We all know how it goes with an infant. You’ve been through a long day at work, put your baby to bed, done the evening chores, and you finally lay down to get some rest before doing it all again tomorrow. Just when you’re in the middle of that sweet hard-earned sleep, you’re jolted awake by the sound of crying… or screaming… or flat out wailing.
Difficulty sleeping is already a problem among working moms, but if the cause of it is a baby who doesn’t yet have the hang of the whole sleeping thing, sleep training may be a potential solution that can help everyone get a little more rest.
Sleep training can benefit both you and your baby.
Admittedly, I was resistant to the idea of sleep training. I thought (mistakenly) that the only option was to leave my little bawling his eyes out alone in the middle of the night, which I just couldn’t bear the thought of.
As the weeks went on with little sleep and a full work schedule, I eventually started feeling like I couldn’t function anymore. I caved, did some reading, and discovered that there are many different methods and potential benefits to sleep training. I was hopeful that I would find an option I could work with.
Once your baby learns the skills of sleeping, they can sleep anywhere between 9-12 hours a night. It’s literally life-changing when it works. A well rested baby is more alert and happier during the day. Parents can get more sleep themselves and minimize the negative effects of sleep deprivation. That means better mental health and physical health. Everybody’s happier and healthier.
Gentle sleep training focuses on minimizing crying.
Gentle sleep training is a method where parents respond to and comfort their babies whenever they cry out at night, then put them down repeatedly until they learn to fall asleep on their own. There are many variations of gentle sleep training, but they all aim to minimize tears and gradually encourage baby to be independent with sleeping. This method takes longer for success but is less emotionally stressful on parents.
Gentle sleep training is different from the “Cry It Out” method, also known as extinction, full extinction, or CIO for short. This is the type of sleep training that gets a bad rep and makes soft-hearted parents like myself hesitant. With CIO, you leave the room after putting baby down and don’t respond when they cry or fuss. It’s generally faster at achieving results (as fast as a few days) but can be a much more stressful experience for parents.
Although many proponents of CIO say it can be a game-changer, I personally couldn’t bear the thought of letting my baby fuss and cry without going to comfort him. I don’t judge any parent who uses the CIO method though – as we all know, every baby and every family is different. Honestly, it probably would have been harder for me than for him. I just knew I couldn’t stick with it, so I decided on a more gentle method.
My experience with the pick-up, put-down method of gentle sleep training.
The pick-up, put-down method is a type of gentle sleep training where you pick baby up to comfort them when they are crying, soothe them, and put them back down when they are still drowsy. Putting babies down when they are drowsy but not actually asleep is a key aspect of almost any type of sleep training.
Before sleep training: I started doing gentle sleep training with my son when he was about 9 months old, so a little on the older end of the recommended age spectrum for this particular method (which is 4-8 months). Before that, I would nurse him to sleep but he would wake up constantly – upwards of five or six times a night. My husband and I would take turns holding him until he fell asleep. As a working mom in healthcare (also still pumping at this time), doing full days on 4-5 hours of intermittent sleep eventually took its toll. I was frequently sick and stressed-out.
Weeks 1-2: When I first started, it was important to establish a consistent bedtime routine. We would do the same things at roughly the same time every night to signal that bedtime was approaching. I would snuggle with him, sing our little song (Edelweiss), and then put him down in his crib in a completely dark room and leave. When he started fussing, I would go back in and comfort him until he was calm, which would take about 30 minutes, sometimes more. But once he had settled and was getting drowsy again, I would put him back down to sleep. There were some nights he would just sense that he was being lowered into the crib and would immediately spring back up, and I would have to start all over again. It was rough in the beginning.
Weeks 2-4: After a couple of trying weeks, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. He stopped protesting as much and began to lay quietly when I put him down. Once I noticed that he was actually able to lay still, I gradually reduced the time I spent holding him. Sometimes I wouldn’t take him out at all, but use gentle pressure on his back or belly at the crib side. After about 4 weeks, he was able to fall asleep at least half the time with just a quick cuddle or reassuring touch, and occasionally all on his own.
It wasn’t perfect but it worked for me.
Fast forward to 1 year and some change later – my son (now 23 months) still wakes up once or twice during the night a couple times a week, and about 90% of the time he’s able to go back to sleep on his own. He’s a stubborn one, and there are times he will not go back to bed until I’ve picked him up or given him a cuddle, but most times once I put him down he will immediately roll over, grab his pacifier, and go back to sleep. He wants the comfort of knowing I’m there, but understands that he doesn’t actually need me. I’m okay with that arrangement.
You could say I didn’t achieve perfect results because he still wakes up and demands the occasional snuggle, but then again I probably wasn’t as consistent as I could have been. There were some nights I was so exhausted we would both fall asleep before he was put down, or I would respond at the slightest whimper without giving him a chance to develop his independent sleeping skills. I also have been known to sneak him into bed with me occasionally, especially if he isn’t feeling well. Even so, gentle sleep training has dramatically improved my quality of life, giving me many more nights of restful sleep and enabling me to live a more productive life. I don’t feel like a walking zombie anymore, and that is good enough.
When you work during the day and have a baby who won’t sleep through the night, you can feel like you’re going crazy. It takes a toll on both your physical and emotional health and affects every single aspect of your overall well being. Gentle sleep training is a method of helping your baby to sleep at night so you can actually get some sleep too.
It may not work 100% of the time and different methods work best for different babies. By its very nature, gentle sleep training is a gradual process – it takes time. In the beginning it’s hard, but no harder than waking up 6 times a night to rock your baby back to sleep.
Although it does pay off in the end for the vast majority of babies, each one is different and gentle methods may not work at all. With any method of sleep training, you want to try it for at least 2 weeks before stopping or switching to another alternative. My method wasn’t perfect and neither were my results – but it gave me just the outcome I needed.
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