Cried for 90 mins

A bit of light reading:

https://theeverymom.com/how-to-stop-judging-parenting-decisions/

There is no handbook on how to be the perfect parent.

If he was dry, well, and not hurt or scared of a nightmare, or thirsty. I think probably a tantrum and Id have left him to do some self soothing with regular checks and attempts to soothe.. but while I think that i dont see the point in posting for advice when you just disagree or attempt to prove wrong everyone disagreeing with you.

Surely you be busy anyway getting ready for the award ceremony so you can receive your "Better than All the Other Mums" trophy. Have fun.

This thread deserves better than your snide remarks. I’m done engaging with you.

Oh good for you sweetie, aren't you just the cleverest? Well done poppet!

I’m not smug and I don’t actually think my baby is perfect, I was responding to the previous poster’s mocking tone which I admit I found irritating. I shouldn’t rise to it really.

Being smug that you are finding one aspect of parenting easier than others (or suggesting your baby is "perfect" and implying others aren't) is pretty tasteless.

There are a lot of different aspects of parenting, most of us find some go well and some are more of a struggle.

DH’s cousin passed me a sleep programme that I used with DD and I was evangelical about it (still an apparently). DH and I shared it with our friends and family and almost everyone who tried it and stuck to it has kids that sleep well, the only exception is a friend whose son had an adenoids issue. Everyone who claimed the programme didn’t work gave up on it after a few weeks. So yeah, I would say all of us who stuck with it are smug with our perfect babies that all sleep well.

I find it amusing that there are so many women who want to spread their own misery and low expectations unto others. I have a very tidy, organised home and had a “friend” gleefully say “wait until you have kids, then you’ll know about mess cackle, cackle, cackle”. I like a full face of makeup and keep up with my hair and nail appointments. Also had the “wait until you have kids, you’ll be lucky if you manage to wash your face!” Funnily enough, my home is still tidy and organised and my appearance hasn’t changed. You can add that to my smug roster too.

I'm trying not to be too harsh as it's not an unusual thing to think, but the smug is strong with this one.

Currently awaiting the birth of my nephew and enjoying listening to my DB tell me about all the things his child will do and not do and all the things he will teach him to think and feel. SIL is more sensible but considerably quieter than DB. DB is not a control-freak, he just has very limited interactions with children and believes that they arrive as blank slates to be coloured in by the parents.

100% this!

You're not perfect parents, you just had an easier child.

I was told that around 4am is when toddlers sleep pressure is lowest, and also change of temperature around then. We also had heating coming on waking ours up. It also helped my 20 month old once she dropped down to just one nap, so might help? I went in and laid in the room with ours, giving her cuddles, but was consistent with it not being time to get and she then fell back to sleep most times

How adorable, you've got one unicorn baby and think you did it. 😂

I'll try not to judge, we thought the same, although we managed not to be quite so smug about it. SD sleeps a solid 12 hours or more and always has, very happy to go to sleep at 8pm and wake up at 8am every day since babyhood. "We just had a good routine and practised good sleep hygiene," DH explained to me and I thought this made perfect sense and we would do the exact same with DD.

Haha.

I would just make him some warm milk in a cup and cuddle him in my bed. Most of small children would fall asleep after that.

If he’s waking at 4am for the day and wanting to go downstairs then it sounds like there’s a sleep pressure issue. Is he still napping and if so, how long for? He may need less day sleep than what he’s getting, and if he’s having a longer nap due to being tired after being awake in the night you’re going to end up in a cycle of this.

Giving him your phone will only wake him up even more. Just plenty of cuddles in the quiet in the dark. Yes he may be crying but he knows you’re there.

It’s always parents who can’t be arsed to deal with the hardship of creating good sleep habits who say crap like this. Obviously some kids are generally good sleepers but IME it takes a lot of hard work and perseverance on the part of the parents to create a good sleeper not luck of the draw. Just say sleep isn’t as much of a priority for you and be done with it.

Well, it can't possibly be true though. If sleep encouraged sleep nobody would ever wake up.

