What happens to poor sleepers who aren’t sleep trained?

[cocoon87]

@ebveloz Anecdotally my husband was apparently always a bad sleeper, MIL would just let him stay up until he decided he was tired, etc (and I’m not exaggerating because she did the same with our kids and we told her no…you need to follow somewhat of a bedtime).

He still struggles to fall asleep now and always has. It’s better but he’s had to work in meditation, tips to fall asleep easier, etc.

It’s virtually impossible to know if it’s the chicken or the egg on a topic like this.

 

[doris23]

@cocoon87 I feel like this is so mixed. I’m the exact same way, I need a sleep aid, meditation etc to sleep. My parents did cry it out as a baby and I was in a dark bedroom no matter what after 8 pm.

 

[euthymios]

@doris23 Same here, I was sleep trained with CIO as a baby and I find it horrendously difficult to get to sleep, and I have done since I can remember (about 8 years old).

 

[cssarte]

@cocoon87 This. I was sleep trained and have life long severe sleep issues. My kids grow up bedsharing (it‘s culturally accepted where I live) because I don’t want them go through what I did - I was awake in the dark for hours. Now of course, if my kids end up with sleep issues, other parents might look at me and think I did this to them.

 

[katrina2017]

@ebveloz According to this, the effects of sleep training wears off in a few months: https://www.npr.org/sections/health...ence-can-and-cant-tell-us-about-crying-it-out

Which makes sense. The transition from a newborn's sleep pattern to an adult's sleep pattern is largely biologically driven. An infant will start sleeping more at night at less during the day regardless of what the parent does, unless the parents raise them in an environment with no darkness, or something! Infants develop a circadian rhythm and generally fall into a more adult-like pattern by 3.

Sleep training can improve sleep a little bit, but then as the cohort ages, the other kids catch up as their brains naturally mature. So the effects disappear.

 

[ebveloz]

@katrina2017 Thanks for this article!

 

[dedebeam]

@katrina2017 Wow. This makes me think that sleep training is borderline neglect... If it's true that the baby lacks the ability due to an immature brain.

 

[joanfiz]

@dedebeam On the other hand, being woken up every hour and never getting REM sleep is torture, and chronic sleep deprivation for parents is a huge problem that can cause or worsen all sorts of physical and mental illnesses. Along with making it unsafe for the parent to care for the baby, or drive the baby anywhere, and generally more likely to accidentally harm the baby.

 

[cutin]

@dedebeam Not really a fair take, I don't think. There are plenty of things that parents do that children aren't really ready for. Neglect is a HUGE jump. The idea that sleep training causes learned helplessness is hugely flawed and seems to be based on the Romanian orphanage studies, where the children really were neglected.

I mean, yes, if you're going to tie your infant into a crib and ignore them for 23 hours out of every day, that's neglect, but it's also not what sleep training is.

 

[rumiakthar]

@cutin If it was during the day, CIO would be considered neglect. For some reason at night it’s ‘different’

 

[cutin]

@rumiakthar I don't think leaving a baby to cry for 5 min intervals can be considered neglect any time.

Putting them in a room and closing the door and not coming back, neglect day or night.

I don't like extinction as a method, I would not do it, but you can't just call any parenting technique you do not like neglect.

 

[joanfiz]

@cutin We tried being in the room and doing gradual soothing, and then frequent check ins. All that did was upset my oldest baby more. She got incredibly upset if a parent was in the room and not picking her up to hold her, or if a parent set her down in the crib. Parent out of the room, she would eventually calm down.

 

[cutin]

@joanfiz Well presumably you would have gone back in at some point if she didn't, which is why it isn't neglect.

(I'm confused as to why you're replying to me though)

 

[joanfiz]

@cutin Because there are probably some babies who extinction works best for?

We ended up following Ferber timings for check-ins.

 

[stoninovena]

@ebveloz I mean, we all learn to sleep eventually. Unless there’s something actually wrong, like a sleep disorder, it works itself out eventually. Some kids just take longer than others.

