Sleep Training Was Worth It!

A mom of a toddler looks back on sleep training and ponders on if it was worth it to sleep train or not (spoiler–it was!)

happy mom and baby

For those of you in the heat of sleep training, I wanted to post a few words to hopefully keep you trudging along toward your end goal.

This last week we have done a lot of traveling for Christmas festivities. Brayden (2.5) has had to miss a lot of naps. He only takes one a day, so missing one can have quite the impact. Today while driving home, my husband and I talked about what he is like when he misses a nap.

When he misses one nap once a week, he is a little cranky but overall okay. Not great, but okay.

When he misses several naps in a week, something interesting happens. He gets naughty. Our sweet boy who typically does what he is asked and told immediately and is so happy to comply and be a good boy stops caring what his parents ask him to do.

He does what he wants and seems happy to he doing it his own way. He doesn’t seem tired, he just seems disobedient and actually quite hyper.

We talked about how it isn’t fair to expect a child to be obedient when they are overly tired. Trust me when I say that your child isn’t going to want to nap any more as a toddler than he does as a baby.

Some kids like to nap, but I think those are few and far between. Children love to play and have a billion better things to do than sleep.

Train your child while he is young so that when he is older he has the skills and you have the authority.

You will be better able to teach him obedience and manners and cleanliness and ABCs, etc. if he is well-rested. I saw a dramatic difference this week. I saw what my life would be like if Brayden didn’t sleep. Train him to sleep! Stick it out! It is worth it and you will be so glad you did.

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10 thoughts on “Sleep Training Was Worth It!”

  1. I am so frustrated right now and just want to give up! I just wrote a blog yesterday, my daughter is 13 weeks old and seems like she hasn’t learned any skills from Babywise. She eats on a 3 hour routine, and we follow the eat/wake/sleep pattern since she was born. As far as naps go, she goes on and off with being successful in CIO. We have been doing CIO for 9 weeks and she is still crying and often times can’t even get herself to sleep, especially still at her 4PM nap and going down to bed at 7PM. Then we would put her in the swing or bouncer and she would sleep just to get that last hour nap in for the next cycle. Now she can’t even sleep with those props. So just to avoid no napping all day I started rocking her to sleep. I don’t know what to do because she will cry and cry and cry. She also isn’t STTN which Babywise claims 97% do by 12 weeks. We have for the last week let her cry at night and she will cry for 30 minutes of hard crying and not be able to put herself to sleep (except once). What is going wrong?!?! We have been consistent with the CIO why isn’t it working? I have even played with waketimes, playtime activities, watching sleep cues, EVERYTHING and I really feel like I know when she is tired, but yet will fight going to sleep on her own. I believe in the self-soothing, but it doesn’t look like my daughter can do it.

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  2. I would be sure that there are no medical interferences with this. Also, you might consider trying the Baby Whisperer method. It teaches to self-soothe, but isn’t a CIO. There is one reader who a couple of months ago decided to try it after CIO didn’t seem to be improving, and after three days he was a great sleeper. That doesn’t mean you would for sure have the same sucess, but it is worth a shot. See the blog label “baby whisperer” for more.

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  3. I don't know that this falls under this category, but I am weary for sure….I have a 15 week old baby boy. He is my third child and I've done babywise with all of my children. My oldest two were great, STTN by 6 and 8 weeks. I remember having nap issues with the girls, but they were STTN so maybe it made less of an impact on me. Baby boy, however is not STTN and not napping well, so I'm definitely a weary mom. I think the most frustrating part of his naps is that it takes him forever to fall asleep. He'll lay in his bed and just talk and talk, or a combo of talk and whimper/whine and sometimes cry. It can take him anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to fall asleep! And on a rare occasion longer than an hour. So by the time he finally falls asleep, he only gets a short nap before it's time to wake up to eat again! OR, he finally falls asleep only to get 30-45 minutes of a nap and he's awake crying. Sometimes he'll CIO and go back to sleep and other times he can't get back to sleep. I try to keep him in his bed until his next scheduled feeding. At night, I DF at 9:30 or 10 and he wakes anytime from 4-6:30. I let him CIO until 6:30 then start our day. I'm desperate to get him napping better and sleeping later in the morning. Also, we just started preschool with my oldest, so on MWF I have to wake him from his first TWO naps of the day, once to take her to school and once to pick her up. I feel like I"m always playing catch up and he's always behind. So for this reason I try to keep his waketime short at an hour then be back in bed. He's eating on a 3 hour schedule but isn't ever just starving to eat, he just casually eats each time. So I have considered moving him to a 3.5 schedule but with him not STTN and not sleeping thru the cycle, I hesitate to do that. I keep referring back to my BW book but just can't seem to get anything to help out. Any suggestions you can give would be wonderful!! Thank you so much!

