What happens if I never sleep train my baby?

@opinionsareopinions We never sleep trained. Coslept, bedshared, nursed to sleep, all the things they say you shouldn't do. My kid announced at 2.5years that she wanted to sleep in her bedroom because it was beautiful just like her.

She is 5yo now, and still likes to snuggle and sometimes nurse to sleep, but she's happy to do that in whatever location is convenient. And she's mad if she wakes up NOT in her own bedroom!

Babies don't need 'training' to sleep any more than they need training to walk - they need support and encouragement with no judgement or stress.
 
@nelswin Yep! She had nearly self-weaned at 4.5yo but I got pregnant and had very bad hyperemesis gravidarum, and she really leaned on nursing for connection and reassurance when I couldn't do anything but lie down and barf/through the postpartum period when obviously a lot of my attention was on the baby.

Her baby brother is 11weeks old now, and she's starting to lose interest again. She has probably only nursed once or twice in the last week.
 
@opinionsareopinions 3 years in and we've never even entertained sleep training. It's just not natural to me, I cannot purposely leave my child to cry and the thought of them eventually realising noone is coming is heartbreaking to me. They will sleep, its developmental its not something you can teach any more than walking. You can help and support but you can't teach it they just do it when they're ready. The worse phases of sleep for us were between 8-10 months so you unfortunately are in a very difficult stage right now but it will pass, just like all the others
 
@opinionsareopinions They’ll sleep eventually, age 2 is a typical age for that to start happening.

My 5 year old just went to her own room though. I’m sure we could have tried harder but we waited until 5 and it was entirely her choice. My 2.5 year old is sharing a room with her now, but still needs me to come in halfway through the night and sleep next to him.

But every kid and family is different.
 
@opinionsareopinions They’ll sleep. Probably around the same time that most sleep trainers kids sleep- sometime between 2-4 years of age. Going through phases as they age. Honestly, so many of my friends who sleep trained had toddlers and now kids who sleep way worse than my never sleep trained always snuggled to sleep kid. Everyone thinks they have the answer but they don’t.

My first was the most horrific sleeper- up every hour or even less till he was 13 months old, then slowly built up to 3 hour stretches and BAM at 20 months STTN (I did night wean him at that time, but that was honestly a non issue and he only cried a little, but I was always with him giving him comfort and we did have to let him get used to the idea of my husband laying with him to sleep some nights). Anyway, he’s 5 now and sleeps 11 hours every night like clockwork- but does hate sleep and tells me all the time he hates sleep. I was the same at his age. He now reads himself to sleep in his bed, but we lay with him first and give snuggles/invite chat about the day. He has some sensory seeking behaviours which explains a lot about how wakeful he was as a baby and I’m so happy we were there for him when he was a baby, because he literally didn’t know where he was or how to orient himself due to sensory issues.

My 2022 baby goes through phases of STTN (after his initial false start). We are in a rough patch of sleep at the moment but I 100% do not sweat it. I know from my experience and that of others that he will consistently STTN when he’s ready.

Sleep is a lot like potty training. You can force the issue and really wear yourself and the relationship with your child out in the process, or you can give gentle nudges and enjoy the process yourself.
 
@cloud9radio Hello, would you be comfortable sharing more about your sons sensory seeking behaviours? I think my 2 year old is developing some but im not sure if its just average toddler stuff. No worries at all if you don't want to! Thanks xx
 
@jakob2009 I’ll comment here because maybe someone else will see this. I only observe this in hindsight, so take all of my observations with a grain of salt. My son was born at 36 weeks and had some trauma around the age of 3 (I was in and out of the hospital a lot and we had a family tragedy where his baby brother died when I was pregnant with him at 7 months, all of this happening at the height of the pandemic), which we think is presenting itself as inattentive ADHD right now, but we don’t know for sure and are getting an evaluation by a developmental pediatrician. He has some ASD behaviours, but also really doesn’t fit that diagnosis to me, but I’m not a specialist (I’m a primary school teacher). He definitely has dyspraxia and I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t get that diagnosis.

He currently goes to OT and is doing really well in many ways! His OT says that he needs a lot more sensory input than we do, so imagine the feeling we get when using an oven glove to take out something hot from the oven, that he goes through life like that. We are doing a ton of vestibular stuff with him (trampoline, playgrounds, etc), but also doing things like bear hugs, vigorous towelling off, massages and sensory play like kinetic sand buckets.

