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

[flashman63]

@ebveloz I have never sleep trained any of my kids. I have and 11 yo, a 7 yo, and. 2 yo. The 2 yo is still not the best sleeper but I can report that the 7 and 11 year olds are great and very independent sleepers.

 

[candydrops23]

@ebveloz Anecdotically: mine. She started sleeping through at around 2.5, all on her own. She still is a very early riser and maybe has a bit less sleep needs than others, but she mostly sleeps through now (3.5).

 

[ifthepuzzlefits]

@ebveloz My daughter nursed to sleep until 13 months when I weaned her. Immediately after weaning she slept through the night and has ever since. Prior to that she was awake every 2-4 hours.

 

[jsp2003]

@ifthepuzzlefits Very similar experience here, we weaned my youngest at 20 months and I moved her to a floor bed in my room at the same time, she immediately started sleeping through the night with occasionally one wake (in which she comes over to crawl in bed with me).

On the other hand, my older kiddo (3y) I attempted to force independent sleep from 4ish months until she was 12 months (driving myself to severe ppd) - it was just not her disposition to sleep independently. At 12 mo we started cosleeping, she woke 3-4 times a night for a few months, then down to 1 or 2. At 3 years, my husband still lays with her until she falls asleep, she sleeps alone until 12 or 1am, then needs him to lay with her the rest of the night with an occasional wake between 1-7am. She’s still super tough. I wish I hadn’t forced her to sleep alone in a crib when she was an infant - I should have listened to my instincts.

 

[blever]

@ifthepuzzlefits Similar thing with mine. We bedshared and I weaned at 14 months. Someone still need to be there when she goes to bed but she sleeps right through.

 

[dan87]

@ebveloz Still haven’t sleep trained at 19 months. My spouse stays home full time which makes the not necessarily having a consistent forcing of bedtime easier to deal with. But overall it’s fine and she sleeps like a rock once she goes down. She just wants us to lay with her until she does. Honestly it’s a nice way for us as parents to wind down the day too.

 

[joanna2r]

@ebveloz Anecdote:

Both my kids were terrible (normal? Who knows) sleepers after 4 months old. My now 7 year old woke multiple times a night and would only sleep in our bed. When she was around 2 she started sleeping better and just waking once a nice, but all I needed to do was put my hand on her (still co-sleeping) and she would go to sleep, sometime around 3 she was pretty consistently sleeping through the night in our bed, When she was 4 her dad built her a Paw Patrol fire engine bed which she thought was amazing and immediately moved out of our bed into that one, she still came into our bed in the middle of the night for a while but before she was 5 that had stopped too.

She is now a wonderful sleeper. She loves going to bed (still in her fire engine bed) and says it is her favourite place. I miss having her snuggling in our bed, but am happy that she is so happy.

Our almost 2 year old is just as bad as her sister was, but seems to be heading in a similar direction. Her wake ups are much less frequent now and usually a hand on her will send her back to sleep. She likes going to bed and will run and get her sleep sack if we are taking too long to get organised for bed. Will that change? Probably, she’s a toddler. But for now she seems to be going in the right direction sleep-wise.

 

[mokarl]

@ebveloz My 15 month old has never been sleep trained in any way, fed to sleep, bedshared etc. Woken multiple times per night since birth, worse in the past 6 months sometimes every 2 hours. Last couple of weeks is going longer stretches and has slept 8-5 a couple of times. It comes with time!

 

[blizz]

@ebveloz Mine grew out of her associations around 15 months and leans back into them if there are big changes (like we are on vacation and she's in a strange place). Sometimes she "asks" to be put down by pointing to her crib and waving bye.

I've heard a lot of people say 15-18 months is when a lot of the crappy sleep goes away on its own!

 

[cherivee]

@ebveloz If I can talk about my own experience, I was never given any sleep skills. I slept separately from my parents, but I was up - all night. Up and down.

My parents gave me a teddy bear, and reassured me, but I was never given a chance to learn how to self-soothe.

I grew up tired - I was often distracted from tiredness from school & it made my anxiety & ADHD worse.
My lack of sleep skills still exists, although now I’m genuinely tired enough from working full time with a toddler that I sleep well.

My mom deeply regrets not helping me more. Melatonin wasn’t a thing (at least to us) in the 90s, the doctors always blew her off, and she was always told sleep training was “mean”.

I also have to note - because of my sleep issues, they sleep trained my younger sister at 6 months old, and since then she has been a fabulous sleeper.

Extremely anecdotal but a different viewpoint.

 

[barry334er5]

@cherivee I'm curious on what you mean when you said you weren't given a chance to learn to self soothe. Were your parents constantly responding every time you made a peep? Honestly just interested in an elaborated explanation because our first has been an amazing sleeper (12 hours straight from 3 months) and we honestly think it's just their nature and not because of anything in particular we did. Kind of terrified our next child will be more difficult and looking for different approaches towards fostering good sleep habits.

