The Controversial Subject- To Sleep Train or Not Sleep Train, That is the Question?

Last night was really difficult. The night before as well. We've had four false starts simply to get put to bed. He's fatigued just like I am. He normally goes to bed at 8/8:30 pm. He didn’t settle into bed until about 9:00 pm and got up at 10, 10:30 pm, then up  every 2 hours after. Most people told me to sleep train, I rolled my eyes and said absolutely not. 

I am going to apologize in advance if this is more like a novel than a blog post. I do understand that a blog is supposed to be a short and easy read. This will be neither of those things and TRIGGER WARNING; if you feel guilty that you sleep trained, PLEASE DO NOT READ.

I know this blog is going to be upset people, especially for those of you who have decided to sleep train.

I’m upset by how people made me feel like it was something I needed to do, like feeding my child solids earlier than I was ready. (Im waiting when I’m ready) I am upset by the fact that people actually think they can ‘train’ their baby to sleep. Are babies suddenly robots?

Four months ago, I was at my breaking point. As a first-time mom, I was prepared for sleepless nights and exhaustion, but after nine months of surviving on almost no sleep, too much coffee, and lots of unsolicited advice, I was losing my mind. 

My son, now 5 months old, had never slept more than 2 hours in one stretch and commonly woke up every 45 minutes — all night. Because I was new to this, I polled everyone I knew about how theirbabies were sleeping. The answer: way better. If that wasn’t bad enough, the internet only fueled my frustrations:

It seemed like the people of the internet (and my friends & family) were screaming at me, telling me my son wasn’t sleeping because of something I was doing. I didn’t have him on the perfect schedule, my bedtime routine wasn’t good enough, I was creating bad habits by comforting him, he was either under or overtired — but which was it? — and the only way I’d ever sleep again was to sleep train him.

It is my hope that parents can at least know that they do not have to sleep train. We can make changes to overnight parenting and patterns and STAY WITH OUR CHILDREN as they go through these changes.

If you are in a pattern of waking up every two hours, all night long, and feeling like you have to nurse back to sleep, then this is a pattern that YOU have created. You have likely fallen into this pattern because if you don’t nurse, your baby cries and you do not want to upset them or you want sleep. If this is the case, closing the door and not coming back is not going to be any easier on either one of you. You’re going to feel guilty as a mother and your baby is going to think you’ve abandoned him/her. 

This is a dreadful idea of allowing kids to cry themselves to sleep. This was completely uninformed, this idea, this advice by what children truly need and how development works. Your child eventually stops crying because your child gives up knowing you’re not coming back, it is not any form of training. 

When children cry, whether out of sorrow or because they are distressed, they require comfort from those who love them. The truth is that it can induce sleep in the same way as it does in a hospital neonatal nursery, but only because of defense.

My purpose with this blog is to help you understand what sleep training is and how it works. If you know how it works, and you still choose to do it, then you will not feel guilty about it. 

We feel guilty when we do something we did not understand and later learn that it goes against who we are as parents or goes against our values. If you have sleep trained and you are fine with it, then there’s no need to read on.

The Ferber Method, the most popular method of sleep training, offers guidelines for how often to check-in on crying children and how long to provide reassurance. 

Caregivers must monitor and progressively increase the time between each check-in, and on successive nights, they must lengthen the time between check-ins.

According to Ferber, during check-ins, caregivers should reassure the crying child for fewer than two minutes. The point is not to stop the child from crying or to get the child to fall asleep, since this would likely deter the child from learning to self-soothe and fall asleep on their own. (Sleepfoundation.org)

Before I start, I would like to define what I consider sleep training. To me, sleep training is doing anything that goes against your instincts. If you feel like picking your baby up and you don’t, that is sleep training.

If you feel like looking at your baby and speaking to your baby and you don’t, that is sleep training. Not following your instincts, and you aren’t OK, then your baby knows and mirrors back everything you are feeling, and therefore, they are not OK either. “Mommy doesn’t feel safe, so I don’t feel safe.”

Sleep training often suggests that a baby who isn’t trained cannot or does not want to sleep. You cannot teach a baby to sleep. It is a biological function, just like eating and going to the bathroom.

