Will they really sleep better if I train them?

(So like most parents I am on a journey- I get caught in thought loops at 3am. Let me premise this post- I 100% acknowledge my privilege. I know what I am about to write doesn’t cut it for the average working mum that has to go back to work when their baby is about 6 months old. Having said that- this blog is about me and how I feel and I will unapologetically continue to write about my experience and if it resonates, I hope it helps you feel freer. If it doesn’t- maybe skip to another post.)

Okay, so if you’re a parent- especially a new parent- you are sleep obsessed (most likely). Unless you are one of those gifted parents whose babies just tuck themselves in and stay down, you miss sleep. You want to sleep. Everyone tells you that you should sleep- but your baby won’t. They didn’t get the TikTok targeted ad that claims they should sleep through the night and nap on a clock. But you did. You now can’t help but wonder; what am I doing wrong if they aren’t sleeping right?

I read the instagram pages. I followed the sleep consultants. I watched the TikToks. Sleep deprivation was central to my parenting journey from the get go. My daughter was only 2.4kg at birth, born full term. We don’t know why. To adequately maintain her nutrition, her paediatrician prescribed a 2 hourly feeding schedule, like clockwork. 24 hours a day. Every day. For 2 months. You can see where the sleep desperation began for a breastfeeding mama.

As we were gradually allowed to let her sleep for longer stretches, my daughter slept like a dream. She would nap for hours and I would have to wake her. Eventually, we got the green light to stop waking her. And she slept. From about 10-12 weeks of age, she slept through the night. We were elated. Smug, even. The gnarly 4 month regression mark came and went, and she still slept. We were becoming functional adults again. We had nailed parenthood. Then she turned 6 months old- and it was a reality check.

The regression began- and it did not end. By 8 months, we were fried. We needed sleep help and we needed it yesterday. I read blogs, engaged sleep help from our sleep expert hotline with our insurance, I tried the online sleep experts, I sought out my maternal child health nurse, even. Resoundingly, we were advised to try sleep school.

Non-parent Australians- brace yourselves. Sleep school is a thing. Yes, there is a school that teaches your tiny baby to sleep. It also teaches parents how to resettle, how to improve transfer of breast milk, bottle feeding techniques, etc. It claims to help you tackle anything that promises the ultimate outcome- a sleeping baby that stays asleep. The clincher- it is fully covered by your health insurance if you have pregnancy cover. It is a 5 night package where mama and baby check in, baby is managed by nurses, mama gets to sleep in a room by herself for a night or two, and the nurses look after both of your sleep needs. How enticing is that?! Naturally, I enrolled. I was ready to sign the documents in my blood if I needed to.

Here’s what they don’t write on the brochure; they take your baby from you on the first night to “settle” in a different room. And they let them cry. And cry. And cry. And all of this is with your consent. This is not some magically gentle night nurse that comes in and rocks your baby and soothes them while you sleep in. This is a militant training school for you and your baby. I was advised to “have the stomach for it¨if I wanted to do it and I really did not. I never went.

We were back to looking for help and hoping she would just grow out of the poor sleep phase the way she grew into it. We discussed our parenting approach as a couple; what were we willing to do to improve her sleep? Time and again we revisited the idea of sleep training. Could we try controlled crying? Did it work? Was there evidence to back this up? Everything we read was wishy washy. The “evidence” was really poor. Even the studies that were purported by sleep experts were scanty at best when you analysed the methods and the data.

We ended up trying a sleep consultant- a private consultant who comes to your home and teaches you to settle your child and helps you improve your sleep environment. She was advertised as a “gentle” sleep consultant and our friends recommended her. It sounded like a balanced call- support that didn’t grate against our parenting instincts.

I sent in our query, stressing that I was not open to controlled crying. She sent back lovely messages filled with empathy and understanding for our situation. We quickly realized that “gentle” just meant gently allowing your child to cry it out- in small increments at a time. 3 minutes, then 5, then 10…. Etc. I again stressed that this was not the approach I was willing to take. She countered with “didn’t I want my child to be independent?” “What was the difference between this and starting daycare?” And “Your baby will adjust”. If the slippery slope argument wasn’t enough to piss me off on its own… listening to my daughter cry for 3 minutes was sure as hell sufficient grounds for the frustrated email I sent our consultant as feedback for her “gentle” approach.

Sleep deprivation is a form of torture for a reason- when you’re sleep deprived, nothing works. And I mean medically, your hormones are out of whack, your neuronal connection speed is on the fritz and your ability to regulate your emotions is well and truly on hold. There is a multimillion dollar sleep support industry that is capitalizing on it and it is marketing itself really well- why wouldn’t it be? Our desperation smacked of dollars waiting to be drained from our account.

The result of this reality is that you are constantly surrounded by voices that croon sleep results at you- and they are seductive as hell. When you are a sleep deprived parent, there is little else on the top of your wish list. But what is the cost?

Eventually my husband and I tried a portion of the sleep consultant’s advice- we built a rough routine in for our child, she took her naps at the same time every day, we tried these epic evening walks in a baby carrier touted to improve her serotonin levels which would convert to magically elevated melatonin levels, and we started a more standard bedtime routine. She sleeps better- she does. We are getting more reliable nights where she sleeps through or wakes up maybe once or twice. This is MUCH better than the five times a night that we were at.

In hindsight, we also have a daughter who wakes up an appropriate amount for her developmental stage. Over the time where she went through her sleep regression- she learnt to roll over independently at night, she learnt to crawl, sit up from a lying position on her own, pull to stand and dance in her little cot. She has a little voice and she says “Mama”. She learnt all of this from 6-8months of age. She also started solids and eats independently and drinks out of an open cup on her own. She’s happy, intelligent, healthy and loving her little life every day.

I completely appreciate how important sleep is for her and for us and for everyone’s mental health. But my daughter was clearly processing a lot in those 2 months where we all lost a lot of sleep. Of course her little brain was active a lot at night. Of course this caused her some stresses that broke her sleep cycles. She just had a lot going on in that little brain of hers.

On the spectrum of parents we know- we had a long sleep regression and a rough couple of months. So did our friends. All of them. The ones who ferberized, the ones who didn’t, the ones who did regimented sleep schedules, the ones who let their kids figure it out, the ones who practiced cosleeping, the ones who didn’t. All of my mum friends with babies our age are at a similar sleep stage to our daughter now. They all experienced rough sleep regressions, barring the one magical boy who has always slept through the night, bless his soul. They all also tried everything the could you entice better sleep out of their babies. Eventually, all of our babies grew out of their regressions and moved on to more reliable night sleeps.

I realise now that whatever we had chosen to do, her sleep may or may not have been much different. Based on my anecdotal evidence, I’m not sure anything we did made a huge difference. What I am sure of is we listened to our instincts on this one and we trusted that our little girl would get there when she got there. And I’m really glad we did. She’s sleeping beautifully and she trusts that when she needs us, we’re always there for her. We never had to sacrifice her faith that we were always right there when she was having a rough night and that was ultimately the thing that came out on top. In the game of parenting, I feel like we beat this level.