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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to find this a bit odd?

94 replies

BunnyLebowski · 10/08/2010 10:16

My cousin and his fiancee had a baby last week.

Last night my auntie (the baby's paternal grandmother) took the baby at 6pm to stay overnight at her house because my cousin and his DF 'didn't get a wink of sleep' the night before and wanted a full night's sleep.

The baby screamed all night apparently.

I'm a bit Hmm and a bit Sad about this.

The baby is a week old fgs. You're not meant to be getting any sleep.

Also the baby probably screamed all night because the only person he recognises/needs at such a tiny age is his mother.

I know we're all different and horses for courses and all but it just seems a bit off to me.

AIBU?

OP posts:
cornsilk1010 · 10/08/2010 12:36

The 'screaming all night' may well have been exaggeration anyway.

Thing1Thing2 · 10/08/2010 13:46

and how is this different from hiring a maternity nurse to do the night shift? Plenty of people do that.

If you can afford it or have friends / family willing to do the night shift - then why not?

TheHouseofMirth · 10/08/2010 13:47

Everyone's banging on about the parents' right to a decent night's sleep and the generosity and kindness of the grandmother but what about the baby? How can it not be unkind to seperate a newborn from its mother?

I think there's a huge difference in the baby being taken away than it being looked after in the same house as the mother. When DS2 was born MIL stayed for two weeks and basically acted as a maternity nurse at night which was a wonderful break for me. However, I would have preferred to go sleepless (as I did for a very long time with DS1) that to have sent my brand new baby away.

cat64 it is generally not recommended that you bottle feed until your milk supply is well established.

Original poster
BunnyLebowski · 10/08/2010 13:49

Because Thing1Ting2 even though I wouldn't do what my cousin has done there is a huge difference between 1 night of help from a family member and employing a stranger to look after your baby all night every night.

Why bloody have babies if you're too damn lazy to look after them?? (again let me clarify in relation to a maternity nurse rather than 1 night of help).

OP posts:
MrsWobbleTheWaitress · 10/08/2010 13:53

YANBU. Imagine the harm that has come to that poor baby from all those stress and fear hormones racing around his body! Sad

I know I'll get flamed for writing that, but we know continued stress harms adults, stands to reason that it must do damage to tiny baby's brains - and unnecessarily so in this instance, it seems. Fair enough if mum and baby have to be separated, or you're leaving them to cry because the alternative in your sleep deprived state is to throw them out the window, but to deliberately separate a newborn from his mother like that! ShockSad

TheHouseofMirth · 10/08/2010 14:05

When I say MIL acted like a maternity nurse I would like to clarify that I buggered off to bed by myself and MIL cuddled DS2 (while he was asleep) from 9pm until he woke up about 1am-ish, changed his nappy and then woke me to feed him. He slept with me from then for the rest of the night. I would not have let her do any of that had he shown the slightest distress.

I am donning my asbestos suit and agreeing with MrsWobble because I feel really strongly about this. Why can't we do the grown up thing and put the baby first? All this "but I need my sleep" crap really annoys me. It doesn't last forever and it's kind of what you signed up for when you got pregnant. And I write that as someone whose first child was only sleeping in 45 minute stretches at 9 months old.

Morloth · 10/08/2010 14:14

Putting the baby first can also mean not dropping them because you have stumbled on the stairs, not leaving the gas on the stove running because you wandered off, not falling asleep when you are leaning forward giving them a bath, not dropping them on the floor/suffocating them because you haven't slept at all for 3 days and you sat down to feed them and fell asleep, not considering throwing them through the window because you can't take the screaming anymore, not thinking about driving the car as fast as you can into the concrete pylon on your way to the docs to find out why they won't stop crying.

DS1 once screamed for 3 days in a row. These are all things I did when I hadn't slept for more than 72 hours. We were living overseas and DH was away on business. You bet your arse I would have sent DS to Mum's for a night if it had been possible. I didn't have PND I just needed to SLEEP.

He was a normally placid baby and we never did find out why he had these three horrible days.

TheHouseofMirth · 10/08/2010 14:23

Morloth would you really have sent a week old baby away in preference to having someone helping you at home?

Morloth · 10/08/2010 14:27

There was no-one to help me at home, how do you know that that isn't the case here?

If Mum had been around and had said I can have him at your place or I can take him to mine I would have said "Please take him because I can't sleep if I can hear him crying".

TheHouseofMirth · 10/08/2010 14:32

Well, I guess we're all different but I would have been too anxious to sleep if I'd sent my brand-new baby away.

Morloth · 10/08/2010 14:37

You wouldn't if you hadn't slept for 3 days, at all, not snatches of 45 minutes, none at all.

I am totally into attachment parenting, I love to snuggle them and hold them and I BF for extended periods.

But after 3 days I was seriously considering killing either myself and/or DS. My brain just wasn't working properly. DH came home early from his trip and took DS out (still screaming) and I was asleep before he had closed the car door. He just stopped screaming that afternoon for some reason, is 6 now and never done anything like it again.

