Sleep through the night(STTN)

I am a parent who did not sleep train my kid and she is now about 2.5 years and still doesn't STTN. Some nights are better than the other- where she only wakes up twice or thrice. YES! if she wakes up only twice I consider that a very good night because we have nights when she literally gets up every hour. In these 2.5 years, I can literally count nights when I had slept for more than 4 hours straight.

Kyna sleeps in the same room with us but on a separate bed. Due to one or the other reason, we could never put her in a separate room. One of the reason is emotional connect- I am from India and culturally babies and kids are not directly trained to be sleeping in a separate room. In fact, it is promoted to have babies on the same bed as it is said that they get parents warmth and get a sense of security so they tend to sleep longer as it feels safer. This all is reverse of what is followed in United States where we actually reside- so we end up doing the mix: Same room but separate bed.

I remember my first two nights with Kyna in the hospital. I was constantly feeding Kyna for whole night as she was not sleeping and nurses were telling me she must be hungry so feed her. I had my husband staying with me and we both were so naive that we just couldn't figure out how to handle the little bundle of joy we held in our hands just couple of hours back. Next night we decided that my mom will stay with me and husband would go home. My mom recommended me to have Kyna with me on the bed and honestly those were the only 2-3 hours when Kyna had slept. Nurse came to give me some medicine and check vitals and she told me to put Kyna on the bassinet instead of having her on the bed as by rules it was not allowed. By second day, our room was famous among hospital staff that this women has not slept for 2 nights straight- anyone who would come to my room would sympathize with me on how my nights have been rough :)

I guess it was from the beginning that Kyna had decided to be a trouble maker at nights. We did try sleep training her with cry it out method- but it's a very harsh method. We were successful for 2 nights but 3rd night we gave up. The benefit for having her cry for 2 nights was that she started to sleep little longer for about 2 hours straight instead of getting up every 50 mins.

I really wish to have completed the sleep training in her first year. From my experience, I can definitely say it is one thing I would tell new parents to do. Kyna also had reflux due to which I could not let her cry and had to pick her up immediately to avoid choking.

We did check with her doctor for her sleep issues, and doctor had recommended to put her in a separate room. If you are having the same trouble and are in same situation, try having your kid sleep in a separate room- I have not tried it so can't share if this worked or not. One other new thing I learnt was sometimes iron deficiency can also cause sleep disturbances and Kyna was checked for her iron levels and those came out to be marginally normal.