Mom of Teen Makes Shock Realization About Mistake She Made When He Was Born

A mom-of-three has revealed how sleep training her son as a baby came back to bite her once he hit his teenage years.

In a video posted to TikTok under the handle cynthiawiremu, a woman who asked to simply be referred to as Cynthia, from Brisbane, Australia, showed followers that her 13-year-old son, Cruize, can pretty much sleep through anything—and she means anything.

In the clip, Cynthia can be seen entering his room, where an alarm that sounds like something akin to what might be heard during a meltdown at a nuclear power plant is audible in the background. It's a noise that could cut through just about anything and is far from relaxing, but as Cynthia approaches Cruize in bed, it's clear he's still fast asleep.

An onscreen caption reads: "When they say be noisy around your baby so they learn to sleep through noise but now your baby is a teen and literally sleeps through everything."

Sleep training might not suit every baby or appeal to certain new parents, but research suggests it can be effective. In 2016, researchers from Flinders University in Australia conducted an experiment involving 43 sets of parents with babies aged between six months and 16 months who had trouble sleeping.

Part of the group were asked to try out sleep training, or controlled crying. This involved leaving the room within a minute of putting their child to bed. If the child cried, they were then asked to wait for longer and longer periods before returning to comfort them.

Within three months, the parents using this approach reported that their children were falling asleep 15 minutes faster than those kids in a control group where no such methods were employed.

Cynthia told Newsweek that while sleep training helped with Cruize, she got "really lucky as he was such a good baby."

"I made sure to get him into a solid routine," she said. "Routine is the number one most important thing for sleep training. I did things like a warm bath before bed, a massage after his bath every night to relax him and he was into dinosaurs back then so I would read him a page every night of his dinosaur dictionary."

One other thing she also made sure to do was make lots of noise. "I never tiptoed around him while he slept right from the moment he was born," Cynthia said. "If the vacuuming needed to be done I would do it even with him in the bassinet sleeping next to where I was vacuuming. I'd do the dishes or the washing machine would be going wild."

The notion of making noise around a sleeping child is one that is endorsed by Tami Wornham, a baby sleep consultant for Hubble Connected and the founder of The Baby Days, a sleep consultancy that specializes in toddlers and babies.

Wornham recommends new moms do things like have the radio on at home while the baby is sleeping. "This will help your baby understand that naps don't need to be in complete silence," she told Newsweek. "In turn, they'll become more adaptable when sleeping on the go."

Cynthia did all of that and, for a while, it worked. Cruize slept well and was all the better for it. However, when he started high school, his mom began to see a downside to his ability to sleep through just about anything.

"He's missed the school bus a few times because of it," she admits. "The other morning I was leaving for the gym and had accidentally left my house and car keys inside. When I realized, I was banging on the front door, yelling his name outside his window and calling his phone to try to wake him up so I could get back in but got no reply."

Trying Different Alarm Clocks

Cynthia has used a variety of alarm clocks to try and get him out of bed. "I've started changing his alarms every few days which seems to work for a little while."

Although she now reckons she has hit upon a more unusual way to ensure he gets up in time for school.

"Funnily enough I found that telling him in a very stern voice before he goes to sleep at night that he MUST wake up to his alarm tends to work for some reason," she said.

At the time of writing, Cynthia's video showcasing Cruize's snoozing capabilities had been watched some 7.4 million times. She reckons it's proven popular because there are plenty of other parents out there in a similar situation.

"When my son was a baby all I ever heard from everyone around me was 'make sure you're loud around the baby so he learns to sleep through anything,'" she said. "I'm guessing a lot of others were told the same thing and we are all now dealing with it the hard way."

While sleep training may have worked for her, she understands that every child is different and comes with their own unique set of challenges. "Parenting is a tough gig and what works for one person may not always work for the next," she said. "But when getting kids into a routine, consistency really is key."