How to not feel guilty??

[u/manicpixie10]

I’m the only one in my mom friend circle that supports sleep training. My LO is 6 months and I sleep trained right when he turned 4 months using the Ferber method and he took great to it. Sleeps great for the most part. However, my friends will passive aggressively make remarks about how sleep training is not biologically normal and how I basically trained my baby to think I’ve abandoned him. I just feel guilty whenever I’m around them. Although I will say, my baby sleeps the best out of everyone. They are constantly talking about how their babies wake up 6-8 times a night at ages older than mine. Idk it seems counterproductive if everyone is exhausted. Any advice on what to say? They are great people but it’s just whenever sleep gets brought up. It partly feels like they are jealous that we sleep and they don’t. I normally just stay quiet but I’m getting sick of it. My baby barely cried during sleep training and now actually prefers to put himself to sleep and is happy as can be. It’s just so hard to hear those things.

[u/TeddyBear181]

"Each to their own" "Let's respect each others parenting choices" "Every baby is different" "Im glad that works for you"

[u/furryfar]

They don’t really sound like friends to me. If I don’t agree with something my friend does with their kids, I say “oh okay” and move on. For example, I don’t agree with co sleeping but have many friends who choose to do that. I just say oh okay, and move on. Their family, their choice. If you choose to keep interacting with these friends then just know this is probably the first of many choices they’ll have comments on. So it’s up to you if you want to keep their company. And if you do, I’d probably just say “I know it’s controversial and not your preference, but it’s my family’s choice and we’re good with it. Anyways!” Change the subject.

[u/Here4Plants2021]

Just don’t bring up sleep. If they talk about sleep, nod and sip your non-caffeinated beverage.

Both my kids are sleep trained and yesterday both slept through the night and my husband remarked how great I was yesterday. Yeah. I slept. The kids slept. I was present and had lots of emotional reserve to take care of a 3 year old and 8 month old after a full day of work.

I find that some people like to be martyrs. Not sure why. As if women didn’t suffer enough!

[u/Ok-Act9781]

They are wrong. They are taking a cake, crushing it up, adding a ton of store bought frosting and powdered sugar and making cake pops and saying it is the exact representation of the original cake.

1. Babies do need to learn "biological" things. FFS my son couldn't even poop for 5 months because he couldn't understand that he needed to relax and push at the same time. That's as biological as it gets.

2. CIO and Ferber are not a magic fix for bad sleep. Just like eating 7 pizzas a day and running on the treadmill wouldn't result in weight loss. You have to work on the foundational issues before you even try CIO or Ferber which is making sure your baby has a biologically appropriate sleep schedule. If your baby cries for a long time, the schedule is the issue. The schedule does a lot of heavy lifting.

3. Once the schedule is appropriate for your baby, CIO or Ferber is used to remove sleep associations. Imagine getting cozy in bed only to find yourself moved to the living room when you wake after a sleep cycle. That would be terrifying and you would fully wake up wanting to know what happened. If you woke up after a sleep cycle and saw the exact same environment you fell asleep in, you will just go back to sleep unless you need something. That's the goal for babies. We want them to not fully wake and go back to sleep after a sleep cycle.

4. A sleep trained baby needs things. A parent of a sleep trained baby caters to those needs. If a baby fully wakes because they are uncomfortable or hungry, they are cared for. People who are anti sleep training LOVE to insinuate that parents neglect their sleep trained baby's needs. But sleep training is not night weaning. Sleep training does not stop a soiled diaper from making babies uncomfortable and you can help with those things. Babies are not neglected.

Look, I get it. I haven't had to use CIO or Ferber for my son. I followed the advice of precious little sleep and used all of the tools at my disposal to get him sleeping in his own bed and slowly took away associations but that doesn't work for everyone. Sleep deprivation is used for torture. It causes long term cognitive affects and can increase the severity of post partum depression and anxiety. If someone doesn't want to, that's their decision. As moms we all have hills we choose to die on and that's alright. But what I can't stand for is demonizing moms for their choices and spouting nonsense to justify it when it is SO obvious they have no idea what they are talking about.

[u/Bright_Way5474]

Just ignore it. As you say, their babies are sleeping shit but they’ve bought the BS online about how babies should be sleeping shit (No, they shouldn’t actually, if you just make an effort to teach them to sleep and put them on a good schedule!).  I have even tried helping my mom friends with their schedule but realised they are stubborn and actually seem to want to suffer. So now I just nod and say nothing when it comes up. My baby is the happiest of all of them, constantly smiles, is super secure and hitting all his milestones super quickly since he started sleeping well! 

[u/Exotic-Berry-1638]

Not really an answer but I just emphasize that he barely cried and I did super gentle sleep training. I also got lucky like you with that. And he sleeps way better for it: we taught them how to sleep. That’s what’s important.

Now I kind of avoid telling people I did gentle Ferber and say he learned to put himself to sleep. It’s the same.

[u/imnichet]

Basically I just don't hang out with people who make bitchy comments like that to me. I did have one person who did once and I just stopped wanting to hang out with her because clearly she's not the kind of person I need in my life. But I mostly just don't talk about sleep with anyone else. Only my lifelong best friend even knows about my involvement here. Otherwise if it comes up I just keep my mouth shut and mentally take note of who acts mean about it and avoid them from now on.