To think that our expectations of babies behaviour in this country are too high?

[Tryharder]

There seems to have been a lot of threads around at the moment along the lines of "my baby is 5 weeks old and still won't sleep through the night" and "my baby won't go 4 hours between feeds, is she just greedy" or "my baby wants to be picked up a lot - is she just manipulative?" You get the picture....

Have just read a post about someone who left a very young baby to cry it out (don't ask me to link) and they are all smug about it because "it worked".

It makes me so cross and sad for the babies concerned who are subject to draconian regimes. Why are we so negative about babies in this country and so determined from Day one to impose on them a routine that makes our lives convenient, not theirs.

I know I will be flamed .

ladybiscuit You can't find that evidence, can you?

but I'm sure that won't bother you in the least

is it too much fun, torturing those who've had a hard time?

It doesn't have to be one way or another, my 20 month old dd goes to bed at 7.30 pretty much every night, grizzles for about 5 minutes then sleeps through usually. We had to do cc to get to that stage though, as I also have a 4 month old who starts off in her cot and sleeps in with us from night feed onwards. We have several older children to think of- and they need attention too!
A routine of some sort does help I think, but with some flexibility thrown in!

Hey Tryharder, what a great thread. I totally agree with you. With my ds, I tried so hard to get him into a routine, I ended up stressed out for the first month and so did he - probably moreso than if I'd just not worried about so much about a routine. Don't get me wrong, routines are good and fine, but I felt a lot of pressure from, ooh, all sorts of people, friends, family, dare I say, even my hubby.

With my second child,my dd, I was sooo much more relaxed, and didn't even look at any baby books. She is much more cuddly (as in is always wanting a mummy cuddle) than my son was - not sure if that's a gender thing or not. I was so determined when dd was born to relax more and listen to my baby and take my lead from her than I was with ds. Don't get me wrong, I'm very close to both of them, but everything was a lot more relaxed, baby lead and not rushed with dd.

My mum always says "you can have routines and you can have babies but you can't have both". She means that although you may get into a routine, in the next couple of weeks it is likely to change as their feeds get further apart or their naps get shorter, just a normal pattern of growing up.

She said it so many times to me that I felt like strangling her....!

there are always two camps though - people who think babies are there to be trained and people who are happy to go with the flow or can't be hard/strict enough to enforce rigid routines.some will be closer to middle ground but i think nothing changes and it has always been like this depending on what sort of a person you are and what sort of a baby you have.

MilaMae, you said that I was trying to push my "go with the flow" style of parenting onto others but that is not actually the case... I never once said that I don't have a routine! My children all get up pretty much at the same time, have regular food and naps during the day where applicable and go to bed at the same time every night.. OK not quite the same time but you know what I mean..

Just because I don't leave my babies to cry it out and don't follow some timetable suggested in a book doesn't mean I drift around aimlessly dragging around a bunch of overtired children who are refusing to sleep. My DD is now sleeping through from around 9 - 10pm until approx 5 - 7 pm in morning. I didn't train her or teach her to self settle - she just did it by herself when she was ready...However, I have had nights where she fed pretty much constantly [shrugs].

What I object to are parents who try and force their babies to sleep through or feed less often or leave them to cry unnecessarily. Who invented the idea that babies should only feed every 4 hours anyway??? I just find that a lot of people are really heartless when it comes to babies crying. I have been in shops etc where very young babies are just screaming by themselves in their prams or car seats and being totally ignored by their parents. I just want to scream "pick your bloody baby up!!".

YANBU and the early bedtimes in the UK where children are basically put away in their bedrooms regardless of whether they are tired and ready to sleep or not are ridiculous. The attitude behind that should be examined imo.

Frankly, everyone needs to just chill out about babies and how to deal with them.

We have never lived in such a baby focused society as now- we are bloody obsessed with them and how every little thing we might do could condemn them to life in prison or therapy.

