by Dad - November 19, 2015

I think the whole concept of “sleep training” with infants is bogus and any results are arbitrary – or not really arbitrary, but completely based on the demeanor of the kid – and not directly a result of the “training”

Exhibit A:

With Ruth, we tried this sleep training malarkey, but it never worked. She was going to sleep when she was going to sleep. Even if she was tired, if she wasn’t ready to go to sleep, she would will herself into staying awake and would yell at us for an hour or two from her crib. She never learned to just give in and go to sleep. She was only going to go to sleep if she was okay with being put in the crib at a given time. If not, she would not sleep until you took her out of the crib – even if it was just long enough to carry her to the kitchen and get her some milk. She had to win out. It was her stubborn demeanor. It wasn’t until Frances was born that she started going to bed at a reasonable child time – and she just started doing it on her own.

Exhibit B:

With Frances, we haven’t tried any sort of consistent schedule, because we learned from Ruth that there was no point. She’ll sleep when she want to. Well, at 10 weeks, she usually is down anytime between 8:00 and 10:00, depending on her mood, will sleep 5 or 6 hours before waking up for food, then sleep a few more hours. And last night, she slept from 9-6. Nothing we did made this happen. She just did it on her own. And Carly and I like it.

Conclusion:

A baby will do what a baby will do with sleep. Spare me your two cents on the merits of sleep training. If your kids were going to bed on time and sleeping through the night within three months, then you just had good luck with their demeanor. If not, your kid probably inherited your sleep aversion and you’re screwed.