to lose the soother as soon as possible. We politely ignored them. She gave it up (on her own) just before her second birthday.
Sleep training (like any kind of parenting tactic) is not easy. I was not very good at it. There were many nights when my husband was working that I would just lay my baby beside me letting them fall asleep. I would transfer them into their bed when they were asleep. I think you do what you have to do and what works for you and your family. For some people that is co-sleeping, for others very regimented sleep training…for me it was the “whatever works this week” approach (after all, it is a scientifically proven technique). I just couldn’t listen to my baby scream and convulse in an attempt to get them to fall asleep on their own. So I would rock, back pat, sing, sway and hand hold if it meant they could fall asleep in their own bed. For me, that was important…everyone in their own bed.
What are your thoughts? Do you believe in letting babies “cry it out” or are you against this method? I’d love to know your thoughts.
Tune in to the Bill Good Show on CKNW tomorrow morning at 11 AM to hear our conversation.
I sleep trained my daughter at about 6 months I think (it’s hard to remember those days now that she’s 3). I tried from about 4 months onward to let her fall asleep by herself. I would put her down for naps before she looked tired – apparently once they yawn they are already overtired. I looked for cues. She would cry and I would let her cry for 10 mins and then go in and pick her up, calm her down and do it again. This went on for about a week – then she just “got” it. It was hard work but she never screamed for long periods of time…I couldn’t take it and wouldn’t let her cry for much longer than 10-20 mins at the most.
I have a 2 month old now and I am thinking that the sleep training is going to be much harder. I am busy with a three year old and know I won’t be able to adhere to the strict schedule I kept with my daughter.
Whatever works for you I think!
We didn’t sleep train our son. I don’t like the idea that babies must be trained to be alone at night at a young age. I’m really uncomfortable with letting an infant under a year old cry themselves to sleep. That said, my son started sleeping 5-8 hours a night at an early age, so I wasn’t going crazy from sleep deprivation. I can understand doing it out of desperation, particularly when you have a second (third/fourth/etc) child.
I wish that more people would try bed-sharing &/or breastfeeding to sleep, as I think both can allow parents to get more sleep without the stress of sleep training.
We just went through all of this with our 9 1/2 month old son.. We decided to ‘sleep train’ him at 7 months, but for us that did not mean cry it out. It meant teaching him as gently as possible to sleep in his crib. Up until this point we were co-sleeping and getting up 5-6 times/night (on a good night!) with him.. At 7 months both of us were exhausted and it was becoming a safety issue having him in the bed with us as he was so mobile. We decided to try something new. I didn’t like the idea of leaving him to cry to *teach* himself to fall asleep. And I had many people tell me that’s what we should do.. But in my mind – he’s a baby, he was 7 months old and I’m his mom. I wouldn’t have signed up for this job if I thought my part of being a mom ended at 7pm every night.. And sleep training was HARD! Not because he was crying.. but because for about 3 weeks straight I was up every single night with him all.night.long rocking him and singing to him and teaching him that his crib was a safe place to be and I wasn’t going to ‘abandon’ him in it.. And now – he still gets up (about 2/night) but he has no problem going to sleep in his crib on his own (we can put him in, he plays, chats to himself, falls asleep) and he’s very easy to put back down in the middle of the night. sometimes just a quick rub on the back or peek in and sing a bit of a lullaby and other times I can tell he’s hungry and I’ll breastfeed him. I have friends who still think I’m crazy for getting up these few times a night with him now. And yes I’m very sleep deprived as he’s never once slept through the night or gotten up less then twice at 9 months – but I’ve also just accepted he’s not a sleeper & I’m not willing to let him just cry it out to change that. Other then not sleeping he’s a VERY happy baby and content in any other way. He’s extremely easy going and doesn’t mind hanging out with strangers. He’s not clingy with me, he doesn’t get cranky.. And I think a lot of this has to do with us deciding to not let hiim just cry all night in his crib.
