Today is our final post in our mini-series on sleep training hesitations!

So far, we’ve covered:

• Does sleep training harm attachment?
• How much crying will be involved in sleep training?
• Will sleep training make our lives rigid?
• Can you breastfeed and sleep train?

Have you ever found yourself wondering…

“What if we sleep train and my baby still doesn’t sleep?”

“What if we do it wrong?” Or, “What if we make things worse?”

“What if I go through the crying and we’re still up all night?”

Let me first affirm that it makes total sense you’re asking these questions. In fact, you probably should be asking these questions, because this is your precious baby or sweet toddler we’re talking about here!

And I totally know the feeling of, “What if my baby is the unicorn? What if they’re the one baby this doesn’t work for?”

In fact, I shared here that I caught myself thinking this very thing when we were finally able to sleep train our son James a few months ago.

And while true, we can never make a guarantee when sleep training, because we’re working with real human beings, I want to assure you that sleep training isn’t a coin flip or a gamble. And it’s not a “hope for the best” situation.

You can have an actual plan, and plan B and C for when plan A needs to be adjusted!

And when sleep training doesn’t work, there’s almost always a reason. And that’s actually really good news.

So in this post, I’m going to walk through what’s more likely at the root when someone says “sleep training doesn’t work,” including:

• It wasn’t actually sleep training
• The foundation wasn’t set up to best support the baby or toddler’s sleep
• The method didn’t best meet the baby’s and/or parents’ needs
• There’s something else going on that’s getting in the way

So let’s jump right in.

Sometimes sleep training doesn’t work because it’s not actually sleep training!

The first reason sleep training sometimes “doesn’t work” is that it’s not actual sleep training.

It’s not to point the finger and say, “You did it wrong,” or, “It’s all your fault,” but it might not have fully been sleep training!

Did the parents actually have a plan? Did they respond consistently at bedtime, for night wakings, and at nap time? Did they only try for 2-3 days and then stop?

I’ve shared before that when we were “sleep training” our oldest, we’d let her cry for 10 minutes, and then when she wasn’t asleep, we’d then rock her. We even extended that to 12 minutes, thinking surely it would do the trick, because wasn’t sleep training just about crying? But when she was still awake12 minutes later, we’d rock her.

We thought that was sleep training, but it wasn’t! That was letting her cry for 10 minutes and then rocking her to sleep. She certainly wasn’t learning any independent sleep skills there.  

So I find that when a lot of families say that sleep training “didn’t work,” it’s because sleep training actually didn’t get the chance to work.

Which leads us into the second reason families might say sleep training “didn’t work”…

Sometimes sleep training “doesn’t work” because the foundation isn’t set up to support sleep training

If you don’t have the right foundational pieces for sleep training, it likely won’t work!

Again, this is not in a, “You messed it up!” way, but in a, “You probably just didn’t know” way.

If your baby or toddler’s schedule isn’t age-appropriate, sleep training is going to be really hard. Like we talked about here, overtiredness and undertiredness can both cause a lot of challenges!

So if you have no idea where to even start schedule-wise, make sure you snag our free sleep schedule guide!

Or maybe the environment is off! If you have music on rather than white noise, or if your toddler falls asleep listening to their Yoto player. This could actually make sleep training tougher.

If there are four bright white night lights in the room, this could make it harder to sleep! Or if there are sheer window covers so the street lamps or sunshine flood through, this could make sleep harder!

Maybe the baby still has a pacifier – we talk all about why this can backfire in this post. I just helped a friend finally get rid of the pacifier once and for all with her two-year-old and it made all the difference!

Or if the baby’s routine has a feed at the very end, or mom and dad snuggle the toddler until their half-asleep, sleep training is likely going to be really hard.

Because drowsiness actually really backfires here! We talk all about that in this post.

In order for sleep training to be successful, we need a solid environment, the right routines, appropriate schedules, and an actual plan to follow!

Sleep training isn’t magic – it builds on a solid foundation.

And this is why we not only work one-on-one with families, making sure all of these foundational pieces are in place. This is also why we have our A to Z sleep classes! So that you can DIY sleep train your baby or toddler, and know exactly what pieces need to be in place to be successful. So that you can understand your child’s sleep and build their sleep training plan accordingly.

Sometimes sleep training “doesn’t work” because of the method parents are using

I shared all about the four sleep training methods in this post, including the two we use here at Via Graces.

And we try to match the method we use to the child and family we’re working with!

For some babies, the chair method is too gradual or gives the little one too much stimulation, and it just prolongs their frustration. They benefit from starting with leave and check, or switching to leave and check sooner rather than later.

Or kind of oppositely, sometimes when we start with leave and check, that feels too abrupt for mom and dad, and they just can’t follow through with it. We need to start with the chair method, for consistency on mom and dad’s part.

So choosing which sleep training method you use matters – there’s not a “better” method, it’s what works best for your little one and family.

I recently wrapped up with a five-year-old who got really smart, really quickly with the chair method. He realized that mom and dad would sit there as long as he was awake, so guess what he did…he stayed awake! When he woke up at midnight or 1 am, and mom and dad came in to sit, he would just stay awake – and I’m talking until 3 or 4 or 5 am. This dude had some stamina!

