Your baby is crying.
You’re exhausted. Your partner’s snoring. The white noise machine is humming in the background, and honestly, you’d trade your entire freezer stash of milk for two straight hours of sleep.

You check the time—again.
You’re too tired to think clearly, but your body moves on autopilot.
You offer the boob, because of course you do.
It’s the one thing that always seems to work.
And yet… that nagging voice in your mind is telling you that you are just creating a bad habit.
You’ve heard that phrase enough times now to start doubting yourself:
“You’re becoming the sleep crutch.”
“Just teach them to self-settle.”
“Don’t let them feed to sleep.”

You finally sit down, baby still in arms, and scroll.
And there it is—again.
Another reel of a baby “sleeping through the night at 8 weeks,” lovingly wrapped in a swaddle, snoozing peacefully in a bassinet.

You click the caption. The mum looks polished.
She says all they did was start sleep training.
“You just have to teach them,” she writes.
Cue: the late-night google spiral.

“How to get my baby to sleep.”
“Sleep training.”
“Will my baby ever sleep again?”

And it’s everywhere—Ferber, Cry It Out, Timed Intervals.
Everyone seems to be saying the same thing: Just leave them. They’ll learn.

But something in your gut clenches.
Because you know your baby.
And the idea of walking away while they cry alone?
It doesn’t sit right.

You think, I can’t let them cry like that.
And you know what? You’re not wrong.

There’s a reason your stomach twists at the thought of letting your baby cry alone.
It’s not because you’re too soft. Or “making a rod for your own back.”
It’s because your biology is doing its job.

As humans, we’re wired to respond to distress—especially the distress of our babies.
It’s not a weakness.
It’s attachment.

When your baby cries, your nervous system lights up.
Your heart rate increases.
Your brain starts scanning: Are they okay? What do they need? How do I help?

This is your caregiving system kicking in.
The same ancient, hardwired system that’s kept human babies alive for thousands of years.

Because let’s be honest: no baby would have survived in a cave alone while mum “taught them to self-soothe.”

wrong

Why it feels so

cry it out 

Let’s Talk About

Sleep training—particularly methods like Ferber and cry-it-out—didn’t come from an understanding of infant neurobiology, attachment, or emotional development.

It came from behaviourism.
A psychological approach that became popular in the early 20th century, rooted in the belief that if you reinforce a behaviour, it will continue—and if you ignore it, it will stop.

This approach worked well with lab rats and pigeons.
But it began shaping how we responded to human babies.

Behaviourism taught us to see crying as a problem to solve. A habit to break. A behaviour to ignore until it extinguished.

And so, crying babies were left alone under the assumption that if no one came, they’d eventually “learn” to sleep.

And if you’re reading this thinking,
“Oh my goodness… I’ve tried cry it out. Have I damaged my child forever?”
Let me gently stop you right there.

No, you haven’t.

You were doing what so many parents do—you were responding to the advice, the pressure, the sheer exhaustion of it all. You were trying to cope in a world that doesn’t offer much real support for sleep-deprived parents. And chances are, you did it with love in your heart and tears in your eyes.

That doesn’t make you a bad parent.
It makes you human.

Our children are remarkably resilient—because the most powerful thing in their life is not whether they cried once, or twice, or more. It’s you. Your presence. Your love. Your willingness to reconnect. That’s what builds safety and security over time.

understand

but here's what we now

forgive

We must  

ourselves for the things

Bec x

Babies don’t stop crying because they’ve “learned to self-soothe.”
They stop because they’ve learned no one is coming.

It’s called learned helplessness.
It’s not calm. It’s not regulated.
It’s shut down.

The body floods with stress hormones like cortisol. The baby eventually stops crying, not because they feel safe, but because they’ve exhausted their nervous system.

From the outside, it looks like progress.
From the inside, it’s distress in disguise.

And here’s the thing no one tells you: babies don’t just need sleep. They need safety in order to sleep.
Sleep is a vulnerable state. You only surrender to it when you feel protected.
So when we remove the very thing that makes them feel safe—us—we might “win” a few nights of uninterrupted sleep, but at what cost?

Let me be clear:
This is not about shaming parents who have sleep trained. Many are at breaking point. Many were told it was the only way.
This is about bringing the full picture into view.

Because when a parent says, “It just didn’t feel right,”
that deserves to be validated—not dismissed.

we didn't know 

before we knew them.

In fact, the whole idea of “self-soothing” is a modern invention.
We live in a world that’s obsessed with speed and independence. If you want answers? Google. A ride? Uber. Your favourite tub of ice cream delivered to your door at 8pm? Done.
We don’t wait for anything anymore.

So it’s no surprise that this same expectation—of immediate results and fast fixes—has crept into parenting.
Get the baby sleeping. Get them independent. Get your life “back.”

But here’s the thing: babies aren’t built for that pace.
They aren’t born with the neurological wiring to regulate their own distress.
They don’t self-soothe. They co-regulate.

They learn calm because someone shows them how.
With presence.
With warmth.
With connection.

So if sleep training feels wrong to you—it’s not because you’re broken or weak or doing it “wrong.”
It’s because you’re wired for connection, not disconnection.

And that’s something we should be deeply proud of—not ashamed of.

It’s because your instincts are firing. Loud and clear.