Taking wanton neglect and deliberate cruelty out of the equation, it probably makes jack all difference whether you attachment parent or routine parent- co-sleep or cot, sling or pushchair, blw or purees, controlled cry or no cry solution.

All these psychologists are pretending they know what babies are thinking and how cave people naturally parented and selling you a solution for £9.99 and a bucket load of guilt.

Two things are fairly obvious

• no-one really knows what babies are thinking- my own opinion- probably not much.

• no-one knows how cavemen parented- they might have continually held a relentlessly crying baby, or they might have just left it behind a rock and thought "better luck next time". We don't know so there's no point in torturing ourselves over it.

It just shows how insecure everyone is about parenting now that they feel obliged to justify their own decisions by slamming everyone else's.

I don't think we do get threads saying that. What we do get is people saying:

My baby is 3 weeks old, and my mother / MIL says I'm spoiling her by picking her up too much / says she should be going longer between feeds.

And then we all pile in saying no, trust your instincts, and the new mum is reassured.

Having a new baby is a time when you're very vulnerable and there's a lot of bullshit outdated advice given to you. This site is a good corrective to that.

Very good post BaggedandTagged

at Cavemen leaving their babies behind a rock (I have been tempted myself!)

I'm not trying to torture anyone Unwind, I really don't get why you keep banging on about that.

What I'm saying is that I think it's a good idea to go with your instincts - for both you and your baby.

Incidentally I tried - and failed - to get my DS into a routine because everyone told me I should. I felt like a total failure for a few months and then I just wished I'd done what felt right for me rather than what was 'right'. We were both so much happier once I went with the flow.

In the wider world, your POV exerts a lot more pressure and makes a lot more women feel bad than going with your baby - witness the number of threads on MN where women have been told they're spoiling their baby/its manipulating them etc. It's only within the sanctified world of MN that baby led parenting or whatever you want to call it has much credibility. And if a mother is terribly unhappy and

porcamaria - yes, I realise that I do sound a tad smug about SIL.....she probably did have a harder baby than we had in all fairness, but at the same time, my BIL and SIL are both academically very clever people, but their lack of common sense can be a bit irritating. They are lovely people, our niece is absolutely adorable, and they are great parents - I just do wonder whether they make lives a bit more difficult for themselves sometimes.Even her mum worries that they are not firm enough with DD (but not to her....)

Maybe I'll get a bad sleeper next time and then truly understand how difficult it can be to get some babies to settle and get into a routine.

At the end of the day,unless anyone is neglecting their child, I think we all need to be a little less judgemental, as I don't know of ANY parents who don't judge another one for something that we all do...after all, humans don't seem to be able to stop themselves from judging each other anyway..

LadyBiscuit - you cited Penelope Leach, and a student magazine article in support of another poster's theory that ""It is NOT healthy to leave a baby to cry it out it can cause personality problems later on in life.""

Spreading this kind of misinformation is really nasty. They only reason I spent time searching the medical journals to find out more about this, was that a friend was distraught, because her baby had colic, and she read the guardian article above. There was nothing she could do to stop him crying. I think that Leach/the guardian, should not have published it, if their claims can't be supported.

My personal POV exerts no pressure. I wholeheartedly agree with BaggedandTagged. Do whatever works for your family, within reason, it won't make much difference in the long run. I breastfed on demand for over a year, and co-slept, but so what? It doesn't mean I get to feel smug and pretend that those who were not in a position to do that, or chose not to, have damaged their children in some way. There is no good reason to think that.

mathanxiety "YANBU and the early bedtimes in the UK where children are basically put away in their bedrooms regardless of whether they are tired and ready to sleep or not are ridiculous. The attitude behind that should be examined imo."

I don t know about babies bedtimes, but imo little childrens bedtimes are sacrosanct (barring xmas and summer barbecues) and will remain that way for as long as I can manage...by 7.45 I need my son to be "put away in his bedroom" so that I can de compress and have some PEACE!!

