Sleep Training Guilt (and an Intro)

philfemgal

I'm not sure I ever introed here, but have been lurking since my little one was born and used to be somewhat active on Loss and PgAL.  My daughter was born on March 20th after our previous loss of twins at different points in the 2nd trimester in my first pregnancy.

Our two biggest parenting challenges so far have been sleep and bfing related.  Bfing has finally worked itself out (fingers crossed), but sleep continues to be a problem--a lot of rocking to get her to sleep which is still accompanied by screaming a lot of the time, she won't let my wife put her to sleep AT ALL anymore, she will not nap unless held the whole time, etc.  We need to move her out of her rock n play very soon and are considering sleep training (Ferber) at the same time since we expect the transition to be painful anyway.  But just considering letting her CIO even with our presence every few minutes makes me feel so guilty.  I sometimes have the thought that we should be grateful she is alive and we should be devoted enough to give her whatever she needs to sleep and stop complaining about it.  (And really a lot of the stories I've seen of people doing Ferber are with babies much older than her and with much more sleep deprived parents.) 

Anybody else find their loss impacts their parenting decisions in this guilt-inducing way?

ct103

First of all, welcome and I'm sorry for your losses. Congrats on your rainbow, yours is just a few weeks older than mine!

Your sleep issues sound a lot like ours. My little L had colic between weeks 5-10 and we developed some pretty poor sleeping habits at that time, because we had no other choice. We used to let her nap on us during the day, and sleep swaddled in her RnP at night. It took approximately 3 weeks and a very sleep deprived mom to get her our of the swaddle and sleeping flat in a bassinet. We still can seem to get her to nap without holding her through the duration of her nap. Now I'm desperately trying to get her in the crib since the bassinet looks smaller everyday with my growing baby in it. I also do not want to sleep train out of guilt, or rather fears that it might damage her. That opinion may be a result of my loss and difficulty getting pg, it's hard to know. I absolutely refuse to let her cry it out, especially at this age.

I don't have much advice since I'm going through a similar process. The only thing that has worked for us is to introduce changes VERY gradually. When I weaned from the swaddle I first let one arm out, then both, then swaddled to the chest, then to the waist, and finally off! I'm trying to do the same with crib sleeping. I'm gonna put her down for the first time for the night in there, then bring her to the bassinet if she wakes up. I made the mistake of trying to go cold turkey over the weekend.

Hang in there and trust your instincts. Maybe try putting LO down for a nap after she's been asleep in your arms for a while. That way, if she wakes up she will have still added some good time to the sleep bank.

VeilSdeGTO

We did "try" various methods of sleep training but realized very quickly that it just wasn't what would work best for her. She was BF and gradually dropped her motn feedings on her own. She started sttn at 11.5 months and does so 99% of the time since.

For many people that I know who have sleep trained, they have found it necessary to sleep train more than once and with growth spurts, teething, shots, ect, there are so many things that can disrupt their sleep, what ever sttn that resulted from sleep training was minimal and sporadic.

I do think part of it may be due to my loss and I just didn't want to hear her cry. However, the other part was realizing that every baby is different and I needed to trust my instincts when it came to her.

Your ticker is not updated but it looks like your LO is still young (4-ish) months? If you are finding that the lack of sleep is disrupting the way you and your family functions, then look into the various methods of sleep training. There are some that are no-cry. If you are ok with the night wakings and are only considering sleep training because that is what you think you're supposed to do, then give it time. Your LO will sttn when she is ready.

katigox

I really have no judgements one way or the other, on a parent's personal choice on how they want to handle sleep training (if they decide to do it).  I think you have to do whatever works for your family.  For us, we tried various methods and my son is now 9mo. old, and has only been STTN (with some few and far between MOTNs here and there), for about a month now (though I think he's trained me, because I check on him multiple times a night anyways!).

So I will say that in our case, though I was exhausted, I felt ultimately okay with not focusing on sleep training, and instead went with his natural rhythms.  It was hard to schedule things, and I was tired a lot, but honestly, I was the one dealing with it (since my DH works nights), so I was really the only one "suffering" from my actions - and I was okay with that

You'll find plenty of information about sleep training, methods, and everything in between; but ultimately, you got to be the one okay with your decision.  If it doesn't feel right, then don't do it.  But try not to think you have to live up to some parental expectation.  If people try to say "Oh this worked for me", then you can politely thank them, and move on . . . because I've said it before, and I'll say it again: just because it works for one baby, doesn't mean it'll work for all - or else we'd all be doing it. 

With all that being said (sorry about the novel!), I just wanted to add that I'm sorry for your losses!  I don't think you are being ungrateful for your precious rainbow, just because you want sleep (the woman here can attest to a few of my threads complaining about lack of sleep lol).  Though we can appreciate our take home babies so much, doesn't make us any less human - and I fully understand now, why sleep deprivation is used a form of torture.  We are some strong women to get through the no-sleep nights

TL;DR
- sleep training did not work for us, and my DS did not start STTN until he was 8mo. (he's 9mo. now)
- just because one method, worked for one baby; does not mean it will work for yours, because if that was the case: we'd all be doing it!
- I'm sorry for your losses </3  And I don't think you should feel guilty (or that you are not appreciative of your rainbow baby), just because you want sleep.  It's vital to our survival.  I hope you find some sort of median that allows everyone to be happy and well rested soon!

orangegoggles

Welcome to the board and congrats.

I am so sorry for your losses and while I did not have a late loss, I have struggled with parent decisions because I have felt guilt.

