Welcoming a new baby into the world is a wonderful but scary experience, and no matter how hard you try to prepare, there will always be something you are not fully prepared for.

For many parents, lack of sleep is the reason.

You can hear parents talking about exhaustion and lack of sleep and still be completely unprepared for the impact a baby who doesn’t sleep well has on your psyche. It’s no surprise that many parents turn to parenting guides and “experts” to figure out how to get their babies to sleep. And that’s where the idea of ​​”sleep training” comes in.

Sleep training is a broad term for teaching or training a baby to fall asleep (or get back to sleep) without the need for soothing from a parent or other caregiver. There are many sleep training methods that range from fairly common sense to borderline abusive, which is one reason it seems to spark great debate among parents. Everyone is talking about a different method when defending or demonizing sleep training.

Sleep training usually involves letting the baby fuss or cry for a while. Some people think this is problematic because there is research that shows the importance of responding to babies’ cries. Others say a little crying is a small price to pay because in the long run, it is healthier for both the baby and the parents to get a good night’s sleep.

Of course, there’s a big difference between “a few minutes of crying or whining” and “whining and screaming with no end in sight,” and that’s where the big difference lies. For some parents, sleep training means the former, and it works, so they swear by it. For others, it means the latter, and it’s a nightmare, so they find it horrifying.

There’s also a big difference between “I would love it if my baby would sleep through the night without waking up” and “I think I’ll die if I can’t sleep for 4 hours straight.” Many parents who aren’t keen on the idea of ​​sleep training give it a try out of desperation.

I have some personal experience with this. My first baby was not a good sleeper. I remember thinking six weeks after birth, “A human cannot survive on so little sleep.” I loved my baby, but the sleep deprivation of waking up multiple times a night for weeks felt like torture, literally.

At a few months old, she started sleeping through the night, but that didn’t last long. Then she got teeth. Then she started crawling. It seemed like just when she was getting into a good sleep routine, a milestone forced us back into waking up and crying multiple times a night. She slept in our room next to our bed, so it was pretty easy to rock her back to sleep, but even so, her sleep was disturbed night after night.

I was keen to try something, but I didn’t like the idea of ​​sleep training. It’s a natural instinct to respond to your baby’s crying, so it didn’t feel right to walk away. One book suggested leaving your baby to cry alone in their crib and not picking them up under any circumstances. If they got so upset that they threw up, just clean them up and do the whole thing again. Um, no thanks.

But I’ve heard from other parents that they’ve tried different sleep training methods, where they’ll let their children cry for just a few minutes, then go in to pet/comfort them, leave them alone for a bit longer, and keep doing it until they finally fall asleep. I’ve heard so many parents say things like, “The first night they fidgeted for 15 minutes before they fell asleep, the second night they fidgeted for 5 minutes, and then they just fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the morning!”

If only all babies slept so peacefully.Photo by Yan Krukau/Pexels

That sounded reasonable, so I tried it a few times.

It didn’t go at all like the parents had described. Not even close.

First, my baby wasn’t “whining.” She just cried, whined, and screamed, spitting up snot and drool. Second, I couldn’t pet her to calm her down – she only calmed down when I picked her up. Third, when I left the room, the whining never stopped, it just got worse. I felt like I was torturing my baby, and it broke my heart as a mom, so we gave up.

I have no doubt that these parents were telling the truth about how sleep training worked for their child. It just absolutely did not work for mine.

This baby is now 24 and has slept all night in his own bed for over 20 years. My other two children had their own sleep personalities as babies – one was very simple and the other more like my first. I didn’t do anything different to make them that way – they were just that way. Sometimes it was hard. We co-slept when necessary. It all worked out in the end.

After raising three children myself and speaking with countless other parents, I know a few things for sure:

1) Every baby, child and family is different and what works for one will not necessarily work for another. As long as no one is actually being abused or neglected, do what works for your child and your family.

2) Anyone who gives one size fits all advice on any aspect of raising children is completely wrong. There is definitely no such thing as one size fits all advice.

3) Sleep is important, but unless you’ve spent a night sleeping in their bed, don’t judge parents on how they handle their baby’s sleep. What’s right for you may not be right for them.