He does go to bed later in summer though, but in winter, when its getting dark at four, he is knackered by seven anyway and loves climbing into his bed and getting snuggly.

Actually it wasn't in support of another poster. You chose to read it that way. I think the jury's probably still out in proving lasting psychological damage.

I don't condemn people who follow routines - like I said I tried to but I failed. I'm sorry that your friend felt really bad but I've never said it's wrong to follow a routine. I was talking about leaving babies to cry.

thanks for answering back ilovemysleep!

in general we are all too judgy I agree, and dont get me wrong I silently mentally judge alot of parents!

second babies are a million times easier as you can cherry pick the ideas you like, and discard alot of the bullshit from first time

I have nothing against routines at all, its just that with DS1 I tried to follow a very VERY prescribed routine , i.e its 10am, you must nap!!! and i would spend an hour trying to make him nap. then by the time he napped, i'd want him to wake again! and of course he did not sleep thru till ten month anyway! with hindsight I wish I had relaxed, chucked him in buggy and gone for a bracing walk instead, you live and learn eh

Totally agree with londonlottie on "There is a whiff of martyrdom coming from those who have babies who sleep badly, yet don't want to do a routine. I think it helps to demonise those with better sleeping babies who follow a routine, to make them feel better about the choices they have made

But there is also an amount of smugness from those who's babies were put in a routine and sleep through at 2 weeks. (yeah right!)

It seems that everyone is out to judge others who have different ideas than their own as it makes them feel better about their own choices.

It also seems that the big advocates of baby-led are those who either have not got to a point where they are so sleep deprived that they need to try sleep training/routine, or who have tried and failed to get their babies into a routine.

On the other side, it seems that those who are the big routine advocates , are often those for whom the baby-led thing hasn't worked and are so sleep deprived that they will try anything!

We hopefully all try and do what we think is best for our babies at the time, and that's all we can do - we are only human.

I think there is a happy medium.
Its not unreasonable to want a bit of sleep a couple of months in or after a few months to try limited amounts of crying it out.
I find the hardline parents either way unreasonable.

It can go too far (Gina Ford and that Trudy woman from that Channel 4 show and the 'Attached Parenting thing) however I think once you are sensible, kind and not just mindful of your own needs, but also that little babies, then you will do whats right.

The one thing I absolutely dont get though is the school of thought that thinks you can hold a baby too much when they are newborns - at 3/4 months, ok they should be able to be in a rocker thing or do tummy time without screaming, but for newborns, i think its a bit much.

Londonlottie, I don't think people are anti-routine. Most of us have routines - when we get up, when we eat, when we sleep etc. These usually have a degree of flexibility about them. I think that element of flexibility is what is important and the routines that many of us don't like are the ones that don't have that. Eg. Putting a baby down at a set time regardless of whether it is tired or feeding based on the clock.

I dislike any routine that advocates leaving a baby to cry or watching a clock rather than your baby to determine what to do. I also think flexibility about how and where children feed/sleep is important because who wants to be confined to the house at certain times of the day? If your routine doesn't involve any of those things then chances are no one is condemning it because most of the time it isn't routines that people are against - it is the methods used to establish them.

Carolina, cc is definitely not recommended for babies under 6 months.

Dancergirl "Babies are MEANT to wake at night, to eat at night, to want lots of cuddles. I would be more worried about a baby that didn't tbh".My 12 week old baby often sleeps nearly through the night (7-6ish). Are you suggesting something may be wrong with her physically or emotionally? She has done 8hours a night on avaerage since birth. If she wakes up hungry I feed her, when she doesn't I leave her to sleep. Isn't that being baby led?

Please tell me what you think is wrong with her and why it worries you? FWIW personally I think your fears are prpobably mis directed and you should feel sorry for my poor boobs every morning when they are rock hard and soaked in cold milk. But thanks for worrying about my baby anmyway...

• yet I am still too sleepy to type properly...