Is Sleep Training Bad?

Is it Bad to Sleep Train a Baby?

I have a confession to make. For many years I really, truly believed that sleep training was bad.

How could you just ignore your baby’s needs? How could you let them cry like that? How SELFISH!

Let me tell you something you guys. I almost LOST MY MIND from sleep deprivation. My older daughter

Did.

Not.

Sleep.

She woke up every hour, every night, for over a year. I went over a year with no real consecutive hours of sleep to speak of. Do you know what that DOES to a person?!  I felt like an actual crazy person. I was depressed, I was weepy, my memory was crap, and I looked like a skeleton (who has time to eat with a baby?!?)

But I couldn’t “sleep train” that would be CRUEL.

Um. Hello.

You know what’s cruel? Making mom’s feel like their needs matter ZERO. That not sleeping for a year is better than their baby crying ever. That feeding yourself is at the BOTTOM of the priority list. Spend all day making sure the baby doesn’t cry, but don’t worry if you can’t find time to EAT. That’s cruel.

Not to mention, I’m sure my daughter was not living her best life with only an hour of sleep at a time. And she clearly was not one of those babies who was going to just magically figure it out on her own with no guidance or boundaries from me.

Is Sleep Training Necessary?

Sometimes.

With my oldest, as outlined above, ABSOLUTELY.

I tried EVERYTHING. We did No Cry Sleep Solution, we (and by we I mean I) paced the room all night to eliminate night time nursing (but then had to pace the room for hours to get her back to sleep every time she woke.) I fed her more during the day. I stayed home all the time so she could get a good nap, and wouldn’t be overtired. I tried keeping her awake all day so she would be tired come bedtime. I tried a later bedtime. I tried an earlier bedtime. I made the whole evening into a bedtime routine. I made all the lights dim and listened to classical music and gave her over an hour to “wind down” at night.

None of it worked.

Sleep training was necessary for her.

Now, my second was easy-peasy, sucked her thumb, soothed herself, and was out of our room and sleeping through the night in no time. I didn’t have to “train” her to do anything.

So, as with all things, it depends on the baby. They are individuals like us. But if you’re here because you googled sleep training options, I doubt that’s because you have a baby who’s sleeping 12 hours at 12 weeks old. Right?

I’m here to give you permission to explore this option.

I’m here to give you permission to take care of YOU.

And even better than that, if you would like to someone to come to your house and hold your hand (literally or figuratively) through the entire process, I can offer you that as well! I know all about the nerves and the guilt and the way that exhaustion multiplies all that by a million. If you would like someone to support YOU through sleep training, because you are just too tired to try one more thing… we’ve got you covered! You can learn more about our in home sleep training support here.