u/EducatorOk5759

How do I move forward after I have done sleep training? My girl (now almost 1 year), was “sleep trained” at 5 months. I did this out of desperation and believing that this was best for her and the safest way for everyone to begin sleeping again. It was a lie and I now hate the entire concept of it. The night my husband and I sleep trained her, I had to wear AirPods with music playing because hearing her screams broke me. This is such a red flag that I didn’t even notice! I tuned out all of my biological instincts purposefully. Looking back, I feel like a monster.

We are now going through new sleep and nap battles but we have learned so much about sleep training and baby regulation that “re-training” her is not an option. I have cried into her tiny body during contact naps, trying to forgive myself and more forward, for the months of ignoring her during bedtime. It still haunts me. Does anyone have any advice if you had a similar experience to me?

Secondly, responding to her cries and moments of deregulation always comes easy in terms of my body instinctively knows it needs to go to her but it’s not easy in terms of my mind feeling frustrated. While I was pro-sleep training, I believed many lies, one of which was that I could essentially fine tune my baby (like a robot), to sleep exactly how I wanted her to. So now, when disruptions come, I feel robbed. It’s a hard shift to make, to seeing her as the most important thing and worthy of all my attention, when I was so unwilling to give her that for so many months.

My emotions on this topic run so deeply. I just need a space to chat about it.

As of the past week, my 11m daughter has had the most difficult sleep I could’ve imagined. She’s been on a 2 nap schedule for a few months now and this is what we shoot for:
7am - wake
10:30-11:30 - nap
3-4pm - nap
8pm - bedtime

This worked golden for months! Some days she needed a bit more sleep, and other days less, but it was wonderful. Fast forward to now, she is a mess at nap time. Screams if I leave the room, scream if I rock her, only wants me next to her as she plays in the crib (throwing her pacifiers, cruising, giggling, etc). This goes on for sometimes an hour before she sleeps. This is true for bedtime as well, resulting in her sleeping around 9pm. Which in turn means when I wake her at 7am the next day, sometimes she falls asleep well before 10:30am (like in the stroller or my arms)… maybe because she didn’t get enough sleep?! Anyways, my days feel so lopsided and like I spend the whole day hovering over her crib. What am I missing? Is it time for 1 nap?