Edit: grammar

 

[cherivee]

@barry334er5 Great question!

I think my parents always jumped in, especially when I was younger. My mom was anxious, and wouldn’t give me a minute or two to try and settle on my own. She also did zero forms of sleep training, which in my case, may have been helpful.

By the time I was older and they were sick of it, I’d have a lot of nighttime anxiety, which only made my sleeping problems worse.

 

[cherivee]

@awefactory Interesting! I guess it’s really hard to ever know “why” something is.

 

[moonlightlaura]

@cherivee Keep in mind that there's a ton of evidence that ADHD causes sleep problems in both kids and adults, versus no evidence at all that sleep training as an infant has any effect on how they sleep later as adults (or even as older kids).

It's far, far more likely that your ADHD was (and still is) the cause of your sleep issues.

 

[cherivee]

@moonlightlaura Absolutely. Same with my anxiety.

I just wish I had given a little more support with my sleep skills/hygiene, is all, and that’s why I made this post.

As in all things in life (but not on the internet), there’s nuance.

 

[leematthew1234]

@ebveloz Anecdotally I never sleep trained my now 3 year old. I typically nursed to sleep or held her and went away when she went to sleep. She only slept 4 hours at a time until 2 years old. Until 6 months she'd only contact napped or else nap was only 15minutes. Typically during sleep regressions I needed to offer additional comfort, patting and singing for a longer period of time. What I noted even when she got older and wasn't tired was that I never once had to fight her to go to bed, like she has positive associations with bed? Even if she isn't feeling sleepy and doesn't want it to bedtime she is willing to cuddle and be sung to. It switched over at 2 she started sleeping through and actually putting her to sleep is only 20 minutes of lying with her and singing.

Or if I'm tired of singing I do long exaggerated breathing like I'm deeply asleep and I pretend to be asleep, it regulates her own breathing super fast and she knocks out

Under 2 I would need to mostly nurse or sing her back if she woke up (I bedshare so doesn't wake me up much), which didn't take much time. Now after 2 when she wakes in the night briefly like growing pains or nightmare she just wants to touch my belly and she falls back asleep. So she has progressively needed less active parent involvement to connect sleep cycles or get back to sleep as she aged.

My second was soothed in a similar manner yet she slept 8-9 hours without needing any active resettling from about 7 weeks old, so temperment plays a huge role. My first was premee though and likely woke a lot for extra nutrients and then got stuck in the habit of a shorter cycle for a while.

 

[cabaret]

@ebveloz My now 7 year old was a ROUGH sleeper, we co slept for survival, and I nursed til a little past 3. He started sleeping through the night (in our bed) when I night weaned around 2.5 (once he was old enough to understand it). He quit napping right when he turned 3. He still stays up late for a kid his age, usually falling asleep around 9:30 and sleeping until 7:30, and he still sleeps in our bed much of the time, but I don’t discourage it. I love the snuggles, we have an amazing bond, and he is an absolutely amazing kid. After babyhood their sleep schedules quickly become the least interesting thing about them. It’s just hard not to obsess over it in the early days.

 

[katrina2017]

@ebveloz Our 5 year old was an extremely frequent waker until about 1.5 years (multiple times a night). She now sleeps 11-12 straight hours without fail every night. Until she was 3, we laid with her until she fell asleep. Then we moved her baby sister into her room, so we were still present in the room with her usually until she fell asleep. But she can do it on her own too.

I will say, she also has her tonsils removed when she turned 5. For the couple years before that, she snored a lot, which I think disrupted her sleep, so she was still tired. But she never fully woke up or needed assistance going back to sleep if she did wake up. Since the tonsil removal, she’s a much more well rested kid overall.

 

[euthymios]

@ebveloz Anecdotal evidence here. I don’t think I would agree with marking infants who need support to fall asleep as poor sleepers.

My 4 month old is not sleep trained as we don’t believe in it, and she falls asleep on the boob every night at around 10pm. She moves to her crib and sleeps 7-9 hours most nights. Sometimes she wakes up (usually between 4-5am) for a feed which I happily do, because I wouldn’t deprive myself if I woke up hungry or thirsty so why deprive my baby? She’ll again fall asleep on the boob for another 2-3 hours typically. It doesn’t bother us to support our daughter to sleep, and I don’t consider her a bad sleeper because of it. We’re all pretty well-rested without the stress of some rigid sleep schedule, and that’s what counts to me.

 

[shamakwa]

@euthymios You wouldn't describe her as a bad sleeper because she's not, she's by definition sleeping through the night