If the couple in the OP are at the same stage it is a very good idea for Gran to take the baby.

Morloth · 10/08/2010 14:38

In fact I would say I wasn't asleep so much as unconscious at that point. I don't know how DS1 managed to stay awake that long himself.

Casmama · 10/08/2010 14:42

I had to be separated from my ds when he was born as he was in the scbu for five days. I spent as much time there as possible but between expressing to build my supply and trying to sleep I did not spend as much time as i would have liked.
When I finally got him out I could not have contemplated letting someone else take him away from me but he did sleep for 2-3 hours at a time allowing me some rest.
I think you can't judge other people as there situation will be different to your own and if this night off allowed the new mother to recharge her batteries and be a better mother the next day then perhaps it was worth it.

thumbwitch · 10/08/2010 14:43

What Morloth said - IF the baby had screamed all night since she was born, I think it was positively heroic of the grandma to take her on for a night to give the parents a chance to save their sanity.

I am still so grateful that my DS did NOT do this - I don't tolerate highpitched noise at all well and would have probably been insane after a few days of non-stop screaming.

I would have had trouble letting someone else take him though, even if he had been a screamer - as I was bf'ing him too, can't see how it would have worked.

GetOrfMoiLand · 10/08/2010 14:44

I think some of the comments on thread can be appended by comments a la that Harry Enfield character 'OI am a considerably better mother than YOW'

Thing1Thing2 · 10/08/2010 14:45

"Why bloody have babies if you're too damn lazy to look after them?? (again let me clarify in relation to a maternity nurse rather than 1 night of help)."

Confused

But you obviously don't approve of the latter either or you would not have posted this in the first place.

I had a maternity nurse for my DTs for FOUR months until they slept through the night.

Judge away ....

Casmama · 10/08/2010 14:47

Thing1Thing2 I judge you to have made a very sensible decision - i really don't think I could cope with twins.

TheHouseofMirth · 10/08/2010 14:50

But the OP is not saying that the parents hadn't slept for three nights, just one.

5StoneDown · 10/08/2010 14:51

I am clearly a terrible mother then... I hadn't realised the irreversible damage I'd done to my DS by letting my Mam take him for a night at a week old!

I really did not know that it was unusual for grandparents to have babies overnight, and as far as I can tell, ds is happy and secure. We have no worries if GPs need to watch him for a couple of hours, and he is happy to see us when we get back. Plus GPs get time with him without me and DP 'interfering'.

Morloth · 10/08/2010 14:54

So? What if they have gotten to "crazy" stage at 24 hours of no sleep instead of 72? Are you them? You know the ins and outs of their situation?

Thing1Thing2 · 10/08/2010 14:55

But 5StoneDown - he may seem happy and secure to you - but that is only because you clearly cannot detect the signs of an insecure child because you are so selfish and lazy Wink

Casama - thank you.

whomovedmychocolate · 10/08/2010 15:05

I could not have let anyone take my baby away all night. In fact the only time I've been separated from either or mine was when I was in hospital having the other one or in hospital accompanying DS and DH/DM looked after DD (who was over two at the time).

Plus to those people who say 'my baby screamed ALL night' it's physically impossible to scream for more than an hour without stopping. Really. Babies get tired too and actually they whimper. Which is not the same.

Yes it is horrible and isolating when you are kept awake every night but it's your baby that you grew inside of you, how can you not realise that it's not the baby's fault and that it will end? Confused

Babies also used to be separated from their mothers and sent off with wet nurses in upper class families, but at least it was the same wet nurse every day so they knew her as their primary caregiver.

I dunno, YANBU in my eyes and I think it's very odd. But it does take a lot of different people to make a world.

Morloth · 10/08/2010 15:09

whomovedmychocolate "Plus to those people who say 'my baby screamed ALL night' it's physically impossible to scream for more than an hour without stopping."

DS1 screamed, for 3 days. I was there, there was no whimpering he was taking deep breaths and screaming for the whole time. He didn't feed or sleep. I had been to the A&E and to the GPs.

GetOrfMoiLand · 10/08/2010 15:12

Blimey. My daughter is 14 and I have forgotten most of the sleepless night stuff, but I do renmember when she was colicky and she screamed continually for hours. There was no whimpering about it.

I held her and rocked her but at some points during it I had to put her down in her cot and go and sit down somewhere with my hands over my ears and shake and cry.

Some of you may be mothering marvels with small shrieking babies. Well done. May the rest of motherhood be such a triumph.

whomovedmychocolate · 10/08/2010 15:12

Morloth - unless he's a banshee I'm sorry but I find it hard to believe that he could scream continually for 72 hours. I am sure he was upset for that long - DS has had 48 hours of on/off screaming and being very upset and unsettled. This ended up with him being in hospital and having a lumbar puncture, but it was not continuous.

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