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.

Could just say that I wouldn´t expect to have to tell someone to not co-sleep with my baby for them not to do it.

I would have thought that the fact that baby was in a different room in this case made it an obvious no no.

But if baby was asleep on the double bed then that wouldn´t bother me.

Snuggled under the duvet with another adult I wouldn´t like.

I can't help but think that saying "unless she actually said no co-sleeping.." is really a valid point. After all, I imagine she didn't say "no breastfeeding the baby yourself" or "no feeding it baby rice" or a number of other things as well. Does that mean that anything is game as long as the mum didn't tell you no?

I still maintain that as you are not the baby's mum, you should not have co-slept, or at the very least should have asked the mum first. You MUST have discussed the baby's general care/schedule, so it's not like you didn't have an opportunity to ask if it would be okay with her if necessary. And as you say you co-sleep yourself and seemed to be critical right away of their sleeping arrangements, I find it hard to believe that it didn't occur to you to ask.

paula - except that in this situtation the baby is screaming all night anyway, it's not like it was sleeping well and now it's going to be unable to settle. The SIL asked for a break and that's what they got.

When ds was 6 wo, my sister stayed and looked after him. He had reflux, undiagnosed at this point, and wouldn't sleep for more than an hour at a time. He also screamed a lot, for hours on end. I needed help, or I would have hurt myself or him.

I don't think it was weird, she offered. I out ear plugs in and had more sleep in one night than in the previous week!

I've pondered this a bit more.

I think if you value your relationship to your SIL then you'd be well advised to apologise for having done something they are so vehemently against.
Personally, I'd never help out overnight again.

I agree co-sleeping like so many parenting decisions is hugely devisive. All I can say is that I did; to my great surprise. I never liked it particularly much (I don't sleep well with somebody else in bed with me - I barely tolerate DH ), but particularly with DSs1 and 4 is was a matter of sheer survival.
I am well aware of SIDS guidelines - that is what they are: guideline, they guide you.

Were I ever to have another refluxy/premature/generally unsettled baby I am sure I'd co-sleep again - needs must, and all that.

Paula, all my DSs self-settled, all in their own time, varying from 6 weeks (corrected age) to 14 months... . Awkward buggers, babies !

Sorry, I am rambling. This thread is not a discussion about the merits or risks of co-sleeping.
OP, great to hear your DN is gaining some weight. Her parents will be near psychotic with sleep-deprivation, worry and the desire to Do The Right Thing. I think be gracious about the whole thing and there is every chance that with time they will relax a bit.

It wasn´t about getting baby to sleep, was it?

Because why did they think that baby would magically settle with someone else putting her to bed?

How selfish they are to ask a bfeeding mother to give up a night´s sleep-and go ballistic when she didn´t!

I think YWBU by co-sleeping without checking before you all went to bed. I say this as a confirmed from birth co-sleeper.it is similar to someone leaving my baby to cry. They may think it is perfectly acceptable to do so as their children turned out fine, but it goes against everything I believe about infancy.

However, I do agree that some of the problem may be other unsaid (and perhaps even unacknowledged) issues about control and training that is making this situation seem worse.

I woul apologise profusely and perhaps offer to help out in other ways in the future but not overnight again

but Triggles many people be completely unbothered about co-sleeping. If I trusted someone enough to take my baby overnight I would accept that co-sleeping might be part of the deal - it wouldn't occur to me to okay it or not.

The point is that obviously the OP and her SIL have very different ideas to what's normal parenting. Why should it be ONLY down to the OP to establish what those boundaries are? Surely the SIL has equal responsibility to set out what's ok?

SIL presumably knows that the OP co-sleeps. If I were handing my baby over to someone who gave their 6 week old rusks to chew on, you know what? I WOULD say "please don't give him anything apart from milk".

Selfish?? How ridiculous. The OP seemed to be happy to help. What if the co-sleeping hadn't worked and the baby still screamed and cried all night? The OP would have then been awake all night - and there was every chance of that happening.

IMO, if you're offering to help someone for the night because they haven't had any sleep due to the baby being up all night over and over, then I would say it's a fairly reasonable assumption that there's every possibility that YOU may not get any sleep that night because... well, duh.. the baby may be up all night.

It's not rocket science.

I didn't intend to co sleep, the baby screamed every time I tried to put her in the cot. Bil and sil said that they haven't had more than 2 hours of unbroken sleep in 6 weeks. The reason is that the baby needs to be near another human being to feel secure and sleep.

It's not rocket science it's human instinctive behaviour.

What about you or dh having a word with SILs DH (depending on who's side of the family it is) he might be a bit calmer. Again, sorry for upsetting them, didn't occur to you would be a prob as you thought they wanted to sleep but you are worried about her/them.

