Sleep training going against motherly instincts
My 9 month old is breastfed and loves having milk and/or snuggles through the night. I’m up about every 3 hours with him, but never do co-sleeping, just room sharing. Sometimes he sleeps in longer stretches of 4-5 hours.
I’m aware that I’ve created some strong sleep associations that probably need to be changed, but sleep training or allowing any kind of crying will shatter my heart into a million pieces. I just feel like it goes totally against my motherly instincts, and my anxiety is through the roof as my husband and I are discussing starting some kind of sleep training.
Does anyone feel like I do? Did you ever regret sleep training? Or did you ever regret NOT sleep training?
Because honestly, it just feels SO much easier to me to just do the 5-minute feed or short snuggle before everyone goes happily back to sleep. Any time I try to do anything else (hold/rock/back rubs), I feel WAY more exhausted/frustrated and my baby is just more upset. And when my baby is upset, I’M upset, and I’d rather feel tired from broken sleep than upset. Plus, I’m also the kind of person who believes that your baby can FEEL when you are upset, and that doesn’t help anyone either.
So I would appreciate any advice or stories you’d like to share
I’d also like to add that he is physically very active all day; he’s crawling, standing with and without pulling up, walking while holding onto furniture…is it also possible that he’s just needing more calories through the night because he’s so active? I feed him a big dinner to try to get him really full before bed (2 purée pouches of food plus breastmilk)