It is important to understand that falling asleep is not within our conscious control – this is true for both babies and adults. The more you try to force yourself to fall asleep, the harder it is to actually fall asleep. The parent is not the one telling or training the infant to sleep.The sleep-wake homeostat and the circadian clock are the two biological sleep regulators that ensure our bodies fall asleep when they should. It's not a book-based regimen, it's not hours of rocking, and it's definitely not being left to cry. Sleep promoting hormones increase sleep pressure until we feel compelled to sleep.

This sleep pressure will build and build throughout the day and will reach its peak at night which is when we usually see the longest sleep block – especially in the first part of the night.

Light and darkness will also help our bodies to know when it’s time to sleep and when it’s time to wake up as they help to set our internal biological clock: the circadian clock.

They will sleep just enough to take the edge off the daytime sleep pressure and continue to build enough pressure for the night. For some babies, 20 minutes might be enough to take the pressure off, and for others, they may need 2 hours.

So now that you know that you can’t force or train a baby to sleep, what can you do as parents to support your babies? The key to having your baby know and learn when to fall asleep is making sure that your baby is in a relaxed and calm state, that they are not in a state of stress, and that they are not in fight or flight (which can happen when left to cry in a dark room alone).

For your babies to grow up and become independent, they need to have a strong attachment to a parent. To build this attachment, you need to respond sensitively and consistently to help them to trust that their needs will be met – both day and night.

In the first year, this stage is referred to as proximity and is met when a baby remains close to the caregiver, when they feel safe, when their day is predictable, and when they are able to play.

They need all four of these things to then move them to the next stage, which then moves them closer to independence. This is important to understand; they need this closeness and security to become independent.

Babies and children should go at their own pace that they are comfortable with, and this happens when they know that their caregiver is always there, that they can always come back.  This CANNOT be forced; that is not how independence works.

I have yet to find a single parent who goes through sleep training and comes out saying that it feels good. It goes against every part of a mother’s instinct; it goes against her gut.

No one knows your baby better than you do. You trust your instincts when you sense danger, whether it be wanting to help someone or knowing how to do something.

Why should you not trust your instincts when it comes time for your baby?

Every moment of the crying tells you to go in, and yet somehow you feel like not going in is the right thing because someone (who does not know your baby), told you not to because “ they need to learn how to self soothe.”

If you decide to work with a sleep consultant and they tell you that you will be:

• Training your baby to sleep.

• Teaching them to self-soothe.

• Teach them to be independent.

Please RUN!

As a parent you probably want your baby to grow knowing that they can trust you. You probably want them to know that you will always be there for them and that they can come to you with any problems that they have. How does sleep training show them this? How does sleep training aid their trust in you? Quite the reverse is true. Their cries at night may be exhausting and inconvenient, but they are crying for a reason – they need you. If you do not respond to their cries with the reassurance and actions that they need (and not just a pat or a sshh) then there is a large possibility that you are undermining their trust in you. If they don’t trust that you can help with their problems when they are tiny, how do they know they can trust you with their problems as they get older?

Separation anxiety is actually a very good sign psychologically, even though it may not feel like it when you baby is instantly upset the minute you put them down. What babies needs when in this stage is constant reassurance that they are OK. That you will come back. That you won’t leave them. This is a vital stage for a baby to be able to trust you. If they don’t (because you are not meeting their needs through sleep training) then you are likely to suffer the effects at a later stage.

Within weeks, I felt like a new person. TIME is what made my son sleep. He doesn’t and has never slept through the night. Some nights he only wakes up once or twice, and those nights are amazing. On other nights, especially when he’s sick or teething, he still wakes up multiple times. Knowing you’re having a baby, you definitely know you will have some sleepless nights, please let your child know you’re there for them. Remember, they stop crying because they give up and know you’re not coming back. 

Also, you may think I’m judgmental on people who has sleep trained, but I was judged for not sleeping training so this is strictly my feelings towards why I would never sleep train. Ultimately, the decision is yours and I’m not here to tell you what you should do, just explain my experience.

A disclaimer: I want to acknowledge that I know that what works for every parent and every baby is different. This is my story about what worked for me and my baby. I hope it resonates with some parents, and, if it doesn’t resonate with you, that’s okay, too.