So we quickly had to adjust the method, because this little guy was rigging the system! Simply “sticking to the method” because that’s what works for other families, or that’s what the sleep plan said, would have resulted in way too many sleepless nights and so much frustration for everybody.

We had to change course!

Sometimes sleep training “doesn’t work” because there’s something else going on

Sometimes sleep training “doesn’t work” because there’s something else going on – something we may know about, or something we might not yet know about.

We might know a baby or toddler is a mouth breather or snorer, or has reflux, or eczema.

None of these mean sleep training won’t work, we just need to keep them in mind when creating a plan, and also want to make sure the pediatrician is in the loop, sometimes the dentist, to make sure we’re getting to the root of what’s going on!

And sometimes in those cases, we don’t see the full success of sleep training, but more often than not, we still see great success.

Or I remember working with a sweet kiddo who was 4 or 5, and she had been adopted in the last 6 months. We knew she was blind and likely on the autism spectrum, and the orphanage she had lived in was not a very nurturing environment.

So going into sleep training, we knew it was a big question mark with what would actually help and what improvements we’d see. Because there were clearly other medical challenges there. So we tried, we did what we could, and certainly saw improvements. But I think the sweet girl still experienced at least one night waking a night, and there wasn’t really anything else we could do at the time.

Or total oppositely, sometimes the fact that sleep training really doesn’t work points us to an underlying issue going on that we didn’t know about!

I so vividly remember working with a family maybe 5 or 6 years ago and I think their son was four. We had seen so much improvement in our three weeks of working together, but he had this 4:30 am wake-up that just stuck.

And so I tagged on an extra week of support, and then another, and then another, and no matter what we did, this wake-up just stuck there. And the parents were doing EVERYTHING by the book, and I was touching base with other sleep consultant friends to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.

Around week three, I asked the parents to get his iron levels checked, and they did at the pediatrician’s office, and everything checked out okay. But after weeks of still being stuck, we kept digging, and they ended up getting more labs drawn, and specifically their son’s ferritin levels, which were incredibly low.

This sweet kiddo was incredibly anemic and diagnosed with restless leg syndrome, which made this 4:30 am wake-up make so much sense. And I think it wasn’t until a few months of being on an iron supplement that he finally slept until 6 or 7 am.

But the fact that sleep training didn’t fully work, despite doing all the things, actually ended up pointing to an underlying issue we wouldn’t have otherwise figured out!

So sometimes sleep isn’t actually the root problem, and sleep training can be what helps us realize that. And I’m always thankful when we catch it!

So again, as a little review, when someone says sleep training “didn’t work,” it might just mean they weren’t fully sleep training, or they didn’t have that foundation set up to be successful, or it wasn’t the right method for the child or family, or that something else was going on and getting in the way.

What it means to say sleep training IS successful

So now let’s shift gears and chat about what it means when we say sleep training works! Because I find that a lot of fear comes from unrealistic expectations.

So when we, as sleep coaches, say that we’re confident we can help you successfully sleep train your baby or toddler, we’re talking about solid, consistent sleep, most of the time.

That the norm is your little one would fall asleep within about 15 minutes, without you in the room. That if they’re physically capable, they’d sleep through the night most nights. That most of their naps would be over an hour long.

And this norm doesn’t happen on day three, although we’re hopefully seeing glimmers by then. It takes two weeks for babies, and three weeks for toddlers and young kids!

I also need to note that what we are NOT saying is that sleep training success means your baby will never cry when you lay them in their crib. Or that your toddler will never again wake up and come to your room.

Regressions happen, sickness happens, separation anxiety is real, schedule changes need to happen – our goal is to help make you feel confident navigating those bumps in the road so you can get back to your norm!

So sleep training “working” doesn’t mean zero wake-ups every again. It means your baby or toddler has the skills to fall asleep independently and get back to sleep when they wake up. And you have the tools to help them get back on track when there are bumps in the road.

This is why we, at Via Graces, love being your sleep coaches. We love helping you feel successful when it comes to sleep training, because successful sleep training means well-rested families!

When we work one-on-one with families, we remove the sleep guesswork and give you experienced guidance. We help you make adjustments when needed, so you don’t get stuck in a rut. We help prevent the emotional spiral or “I quit” mentality that creeps in after a tough night.

If that kind of support sounds like what you need to bridge this fear of sleep training not working with the reality of your whole family being well-rested, we would love to chat with you over a free discovery call!

Conclusion

The goal of this post is to bring to light a very common sleep training hesitation – that it just won’t work! And the goal is to share what’s likely going on when sleep training “doesn’t work.”

The goal is also to let you know how we, at Via Graces, can support your sleep training success! Whether that’s through this blog/podcast, our A to Z sleep classes, or working one-on-one together through a personalized plan. Because you can absolutely figure this out on your own — but most families don’t want to spend weeks guessing when there’s a more direct path.

Also remember that I’m not saying that just because sleep training works means it’s going to be easy. Sleep training is tough! The unknown is hard, the tears are hard, the night wakings are hard.

But my hope is that this post helps encourage you through that hard and see that there is light on the other side. When something just isn’t working, it doesn’t mean it never will, or that you’ll be sleepless forever – it’s just a clue about what needs to change.

And again, if you want to have a mom friend and guide in your corner as you navigate the process, we’d love to be there for you!

With Grace,

Lauren