AIBU that I never expected my baby to sleep through the night and can't understand why others do?

[PrincessBoo]

When I had my son I never ever expected him to sleep through the night. I knew that he would wake up for feeding and that my breasts produced the best quality milk at night so he'd more likely be wanting to feed then. We co-slept from birth which made it all so much easier, and apart from teething and illnesses it was all as expected.

Some people on here though, and other sites, and amongst some of the people I met back then at baby groups, it seems like there is this quest to get them to sleep through as early as possible.

My son will be 3 in a couple of months and he still doesn't sleep all the way through the night. He usually wakes up at about 4am and climbs in our bed. I'm so used to being disturbed for ten minutes each night that it isn't even an issue - however I am blessed with being on of those people who can get back to sleep pretty easily after being woken up.

I'm just wondering what other people's expectations were / are?

I hoped/expected DD to sleep thru' (I mean thru' the unsociable hours) from about 6wks, because my Mum said I did. DD was v obliging and slept as hoped. We were v pleased, obvs.

Went out with some postnatal group friends about 6 months in and was shocked to realise none of the other babies were sleeping thru. Just couldn't see how the mums were functioning at all. Not a competitive thing, more stunned admiration.

None of my boys have slept thru' so early (in fact, 4yo regularly joins us @ 4am ish, even if the baby IS sleeping ), and you are right Princess, learning to manage my expectations (and DH's) after unusual DD has been key to managing generally.

Thanks Booyoo :)

I am off to bed, secure in the knowledge that I am the worlds best mother

Igetmorelove I can assure you I have never let DS cry it out and he sleeps through from 7pm to approx 6am with a dream feed at 11pm and has done for the last 3 weeks (15 weeks old now). From birth he used to wake at 3am as well, feed and go straight back to sleep. His cot is right next to me and he has never got past the snuffling stage into fullblown crying. So no child cruelty here thanks.

Mumsmunchkin I never knew about dreamfeeds when mine was a baby - if I ever do get to have another one I'll definitely give it a go - my friend does it with her daughter and it's worked like magic.

when i 1st had my dd i never expected her to sleep through however through sleep deprevation and being constantly milked like a cow i'd had enough by around 6/7 months so controlled crying it was, and with ds i pretty much did it once bf was established as there was no way on earth i was going through the same :( i have never ever co slept though so can't comment on that.

my ds1 slept from 7 til 7 from about 10 weeks. i never ever let him cry it out. he just slept.

YABU

DS2 - 11 weeks is pretty much sleeping through the night and I'm absolutely delighted. It means I get a decent sleep and am in a better place each day to play with DS1 who is pretty full on from the minute he wakes until he goes to bed at night.

DS1 also started to sleep through at about the same age and I had my fingers crossed DS2 would follow and fortunately he's showing all the signs.

I do consider myself extremely lucky as sleep deprivation is after all a form of torture! ]

I'm glad that being woken in the night appears to bother you so little, but I'm the polar opposite and IMHO you don't win any prizes for being a mummy martyr.

OP i just noticed he's 3 in a couple of months and still wakes?!?! oh god that would kill me, you have my total respect i would never function!!!!

I do wonder if parental expectations often do broadly predict outcomes, sleep-wise, as in other ways. Surely if you embrace interrupted sleep as a necessary evil for years on end you are far more likely to have a 3 year old who wakes in the night than someone who says "christ no, they need to sleep at some point before they exit babyhood or we'll all go bonkers."

One last post as I have to respond to you Mintchocaddict

I did not say that I wouldn't have been happy if he had slept through early, I'm not a bloody nutcase, and if my son had slept through from so young then of course I'd have been happy - I wouldn't have been walking around banging drums to get him to wake up again! Just because I dealt with it in the way I did doesn't make me a martyr.

However given my experience with nieces, nephews and my friend's children I would have been surprised if he had. That is all. Really.

I should have read my OP through a few more times before I posted shouldn't I?

Ah well, like I said, first and last post in AIBU but at least I popped my cherry in the scariest place on MN.