I am a Firm believer in the CIO method. With our first son, I did it when we moved into our new house and he had his own room. He was 5.5 months old. Previously he woke up every 3-4 hours. It took 3 nights of crying it out (45 minutes at first, decreasing in minutes the other two nights) and then he slept 12 hours straight. He’s 3.5 years old now and he’s a champion sleeper. He sleeps 7pm-7am. Our second son just started doing it on his own. Him and his brother share a room and it’s worked out great for us. I’ve never rocked our babies to sleep and got them used to falling asleep on their own by putting them down before they showed signs of being tired from when they were very young.
I basically “sleep trained” my baby from day 1 bringing her home from the hospital. I used a schedule from a book called the “Contented Little Baby” (well mostly used it – maybe not quite as rigidly as the book). I put her down awake, before she was tired, didn’t nurse her to sleep, never co-slept. I have to say it worked very well. She slept through the night starting at 9 weeks and has always been a great sleeper, in her own bed. Also, sleep training from day 1 like that meant I did not have to leave her crying because she never did. She was always used to just falling asleep on her own. I agree with “whatever works for your family”. I always knew that sleep was extremely important to me, and wanted it to be easy for my daughter and someone put me on to that book. It was fabulous. Someone above mentioned bed sharing. That often leads to less sleep for everyone involved – not more and it is very difficult and very stressful for a child who has never slept alone to have to transition to their own bed at 3 or 4 or whenever Mom decides it’s time.
We sleep trained starting the day we arrived home from hospital. At that age, it doesn’t involve any crying it out, simply teaching baby to fall asleep on his own, using gentle techniques. We also had a very strict bedtime routine. At six weeks, he slept 7/8 hours in a row at night, and at 3 months it was a solid 11 hours a night. Since then (he is 15 months now) I can count on one hand the time he has woken up in the middle of the night. On very rare occasions we have to allow a few minutes of crying it out in the evenings (once or twice a month) but it has never gone on for more than 10 minutes. This presumption that parents should be up at all hours of the night is ridiculous beyond 3 months old; proper sleep habits, when instilled at a young age, mean very little crying, and very little sleep deprivation. There are not enough parenting “theories” out there that endorse, and encourage, uninterrupted sleep for both parents and children. Surely there is value in that?
I definitely agree that uninterrupted sleep is essential for both parents and children and I also instill a fairly strict bedtime after a nice bedtime routine for both. For my first son I ended up sleep training him at 4 months of age and letting him essentially “cry it out” and it was the best thing I did. He went from getting up every 1.5 to 2 hours all night long waking me up in bed and nursing all night long to sleeping through the night (7pm to 7am) in his own crib and his own room just a few days! I now have a 3 month old and the room sharing thing is going to be tricky with us as well since we are also in a 2 bedroom apartment. I also gently sleep trained him early on gently teaching him to fall asleep on his own. There really hasn’t been any crying involved this time and he now also sleeps through the night. Happy sleeping children make for a happy mama!
if anyone is interested, this uk sleep site for babies got ahold of the full study that recently declared ‘crying it out doesn’t hurt babies’. The study is a bit deceiving and not one I would personally rely on to have me comfortable with my baby crying it out.
http://babycalm.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/breaking-news-sleep-training-babies-is-safe-and-causes-no-lasting-damage-really/
I really believe in doing whatever works for your family. No one should tell anyone what is best for their child – especially don’t tell a sleep-deprived mom what’s best for her! I just had this discussion the other night with some of my “mommy friends” and some did it in order that they were better moms during the day. I couldn’t do the cry-it-out method. I think with my first son we tried and “we” lasted about 5 minutes. A baby is not able to feed itself, clean itself…they need our help with everything and so in my mind they should not be expected to self-soothe. That is just my opinion and I feel great about my choice, but I would by no means judge another mom for doing what she needs to do to stay sane.
This is nothing new, so I’m quite suprised to be reading this now. Famed British Child Psychologist Penelope Leach has been advocting and promoting this method for over 25 years. Thank God I was given her book ‘Your Baby and Child, from Birth to Age Five’ just before my girls were born.