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  4. MamaC3,At that age, it sounds like he needs a longer wake time before his nap starts with the way he is acting before naps. I would try 65 minutes, then if that doesn't work, 70 minutes, etc. I would start with getting the waketime length down right.I would also try to think of options to not have to wake him MWF. Could you carpool? Could you have someone come sit with him while you do pick ups? Good luck!

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  5. hi my baby is nearly 6 months old. i have been trying CIO for four days. it worked really well for her night time sleep but its not working at all for her naps i see no improvement at all. before we started sleeping training she would only nap with a dummy and me holding her and rocking. now she is missing naps and getting really overtired and then when i try again she isnt sleeping. i have read your idea about putting them in a swing etc but that doesnt work for her, she needs to be held with a dummy in order to sleep and i dont know if i do that after a missed nap it will do more harm than good and also ruin the progress we have made with night time sleep. i am so confused what to do and have been just crying with my baby. i am going back to work in a month and my mother is going to look after her and she is also looking after my disabled father so cant hold her for naps so i really need to do some kind of sleep training asap.

    Reply
  6. hi my baby is nearly 6 months old. i have been trying CIO for four days. it worked really well for her night time sleep but its not working at all for her naps i see no improvement at all. before we started sleeping training she would only nap with a dummy and me holding her and rocking. now she is missing naps and getting really overtired and then when i try again she isnt sleeping. i have read your idea about putting them in a swing etc but that doesnt work for her, she needs to be held with a dummy in order to sleep and i dont know if i do that after a missed nap it will do more harm than good and also ruin the progress we have made with night time sleep. i am so confused what to do and have been just crying with my baby. i am going back to work in a month and my mother is going to look after her and she is also looking after my disabled father so cant hold her for naps so i really need to do some kind of sleep training asap.

    Reply
  7. hi my baby is nearly 6 months old. i have been trying CIO for four days. it worked really well for her night time sleep but its not working at all for her naps i see no improvement at all. before we started sleeping training she would only nap with a dummy and me holding her and rocking. now she is missing naps and getting really overtired and then when i try again she isnt sleeping. i have read your idea about putting them in a swing etc but that doesnt work for her, she needs to be held with a dummy in order to sleep and i dont know if i do that after a missed nap it will do more harm than good and also ruin the progress we have made with night time sleep. i am so confused what to do and have been just crying with my baby. i am going back to work in a month and my mother is going to look after her and she is also looking after my disabled father so cant hold her for naps so i really need to do some kind of sleep training asap.

    Reply
  8. hi my baby is nearly 6 months old. i have been trying CIO for four days. it worked really well for her night time sleep but its not working at all for her naps i see no improvement at all. before we started sleeping training she would only nap with a dummy and me holding her and rocking. now she is missing naps and getting really overtired and then when i try again she isnt sleeping. i have read your idea about putting them in a swing etc but that doesnt work for her, she needs to be held with a dummy in order to sleep and i dont know if i do that after a missed nap it will do more harm than good and also ruin the progress we have made with night time sleep. i am so confused what to do and have been just crying with my baby. i am going back to work in a month and my mother is going to look after her and she is also looking after my disabled father so cant hold her for naps so i really need to do some kind of sleep training asap.

    Reply
  9. hi my baby is nearly 6 months old. i have been trying CIO for four days. it worked really well for her night time sleep but its not working at all for her naps i see no improvement at all. before we started sleeping training she would only nap with a dummy and me holding her and rocking. now she is missing naps and getting really overtired and then when i try again she isnt sleeping. i have read your idea about putting them in a swing etc but that doesnt work for her, she needs to be held with a dummy in order to sleep and i dont know if i do that after a missed nap it will do more harm than good and also ruin the progress we have made with night time sleep. i am so confused what to do and have been just crying with my baby. i am going back to work in a month and my mother is going to look after her and she is also looking after my disabled father so cant hold her for naps so i really need to do some kind of sleep training asap.

    Reply
  10. I would love advice for helping my 5 week old settle down for his morning nap in his bassinet that is in the nursery. He goes down for his afternoon naps fairly easily, but it is harder in the mornings, especially after his first wake time. Today he wouldn't nap at all even after I put him down after seeing him yawn and considering he had an optimal wake time.

    Reply

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