When he was around the age of your son and younger, he would run a lot. Like just RUN. Back and forth usually over long distances. He loved making little routes, like little obstacle courses he’d make for himself and do them again and again. He loved going up and down stairs and on and out of doors (that’s pretty normal though). He could not keep himself clean while eating, making a much bigger mess than I’d consider normal (looking back- he just couldn’t sense what he was doing or experiencing?) As a younger baby, he had the strongest and longest lasting Moro reflex ever. He really disliked sand and painting- maybe because he couldn’t feel those materials well because they aren’t solid? He never slept with stuffed animals- would choose a toy tram or train instead (he now sleeps with stuffed animals), again, I’m thinking because of their more solid nature. When I look back, all of this makes sense if he didn’t understand where his body was in space and had that oven glove feeling throughout all his senses. His sleep was horrendous. He seriously woke about every 40 minutes from 7-11.5 months and then only an hour tops, 90 minute stretches from 13 months old but was inconsistent. Gentle night weaning flipped a switch and he slept really well after that at 20 months. As for eating- this kid is a champion. He has his favourites, and things he won’t eat like any other kid, but he loves salads, veggies, fruit…. He’s not the most unpicky kid, but he’s very uncomplicated when it comes to eating. This is an interesting part of the puzzle because he doesn’t mind that fruit is inconsistent in taste or texture- I wonder if that’s again because he just needs more input, or maybe I’m reading too much into it! He also hated the bath, but now he likes it. He still hates swimming but enjoys splashing around in water.
 
@opinionsareopinions So I have been cosleeping (bedsharing) with my little one since she hit the first sleep regression. She’s 16mo now and we still cosleep but she almost always sleeps through the night! She has little phases when she’s teething or going through a developmental leap where she is wanting to nurse more frequently through the night. Until about two weeks ago she was nursing at least 2x per night on good nights, but now she has only nursed during the night once or twice! She does a full 5-6 hour stretch before that first feed. And then the second one if it happens happens around 5am. She wakes up around 7. Goes to bed at 9/9:30. She also used to take forevvvverrr to nurse to sleep— sometimes up to an hour! But now she drops off really quickly into a deep sleep, and I’m able to sneak away for a bit if I want to (even though I don’t usually).

I’m in no rush to transition her to her own room. Bedsharing works well for us. My husband works late hours so I enjoy cuddling up and going to bed with our daughter. It’s lonely being in bed alone! But I feel pretty confident that we could get her to go down on her own in the next couple of months if we wanted to.

The tldr is that they figure it out on their own, with time.

Edit to add one of my favorite things about bedsharing. Sometimes my LO does wake up or have a nightmare and she just feels around, pats me, and says “mommy right here” and goes back to sleep snuggled up to me. It’s so unbearably cute and really makes me feel good about our decision to bedshare. She knows she is safe. She knows I’m there to comfort her if she needs it.
 
@opinionsareopinions We switched to a floor bed around that time because then I could lie beside her and feed her to sleep, then roll away. Her sleep got significantly better around 18mos. She’s 2 now and starts the evening off in her own room and sneaks into our bed in the middle of the night most nights. We’re all getting plenty of sleep.
 
@apryll Floor beds for the win!! They made it so much easier for us. For a while we had our bed on a bed frame, and next to it was "her" floor bed that was big enough for me to lay down and sleep on also.
Made things so much easier for me and for her!
 
@opinionsareopinions 8 month was the worst for sleep. They will sleep. It will take more time but they will sleep. The second birthday was a turning point for our oldest. She attn most nights and after co sleeping for 2 years she sleeps alone in her room.
 
@opinionsareopinions If you don't sleep train she will still learn to sleep.

Never sleep trained my now 28mth old and fed him to sleep at night until a bit after 1.

We bed shared from 4 months (I kept trying the cot but he hated it) and he moved to his own big boy floor bed around 18/20 months.

He sleeps through the night and Ican lie down and comfort him with cuddles if he's sick or having a bad night.

There are times when it feels like they'll never sleep through but I promise they do.

You got this mamma
 
@opinionsareopinions 8 months is still a baby! Of course she’ll learn to be independent later, but now she’s so tiny.

Co-slept, bed sharing and nursed my first baby to sleep, she’s now 4,5 and sleeps in her own bed (next to our bed). But she’s also spending the night having a sleepover at a friend’s place. She’s also slept at another family friend’s place when I gave birth to baby number two.
 
@opinionsareopinions I needed to read these comments. I bedshare , bf to sleep , all the things they tell you not to do and my 17 month old is teething and just won't sleep more than 2 hours at a time. I feel so comforted knowing he will sleep through the night one day ! This comment section really helped me relax. Thank you all.
 
@opinionsareopinions I read seven books about infant sleep and six of them recommended some type of cry it out (even gentle methods involve some level of crying). I decided I could never do it because it’s social isolation. This is the same thing we deem cruel and unusual punishment for adult convicts. Not sleep training is highly inconvenient and exhausting, but if my baby wants to be held then holding her is my number one priority.
 
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