We sleep trained my son and it took forever. I read countless books, did the twilight feed, fed him formula and nothing work. What did work was letting him cry it out during his naps. It took me about a month to teach him how to nap. Who would have thought you have to teach a baby to nap, but once he learned to nap, he hasn’t look back and is still napping at almost 3.5 yrs. Honestly re. sleep training at night, we tried everything like I stated above and quite frankly when we was ready to sleep through the night, that’s when he started. He started at 10 months and then consecutively at 1 yr. He is an amazing sleeper now. It was very hard to let him cry it out but it helped and honestly you aren’t harming them by letting them cry it out. I agree with the above comments about how a good night’s sleep is so important for both the parents and the baby.
Agi:)
vodkainfusedlemonade.wordpress.com
Back in the good old days, folks took their babies out on a drive in the middle of the night.
I would never tell another family “how” to sleep-train their infant, but I know what worked for me. We tried the CIO method with my son, but the first night, we could “only” stick it out for 2 hours. He was about 5, 6 months old. Having to clean up his vomit wasn’t particularly pleasant and I’m sure he was rather traumatized too. Next night, same thing, only this time the vomit came earlier. Third night, we lasted another 2 hours with no vomit but seriously…how long could we take it?! I was in tears and my husband was at wit’s end. So, we gave up on the CIO method. I felt if your kid is crying so hard and so long he is throwing up and making himself sick, maybe that method doesn’t work for you. He adjusted, eventually. He’s now 10 YO and he sleeps just fine.
With my daughter – now 7 YO and sleeping just fine – she was an easy baby. A tight swaddle (which my son would never tolerate!) and laying her down on her back awake, and 10 minutes later, she’d be sound asleep. Peaceful bliss! We never had a problem getting her to sleep or nap when we wanted her to – in the stroller, crib, car, wherever. She still chooses to dooze off mid-day if she thinks she’s “tired” (even a 10 minute drive to the mall, and she’s sound asleep in her booster seat).
All this to say, every kid is different, every parent is different and it’s very likely it’s not what the parent is or isn’t doing, it’s the child’s temperment. So you have to figure out what works for you. If doozing off in a rocking chair with your 7 month old is what makes him sleep, go for it – you probably need the sleep too! If laying your 4 week old awake in his crib works, then all the power to you. I guess you could say I’m not a fan of training a child to sleep…..it will come, when the child and the parent needs it.
[...] guest on the Bill Good Show on CKNW. We talked about sleep-training, which I wrote about in this post [...]
I’m too much of a softie to sleep train … study or no study it just goes so against my instincts to let my baby cry without soothing her for any amount of time. Having said that I SO wish there was another solution to this waking up 11-15 times a night that has been going on for the past six months or so. I’m going batty, my memory is shot, my relationship is suffering because we’re both cranky all the time but I just can’t sleep train. No judgement on anyone who does, it’s just not for me. I just keep telling myself this will pass and that parenting isn’t meant to be easy. I co-sleep and breastfeed to help make the wake-ups short at least.
For the first 3 months our little girl slept through the night. For the next 2 to three months she would get up because of gas or hunger. We didnt mind because there was an obvious sign of discomfort, and would go back sleep once fed or got the gas out. For the last 1-2 months she’d get up, would nurse but not eat, and then be fully awake instead of going back to sleep, and it was torture! We were both tired, grumpy, and started to get after each other. But we were afraid of CIO. Hearing about the study last weekgave us the courage to try the Ferber message. The first night was (really the first 30 minutes!) was tough but she slept through the night and has been doing so with gradually less crying. Last night she went down with barely a peep. Naps are proving to be more work but at least we’re not dead tired and have the energy to take on the challenge. our baby is also much happier.
The lesson we learned is to listen to your baby, it will tell you when they’re ready! Sometimes being a parent means doing things that are hard for you but best for your child.
I followed all the sleep training advice with my first. He slept well, alone in his crib, until he was three and his sister came along. They would both wake up and wake each other up every hour. Now my daughter is in her crib and my son (4 now) crawls in with us in the night. You’ve gotta do what works for your family. A few minutes of crying is good for them, as it burns energy and tires them out. Once in awhile my daughter (15 mths) needs a little cry (5-10mins), especially if she is overtired. It’s almost like pushing a re-set button because then she will sleep through the night. That being said, I hope that when her brother stops being our nighttime visitor, she will come in instead. They are little for such a short time! I love nighttime cuddles.