The paradigm of infant sleep is sending parents insane.

Did you know that you don't have to sleep train a baby? Did you know that sleep is as developmental as walking or talking? Did you know that the sleep training industry makes millions every year by exploiting desperate, sleep deprived parents?

Disclaimer: I HATE the concept of sleep training. To. my. core. If you sleep trained, I absolutely do not judge you. There is SO much pressure to do so, to the point where most believe it isn’t even something you don’t have to do.

I am going there. Not because nobody else has gone there, but because I feel so strongly that this needs to be talked about. Over and over again until society realises that this whole obsession with babies and sleep is bullsh*t.

At some point, somewhere, someone decided that the fact that babies really need their parents at night was super inconvenient. A problem to be solved. How DARE this tiny person incapable of doing anything for themselves not realise that the sun is now down and Mum and Dad need their sleep?!

The entire premise simply defies all logic to me. I remember reading about baby sleep as a new parent and all the things I needed to do to successfully “train” my baby to sleep through the night and feeling sick to my stomach.

Let me get this straight. You want me to put her down “drowsy but awake” in a cold, empty, dark space, where she will then get upset because she is tiny, defenceless and alone. Then you want me to leave her there to “self-soothe” when she is hysterical because I am the only thing in the world she knows and she thinks I have abandoned her? And after she’s cried herself blue, and given up all hope that I am coming for her, she will drift off into a restful and restorative sleep for 12 hours?

"Yes, this is a POSITIVE way for her to learn to sleep. Please do not “give in” to your instincts to provide the NEGATIVE associations of comfort, security, attachment and love by rocking, cuddling or feeding her to sleep. Absolutely do not co-sleep. You will NEVER get her out of your bed. And do not hold her for naps, do you want to create a rod for your own back? If you really want to, you may “check in” on her at timed intervals."

Um, sorry. What? Crying, fear, abandonment = Good. Comfort, security, attachment, love = Bad?

Am I missing something here?

The whole sleep thing stressed me out more than anything else. I could not let my baby cry. Not even for 5 minutes. I didn’t care why she was crying, she was crying, the universal way all babies say “Mum, I need you”. To ignore that felt wrong with every fibre of my being.

You know what else felt wrong? Spending 20 minutes bouncing my little fighter to sleep, only to try and put her in her cot (which was lava), only to have her wake up immediately to then start the whole process over again. Knowing with certainty that if I just held her, she would sleep for at least an hour.

And then at night, dragging myself out of bed 100 times a night to feed her back to sleep only to have her wake up, cry and have to start over. Resulting in approximately zero sleep for everyone.

Thankfully, there is more and more information becoming available for parents that sanctions and supports biological norms when it comes to baby sleep. I was lucky enough to find this tribe, follow my instincts, and save my sanity. I 100% bought into the theory that sleep was developmental and that all babies would sleep independently, eventually, when they were ready.

And so, for 6 months I bounced, rocked, swayed, pushed, drove, fed, held…. whatever I needed to do to get my baby to sleep.

We fell into co-sleeping completely by accident. We were away for the weekend and after 3 nights of no sleep and sheer desperation for some much-needed rest before the drive home, we made the decision that on the last night, bub would sleep with me and Dad would sleep on the floor. Cue us waking up 6 hours later…. And wondering why the hell we hadn’t just been doing this from the outset? And so we did, once we were home we officially gave up on the fight for independent sleep at night, and we all slept together. In our big king bed, as a family, full of love and security and warmth. And we love it. We all get sleep and it is the best decision we made.

Now my 11 month old has her naps on her floor bed in her room, with just a cuddle and a feed or sometimes a rock beforehand. I roll away and she sleeps on her own.

As for the nights, well, in honesty, I think it’s me who isn’t ready to let that go just yet. I know the time is coming for her to be in her own bed at night and i’m just hanging on to the precious moments I have now with my baby with me in my bed.

What I do know is that I never pushed, I never forced, I never “trained” and this is all happening on its own. And it’s so bittersweet.

I’m so thankful I was comfortable to challenge the status quo. Because the whole thing was going to send me crazy. This is not ok. Parents should never feel like they have to do anything with their babies that doesn’t feel right. Ever. The pressure and expectation needs to stop. And we need to talk about it. This piece of uncommon knowledge, should be the most common.