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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have co slept with my 6wo niece?

643 replies

Piggyleroux · 06/08/2011 16:15

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.

OP posts:
ImperialBlether · 07/08/2011 14:20

So the baby behaved last night as she did on every other night when the SIL was caring for her, but last night was your fault?

Out of six weeks at home, the night you cared for the baby, the baby had the best sleep it had had.

Something is clearly wrong with her logic, there!

hairfullofsnakes · 07/08/2011 14:21

The way they are treating that baby makes me want to cry. Why are some people so bloody desparate to get a tiny baby to sleep through?! That poor poor little baby. It makes my blood boil that they are putting their needs above their baby's needs, the poor mite is so distressed. Please show her this thread Or tell her how her behaviour is affecting her baby. Her actions are silly, selfish, melodramatic and damaging - and you can tell her I said that!

valiumredhead · 07/08/2011 14:21

I agree Imperial!

valiumredhead · 07/08/2011 14:22

I'd be very tempted to print this thread and shove it up her arse show it to her!

Northernlurkerisgoingonholiday · 07/08/2011 14:22

hairfull - the irony is the baby was the closest to sleeping through with the OP - slept 10-4 and 4 till 8. That's jolly good for 6 weeks.

EvilTwins · 07/08/2011 14:26

"I too am worried about the baby and your SIL. She can't be thinking clearly."

WHY? FFS, this thread has turned into attack of the smuggies. Has anyone stopped to consider that the SIL may not want to co-sleep? At all? Ever? And therefore does not want her baby to co-sleep with ANYONE? I did not co-sleep, and as I have said up-thread, my twins were in their own room from birth. They're 5 now, and are perfectly fine. All the "I'm so worried about this baby" comments are ridiculous. If I was the mother in question here (ie the SIL, not the OP) I would have been angry, and not because the OP "showed her that her methods are wrong", because her methods are not "wrong" - they just differ from the OP's. I would have been angry that someone I trusted to help me out went against what she knew I was trying to do. The OP may not have intentionally set out to cause upset, but she did. New mothers deserve a bit of sympathy and a bit of slack - I think the OP has forgotten what it's like when your first baby is tiny and you are suffering from sleep deprivation - and it seems that the vast majority of posters on this thread have done so too.

ImperialBlether · 07/08/2011 14:29

I doubt if the OP has forgotten that - her own child is only 16 months old! Given that she's breastfeeding and so presumably is the only person feeding her child, I think she will remember only too well the terrible tiredness from that time.

PacificDogwood · 07/08/2011 14:30

So, this unwell newborn is engaging in a 'battle of will' with her parents, yes?? WT very F

On second thoughts, they are entirely insane - only attenuating circumstance is sleep deprivation.

Will they want to look back fondly to their PFB's first few months in life or will it all be a vague nightmare in their memory?

I am actually quite Shock Sad and Angry.

Poor parents, but mainly: poor, poor mite.

May I recommend this book re high needs babies?

MrsCampbellBlack · 07/08/2011 14:32

I haven't forgotten what its like to be sleep deprived - chance would be a fine thing.

But I do think its wrong to put a 6 week old who is clearly distressed and presumably been unwell (lactose intolerence) into its own room and just shush it or whatever to the baby to sleep. As far as I'm aware even controllec crying advocates don't recommend the shush/patting technique until the baby is older - 6 months or so.

EvilTwins · 07/08/2011 14:32

"I doubt if the OP has forgotten that - her own child is only 16 months old! Given that she's breastfeeding and so presumably is the only person feeding her child, I think she will remember only too well the terrible tiredness from that time."

Her child is 16 months old. Therefore, he is not going to be ONLY having breast milk, is he, and is unlikely to be needing to be fed through the night.

I think most of us forget very quickly how hard those first few months are. Being smug and offering "advice" about how things should be done is incredibly unhelpful and insenstive, IMO. The whole "oh no, dear, this is how you should be doing it" is, frankly, vile.

LeoTheLateBloomer · 07/08/2011 14:32

EvilTwins I never said I thought the SIL should be co-sleeping. If she doesn't want to, that's fine (incidentally I didn't want to at first but that's beside the point)

She's talking about having a 'battle of wills' with a 6 week old baby. She's determined to get her sleeping sorted out, fine. But whatever they're doing is not working and other than moving her to the same floor as them (hurrah) it doesn't sound like they're going to change their approach with her.

Surely common sense should tell them that if one thing doesn't work they should try something else.

