To the cosleepers: I’m not one of you, but I bet you can cosleep and teach good sleep habits at the same time, like having a schedule and teaching a baby to be comfortable sleeping wout being held. Are you all really suggesting that there’s no schedule and no rules just bc you cosleep?

I guess it depends on how much you rely on confirmation bias, and how many children you have.

People define "good sleeper" differently and I've found that the more rigidly demanding a family's sleep expectations are, the more important it is for them that "all kids need to be sleep trained" or whatever.

We have very low key sleep requirements for our kid. To me, a good sleeper means she can fall asleep on her own, sleeps through the night, wakes up without seeming to have residual tiredness, and does not seem tiredness or sleep-related crankiness during the day. This means my 4yo who has not napped for almost 2 years, and often stays awake in her bed singing or looking at books until 9pm before falling asleep, is a "good sleeper" to me. She clearly gets enough sleep, never wakes up during the night, wakes up happy and in plenty of time for school in the morning, and does not get cranky late in the day. She gets a lot less sleep than I expect a kid this age to need, but there are literally zero negative implications for it. We've discussed it with her PK teacher too, who is surprised but agrees. DD is one of the kids who never sleeps during their preschool rest time, but she'll just lie on her mat and look at a book or play with her hands and day dream. No behavioral issues. Once in a blue moon she'll fall asleep due to a growth spurt or some-travel related tiredness. Same at home -- every now and then she has to go to bed early because she's clearly exhausted, or sleeps in past 8am. But these are exceptions, not the rule. She is an independent sleeper who sleeps when she needs to. Good sleeper.

I have had friends and childcare providers tell me she is a bad sleeper because of the dropped naps, because it takes her a while to fall asleep, etc. I've been criticized for letting her sleep in our room until she was 10mo old, for continuing to do night nursing on demand for longer than that (I never minded, I'm a night owl and always went right back to sleep after), for allowing her to look at books in her bed, for never doing CIO or sleep training of any kind. Which is fine. I think the people making these criticisms have very rigid expectations of what a child's sleep should look like. I think they are often trying to conform their kid's sleeps to very difficult school and work schedules. I think sometimes the parents themselves have bad sleep hygiene and are tired and this gets externalized onto their children in the form of very high expectations for sleep.

Kids are people. People need sleep. If you just kind of let them sleep when they are tired, they usually figure it out and do so. Make sure they have a safe and appropriate place to sleep. But other than that, this is not rocket science. You're raising a person, not a fighter pilot who needs to be able to sleep on command in preparation for military missions. They just need to have energy for school and playing. Don't overthink this.

Yes you can. I have two kids and my first was a a great sleeper. We are fairly routine based and also taught him to self-soothe early. We did use the Snoo but he made an easy transition from the Snoo to the crib at 4 months. He was taking solid naps and sleeping 4-5 hours at 1 month old. Then an 8 hour stretch at 2 months old, and then 11 hours at 3 months old. He never hit the 4 month sleep regression. He was sleeping 12 hours a night at 6 months old. He was a solid night sleeper and took solid naps. We thought it was partially luck and partially our doing.

Then second kid came and we tried it all but he was not that good of sleeper. It wasn’t terrible, but he didn’t start doing 4-5 hour stretch until 2 months and then 8 hour stretches at 3 months. We sleep trained at 4 months and he has been a great sleeper every since. I think sleep training does work and you have to teach your kids how to sleep.

Anonymous wrote:I think there’s some natural variation among kids, and parents can make things better or worse.

My oldest as a newborn wanted to be held all the time, hated to be put down, was colicky, etc. There was no ‘shower while the baby is sleeping’ during my maternity leave. We didn’t cosleep, but she did require a routine and a lot of soothing at bedtime. She learned to nap at home (not being held) but never napped at daycare - not as a baby, toddler, or preschooler. Bedtimes were difficult until she was maybe 5.

My younger kid just went to sleep. Even as a newborn. He didn’t care about nursing at bedtime, singing, rocking. Didn’t matter. If he was tired, you just swaddled him and put him down and he went to sleep. I could shower, do laundry, cook - so many things while he napped during maternity leave. We didn’t do anything different with them as far as sleep training, they’re just different. At least until separation anxiety hit around 18 months. Bedtimes have gotten a lot harder. He’s 3 now though so maybe only 2 more years!

