From my experience the families that do the bedsharing, the rocking to sleep, the nursing to sleep, the running the second the child cries are somewhat incapable of changing. It is soooooo ingrained in what they do that they just CAN'T (as in won't) change. I'll note I bedshared, nursed my daughter to sleep...BUT I phased this out around 8months when sleeps habits become ingrained...I taught her how to self soothe and put herself to sleep so she was prepared to do it on her own when needed. Frankly we've never done cry it out with our daughter because we taught the skills needed before she had bad habits that needed to be broken.

I learned to just accept that the child in these families will have 2 very drastic sets of expectations. Children are adaptable and figure it out in due time.

It SUCKS for you and SUCKS for the child in the early stages as the parent essentially do undo all your work. But in time the child will learn what is needed. They may not like it, may cry about it but eventually they just learn to follow suit.

I personally feel it is a waste of time to lecture the parents to change to follow my 'way of doing things'. When they ask for info give it. When they are mentioning the troubles on their end give the knowledge you have. But don't expect them to change.

I have a 2.5 yr old that is still rocked (I suspect nursed as well) to sleep, bedshares and wakes after one sleep cycle to repeat. The family is exhausted the child is sleep deprived. What I've started doing recently is giving very clear text noting how the child was too exhausted to have fun, is begging for sleep and is just staring into space. I send these texts before lunch. Then after nap (she sleeps a good 1.5hrs+ here) I send a text noting how the child is now chatty, playful and full of life and energy.

I can't change their ways but I CAN point out that their way of doing things is making their child miserable and that after she gets the sleep (that she needs and begs for) she is actually functional. All I can hope is that after hearing the impacts of their way of doing things they MAY decide to do what is clearly needed for their child to be healthy. But, after almost 1.5yrs working with them I don't hold my breath!

Keep your routine incredibly consistent. These children lack routine and expectations so set a simple but consistent routine before sleep and don't deviate. I had like a 10 step routine for this child (simple steps like close the blind, turn on fan, turn off lights etc. She now does more than half the routine herself each day and she tries to climb into the crib herself. She will still often cry for 5min but then is asleep and MOST days when she wakes she lies there calmly and quietly until I come get her.