EvilTwins · 07/08/2011 14:34

Or maybe they want to persevere. Nothing wrong with that approach either, IMO.

MrsCampbellBlack · 07/08/2011 14:35

But Evil - the point is that it sounds as though SIL is making it harder than necessary. You really can't have a battle of wills with a 6 week old and if someone said that to me in RL I would tell them they were mad albeit in a kind way.

valiumredhead · 07/08/2011 14:35

I didn't want to co sleep either and I STILL think what the SIL is doing is wrong.

Doubt the OP has forgotten what having a newborn is like as her ds is only 10 months old.

InFlames · 07/08/2011 14:36

It's not illegal, or abuse, to sleep in a different room to a baby. Not what I most people in here would choose to do, but it's a patently choice. Lots of my fiends did it - following a Certain Famous Parentig Strategy - and their kids are happy, secure and healthy.

Starting to demonise a new mother with a 6 week old baby, who is struggling with baby's complex needs, not going to help matters.

Glad we're all so perfect through .... Hmm

TheOriginalFAB · 07/08/2011 14:37

To be worried about this baby is not "ridiculous."

The baby is not having her needs met. That is wrong.

scottishmummy · 07/08/2011 14:38

all of mine slept in own room from birth,have never co-slept baby
home from hospital own room,adjacent to us.monitors and kept doors open at night

InFlames · 07/08/2011 14:39

'I or most' and 'perfectly' not patently. Friends not fiends - tho some of the responses on would make you think otherwise for them chooseing to put their babies in their own rooms at night from4-6 weeks...

pommedechocolat · 07/08/2011 14:42

Sil was unreasonable in being so rude to op and asking for help in the first place.

Op was bu to think that co sleeping is not something that is contentious and that her views on it were automatically right.

You lot are b hell of an u with your judged pants. Your baby your way her baby her way. Jesus there is not one way to bring a child up there are hundreds.

EvilTwins · 07/08/2011 14:43

Totally agree with InFlames.

Valium - her DS is 16 months old, not 10.

MrsC - no, of course you can't have a battle of wills with a 6 week old, but you can start to put in place habits which you, as a parent, wish to continue. When I was pg, my mum told me that when she had my older sister, they used to keep her in the moses basket in the living room until they went to bed themselves, and then when I was born, they put me upstairs when they put Dsis to bed (she was 20 months when I was born). This meant that she and my Dad had an "evening", albeit with her going up and downstairs to feed me. When my DTDs were born, DH and I decided that we would put them upstairs into their room at 7 each evening, because that would become their bedtime as they got older. This did mean that I was up and down to them, which was faff, but to us, it was worth it. We got some time to sit together, to eat together and so on, and it gave me back a feeling of being in control of my life, which I'd kind of lost at the end of a difficult pregancy and tricky birth. It worked for us, and perhaps that's why I can totally see where the OP's SIL is coming from.

Original poster
Piggyleroux · 07/08/2011 14:44

Just to clarify, they are good parents. Just a little misguided when it comes to sleep! They are only doing what lots of new parents have done - not cosleeping because they have been told its dangerous which is why sil shouted at me. Dh spoke to his brother who has asked if they can borrow our cosleeper. Now there's progress.

OP posts:
valiumredhead · 07/08/2011 14:44

Sorry misread - still not so long ago she can;t remember what it was like.

BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability · 07/08/2011 14:44

I worry enough with my DS in the next room in case of something like fire. IMO, having a 6wk old two floors away is bloody stupid just because of that, regardless of co-sleeping arguements (btw, I didnt cosleep when DS was newborn but did start when he was about 3m as he wouldnt sleep. he slept in a moses basket in my bedroom.)

valiumredhead · 07/08/2011 14:45

Good news Piggy :)

Kveta · 07/08/2011 14:46

coming at this from the opposite angle a bit - we co-slept/bed-shared with DS and he was bfed too. when he was 13 months and had never slept through, my mum got him down for the night with a bottle of formula and some crying-it-out. DH and I were delighted to get a wee bit of a break, but both a bit miffed that a) mum's method had worked, b) DS had been left to scream for so long, and c) his nappy was rancid the next day from the formula.

however, we got an evening out, and a bit of respite after 13 months of waking every 2-3 hours all night.

and his routine of shrieking every 2-3 hours throughout the night was sadly unchanged by 1 night of difference.

so, OP, i don't think ywbu, but your in-laws do sound a bit uptight.