Night all!

i bet it's not your last

The people who throw out the "how smug" retorts are the ones being unreasonable. We have:
smug if you post about DC sleeping throught at 6 weeks
AND
smug if you don't have a proper nights sleep until DC are 3

this was not a smug AIBU at all

OP: YANotBU at all

PrincessBoo Sun 07-Nov-10 23:46:51
"The question I am asking is about expectations though Cory, not what you ended up doing as a result of how your child's sleep pattern developed"

I wasn't talking about that: I was talking about the fact that two different people (my mum and dad) had totally different bodies: one coped fine with being woken early, the other was ill all day

I happened to be one of those mums who did not suffer badly from being woken up at night by my babies- that was lucky, but far more to do with my general body rhythms than with any conscious expectations

which turned out to be extremely lucky for me as both dcs turned out to have chronic health problems which mean that I am still having broken nights 13 years later

but it's not something I've done or something I could prepare for; it's just how my body turned out to be able to cope

just like I am lucky in not getting badly seasick, I suppose, or not suffering too much from heat

"How is he sleeping?" is a question I've been asked dozens times and I never knew what to say. "Err, he's waking every 3 hours of course, but inbetween he sleeps great".

I never slept as much as I did with a newborn. Thanks to breastfeeding and bedside cot/co-sleeping I only had to open half an eye two times a night. I know bf and co-sleeping are not for everyone but I don't think I will ever get the concept of a "nursery room". If baby sleeps in a separate room, most times he will be screaming and fully awake before you get to him. Then it will be difficult to settle him down, of course. For my son the smallest delay in helping him go back to sleep was an invitation to a three hour play session.
We have an entertainment room instead of nursery

I think that sleep is a learned habit, and that expecting a baby to sleep through and communicating that expectation is part of teaching them.

I know that many on Mumsnet disagree, but I personally think it is counter-productive to be constantly available at night.

Princess Boo,

AIBU never usually ends well IMO. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Just a wee aside. If you read back I don't think that I stated that you wouldn't have been happy if he slept through, and I certainly didn't perceive you as a nutter. All I said was that you don't appear to be too bothered about being woken up in the night which is kind of alien to me as I hate it. I do consider myself fortunate and if they hadn't been early through the night sleepers then I would probably be one of those mums you mention who would strive to get them sleeping ASAP.

As for the mummy martyr comment - I do believe that there is a mindset among some mums (maybe not you) that you somehow should expect to suffer as a parent and not grumble and I really don't buy into that. If your life can be made easier then brilliant.

Again maybe that makes me selfish but hey-ho.

I agree with Barbara Seville. I couldn't care less what other parents do but I wanted my children to sleep through the night ASAP and that's what they did. I wouldn't have left them to scream for hours on end but I didn't have to. Thankfully this was considered normal when my 1st baby was born.

I don't think people expect their baby to sleep through but maybe they hope he/she will. Some babies do from an early age and some children take longer. Some parents cope better on less sleep than others. Before my first I would feel nauseous if I missed sleep and I really struggled in those early weeks which I think led to PND. With my second she's still up 3 times a night at 7 months and it's ok.

Perhaps you should be just glad you don't need as much sleep as others.

YABU (that is, you are being unusual) to expect your baby to never sleep through the night. If my child was not sleeping through by 3, I would be very worried. I would never have had children if I thought for one minute that I would have 3 years of disturbed nights.
I hoped DD would sleep through at least 5 hours from 6 weeks. She did by 8 weeks. She slept 12 hour nights from 5 months. I love my sleep and she is clearly taking after me.
I would not expect a newborn baby to sleep through the night, but I would also not expect a child to still be waking every night at 3. So YABU (this time it is unreasonable)

Riven, of course you can complain, but I am assuming that you did not expect, when you fell pregnant, that your DD would not sleep through the night for 6 years? Unforseen curcumstances aside, I do not think it is unusual to want your children to sleep well. (Mind you, I am an incredibly lazy person who loves her bed)

DN didn't sleep through until he was 9, but SIL is a bit of a matyr type mother. She was still sitting on the step outside his room waiting for him to go to sleep when he was 5 or 6. He is NT so no SEN issues.

I fully expected to be woken during the night whilst the boys were babies and little boys. However, I also expected that they would learn to sleep through the nights, and once past the first year or so, the middle of the night wakings would taper off to near nothing, and cease altogether eventually.

I cope extremely badly with being woken in the night, and I am sure that lack of sleep made my PND worse.

I agree that by 3, most children will be sleeping through the night, and that is what I would expect - I think a child needs to learn to self-settle - it is normal to wake up during the night, and then turn over and go back to sleep - surely walking to a parent's room and coming into bed must be more of a break in the child's sleep than just turning over in bed and self-settling? And a good night's sleep is important for both parent and child, imo.

Riven - you get to complain whenever you want!