It's time to stop shaming moms for sleep training

I've been a certified pediatric sleep consultant for just shy of one month now, and I've already seen the passive-aggressive social media posts and heard the whispers behind my back.

I used to be the first one to scoff at sleep training when I had my boys, now 9 and 7.

I thought that there was a dichotomy: you could love your baby and breastfeed them and cosleep, OR you could hate your baby and dump them in their crib and ignore them while they screamed all night. I was a young mom, clueless about wake windows or routines or sleep cues, and I didn't know what I didn't know about those things. Many of my other young mom friends were the same way.

If that was what we believed the choices were, it's easy to see how quickly one could ascribe certain choices to “bad parenting” or “good parenting”.

Real comments in a local moms group just 3 days ago. The OP was desperate for help with a toddler and reaching out for support and advice. This is what she got. 4 people also laugh reacted to her post. Just Say No to judging moms who are asking for SUPPORT!

I'd like to think that all the mom shaming around sleep training is just out of ignorance of what it truly is and what it truly looks like. I really had to learn the hard way.

Even though my son cried to nurse every 20 minutes, around the clock, for his entire first year, I still hung on to my stubborn beliefs that if I did anything about it I wasn't a good mom. I saw the Facebook posts bashing sleep training and felt super vindicated! I was doing things “the right way!” I even got angry at the doctor I made an appointment with at 6 months postpartum to help me with all of the severe medical issues I suffered due to sleep deprivation – because she suggested sleep training, as I couldn't begin to heal without sleep. How dare she tell me to do “that” to my baby?

On the way home from that unsatisfying appointment, I fantasized about driving into oncoming traffic or off a bridge, and I took an extra thirty minutes to get home because I kept hallucinating a murderer following me in every car behind me.

Thyroid dysfunction, heart problems, severe anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, rage, hallucinations, sexual dysfunction, adrenal dysfunction, hormonal imbalances, extreme fatigue, depression, these were all the things that sleep deprivation did to me. Well, that I did to myself through my dogmatic approach to parenting. I never healed from birth!

I could have lost my life if I hadn't woken up in time (or should I say gone to sleep?). Sleep training was a completely painless 2-day process for my then-toddler. He had needed sleep so badly, and I hadn't let him. I had “rescued” him from every little noise or wiggle by popping a boob in his mouth, rather than allowing him the space to get the sleep he deserved.

My son is about to turn 7 and although I'm tons better now I'm still fixing the mess of my health problems. I could have lost my life and that's all I think of when I see other moms shaming and judging sleep training – that they didn't care if I died, or that the life I did have was incredibly difficult, as long as I adhered to the right “parenting club” of opinions.

We do not know what is going on in a woman's life. Why are we raising awareness of things like postpartum depression, fed is best, ending the mommy wars, supporting women, supporting both working moms and stay at home moms, yet still bashing sleep training?

Sleep train or don't. But support other women, other mothers, in getting their needs met. I don't care if anyone doesn't like me because I'm a sleep coach. (I’m sure my friends list is about to go down a few numbers!) I believe that I was allowed to suffer so much, so that I could change lives! I'm not doing this just for a check. I mean it is my job, but I'm here because of my passion for perinatal health and helping women get everything they want out of life. Everything I have gone through in my life was to bring me to this point where I'm equipped to unconditionally support women through this.

If you need help, reach out to me and I'll help you. Criticism not included :)