When I first heard of the sleep training method before I had my baby, I thought I would definitely nail it because I was so good at crate training my dogs. Isn’t it just to ignore their cries until they calm down themselves? I have done that and I totally have the heart for it! One year later, it just turned out that I was too naive.

Sleep training has always been a debatable topic since decades ago. You may already have your own thought on this before you have a baby. But let me tell you something – motherhood is a lesson that only your child can teach you. Your baby gets to decide whether he/she needs to be sleep trained. You may wonder how? Since you won’t be able to get a clue from their babbling sound, here are some guidelines that you can follow to help you to make the decision based on my own fresh and successful experience.

1. Do you have the heart for it?

When my daughter was 3 months old, I decided to give the sleep training a try because that’s the recommended age to start it. It’s even more for my own sanity because she needed to be nursed to sleep and I wanted to break that habit. We tried the interval method, also known as the Ferber method where you let your baby cry for the first 5 mins before going to check on her. You are not allowed to pick her up but just gently pat on her while she’s hysterically crying and asking for your help. Then extend the time before going to her until she falls asleep. It still twists my heart just by thinking about how helpless she looked while we ignored her cry. We didn’t get to pass the first 5 mins because she was too upset that she puked all over her face. According to the Ferber method, we were supposed to clean it up and continue to let her cry. That’s when I realized that sleep training was not for us and I could just live with the life of being my baby’s pacifier. She’s just a baby, after all. It won’t be forever, I told myself.

Researches have shown that the ‘cry it out’ method is 100% safe and it will not affect the relationship between you and your baby. It’s also the most intense but effective way of sleep training if you keep the consistency. But you know yourself and your baby the best, if at any point you think it’s wrong or it’s going against your own belief, you don’t have to do it. Just follow your baby’s lead, it’s never wrong.

2. Is your baby STTN?

Sleeping through the night has many definitions depends on the age of your child. You wouldn’t expect a newborn to sleep from 10-6 without making any fuss because babies this young just biologically needs to eat almost every hour. For some moms, however, they claim that their newborns are STTN without waking up. HOW COULD THAT BE? Thankfully these moms are not starving their babies but just been super optimistic. They quickly adapt to their babies’ internal clock by co-sleeping with them. Whenever the babies need to nurse, they just latch them on and keep on sleeping! If you are a mom who can still live your best life even during the hardest time of a woman, you rock!

But what if you have passed those sweet and cute first few months newborn period where you can just spoil your baby like no other? You gave them whatever and whenever they asked and now they get used to this free buffet that opens 24/7. My daughter was almost sleeping through the night when she’s 3 months based on the deifinition of STTN for her age, where she could sleep 5-6 hrs straight without waking up. Just when I thought it was going to get longer and I would soon get my 8 hrs beauty sleep back, the nightmare began. But that’s something I’ll talk later. My point is, if your baby is sleeping long stretches (typically over 3 – 4 hrs) at night based on their age, they don’t need sleep training, yet.

3. Is your baby going through a sleep regression?

I blamed the sleep regression when my daughter was 5 months, where she started to wake up every 2-3 hrs during the night. If you google it, there are certain periods where a baby could go through sleep regression during the first year. And you will see experts explaining 4, 6, 8-12 months sleep regressions, where each regression could last 2 to 6 weeks long. Well, why don’t they just us that babies will go through a sleep regression for the entire first year and we mamas don’t deserve any sleep at all??

Identify if your baby is really going through a sleep regression is very important, as you don’t want to sleep train your baby while she’s suffering from the pain. Teething and developmental milestones like starting to crawl are the most common causes of sleep regressions. Teething is a really tricky one, as those teeny tiny baby teeth are either on their way out under the gum or they are above the gum and still growing. Both sounds really hurt. You really can’t tell if it’s bothering your baby or they are just genuinely hungry. At least for me, it’s a really good excuse of my baby explaining why she woke up so often.

4. Are you burnt out?

I’m not talking about a normal wear and tear from the new life of having a baby. I’m talking about having to wake up every 5 mins at night and spend 30 mins to nurse baby back to sleep and being used as a pacifier for her entire nap during the day kind of burnt out. This has lasted almost 2 months. So it must not be sleep regression. I couldn’t think straight. I constantly lost my mind over very tiny things. I said things that hurt my husband. I banged myself to the wall while holding a crying baby who just can’t fall asleep after 1 hour of nursing. I went crazy. Yet my family were all telling me that she’s just hungry. This will get better. Just hang in there…

If any of those sounds familiar, then you have found your answer – you need to sleep train your baby.

It was a decision that was led by my baby. We both need to sleep! She had developed a very strong sleep association and only god knows what was keeping her waking up so often that almost killed me. Maybe because of that, everything went relatively smooth with the sleep training. Yes there were lots of crying and heartbreaking. But only one week after a very consistent sleep training, she was able to sleep 12 hours straight! At that time she was only 9 months.

Right now, everyday I can’t be more thankful that I made the decision for myself and my family. Not only that we both get to rest peacefully every night, I can finally enjoy our dinner time and the rest of the evening with my husband! We also end up having the happiest baby on earth, because who wouldn’t be if she gets enough of her beauty sleep?

Sleep training your baby is a very hard progress to go through for every parent. Whether to do it or not, totally depends on how you can cope with your current situation. If your baby wakes up 10 times a night and you are still a happy mom, then you don’t need to consider it. Those moms wouldn’t even look at this post. But if you are like me who was barely surviving everyday and your baby is physically ready for it, sleep training is the only way out and you will appreciate it later.

How are you coping with your motherhood so far? Do you have any concern regarding sleep training? Leave a comment below and we can discuss! Having someone who was also sleep training her baby supporting me was the top reason I succeeded. You are not alone. Good luck mamas!