To have co slept with my 6wo niece?

[Piggyleroux]

I am really upset at what happened this morning and my bil and sil house (dh's brother) but suspect iabu so thoughts would be appreciated.

I posted in the breast and bottle feeding section last week about my sil 6 wo dd having a pretty severe lactose intolerance. Sil decided not to bf and the medics eventually found a formula that she could just about tolerate. She is slowly gaining weight and is not nearly as pukey as she was so all good there.

However, night times are still horrendous for them with dd up most of the night screaming. Bil called my dh yesterday morning to ask if we would come and spend the night to give them a break as they were shattered and couldn't face another sleepless night.

When we got there (they live a good hour away) I was shocked to see how awful they looked. Really sleep deprived. Bil has a really high powered job that he has to be on the ball for and I really felt sorry for them both. Sil gave me instructions on making up feeds and said that dd is in her own room and once she has settled I can put her in there.

Anyway, they went to bed about 9 and dh and ds (16 mo) went up about 10. I am still bfing ds so gave him a quick feed and he settled and went to sleep. Dn was getting really grizzly so I gave her a bottle and she went to sleep. I put her in her cot and left the room as instructed by sil. She then started screaming. I picked her up and she fell asleep. I tried to put her down and started screaming. Anyway, this went on for a good hour so I went into the spare room which has a double bed in it and lay down with her. She turned her head toward me and went to sleep. And stayed asleep. Until 4am. I slept really lightly and any sniffles she made I woke up.

I gave her another feed at 4am and after that we went back to sleep. I woke up at 8am with dn still sleeping beside me. I could hear sil asking where she was. BIl came into the spare bedroom and shouted down that we were still in bed. Sil came in the room and went ballistic. She told me I was fucking irresponsible for cosleeping, didn't I know that her dd could have died? She said that she doesnt want her dd getting used to cosleeping amd wants her to be independent. I explained to her that I have been cosleeping with ds since he was born but she wouldn't listen. She was really ranting and we ended up leaving in a hurry.

On the way home, told dh that I think the baby screams because she simply needs human contact and needs to sleep near someone. They haven't had more than two hours unbroken sleep since they brought her home and truly think this is because she wakes up and panics because she is on her own.

Wibu to cosleep with her? I feel really hurt and upset by what was said.

Don't really understand how the human race has managed to survive and evolve if co-sleeping = SIDS.

It is still the default parenting situation for most people.

At such an early stage in motherhood, the OP's SIL is in that dark place of Unreasonable yet Understandable. 6 weeks old. Feeding issues. Lactose intolerant (although I'd love to know how that was diagnosed and am wondering is it really reflux) and sleep deprived. Add it all together and you have a recipe for a lot of emotion - guilt about handing baby over, fear of doing it wrong, anger that it isn't going as well as it might, frustration that other people don't parent as you do etc, and then you discover your little child has been snuggled up with another woman - it's a sharp, palpable, visceral pain which has no logic at face value. OP did her best, SIL hated it, end of.

But the same woman who felt stabbed through the heart when she saw her baby snuggled up with another has no compunction about leaving the child several floors away on her own in order to 'train' her to sleep without her mother?

I have a 6 week old DD and if her sleeping pattern had been this way, along with the feeding issues and my general knackeredness and someone came along and offered a solution (co-sleeping) to a very real problem I'd grab it with both hands. I don't co sleep atm because DD doesn't seem to want to but I would if she needed to.

If the OP was a childcare expert and offered this solution would the mum accept it? Er yes, probably. She is pissed that her SIL settled her baby. OP is NBU following her instincts. The baby should be leading the way on this one (as she did last night when OP had her) and the mum should be adapting to her baby's needs - not her own. Although DD is my third child so maybe experience has taught me to not fight the babies needs as their needs will always win out?

Not really understanding the emotions involved either. If my DD is crying in someone else's arms, at the moment, I am duty and emotionally bound to go to my child and comfort her (shove a boob in her mouth). I really could not hand her over and leave her all night. Not trying to be superior at all but I know emotionally and hormonally, at the moment, I am driven to be with her & protect her - maybe her mum is feeling this but is so shit scared and is fighting it and is taking it out on the OP?

I dont think YABU for co-sleeping with your neice ,at the end of the day the parents were at their wits end with sleep deprivation and asked you to help . You tried their method for an hour ,it wasnt working and appears not to have been working anyway . You did what appeared to be the best solution late at night for everyone . Your sil and bil got a good nights sleep ,so did you and your niece , i cannot honestly see what their problem is . Now they have had a decent nights sleep ,they can continue on with their own method ,having the energy to do it .

YANBU, I would have done the same instinctively. Nobody likes having their parenting methods questioned, so your SIL's reaction is understandable at one level, but wanting a 6-week-old to be 'independent'? Wtf?

IMHO, everyone is overanalysing this a bit. It's dead simple - you SIL has read so much anti-co-sleeping propaganda & news stories that to her you were something akin to Micheal Jackson dangling his baby over the hotel balcony. She thinks you seriously endangered the life of her baby. (fwiw, I co-sleep, i know this is wrong, this is just how she see it I think)

You need to find a way of communicating to her that you just dozed and stayed in the same position, and also that co-sleeping is only a risk if a/b/c. There was a great thread on MN about sleeping tips, it was featured on discussions of the day and I've lost it!! I would point her towards the sleep forum though.