After three losses, I was amazed that I had my DS in my arms and wanted to enjoy every minute with him. As time went on, we struggled with sleep. He needed to be held to sleep for naps If he took them (30 minutes tops) and nights ended up being a disaster with lots of screaming and constant wakeups every hour or hour and a half. I tried everything, nursing him back to sleep, rocking, swaddling, etc. but he just wouldn't go down and if he did he was up again after each sleep cycle.

We were exhausted and burnt out, sometimes getting less than 2 hours of sleep. Everyone was grumpy, including the baby. Finally I realized that I was just suffering trough because I felt guilty about complaining or attempting To change things. However what I was doing was worse...I wasn't enjoying my baby. I wasn't functioning, and my marriage was crumbling because of exhaustion.

We made the decision to do Ferber and after researching, I realized my son hadn't learned to transition out of each sleep cycle which is why he would wake so often. He took to it really well and after a few days we saw a huge improvement! It has changed everything for the better. He's so much happier and well rested and we are too!

It's definitely a personal decision and seems to work best as your child gets closer to 6 months but you shouldn't feel guilty. Some babies need help sleeping and you will know in your heart if it's right for your child. Best of luck!

MJM3108

Welcome and congrats! I can't give any advice on the sleep issues, as we were blessed with a great sleeper, but I can attest to the fact that these ladies know what they're talking about and have given some sound advice.

To echo PP, no one method works for every baby- or every family- or we'd all be doing the same thing. Find what works for your family, whatever that is, and run with it!

As far as guilt from my loss affecting my parenting style, I would say in some ways it does, and in others it doesn't. I just want to give Ben everything he could ever possibly want/ need (not that any parent doesn't want to do this) and wish I could shield him from anything that could ever hurt him... I think loss parents have a special bond/ connection with their rainbows (or before loss children) and a gratitude for the blessing of children to hold in our arms instead of just in our hearts. 

I wish you and your wife all the best with your LO, and hope you feel at home here. This is a fantastic group of parents who really do support and advise each other, and band together when one of our own is hurting or needs help. 

jbranden12

First, hi friend!

I'm so glad you've been able to make BFing work! As for sleep, not easy. We have not thought about sleep training because Anna's life has been so far from typical and we never think about what she "should" be doing, just where she's at right now. For a few weeks she was consistently sleeping from 11-6 but this week she added back in a 3AM feeding. The first couple of nights/days were rough and we tried adjusting her evening schedule to help get her back to sttn, but no joy. I'm just accepting it and hoping we can get back to 7 hours soon!

philfemgal

Thanks all for your welcoming and your thoughts.

Ada is 4.5 months.  MOTN wake ups are actually not the problem. She does 1-3 wake ups a night to bf and usually a 4-7 hour stretch for the first part of the night, so no complaints there.  Even if we do sleep train we won't be trying to stop the wake ups.  Our problems really are getting her to sleep in the first place (which lately usually involves a lot of screaming and now my wife is unable to participate in at all because Ada apparently only wants me too do it) and not being able to put her down for naps.  (More info here: https://forums.thebump.com/discussion/12025676/gentle-ways-to-deal-with-sleep#latest)

I'm actually not sure if the guilt is really loss related or not since I know lots of non-loss parents who struggled very hard with the idea of any CIO too.  I go back and forth.  On one hand I'm thinking she's too young, we're not that desperate, I can't listen to her cry and not comfort her, etc.  On the other I think she is screaming bloody murder multiple times a day everyday anyway.  She started doing that crying w/ my wife a month+ ago and she just gave up on putting her to sleep rather than make her scream; now lately I've been letting her skip/put off naps to avoid the crying which just makes her horribly cranky and she probably just cries more at the next nap.  So am I really doing what's best for her by continuing this way?  We have tried some other gentle suggestions for trying to improve sleep--doing a bedtime routine (makes no difference), trying to move bedtime earlier (just led to that much more screaming), etc.  But it's so hard to sort out what is actually best for her vs. what is easiest for me.  And on top of those variables the sleep issues and Ada not allowing my wife to put her to sleep is negatively impacting their relationship since my wife constantly feels rejected and there is so little she can do with/for Ada if all sleeping and bfing are my responsibility.

I think we are leaning toward trying to go back to a more rigid nap schedule (her 2 naps today so far have been less torturous) and then trying a PU/PD method for breaking her sleep associations and putting her down for naps.  I worry, though, that this might just prolong the crying for hours since being held/comforted doesn't necessarily calm her, particularly when my wife does it.

Ugh, maybe this has nothing to do with my loss at all.  Maybe it's just hard to be a parent sometimes!

philfemgal

Hi jbranden--good to see you! 

Ada pulled the same trickiness as Anna with regressing a bit with night time sleep.  She weirdly was sleeping completely through the night about 50% of the time around 6 weeks old for a couple of weeks.  Everyone said it wouldn't last and it didn't--haha.

jbranden12

Okay, since the update I see now that sttn isn't the problem, it's the process of going to sleep and napping. I would definitely start letting her nap in the crib before putting her in the crib for night to get used to it. 

When it's time for a nap, does she let you hold her or does she fight you? Could it be that you are catching the window too late? If Anna is over-tired, she definitely won't nap and has the screaming episodes you describe. 

As for the relationship with your wife, that is sad. Have you tried doing lots of skin to skin?

philfemgal

Skin to skin is a great suggestion--I always forget about it and then think "yeah why aren't they doing that more?" when I remember.

And yeah I had definitely been letting her stay awake too long.  Today went much better going back to our old routine of me trying to get her to sleep immediately at any sign of tiredness or crabbiness.  (We had started getting away from that routine because she had started fighting me with naps then too, but never as bad as the last few days.)

katigox

I'm glad it went better tonight and second the skin to skin idea

Hope things only go up for you and your family from here