Why Sleep-Training Totally Freaks Me Out

I guess I've been lucky that most things I've read about babies have said that baby's cries should be responded to promptly in the first year.  But I still run across articles or conversations about sleep training.  I felt really anxious about this one night and talked to Brent about it who said, simply, "I thought, like, pretty much all the experts out there now say it's bad."  This made me feel much better.

Even the therapist I saw last year said the trick to a smart, well-adjusted baby is responding to it, making eye-contact, holding and touching it a lot, and talking to it in a high-pitched motherese.  No need for high tech devices or toys or programs.  Be with your baby and hold it and pay attention to it, and he will be OK.  So, for a long while now, the idea of letting a baby cry itself to sleep seems crazy.  But I have some more personal reasons for not ever wanting to try sleep training.

The first one is that for years I slept like crap.  I had insomnia in elementary school, middle school, a ton of it in high school.  Then I took tranquilizers for about 6 years nearly every night to fall asleep.  I feel like I only just learned how to fall asleep in the last 5 years.  I think most of the sleeplessness came from anxiety and trauma that kept my mind working in overtime.  I couldn't get calm and relaxed and secure enough to let myself fall asleep.  I still will occasionally have problems sleeping, but these usually only last a week or so, sometimes just a day.  Usually, now, if I didn't sleep well the night before, it's because my schedule got off and I simply wasn't tired enough when I got into bed.  This is common on Sunday night.  But I get back on track the next day.  So if I didn't master sleeping for the first 22 years of my life, why would I expect my tiny infant to master it before he can even speak to me about it? 

It also took me a long time to associate sleep as a good time.  I have that now. For the most part, I like bedtime and getting to sleep.  I don't like to stay up super late and be tired in the morning.  Some of this comes from the fact that I have a husband sleeping next to me 99.5% of the time.  There's someone to cuddle with before bed and wake up next to.  I feel safe and secure and loved before falling asleep and I think this makes it easier to sleep.  And if I'm super anxious or sad and need to talk to someone about it, he's right there and will let me vent before I fall asleep.  If he wasn't there I know I would sleep worse.

So why is it that some people expect a baby to sleep by themselves?  I can tell my husband that I feel like crap and need a hug before bed, or that I have a headache and need Tylenol before bed, or that I'm thirsty, hell, I can get my own glass of water.  A baby can't!  It can't tell you it feels lonely or sick or it's uncomfortable, all it can do it make noises, and squirm, and eventually cry.  It can't say it's too hot or too cold or that it's hungry.  Crying is the last resort of communication for a baby, it means, "you really aren't getting my signals, I'm fucking serious, do something!"

Most adults don't fall asleep alone.  We have spouses or partners or significant others that share a bed with us.  We also don't simply get in to bed, turn the lights out and do nothing else before falling asleep.  We might take a bath, or cuddle, or read in bed, or listen to music.  I turn on a fan to drown out any external noise.  Babies can't do this for themselves, they need us to do it for them.  They need us to cuddle them before bed and make sure they are comfortable and well fed.  I have a hard time completely self-soothing myself to sleep, how can I expect a baby to soothe itself to sleep?

I truly believe that if children feel safe and secure and relaxed and comfortable and loved, they will be able to sleep.  This might mean that until they find their own means of winding down and relaxing, they will need their parents to help.  This could be years of having them sometimes sleeping in my bed or on the floor, but I don't think this means they are manipulative or spoiled, I think this is just them asking for a real human need of being with someone else rather than being alone.  I ended up in my parent's bed sometimes or on the floor in my mom's room when I was a bit older, it wasn't because I was manipulating them into giving me something I didn't need, it was because I needed the closeness those nights.

I think I saw an episode of Dr. Phil who was very anti-co-sleeping.  But he did say that he was OK with it if the child was sick.  This just made my head itch more.  What does this teach our children?  If you are sick, you get the attention you need.  Bring a child into your bed only when they are sick and I can guarantee they will be "sick" a lot.  Children catch on to these things.  When my parent's were getting divorced, I was "sick" a lot too.  When I didn't want to be in school, I was "sick."  Sometimes I was emotionally sick and just didn't know it, but sometimes I'd play up a minor problem.  Or I was simply sleep deprived and needed to go home and sleep.

It seems to me that these baby-training schemes want to make babies act like adults when most adults aren't even that good at acting like adults.  So many adults have sleep problems.  Although I don't have any hard evidence, I'd say it might come from feeling insecure during sleep time as a child.  Or maybe it's just that humans don't sleep well and we shouldn't think that we can solve it by training our smallest to fall asleep on their own.  Maybe it's our social nature that makes us need the closeness of another person to sleep well, or at least a friend to talk to before we go to bed.

So, in conclusion, I feel sick to my stomach when people talk about leaving an infant to cry.  How many of us would leave our spouse to cry, or our best friend, or even a coworker?  And how many of us stop crying when someone ignores our crying?  How many of us really just deal with our problems on our own before bed?  Maybe some of us do and maybe some babies are more relaxed and have an easy temperament and fall asleep more easily than others, but we can't expect that every baby will be trained into sleeping on their own. 

And I really think we need to not be so freaked out about older children sleeping near their parents.  I want to be an ally for my children, I want them to be able to come to me with any problem and tell me what they need.  If it's that they need to sleep near me to be happy, why wouldn't I want to give that to them?  I want my children to value human relationships and the needs of people above everything else.  I think responding to their emotional and physical needs is what will foster this.  That means not ignoring them at night.  I hope to keep a flexible sleep area and change it as needed.  This might mean one bed, two beds in one room, two different rooms, or any combo.  I don't ever want to think, "why won't my child sleep in his own room?"  I want to think, "how can I make sleep better for my child?"  I think if he is constantly getting out of bed, then something must need to change, I don't think it's because he is misbehaving.

When I look back at the times my parents were really mad at me, I don't think it was because I was purposefully being bad, I think it was because something was going wrong and wasn't feeling right for me.  I needed something I wasn't getting, but probably couldn't articulate it.  Hell, I'm not so good at articulating my feelings or needs or even realizing them as an adult.  I challenge you to find an adult who always knows what they need and how they feel and how to communicate those needs and feelings to others.  Maybe if we could, we'd have a better world.