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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Contented Little Baby on a 1 day old

77 replies

mangomacaroons · 09/12/2010 21:36

...cruel, or not?

I should say that I hate the whole CLB thing. To me, it's all about making baby fit into your life rather than the other way round. The parent is the adult here, and should be able to adapt...as a culture we often seem to expect/want our lives to go back to being as they were before the baby was born, rather than listening to the baby's needs.

Anyway, a friend of a friend took the CLB Book into the maternity hospital, so she could start it on her 1 day old DD straight away. I find that horrible, AIBU? The poor little thing has no idea what's going on and her mother's going, sorry, no point crying for milk, it's only 8am, you can't have any till 9.30 am. Definitely find that quite cruel.

OP posts:

HalfTermHero · 09/12/2010 22:07

What a silly useless fuck that daft mother is. Has neither the sense nor confidence she was born with.

MsKalo · 09/12/2010 22:08

oh that poor poor little baby girl! does she not see how much damage she is doing???? (and i don't necessarily mean the damage is because of the routine - it seems more is going on here).

the baby needs love - can you talk to her? she needs to see what she is doing!!!!!!! I feel really upset for this baby

MakemineaGandT · 09/12/2010 22:08

well, you are being a bit unreasonable. Cut her some slack....she has no clue yet does she......chances are she realised what a daft idea it was pretty sharpish?! I do agree though that CLB is tosh. However, that is with the benefit of hindsight of actually being a mum.......

MsKalo · 09/12/2010 22:10

I can't bear to think about that little girl - OP please show her this thread and knock some sense into her by showing her how horrified we are. she is damaging that child!

thesecondcoming · 09/12/2010 22:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MumNWLondon · 09/12/2010 23:22

There are some totally unreasonable views here. I used aspects of the CLB from birth. I had 3 happy content babies, who hardly ever cried, slept all night from 8-10 weeks and could settle themselves easily. I have never left them to scream or not fed them if its not feeding time, she doesn't advocate that. Its about gently guiding into routine.

DS2 8 months old, sleeps all night every night, in a GF regime during day, smiles & laughs whole time he is awake, plays by himself, self settles at nap and bedtime. Can be left with other people.

DNephew is 16 months, still co-sleeping with SIL, being BF on demand hourly during the night. Can't be put down during day as wants to BF. Puts her breast out of her top and latches on.

Sorry but to me its cruel what SIL has done to DN. Its not black and white.

perfumeditsawonderfullife · 09/12/2010 23:29

PMSL at Udderly. I was shocked at how attatched my styleee was too. An entire kingsize bed for ds, after being carried upstairs on a cashmere cushion.

I havn't read it, but I hate when new parents to be proclaim 'having a baby won't change me, or alter our lives, the baby will have to learn to fit in '

Why have them if they won't change you?

HalfTermHero · 09/12/2010 23:29

Lol NWmum. What a cruel cow, sil is.

It's a baby not a pet. You adapt to it's needs and not vice versa. Don't have a child if you are not prepared to meet a newborn's reasonable and helpless demands.

blackeyedsusan · 09/12/2010 23:58

I think a lot of it comes down to personality, yours and the baby's.

We don't do a rigid routine, it's just not us. Conversly, our friends do do routine. contented little baby worked for them. We both think each other are wrong in our appproach, we just don't go there.

I have found that a lot of people only hear about something second hand and judge from that. I haven't read the book, although have dipped in. I have been surprised, when reading various books, to find I actually do some of the things I thought I disapproved of. this is because those things had been described to me inaccurately and I didn't know I was doing what was originally intended by the author!

I think new borns are just too young for a routine. I bet the mother will too when she has got one.

LittleMissHoHoHoFit · 10/12/2010 00:13

I don't believe a word of this thread.

Very interesting first post...

I'll just get MNHQ to check you out....

MsKalo · 10/12/2010 00:15

Really NW? Your SIL is cruel to bf and give baby all that wonderful breast milk and to tend to het baby when he needs her? I find it very off that you think that is cruel.

Kiwiinkits · 10/12/2010 04:03

MumNWLondon, I thoroughly agree with you. There's nothing wrong with routines - following a plan has really worked for us. She was sleeping right through from 11pm to 7am from 10 weeks, she's very easy to settle, great eater, happy baby. We used the Baby Whisperer, not CLB, but essentially they're very similar in that they advocate putting a bit of structure in a baby's life from day 1. Start as you mean to go on, right.

So don't knock it till you try it.

I compare our baby to friends' babies who have been demand fed and rocked to sleep and inevitably they still wake at all hours and scream, demanding either to be fed or to come into mummy's bed. Some as old as 1 still aren't sleeping through the night. That's outrageous! And I have to say I get a bit smug and think, thank god I had the confidence to structure her eating and sleeping from Day 1.

BlackeyedSusan is right though; it's a topic we just don't discuss with friends. It's up there with politics and religion. People get very catsbum about it. Usually I just say that 'we were lucky to have a good baby', when in fact what I mean is 'we were lucky to have followed the Baby Whisperer'.

My advice: stay out of it. It's not your place to judge. Let her figure out her own way of doing things.

SkiingGardeningTwinklyBauble · 10/12/2010 05:22

Horses for courses. But for me the trick is to find which approach suits the baby, not which approach suits the parent.

