sleep training & seperation anxiety?

Question

We started sleep training our son who has slept with us pretty much since birth. We have been doing a bedtime routine (pajamas, book, nursing) then laying him down in his crib. He cries, then we go in to console him every 10-20 minutes. Lately it takes him 15-30 minutes to fall asleep. We have been training for 5 days. The problem is he has been having terrible separation anxiety during the day; we can leave his sight otherwise he starts fussing and crying. He also hate his crib now and will hold  onto us tight when we get close. Can cry it out make separation anxiety worse? If it happened to you, did it eventually get better?

Answer

I would think it could make seperation anxiety worse. Babies are smarter then we think, so they know when they are alone and when we intentionally don't respond to their crying. From some of the stuff I have read on the topic, babies usually stop crying because they feel defeated and realize parents won't come, not because they learned to go to sleep comfortably by themselves. That train of thought in a child could easily make seperation anxiety worse. 
All parenting choices are hard though, you need to pick your battles and stick to your guns so if cry it out is what you want to do, you might just stick to it and make it through the clingy phase that's a result. My daughter is naturally being clingy and I don't do cry it out, she is literally just getting comfortable playing by herself for a couple minutes at a time.

Answer

Not sure - Linda Kind of struggling with this too. I think if u r doing cio u have to be consistent - that’s our downfall- sends mixed messages. 
We sleep trained months ago and then when sep anx hit around month 8 -9 it tripped sleep up too and we got thru it but now his sep anx is fine most days but sleep has been worse again so we are trying to be consistent and last night was the first night in a long time that went well and I think it’s because we didn’t give in - babies r soooo smart! We went from sleep trained and successful independent no cry sleep to bawl crying and us holding him to sleep! All night long ! I think I was up more now than as a newborn this last week and sooo not functional against Hoping if we r consistent baby re learns that he can’t sleep in our arms all night and day long ! Which he is currently doing as I type this 🤦🏻‍♀️

Answer

My daughter has always been super clingy to us, but I never thought it got worse after we sleep trained her. In the beginning she would get sad when we went toward the crib. She still has her days when she is sad about it, but she also has times when she’ll try to lunge out of our arms to get in it. We wait for signs of her being tired, rather than having a specific time that she has to go to bed. It can range from 8pm-9pm, sometimes even later if she isn’t acting tired enough. If she’s acting tired and ready for bed she will let us set her down in her crib and she’ll roll onto her belly and fall asleep before we even leave the room. No protest, no tears, and about 12 hours of straight sleep. She doesn’t wake up for the day crying anymore either. She’ll play in her crib for a little until I come get her and she’ll be all smiles.

sleep training & seperation anxiety?

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