Why isn't sleep training working for us?

You've tried everything. One method for a few nights, then another, then something else from the internet. And it isn't getting better, it's getting worse.

That's no coincidence, and it's not your child's fault. Sleep coaching that's stuck almost always has the same cause.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no

In psychology this is called intermittent reinforcement. It's exactly why consistency weighs more in sleep coaching than the method you choose. For a baby, the result is confusion: different signals, different approaches, and no idea anymore where they stand.

Worse still: there's never a chance to learn it alone. Before there's room to figure out how falling asleep works, the approach has already changed.

Three situations everyone recognizes

The mix. In the evening your baby falls asleep during the feed. In the middle of the night you rock, because you're too tired for anything else. And sometimes you just put your baby down. Three different answers to the same question.

The breaking point. You decide your baby can cry it out for a while. After a bit it gets too hard, you go in after all, pick up and rock to sleep. The lesson that follows isn't "I have to do it myself", but "if I keep going long enough, you'll come".

The early bird. At five in the morning your baby can come into your bed. At three, not. Without a sense of time, that difference makes no sense.

The solution isn't stricter, it's sustainable

Choose an approach beforehand that you really believe in. Predictability brings calm, and your calm brings calm. If you're tense yourself, your baby notices.

Important: if you find it emotionally too hard to listen to the crying, don't start a method where that's part of it. Choose a gentler one. A gentle approach you keep up works better than a strict one you abandon halfway. The Super Slow Shuffle is one of those gentle routes.

What decides how much crying there is

Three things:

1. Age. The younger, the more crying is the only way to say something.
2. A changing approach. By sometimes responding and sometimes not, you unintentionally train crying. Babies learn fast, and they learn this too.
3. Temperament. A sensitive baby cries more. See the alert baby.

And honestly: sleep coaching doesn't happen without tears. Crying is the language there is. If you change something, protest follows. Your calm presence makes the difference in that, not the absence of crying.

Changing behavior takes time

If you do something the same way three days in a row, that's the new reality. That's how fast a habit forms, and that's how stubborn it is.

If you change it again, it takes time again to build a new association. Do that inconsistently, and it takes even longer and the behavior can even get worse for a while. That's often the moment your baby cries harder than before you started. Exactly there, most parents stop and start on the next thing, and so the cycle is complete.

First check whether the moment is there at all: when a baby is ready for sleep coaching.

Which approach suits your child depends on their character: temperament and sleep coaching.