to think that there is way too much pressure regarding self settling and sleeping through?

[jaggythistle]

I get a bit :( reading threads on here from new parents with a 2/5/16 week old baby who are worried sick or frustrated that their baby isn't sleeping through yet, or happy to go to sleep by themselves in a cot.

The current level of expectation on newborns seems to be very high!

I am a big softy and couldn't have left my pfb to cry anyway, it went against my instinct. The first few weeks and even months of his life are somewhat of a blur of not sleeping much.

I suppose I was shocked the first week at how much he needed to be held and DH kindly cuddled him lots to let me get a sleep and recover (between feeds). It took a while for him to settle in his crib for any length of time.

It seems unfair on the babies and their parents that people (sometimes HCPs) are worrying them by insisting that babies must learn to self settle and shouldn't sleep on their knee/be fed to sleep/go in a sling.

Also people seem concerned that babies should pop off to bed and sleep through without milk at very young ages, it seems too stressful to me. It was bloody tiring getting up lots, but I felt a lot better when I just went with it instead of lying awake wondering when he'd be up again.

I am maybe a bit lucky because although DS has been cuddled and/or fed to sleep apart from a few months when he decided he could settle by himself, he has now started sleeping pretty well at 1 year old. He is a confident wee thing so I don't seem to have made him clingy, which is the other rod I could have apparently made for my back. (Got a lot of people saying that you can't pick babies up every time they cry)

I know all babies are different, but maybe not so many of them need 'training as is generally thought.

This is not meant to be an attack on people that want their babies to sleep through or settle, just on the people that go about saying 'Oh your baby should be doing x or y at his age'.

Sorry a bit long!

I think people overthink most of parenting these days to be honest.

There isn't 'too much pressure'. I think there are sometimes unrealistic expectations due, in part, to a lot of people not having much to do with small children until they actually get one of their own. I think there is also a lack of self-confidence around child-rearing in general leading to excessive question-asking of HVs, family, friends, books, message boards... Too much needless fretting about 'what's normal?' rather than trusting your own judgement. IME the more people you ask and the more books you read the more confused you'll end up.

My suggestion to any pending mums would be to help an existing mum look after their baby for a bit. And if you think something 'isn't normal', pick one mother whose opinion you trust and run your ideas past them.

I'm planning to put some pressure on my 1 yo DS to sleep at some point soon. I fear that this may be unrealistic of me.

I was able to just brush off most of the questioning about how long DS slept for, did I still feed him at night (was 15 weeks old at the time) but I guess not everyone can.

Some posts I read were from people who felt that they should be doing something different and often against their instinct to get their DC to sleep for example because their friend/MIL/mother/HV suggested it.

Not sure if my ramble eventually made much sense then

most of your friends with babies or children will be lying about their sleeping, trust me

Couldn't agree more! What people often seem to forget is that babies are simply small human beings, not robots!

Sometimes I wake up in the night for a drink if I'm thirsty, why shouldn't they? Sometimes I'm a bit restless so have a more unsettled night than usual. Sometimes I like a hug and some comfort. Why on earth shouldn't a baby feel that way too? Trying to stop these things from happening is just unnatural IMO. After all, don't many adults sleep with their partners, often watch tv in bed etc? It's all just a comfort/love thing. Babies crave this too, from their parents. Nothing wrong with that, it's normal. Too much pressure and focus is put on parents to make their babies conform to 'perfect' it really bugs me.

I have 3 and have never once made a 'rod for my back' by comforting them, offering them a drink if they wake, or occasionally co-sleeping. It's a load of bull IMO!

I think that people just ask you "is he sleeping through?" because they think thats what youre meant to ask! Or "is he eating well?". To be fair, theres not much to ask about a babies habits given how limited their daily life is!

What used to annoy me the most was when they asked me if my 6 week old etc was good! I took this to mean sleeping through or something, I just said yes he's wonderful. Stepdad did want me to leave him to cry at 6 weeks and told me that puppys are left to whine at 6 weeks when taken from their mum!

