If you didn’t sleep train, what age did wake ups stop?
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Anonymous
Glad it worked out for you, but there are responses here talking about their kids waking several times a night for years. That is sleep deprivation, and extremely dangerous for brain development, not to mention the parents. |
Anonymous
I don’t think you’re a monster. You are making the choice you think is best for your child and situation. My 1 year old wakes up many times each night (not sure how many) and I do nurse her back to sleep quickly. She is not chronically sleep deprived or developmentally delayed. I am fine with it since I stay mostly asleep during the wake ups, the first five months were really hard until she could nurse like that due to some early feeding issues. Now I feel normal though, I don’t count the wake ups or look at the clock, I just go back to sleep when I can. There are definitely reasons some people need to have their babies fall asleep independently and I understand and support that. But falling asleep or going back to sleep independently doesn’t necessarily mean the baby wakes up more or less. It may shift their sleep patterns to consolidate night sleep more for different reasons at an earlier age, but I’m not aware of any research that shows this makes a difference developmentally (positive or negative). So it’s a parenting choice. I do think it’s important for parents to have the full information. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-training-affects-babies “As well as asking parents to record sleep diaries, Hall's study included actigraphy, which uses wearable devices to monitor movements to assess sleep-wake patterns. When the researchers compared sleep diaries, they found that parents who had sleep-trained thought their babies woke less at night and slept for longer periods. But when they analysed the sleep-wake patterns as shown through actigraphy, they found something else: the sleep-trained infants were waking up just as often as the ones in the control group. "At six weeks, there was no difference between the intervention and control groups for mean change in actigraphic wakes or long wake episodes," they wrote.” When having a baby sleep independently, crying for an hour multiple times a week may indicate a schedule issue. I would look up age appropriate schedules and make sure baby doesn’t need some more awake time out of bed, they will likely fall asleep faster. |
Anonymous
Yes, OP here. It was I who asked. Thank you for this info. It helps. |
Anonymous
OP here. Thanks for sharing. |
Anonymous
| Truly couldn’t care less if people sleep train (I did for one, didn’t have to for my second) but every other thread these days is how awful it is to be a parent and then you open this one and think well gee why?? Your kid didn’t sleep through the night til SEVEN YEARS OLD???! y’all are smokers complaining about lung cancer. You do realize your decision is the problem? |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
It's normal for EVERYONE to wake up several times a night. This is normal sleep not sleep deprivation. Studies on sleep training shows that it does NOT decrease wakeups but rather it decreases the child alerting the parents. Literally the amount of extra sleep is minutes. Not saying that sleep training is not worth it for parents but it does not on average lead to decreased wakeups or significantly more sleep for the child. |
Anonymous
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Sleep-trained babies and toddlers still wake up! They are just habituated to not bother their parents—and half the time the training "method" instructs parents to ignore wakeups anyway.
Also, waking up does not mean sleep deprivation for the child. (It definitely can for the adult). The child usually falls back asleep in about two minutes after soothing. Parents will use whatever lies they need to justify the cruelty of CIO—as if a few minutes of disrupted sleep compares with the affects of abandonment/panic on a child's nervous and hormonal systems. To answer your question, OP, my kids slept through the night with no wakeups starting around 2. They still required attention to fall asleep until 4 or 5, but not to stay asleep. |
Anonymous
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OP, I have a 10 year old and a 6 year old, and I didn't sleep train either of them. We have all been sleeping through the night with no wakeups for so long that I can't really recall when it stopped, but I think by age 3ish for both.
This is probably a huge outlier in this culture, but I let them sleep next to me until they were around 2. they would wake up, but I would cuddle or nurse them back to sleep. We were not sleep deprived. After that, at 3/4 they would sleep in their own bed, but wake up sometime early morning and come to our bed. after 4, they started waking up at 7:30am. I wouldn't do anything differently. FWIW, I'm from a different culture (Indian American) and my method is very normalized, so that probably helped (my relatives in India were absolutely horrified at the idea of the baby sleeping in a different room). My female relatives/good friends in this country who have Indian moms all raised their kids the same way (no sleep training and lots of cuddling). The kids are all happy and smart. |
Anonymous
Exactly this. We did co-sleeping with both our kids and everyone had good sleep. Older boy started sleeping fully through the night with his crib in the same room (not strictly co-sleeping, but he could wake up see us and go back to sleep, though climbing into our bed occasionally as well) from about 1 (same age he weened). Daughter took longer (weened around 18 months but still kept waking up for milk for a few more months after that), but has been wake up free since 21 months or so (2.5 now and co-sleeping mostly but agreeing to sleep in the crib in the same room from time to time). |
Anonymous
Lady no one is talking about opening an eyelid or taking a piss. Sleep training is teaching your kid to go to sleep themselves. Essential life-skill, some may say. |
Anonymous
You sound nuts. DD slept through the night beginning at 10 weeks old, complete fluke; no training required. After the 4 month regression, she was clearly suffering from multiple nighttime wakeups - whiny, fussy, uncomfortable, bags under her eyes. We "sleep trained" for a grand total 2 days and she went back to sleeping through the night. She wasn't waking up and deciding not to interrupt her cruel parents - she was sleeping. At 4, she sometimes wakes up to a nightmare and, surprise surprise, reaches out to the evil sleep training monsters for comfort. But she mostly sleeps 12 straight hours, because that's what she needs and she's accustomed to getting it by herself, in her own room. I realize that my great sleeper's experience cannot be imputed to a kid who cries for hours until they make themselves barf. Those are very different kids with very different needs. And parents have very different breaking points! But the idea that someone made a different parenting choice than you did so they are cruel liars who do not care about their kids as much as you do . . . like I said: you sound nuts. |
Anonymous
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Sleep is one the most important things a child needs.
Only parents with no brains decide sleep training is not for them. It's not about you. Selfish. |
Anonymous
I'm not familiar with the research but in my experience this isn't true at all. Both of my boys would wake up many times each night and needed a lot of intervention (walking, bouncing, etc) for long periods of time in order to get back to sleep. It wasn't a schedule issue because they slept fine once they learned how to get to sleep independently. And they definitely were not awake for that kind of time once they were trained- they certainly let us know when they are awake for more than a few seconds. |
Anonymous
Yes, once I night weaned, each of my kids started sleeping through the night. |