Shocked your kids didn’t sleep considering your approach.

I think there’s some natural variation among kids, and parents can make things better or worse.

My oldest as a newborn wanted to be held all the time, hated to be put down, was colicky, etc. There was no ‘shower while the baby is sleeping’ during my maternity leave. We didn’t cosleep, but she did require a routine and a lot of soothing at bedtime. She learned to nap at home (not being held) but never napped at daycare - not as a baby, toddler, or preschooler. Bedtimes were difficult until she was maybe 5.

My younger kid just went to sleep. Even as a newborn. He didn’t care about nursing at bedtime, singing, rocking. Didn’t matter. If he was tired, you just swaddled him and put him down and he went to sleep. I could shower, do laundry, cook - so many things while he napped during maternity leave. We didn’t do anything different with them as far as sleep training, they’re just different. At least until separation anxiety hit around 18 months. Bedtimes have gotten a lot harder. He’s 3 now though so maybe only 2 more years!

Anonymous wrote:Wow, horrible and judgment advice on here. Parent of a teen. My friends who have kids the same age all took different approaches and guess what? All of our kids became fully capable of sleeping by themselves through the night! In fact, my kid who was a co-sleeper has better sleep habits than the vast majority of teens because he figured out what he needs and does it.

+1

Same here. Just start a good routine early and stuck with it. My kids are great sleepers.

I believe part of it is nature but a bigger part is nurture. I have extensive childcare experience and every single child I've known to be a good sleeper was put in their own room within the first month, were on a schedule and did some form of sleep training. All of the kids who co-slept and whose parents were not comfortable with CIO had sleep issues. Of course, there are kids who were in their own rooms and were still crappy sleepers, but more often than not, good sleep habits lead to good sleepers.

of course you can created bad sleepers. My brother's kids are terrible sleepers, hard to put to bed and constantly overtired because their parents are lazy and have never set any limits or schedules.

I also know so many people who have complained about their kids still waking up multiple times a night because they have always relied on the parents to put them back to sleep.

Sleep training doesn't have to mean throwing you kids in a room and letting them cry for hours, but it does mean setting limits and ensuring that they learn to put themselves to sleep. We did sleep training and both of my kids are great sleepers. Even now, at 12 yrs old my son will put himself to bed when he is tired and goes to bed by 8:15pm (has to be up at 6am for school). After the age of 1 he never woke up during the night unless he has been sick.

Wow, horrible and judgment advice on here. Parent of a teen. My friends who have kids the same age all took different approaches and guess what? All of our kids became fully capable of sleeping by themselves through the night! In fact, my kid who was a co-sleeper has better sleep habits than the vast majority of teens because he figured out what he needs and does it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you already have sleep trained your baby. Baby has been trained to sleep in your arms and next to you at night. I hope you never have to be separated fir a night as child will suffer. Break these habits now.

This. And don’t come here exhausted asking us how to sleep train a 2 year old. It’s way way harder then. Start now. (I know you won’t though.)

This.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you already have sleep trained your baby. Baby has been trained to sleep in your arms and next to you at night. I hope you never have to be separated fir a night as child will suffer. Break these habits now.

No. Babies don’t need to be trained to do this; it’s natural & normal. That’s why people have to work so hard to make their babies sleep alone without protesting. Op, do what works for you. If you aren’t happy, make a change. Cosleeping worked great for us.

I agree with this. The idea that sleep training your child to sleep alone as an infant is a requirement of loving parenting is SUCH a US-specific view - this is NOT an expectation in many, many, many cultures. I think if a family is ok with their kid not sleeping alone at an early age, that's not neglectful, it's just another way of parenting.

And it doesn't last forever. My seven year old doesn't crawl into my bed at 5 AM anymore. My two year old still does, and I'm generally ok with it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP you already have sleep trained your baby. Baby has been trained to sleep in your arms and next to you at night. I hope you never have to be separated fir a night as child will suffer. Break these habits now.

No. Babies don’t need to be trained to do this; it’s natural & normal. That’s why people have to work so hard to make their babies sleep alone without protesting. Op, do what works for you. If you aren’t happy, make a change. Cosleeping worked great for us.

It usually does work pretty well when they are small. The problem is later on when they are not so small, and they don't know and never learned any other way to sleep. How often does a parent come here with an older child wanting to sleep train them, only to realize the window of doing that easily has long closed?