I guess expectation is maybe a more appropriate word than pressure. People genuinely seem to believe that babies< 2 months should be sleeping through etc.

I ignored the rod for your own back pish, but I heard it a lot.

My first AIBU I think was actually about people constantly asking how often DS pooed/how long he slept/fed etc, I have realised now that much sense was spoken Having visited friends newborns I have been careful just to offer nice compliments and only mention the sleeping etc if they do cos I remember how annoyed I was!

We tried all the usual advice to get DS to sleep through when he was little and it just seemed counter-productive - he didn't sleep, we didn't sleep and everyone was tired! Realised it was a lot easier to give in and let him sleep with us/have some milk so that we all actually got some sleep and could function. Much less stress all round and he' worked it out himself as he's gotten older (for the most part)

I don't think it is an external pressure thing. I think that a lot of people (and I include myself in this group), found it incredibly hard to cope with the lack of sleep and constantly getting up in the night, so it becomes a bit of an obsession as to when we might expect it to end and what we can do to help them along.

I was fine with my first (who thankfully was a pretty easy baby in that regard and slept through very early without me doing anything about it), but I really understood the 'pressure' with DC3. The other two were 2 and 4 at the time and by the time DC3 was about 3 months old I was completely destroyed, not functioning, spiralling into PND etc etc as I couldn't cope with no sleep and 3 small children and no help (family all lived far away and DH working v hard). So yes, I asked everyone for advice and their input on what to do as I needed to get my family back on track and that required that I got some rest. In the end I followed what seemed like quite harsh advice but it worked for me and my family - When DS woke in the night I held and cuddled him but didn't put to the breast. First night he cried in my arms for an hour and a half before falling back to sleep - it was hell (I fed him at the next wake 2 hrs later), 2nd night cried in my arms for about three quarters of an hour before falling back to sleep, third night fussed around for 5 mins then went back to sleep. So within 3 days I lost a night feed. I then started on the next wake time in same manner. Within a week / 10 days he was sleeping through and my sanity started to be restored.

Was there pressure to get him to sleep through? Yes - from myself and the parlous state of my family life and my temper, but not external pressure.

So I suppose I agree with you in that it's not the baby's fault and there is nothing 'wrong' if a baby doesn't sleep through, but the well being of the mother and the whole family is not something to be dismissed or discounted (as I found in my experience after DC3). The baby is not necessarily always paramount within a family (provided he is healthy and well cared for of course) and if a bit of training the baby makes the whole family happier and better then it has to be a good thing.

In this day and age so many of us live isolated lives (e.g. just me and DH, miles from family and the emotional and physical support they could have given) and so sleeping through can become an enormous issue. Many people have to get back to work (as I did at 6 months after I had DD1) and then sleeping through becomes very important and yes that is an external pressure I know, but it's unavoidable and so I think people do need to be given advice as to how they can encourage their baby to get there and sleep well.

I agree with Nelly.

Our first baby slept very little and we were shattered. After the first few months, when I expected that my night life would have been quite hectic, I started to get obsessed by the thought of when I would have had a few hrs sleep and how to achieve them.

My HV never told me "baby should sleep so and so", but was very sympathetic of our tiredness and I really appreciated it (I didn't appreciate the comments of a friend of ours who told me that babies needed to sleep to help their brain cells to develop )

The problem is that people ask on MN! There are thousands of mums with different advice and with that many people, some are bound to have babies who happily slept through at a few weeks old (although I only ever counted sleeping through as 12 hours, not 5 like some people do). Agree with Chil1234, pick a mum who you trust and ask them for advice. I encouraged DD to self settle but never left her to cry, just meant putting her into her moses basket when she was sleepy and seeing if she would drift off, which often she did. Was a lifesaver for me not having to hold her every minute, but some people enjoy that bit.

Each to their own.