Always fascinated by the parents in these situations thinking that because something they did "worked" for their child, it would work for everyone. A lot of it is down to the personality of the child. Some children are comforted by visits and patting. Some children are antagonised. And so on.

Someone who compared waking up in the morning and being left alone to having a tantrum about leaving the soft play - I'm not sure this is like for like. I'm intrigued as to whether, when the soft play tantrum was happening, they were to be shut in their room for the hour, aged 2, whilst being ignored and checked on a couple of times to see if they were over themselves yet? I don't think anyone is saying (by their comments about sleep?!) that the child should be taken back to soft play in this instance but perhaps you would talk to them and distract them with something else (not a treat before anyone take it down the "reward for bad behaviour" route). I'd find it hard to effectively turn my back on a child who was struggling to process something.

I was recently on a thread about people who felt their parents (mother mainly) didn't listen to them. They may have been present but just turned the situation to suit them and weren't really interested in hearing the problem. To me, if you're going to knowingly face a tantrum with silence from the outset with no effort to diffuse, it's fairly similar.

My (slightly older) child doesn't cry a lot at the moment (she cried A LOT as a baby so comforting her in those situations hasn't taught her to always cry to get her way!) but when she does, I know something is really upsetting for her. I don't have a problem cuddling her whilst still not giving in to whatever she wants. She can be cross with me and still want a cuddle from me. She's just processing and the comfort can help that - I don't think it's confusing. Her interactions with others will make it obvious that others won't likely give her the same amount of empathy/comfort as a parent, although I'd certainly rather have a keyworker at nursery that would give her a quick hug and explanation if she was upset about something rather than offering no solution and just telling her she was being unreasonable and ignoring her.

Great to have different perspectives. I don't know why you seem unable to accept that some children might be different to yours.

12 hours is a normal amount of overnight sleep for many children age 2. I usually left the room around 7:30 and they hummed/ lay there a bit before dropping off slightly later.

It's worth the OP seeing if this makes a difference isn't it? I'm not saying it'll definitely work, but that it's worth trying. I genuinely remember feeling amazed that I could put my child down earlier and it result in them sleeping longer, and that 'wearing them out' was a bit of a myth.

Really don't get in the habit of showing him screens to keep him quiet.

What time is his bedtime? How long does he nap in the day? And when do you hope he gets up?

My eldest was terrible at that age for the 5am starts but I just got up at that time as it wasn't totally unreasonable and they went down at around 7pm so were done with sleep).

I personally would not have let my child cry for that length of time, they were clearly in distress and while you say it's only because they wanted to go downstairs, how do you know it wasn't also because of teething pain or hunger?

In my experience "sleep encourages sleep" is nonsense.

Of course an overtired child or adult won't sleep well. But if I were to put my DC down at 7 he would be awake at 4, perfectly well-rested, bright-eysd and bushy-tailed (unlike me)

Maybe.

Sleep encourages sleep though, I found. I really noticed that the quality of my children's sleep lowered when they went to bed over-tired. It was kind of a revelation that even if I was putting them down earlier, going to sleep when at peace and happy meant they slept for far longer 😂

Op I had a hard time with my daughter at that age . She wasn’t a good sleeper from the moment i brought her home . Shes in her 20s now mind and loves her sleep a bit too much ha ha . I used to go to her everytime she cried , had her in my bed , slept in her cot , on the floor . Surviving off an hour and half sleep most nights . One day the health visitor came and I mentioned it and she said to let her cry . I tried it and it killed me . I had bad anxiety and failed a few times by going up . But I did it one night and she cried for close to an hour . I was stood by her bedroom door . I continued this for a few nights and it changed everything . She actually slept ! Obviously you know your own child . And if it was just because they wanted to get up and go down stairs I would say they do have to learn they cant at that time. Yoy havnt done anything wrong ❤️

I'll wager 7/7 30 sleeping is far too early for this child.

One of mine did this a few times around that age. The fastest way to calm him was going downstairs. He would settle with a cuddle and fall asleep on the sofa then I could pop him back in bed. I think he was just waking up confused.