How funny triggles, we both said rocket science. Great minds and all that

This is relevant I think

was there a duvet involved
I imagined OP sleeping near the bby on the same massive bed,

NOT under a duvet with the baby in her arms etc.

In terms of non co sleeping/routines vs non co sleeping/non routines, I don't necessarily correlate the two but I intended 'routine' to include all aspects of how they wanted their baby to learn to sleep. As in

'She said that she doesnt want her dd getting used to cosleeping amd wants her to be independent. '

I meant it like that. I understand loads of people don't have a routine and don'#t like co sleeping either.
I think you just mucked up their vision of what the baby needed to learn, full stop, without intending to...they are thinking ahead, you were thinking in the moment (imho much more appropriate with a very tired 6wko)

you do whatever it takes
NOT what will work best in a year or two

No duvet, double bed.

Yes, selfish-they asked for help & then shouted at the one person who enabled them to have a good nights sleep.

I say again - YANBU -you did them a favour.

I think it sounds like whatever you did you might have got an earful!

You could acknowledge you were wrong to do it without asking, but give all the reasons you did - and maybe give them a copy of a book which advocates co-sleeping? Especially if it's one that gives methods of how to stop, as well, because I think the fear around co-sleeping is mainly that they will be storing up a huge battle later, and I really don't think that is the case. It's perfectly viable to co-sleep for a short period, say the first 3 months, or 6 months, or a year, or until they can have a bed of their own.

theyoungvisiter - but the OP has already stated the SIL was exhausted and out of it. A few things to remember in this situation:

• they were putting the baby in a cot in the other room, a fairly clear indicator that they were NOT co-sleeping
• the OP co-sleeps with her children and is obviously "pro co-sleeping" (and no, I'm not saying that's bad - it's her choice)
• most people that DO co-sleep are relatively aware that some people are very uncomfortable or opposed to co-sleeping

That means that OP should have either asked first or not done it. Very basic common sense, really.

I can see why SIL went ballistic. As I would imagine the SIL doesn't really know the OP's sleeping habits - she's got no clue how heavy or light a sleeper the OP is, or whether or not she moves around a lot in her sleep. And again, it seems fairly obvious that she is not co-sleeping, so is either unfamiliar with it or simply doesn't like it.

I think the OP overstepped the boundary by simply not asking. How hard is that? Even if I'd been exhausted and finally getting some sleep, I hardly think I would have been bothered by being asked about it during the night if the OP was struggling. If the baby "needed to be cuddled" (and tbh I still think the OP made a few assumptions here), then the OP could have sat and held the baby while it slept, then if the baby fussed when going into the cot, the OP could have woken up her husband (as he was along as well) and let him take a shift with the SILs baby while the OP got a bit of sleep.

'.it is similar to someone leaving my baby to cry. They may think it is perfectly acceptable to do so as their children turned out fine, but it goes against everything I believe about infancy.'

No it's not though because in that situation the baby is distressed for a good length of time before falling asleep...presumably...and if it goes to sleep within a couple of minutes there's no issue anyway.

in the OP's scenario the baby was distressed minimally because she stopped it crying by doing what she did.

Totally different.

You Do risk sounding a tiny tiny bit judgy when you say what their baby needs though... I totally agree with your point, and think little babies need as much human contact as poss, and it wouldn't have entered my head to have him anywhere but in my room - he's still there at 33 weeks - BUT I wonder if your understandably very very sensitive and sleep deprived SIL may have felt judged even tho I'm sure you didn't say it in so many words? lots of my mates had their babies in their own rooms at 4-8 weeks, I wouldn't have dreamed of telling them that this was why, in my view, their babies don't sleep tho!

Suspect they are so exhausted they can't see the wood for the trees. They may have needed sleep but perhasp sil felt gulity especially given that you had managed to achieve what they hadn't whcih may prve a blwo toi whatever confidence they had. tbh they sound a bit difficult to deal with in their present state, any chance she has pnd ? Yes a new baby is hard going and exhausting but if she is ff neither should have to survive on bursts of 2 hours sleep.

I guess you should apologise if only because you may have misunderstood what the intention of this was and the "rules". It will seem a big deal now but hopefully will fade over time. However clearly your ideas of parenting differ and perhaps you need to tread more carefully in offering help or advice for now.

but sil knows I co slept with ds since birth. She has never said that she agrees or disagrees with it.

I've bruised her ego obviously because the baby slept well. I don't understand anyone who could keep putting a six week old baby back in her cot only for her to wake up and cry seconds later.

yes to presume the baby only needed human contact to sleep perfectly is a bit, well, presumptuous so keep that to yourself if you ring her up

You may well be right but who knows, maybe it was just knackered, maybe it was a fluke.

you need to keep the presuming out of it - it's not relevant.