((i guess giving her the "go the fuck to sleep" book wouldn't go down too well at this stage....))

Basically, I'd apologise for giving them a scare but reassure them the baby was safe.

It's obvious that midwives and health visitors can't tell all their patients to co-sleep. So many smoke, drink, take drugs, have no bloody common sense and/or live with someone like that.

I can't believe that someone who isn't like that, who thinks about it really carefully, who asks their DP/DH to sleep in another bed so that there's more room, who doesn't put the baby under the duvet, who puts the bed against the wall, etc etc is going to have a SID as a result of her action.

Jeez I'd have sold my granny for 11 hours of unbroken sleep, how ungrateful are they?!

I also wish you were my sil!

OK Imperial thats a case in point. I have a child. I co-slept. I have never heard that you can't take a baby under the duvet with you. I guess thats is because my DS is 6, so advice has changed since he was an infant. How does the SiL know the OP is up to date with her knowledge? She doesn't ! she has made a choice about how her baby sleeps and it's not for the OP to impose her own ideas.

YANBU.

1. SIDS advice is that the baby should be in a room with parents not in own room, so I think any SIDS comments are just wasted. The baby was in a double bed with you (so lots of space) and you are still BFing which probably makes it safer as you sleep more lightly. I didn't co-sleep as I couldn't sleep myself with a baby in the room with me BUT I would have been totally fine with the set up you describe but not happy at all if the baby was in a double bed with 2 adults (ie not really enough space, and think men probably less aware of baby in bed etc).

1. You probably should have asked about cosleeping BUT were you really going to wake her up in middle of night to ask?

1. I think she is being very ungrateful actually. If she didn't approve she should have done so quietly, you did a huge favour. But maybe apologise and say that you really wanted to calm DN down, and you were worried she'd wake them up, and that you really wanted them to catch up on sleep.

you undermined your sil and imposed your own ideological beliefs about co-sleep,no wonder she upset

what you do with your children is your business, but you imposed upon your sil. and frankly your know it all human contact tone- no wonder sil lost it.you were out of order

Scottishmummy - the sil asked the op to come and be responsible for her daughter overnight. They drove an hour away to do this. The parents slept. The baby slept. Frankly the sil's current carry on needs some undermining because it isn't doing anybody in that house much good.

the floor seperation thing seems more than odd. I'm starting to doubt the story to be honest, whats on the floors in between?You wouldn't normally have bed rooms then 2 random floors then more bedroom would you? And over protective parents don't leave their child 2 floors away when their could be a fire etc that they would need to get to their baby.

Also I don't belive a monitor would work that well 2 floors up.

OP have you spoken to your SIL again?

Personally I think yanbu. They asked you to look after dn for a night which you did. You managed to settle her, what on earth is the big deal?! She is 6wks old, I don't think it will scar her for life. Nothing happened to harm the baby, yes it potentially could have but it didn't. Just don't help out again if they want to carry on with the sleepless nights then let them.

Wilson my ds is almost 11 yet I knew about the duvet thing when I co-slept with him. It's not new advice.

OK, I'll admit to not having read the middle of the thread but would add this:

lactose intolerance in a baby, is a serious medical condition, termed galactosaemia. Galactosaemia babies cannot tolerate breast or formula milk as both contain lactose. This condition is prevalent amongst Romany travellers (apparently!), and Romany children are routinely fed on Wysoy, a soya based formula.

FF is a SIDS risk, sleeping apart in a separate SIDS risk, co-sleep with anyone other than bf mother-child is a SIDS risk, although I doubt very much there is any data on co-sleeping with a mother who is bf'ing another child. Really, there is no right answer here except that SIL was unhappy.

Personally I think she IBU to expect a 6 week old to sleep alone, and agree she is essentially trying to sleep train her, and to expect you to take part in that is unreasonable. I also think YABU for co-sleeping, without "permission", though I like to think i'd not have been so ungrateful in her shoes. Agree with poster above who said you should explain you were dosing. Would she have been so upset if you'd sat up all night holding her?

Just an extra YANBU Piggy .. for the sheer hell of it - repeating myself!
Ooh you would be a saint not to tell your MIL to piss right off.
What is DH doing.. keeping low profile in manly way or supporting you?
Hopefully this will all blow over eventually...

I think the ideological belief about co-sleeping is totally over the top. She just did something to help out and what worked in that situation. Clearly the SIL is getting advice from MILand they will never have a decent nights sleep unless the SIL starts changing her ways.

THanks for that post notabexcitingname my gut feeling was that people were being very judgy and harsh tonslate SIL as 'selfish' fornnit BF but I wasn't sure on the technicals and biology!

To slate and for not.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain what the OP OUGHT to have done.

I mean she did try the cot thing. She walked around with the baby for an hour, was this meant to continue indefinitely till they both fell asleep on the go and fell down the stairs or something>

I just don't understand what was meant to happen. Babies might eventually fall asleep but OP could have been walking round the house for 4 hours till that happened.

Not sure how productive that would have been, or how safe.

Annieversaire - I said above that what I would have done if the baby fell asleep on the bed is to sleep on the floor next to it. That is me though and I think I would probably avoid the situation in the first place - I'm not as nice as the OP!!