I have previously read a lot of comments on MN saying how smug people were with baby number 1 and how they had found the perfect approach to parenthood, only to then by un-smugged by a non-compliant number 2.

mollycuddles · 10/12/2010 06:28

I have 3 dcs now. My first I tried routine with. He's 12 so pre dates both CLB and BW. But I used similar ideas. He was having none of it. He wouldn't nap. He wouldn't sleep. He fed way more than he was meant to. I changed him to formula because I thought my milk was the problem. I changed him to hungry baby milk. He still fed all the time - taking 12 oz at a time by 12 weeks. I sent myself and dh crazy trying to get him to sleep - controlled crying, cry it out. Nothing worked. He was not having it. How outrageous of him. I gave up and demand fed, co slept sometimes as got sick of hearing him cry. Suddenly at about 18 months he started sleeping more. He still needs less sleep than average and reads until 11 most nights despite needing to get up at 6.30 for school (gets a train at 7.30). Dd1 arrived 3 years after him and I was totally into going with the flow - bf in demand, co sleeping but by 6 weeks she fed 3 hourly and slept in her cot until after 5 after being settled about 8pm. It was 7-7 by 3 months. She, without any prompting, was in practically a GF routine. Dc3 takes after her brother but I just accept this. I'm not going to try to force her into any routine because all that happened was I felt a failure and forgot to enjoy him.
It's quite possible those of you with routine easy babies would have got there without the books anyway and until you've had a baby like my ds and dd2 who won't you have no idea how you'd manage. I can see no benefit at all from all these parenting guru baby books apart from causing judgey pants all round.

mollycuddles · 10/12/2010 06:32

Oh forgot to say - my adored late MIL warned me that dh of her 4 dcs wouldn't sleep as a baby. The other 3 did. So it's quite possibly genetic. :o

QuizteamBleakley · 10/12/2010 06:42

This is a very interesting post - I'm 40 +
2 and was sent this book by a right-on hippyesque "Modern Parents" friend who was due in Oct. She RAVED about the book and so I read it. I read it and then used it to prop up one side of the wonky coffee table. This is my 1st baby, so any advice is grabbed a hold of and treated much like gospel, but it just didn't feel right.

Meantime, "Modern Parents" had told me all about their plans (bf, routines, sleeping through, yada yada) only to jack it all in after three weeks when they realised it was not working.

I think I'll continue to use CLB for its current purpose

Original poster

mangomacaroons · 10/12/2010 07:00

you just do that miss hoho!

OP posts:

Original poster

mangomacaroons · 10/12/2010 07:02

There's nothing wrong with routines - I'm not knocking them. Routines are great!

What I do have an issue with is any routine that involves "training" your baby by ignoring their crying and not responding to their needs.

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Original poster

mangomacaroons · 10/12/2010 07:05

And kiwii -

Some as old as 1 still aren't sleeping through the night. That's outrageous!

It's not outrageous,kiwii - babies will sleep through when they are ready - it's our culture that places high expectations on mothers to "get their babies sleeping through the night" whether they are ready to or not.

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MumNWLondon · 10/12/2010 07:31

Mrskalo Firstly I should point out that DS2 also has lots of breastmilk as well. But yes sorry its cruel what she has done.

She has a 16 month DS2 who has never slept more than hours in a row, who is tired the whole time and grouchy as a result. Her 3 YO is tired too as he is woken up by the baby, her husband still sleeping in spare room as she is doing a lot of co-sleeping and her son is addicted to BFing, and pulls her breasts out of her bra/top the whole time. She can't function well at work as she is so tired and already had one nanny quit as she couldn't cope with her DS2 who incidently can only get to sleep with either BFing or being pushed around in his buggy. Her DH has spend much money driving around in car at night to get her DS2 to sleep. SIL is now close to suicidal (her words) and claims her DH thinking about divorce.

Her DS2 rules the house and no that is not the way it should be - maybe ok for a 3 week old to rule the house but ridicolous at 16 months.

mollycuddles · 10/12/2010 08:12

Don't agree at all mumnwlondon and your post makes no sense - if ds2 is cosleeping and bf then why is ds1 being woken? Sounds like ds2 is reverse cycling re bf because he misses his mum when she's working. WTF is wrong with a 16 month old wanting to be bf? He might just be a high needs (to use a fairly icky phrase) baby like my ds who will settle in his own time. She may have tried other approaches and found he isn't responsive to them. I feel for her being exhausted at work but it won't be forever and sometimes with kids you just have to survive the best you can. Any nanny worth his/her salt should be able to handle this sort of situation. My dd2 rules the house at 6 months and it's great. The whole family adore her and are completely happy. As to her dh - if mine was threatening divorce because he wasn't getting his needs met because I was caring for his child I'd tell him to fark off with himself.

TandB · 10/12/2010 08:37

I'm putting bets on this thread getting into triple figures within the hour.
I'm going for 547 posts before it winds down. Any other bets?

Incidentally, I suspect this thread was started with a specific agenda in mind.

TrillianAstra · 10/12/2010 08:40

I think this thread will be a 700-er. :et's say 724.

Anyone else think it's funny that 'the poor little baby has no idea what's going on'? I can imagine no circumstance under which a 1 day old baby would have a clue what was going on.

Original poster

mangomacaroons · 10/12/2010 08:43

Mum NW London, to say what she has done is cruel is completely ridiculous! How can a 16 month old be 'addicted' to BFing, and how do you know he wouldn't be like that anyway?

BTW I started this thread because I was interested to know if I was the only one who found the idea of GF on a 1 day old disturbing or if others agreed with me. I can't speak to the woman about it directly and how sad it is as I don't know her well enough, I have made it as clear as I can though when I speak to her.

OP posts:

Original poster

mangomacaroons · 10/12/2010 08:44

No, Trillian, a 1 day old baby having her needs ignored in favour of a routine in a book isn't funny at all IMO.

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