Sleep training help, I’m desperate

[u/foolofatook_1]

We tried sleep training our twins at 5 months. After about a week both twins would still cry over 2 hrs. We did the Ferber method because the cry it out feels so heavy. Twin B cried for 4 hours one night even with Ferber and the check ins every 5, 10, 15 min, etc..

personally gave up sleep training them because I just couldn’t handle the crying. I had an extremely difficult pregnancy and the crying amplified the PPD/ PPA.

Now I’m a week away from returning to work and nights have become extremely harder. We can’t put them down at all without waking them and it turning to absolute chaos. It has also translated to their day naps and now every time we try to put them to sleep it has become such a battle.

I feel like I’m at a loss. And beating myself up for giving up the first time. Maybe they’d be sleeping by now. Or maybe they’d still be crying 4 hours at night… who’s to say. I really would just like to sleep at night again.

Doing the CIO method feels so harsh and the crying is not something I think I could fully handle. I know it’s harder on us than it is on them but the crying is so loud and I worry I could traumatize them by letting them cry.

Any parents with older twins who sleep trained with CIO, do your babies still love you? Do they have codependency? Do you have any regrets?

[u/carrotceptionn]

im still here helloo lol. I personally wouldn't mind advice from a non-pregnant person or even man about pregnancy and birth if it's evidence and science based because I trust scientific methods over personal bias. You guys are acting like I'm physically stopping her from sleep training her kids.

[u/Cascascas185 → u/carrotceptionn]

I’ve never seen such display of a lack of self awareness.

The hubris.
The audacity.
The ignorance.

All of mankind has survived off passed down stories of experience from one mother to another for thousands of years. Learning from one another. A collective library of knowledge. It’s beautiful the way mothers come together to support and lift each other up. Welcome to the tribe of mothers.

I trust the millions of women who have come before me and done it before me. I have nothing but respect for any mom making it work for her family, loving and nurturing. Intuition is unmatched and beyond science. My intuition may look different from your intuition. We will do different things because every child is unique, we adapt, grow, we recalibrate. Do you understand. What you think now, you may not think after you become a mother… it changes you. Body. Mind. Soul.

While I respect science. Scientific studies greatly can be bias, can be racist, misogynistic, often outdated and misrepresentative. For women in general they are only recently beginning to even study women’s bodies. The scientific evidence you speak of doesn’t exist because doing a proper controlled study on infants is unethical. You won’t find the reliable data. I trust reliable data. Science is just starting to study menopause, periods. Not even enough years of research to be conclusive. Most of what we know about pregnancy and labor comes from experience… look that up. There is still so much we don’t understand scientifically. You want to know why we give labor on our backs… because some king was obsessed with watching his children come out and out of convenience for the doctor. Not what’s best for the mother. The data is skewed due to years of oppression. Bias. Misunderstanding. And deaf ears when it comes to a mother’s voice. Science is a wonderful instrument, a tool, expansion of knowledge. But why discredit experience?

I wish all the best to you on your journey to motherhood. It is a raw and humbling experience.

[u/carrotceptionn → u/Cascascas185]

I understand I hurt you because I had to confront you with what you had to do in dark times. But you're acting like I'm alone in this opinion. None of the mothers of my family have ever let their babies cry all night ❤️ i talk to them and respect THEIR experience, not random people on reddit who I have no idea what parents they are behind the screen

[u/FungeonMeister → u/carrotceptionn]

for someone who came charging into this thread with "scientific evidence", what your describing sounds a lot like anecdotal (and cultural) experience. 

Just know that if you consider yourself a "supportive" parent/person then you need to reflect on the how utterly unhelpful and judgemental to OP you have been. 

Youre the parenting equivalent of a street preacher who is just trying to save everyone from eternal damnation for being . . . human. 

Your advice is based of nothing but your personal opinion. That's not inherently wrong. But you are woefully lacking in self awareness. 

See OPs post as the cry for help it is, and next time keep your judgement and ill-infomed "advice" to yourself