I’ve had a terrible sleeper and an easy sleeper. The bad sleeper stopped waking me up when he woke around the time he learned to read because he can just turn on a lamp and read for a bit. The good sleeper was sleeping through the night in her own room before her first birthday, but wakes and calls for a parent a couple times a week. She needs about 5 minutes of attention and sometimes a refill of her water, then goes back to sleep. Neither was sleep trained. They just figured it out for themselves on their own timelines.

 

[grace4nan]

@ebveloz I think sleep trained or not, your baby grows into an adult with sleep habits that are unique themselves. For example, I was sleep trained at 5 months. I did spend a lot of time sleeping in my parents bed as an older child (11ish), but now sleep okay as an adult, minus sleep paralysis which I've suffered from since adulthood.

My husband was not sleep trained but was a great sleeper and acts like he never sleeps and is always tired despite the fact I know he sleeps fine since I sleep beside him every day.

I doubt it's been studied due to the length of such a study and qualitative nature of it. I just feel intuitively that all babies turn into children who turn into adults and sleep will vary between those stages.

 

[katrina2017]

@grace4nan Your husband may have sleep apnea

 

[looklike]

@katrina2017 Second this. I was alway exhausted, and would sleep 10 hours every weekend to be somewhat rested. I found out I have sleep apnea. It was made worst my nasal polyps. I couldn’t breath properly through my nose my entire life until I took meds to get rid of them, and then I slept better.

 

[hatty]

@ebveloz Anecdotal experience, I was never sleep trained and co slept with my mom till I was 11! To this day it is incredibly hard for me to sleep by myself. Maybe that’s just my anxiety though and co sleeping had nothing to do with it. I was also forced out of co sleeping and that probably didn’t help, my mom got remarried and my step dad was not okay with co sleeping so there was no transition, I was just forced into my own room one night.

I don’t know if I’ll sleep train yet. I’ve explored it but undecided! This question is super intriguing and I’ve wondered it myself!

 

[omjai]

@ebveloz So this is my experience only and I wouldn’t draw any real conclusions based on it alone! Current ages are- child 1 is 9 years, child 2 is 6 years, child 3 is 2 years. My first I couldn’t bring myself to let them cry or fuss. We room shared and most nights they wound up in bed with me and my husband - they are currently a pretty anxious child, has the most trouble falling asleep, staying asleep and are the earliest riser I have. They need frequent reassurance and we still sit with them until they’re nearly asleep/have a specific bedtime routine, if a parent is at work or has a class past bedtime it is very stressful for them. When my second was born I spent more time reading and learning about safe sleep and made more of an effort to make informed choices as far as their sleep went. We room shared, but never bed shared and I did rock them to sleep nightly until they we’re almost 1, then they started preferring to just have a quick rock and song then just to lay down in bed to go to sleep, but I did go to bed at the same time as them (and their sibling who by that time was full on bed sharing with me). Second child is a more relaxed at bedtime, falls asleep fast and stays asleep; they share a room with the oldest child so we technically sit with them for a bit before bed, but they don’t need it in the same way as the oldest. Third child I wanted to try some kind of sleep training. They also room shared with my husband and I, but around 6 months we started trying to put them down drowsy but awake and leaving the room. We would go through our routine, get them in their sleep sack, have a cuddle, tell them we love them place them in their crib and leave. Husband and I would take turns going in to comfort them at 1-10 min intervals (starting at 1 min, 3 min next time, then 5, then 10, they never went longer than that and after about 3 days of consistency they were laid in their crib and fell asleep on their own without any fuss). They are the most easy going about sleep, they ask to go to their bed when they’re tired, they sleep 10-12 hours solidly through the night and still nap 1.5-3 hours in the afternoon, we still room share but they don’t even wake when we come in the room to go to bed. Number 3 is so content to sleep independently, I wish my first could feel that way, I feel so horrible about the stress they feel around sleep. I suspect child number 1 has anxiety and would probably struggle with sleep even if we did things differently, and child number 3 may just be an anomaly. I am done having children, but if I had a fourth I would probably repeat what we did with number 3 in hopes they would also not feel stressed out about bedtime.