my real thoughts on sleep training

i have done it all. cry it out. co-sleeping. climbing into cribs and beds. crazy intensive sleep programs. child psychologists and therapists. literally all of it.

and what i can tell you is that its a combination of luck and your kid. some people are lucky. some are not. some kids are good sleepers. some are not. and some kids just need more support to sleep and some do not.

here is my take on the whole sleep training concept, what actually helped me, what i could do without, and what my sleep journey looked like. a REAL take on it. not some fake instagram version.

WARNING, my views might rub people the wrong way but im just being honest about how i felt.

the night it all clicked for me

the moment it all changed for me was one night i went into the crib to help my kid sleep. it was bright from this stupid night light. it was loud from this sound machine. i was honestly kind of scared, not gonna lie. and it dawned on me that no wonder these babies are freaked out when you leave them alone. they arent ready. i dont care what sleep trainers say, as a mom who was physically connected to my baby for 9 months and then breastfeeding, why am i subjecting him to this. and myself. it was torture. and from that night on, my whole view on sleep training changed.

cry it out nearly broke me

the thing i absolutely hated and felt judged for was cry it out. i hated every second of it. it was more like me crying. watching my 6 month old shrieking for hours on end. it was miserable. and having the sleep coach be like, its normal, they will eventually fall asleep. something about that just felt so unnatural.

the difference between settling and shrieking

so for my second, i never did it. i co-slept until he was 8 months old. and then around then we slowly did the crib transition and it was so easy. yes there were some crying moments, but we never cried it out. to me there is a very big difference.

letting your kid try to settle themselves for around 5 minutes is completely different than letting your kid shriek until the early morning. and have a panic attack when they see you, or hypervigilance.

what actually helped me

anyways, take all of what i say with a grain of salt. my kids sleep with me and im not ashamed. ive gotten here at my own pace. yes there have been tired weeks or even months of my life, but the feeling i have in my heart is that i havent left my kids alone. ever.

here are a few things that i found worked for me. if youre feeling like all the guidance goes against your gut, try some of these and see if they work.

the number one tip i can tell you is its trial and error.

1. co-sleeping. this made my life so much easier.

2. sound machine gone. the noise was annoying. if you need to drown out noise, you put the machine outside their room, not inside.

3. no night light. its terrible for their eyes.

4. age makes such a difference. what works in the early days does not work later on. going in and checking on them at 1.5 to 2 years old works great. at 8 months old, its too traumatic.

my thoughts on sleep trainers

sleep trainers are great. i am not shitting on them at all. but i also found that they made my life worse, not better. they told me things that felt unnatural or not intuitive as a mom. so after baby number one, i learned that i need to trust my gut. if i could go back in time and do it all again, i would continue to learn what i could from other people, including sleep trainers, but i would trust my gut WAY more.

i felt ashamed by sleep trainers to do things that felt natural to me. when i did co-sleeping of any kind, i was told that was wrong and my baby would get attached. in my head im like yes thats the whole fucking point. they are 6 months old.

they start you WAYYYYYYY too young. like we started at 4 months. that is insane to me looking back. your baby is a nothing then. the thought of making them cry it out in their crib is ridiculous. sorry not gonna apologize for that one. the minimum age in my books is 8 months for sleep training.

and my real question, again not to bash anyone but this is an honest question, what qualifies someone to become a sleep trainer? im actually asking because i dont understand what certified sleep consultant means.

Things We Think But Don’t Often Say Out Loud

ok i know this ones going to bring out strong feelings on both sides, sleep trained moms and non sleep trained moms both. but for me it came down to trusting my gut over what felt unnatural, and there is a real difference between settling and shrieking. tell me where you land on this, drop it in the comments, i actually want to know. tag a friend who needed to hear this isnt as black and white as it seems. love you guys. more soon. xx jessie