Crying during sleep training.
CRYING.
The thing that makes parents cringe and walk the other way when they think of sleep training, and the biggest encumbrance by far.
So how does one get past it? How does one come to understand and accept it? How does one work around it and work with it during sleep training?
These are all legitimate concerns that parents have when it comes to sleep training their child and we’ll get into all of it in this post. And of course there are a number of reasons why babies cry, but for today, we’ll discuss crying in regards to sleep training.
Here’s a breakdown of the crying
CRYING IS INEVITABLE
Crying during sleep training is inevitable and cannot be totally avoided. There is no sleep training method or plan that will be 100% void of tears and this is normal and expected.
CRYING IS AN EXPRESSION OF FRUSTRATION
Crying during sleep training is merely an expression of your child's frustration. Remember, they are learning a new skill which they need to master, and this can produce a lot of tears! But no one said they have to do it on their own. We can be there to support and help them through it, but they need to learn to work through their frustration in order to master this new skill.
CRYING IS YOUR CHILD’S RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Crying is your child's resistance to the changes being made to her routine and what she is used to. Your child is adapting to a new routine which can be stressful at first. People naturally resist changes, big and small because they are comfortable and used to what they have. It takes time to adjust to a new routine!
CRYING IS TEMPORARY
Crying during sleep training is temporary, especially if you do it right. The tears are short-lived, usually a couple of days (a few more with a more hands on method) and once they learn to fall asleep independently, there are generally no more tears at bedtime and throughout the night. A form of magic, I know!
CRYING IS NORMAL
Not all crying is bad. Crying is normal. Crying is just a symptom of your child’s frustration in learning a new skill like sleep. So while crying be nerve-wracking and triggering, especially when it comes to our own child, it can be worrisome and definitely make us feel bad about just standing by or even allowing it to happen. But it’s important to know that crying is a healthy part of our makeup up and in this situation, a perfectly normal way to cope during sleep training. Crying can actually release oxytocin and endogenous opioids, otherwise known as endorphins. These chemicals can help ease both physical and emotional pain.
HOW TO DEAL WITH THE FRUSTRATION
Let me start off by saying that we are not there to take away their frustration, we’re there to help them through it. We want to teach our babies how to work through their feelings by offering support and comfort along the way, by holding their hand through tough times and hard transitions, not by totally eradicating the feeling for them altogether or they will never learn to self soothe. Like all lessons learned in life, babies, children and adults alike all need to experience some frustration and hard work in order to get master new skills and get to the other side.
Like any new skill, think of your baby getting on his hands and knees and leaning to scoot. He sees a toy right in front of him but it’s just too far away for him to reach, as parents we wanna make it easy and help and save them from the feeling of frustration so we naturally push the toy forward so that baby doesn’t have to do the leg work - no pun intended. But we haven’t taught him anything, we haven’t encouraged him to use his knees to scoot or his hands to reach. We are preventing him from learning from himself what he needs to do in order to get the toy. And the same applies to any new skill your child is learning ,whether they’re learning to ride a bike, or do homework or learn to play a sport
So by waiting a few minutes at a time, giving your child a chance to do it himself, you are supporting her learning a new skill and her need to sleep. So fear not, there is balance in the sleep training process.
WHAT’S TOO MUCH CRYING DURING SLEEP TRAINING?
If you have ever sleep trained your baby or even thought about sleep training, then you’ve probably already thought about what’s too much crying? What’s normal?
Yes, there is such a thing as too much crying. Oftentimes parents come to me in a panic because they have started sleep training (whether with me or on their own) and they report back that their baby cried. All. Night. Long. And when I hear this, a red flag goes up in my head and my wheels start turning.
Usually when I see this happen, more often than not, it’s because of these 2 reasons.
Either baby is hungry and was not well fed before bed
Baby is not getting consistent responses and we are causing intermittent reinforcement of crying.
There are other factors that could cause your baby to cry more, like sickness, too hot, too cold, dirty diaper, etc…but for the most part, In my experience and in regards to sleep training it’s usually due to those things mentioned above.
So how do you measure what is too much crying?
Crying on and off throughout the night on the first couple of nights of sleep training. is normal. You can expect that your baby will fall asleep and wake up shortly after crying for a few minutes and repeat this process throughout the night. This song and dance is normal and expected.
It’s normal for your baby to cry for an hour, maybe 2 at most (I rarely see this happen unless mom and dad are not being consistent or maybe something else is up) But I always say that if your baby is still crying straight after 1.5-2 hours and you are being consistent with your responses, regardless of the method, we should reevaluate and see what needs to be changed. That’s my own personal criteria, my own cocktail of sorts for what I think is normal, for what I have seen in terms of how long it should and could take babies to fall asleep.
Some sleep trainers will tell you that it’s normal for them to scream all night long - it’s not. A healthy baby who has his basic needs met, who is well fed, happy and ready for sleep will not and should not cry all night long.
And of course, use your intuition! If you suspect that your baby’s crying is not the norm and it’s concerning to you, take a break, pick up your baby, No harm in being on the safe side!
That’s all for now on crying. I hope this has somewhat eased your fear of your child’s cry and helped you understand why they cry to begin with.