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.

exactlty didl

there are worse things than sharing a double bed with a baby and no duvet

They did tell her she was to put the baby in the cot though. OP said her SIL has made it quite clear they wanted baby to be put in the cot in another room so as "not to create bad habits". While this might not be important to you (and it certainly wasn't important to me with my DS) it obviously is massively important to the SIL, possibly as important as avoiding distress is to you, I, or the OP. Otherwise why would she be carrying out this "method" when it's making her so severely sleep deprived that she's having to call relatives in to help?

The issue of cosleeping vs own room sleeping is clouding this, I think. Sorry but unless the parent's wishes are harmful I think it's hugely disrespectful to just ignore them. And if you know you can't stick to someone's parenting methods then I think you have to make that clear BEFORE you agree to look after their child.

No, it's not sleep training and is Gina Ford et al.

But the expectation is that the baby should sleep in it's cot. So when she's put down and wakes up again, she's picked up soothed and put back in the cot and so on and so forth.

She doesn't want to sleep in the cot? What is it if it's not some kind of crude sleep-training but repeatedly putting her somewhere she clearly doesn't want to be

Is waking every 2hrs usual?

I wouldn´t have thought so tbh.

And if so, surely it´s for a feed/change & will settle again?

sounds like OP was fairly much awake/drifting all night anyway

I know I always am in a strange bed especially with kids around,

even with sleepovers here I wake up at every little sound and the children are MUCH older

doesn't even sound like co sleeping, sounds like putting the baby down somewhere it would actually sleep, then kipping next to it in case it woke again.

It's hardly the losing it down the bed somewhere till it gets really hot and you can't find it scenario (happened to me once, Ok, that wasn't good)

Sorry that made no flipping sense.

She doesn't want to be in the cot, they keep putting her there, she cries and nobody sleeps.

Cot next to bed would be better option if they won't co-sleep and I understand that most people don't want to!

In a separate room where they can't hear her - fucking cruel and it makes me for the poor little thing

The ILs wishes might not be harmful but they certainly aren't putting the baby's needs first. Personally I would argue that their methods are wrong and unkind, and I don't really see why we have to pussy foot around it.

Co sleeping is a personal thing. I wouldn't do it with my DCs and think it should be up to the parents. However, I think young babies should be in with their parents at this age, not in their own room. My DS is coming up to 8 weeks and he doesnt like being left alone when he settles down to sleep. as to why a 6 week old baby needs independence.

Maybe when SIL has calmed down a bit (I really feel for her as I'm sure others do- it's awful when baby is miserable and can't/wont settle) you could gently suggest things to help settle baby.

Then you are/were very lucky diddl! DD woke every two hours at 6 weeks and one of those wakings would be followed by a 2-2.5 hour awake session.

Is it something as ridiculous as the cot feeling too big?

I have had three children and other than the shock of having my first (during the first few weeks) I have never ever felt that-tired and I was a single parent at home for a lot of that time.

Toddlers are a different story though

I know lots of people think moses baskets are ridiculous but a newborn in a basket seems much more 'right' somehow than a newborn in a cot.

Bertie, all I can find till afterwards is this:

'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.'

Nothing about bad habits till after the event

unless that's mixed up and OP was told in advance which changes things a wee bit

I don't agree with them either, and to be fair if OP put the baby down on one side of the bed and accidentally fell asleep on the other side of it then fair enough. But I still think there could have been a better solution, more suited to the parents' style of parenting.

While my PFB was prem, so for a while I did have the 2hrly feeds at night-which of course was 2hrs between the start of each feed.

But they wanted a feed & would settle after iyswim.

They weren´t crying for a reason that couldn´t be figured out.

I remember the teething as well-walking round and round to keep baby asleep & unable to put them down.

There were times that baby was next to me on the bed & husband in another bedroom.

We did what we could at the time.

He needed sleep to work the next day, I could sometimes catch up in the dy.

If not, I went to bed when he got in from work!

Problem with OPs BIL, SIL & baby is that no one appears to be sleeping!

DD was in her own room in her own cot almost immediately at night. She started sleeping through the night pretty early.

DS2 and DS3 both slept in our room at night in a basket, then a cot. DS2 woke repeatedly during the night (and still sleeps dreadfully) even after moving to his own room at about 9 months old. DS3 woke fairly frequently in our room, but at 9 months when he moved into his own room, he slept much better.

All babies are different. Some sleep better than others in different conditions.

for my take on co sleeping I'll refer you to the mumsnet guide to babies >>>

but yes it is a problem if you aren't willing to wing it to a certain extent

you can't rely solely on a Plan
babies don't work like that. something always upsets th apple cart.

YWNBU. Apologies, have only read page 1 so thread may have moved on but was getting incensed by the YWBU replies you were receiving.

I think your SIL acted in an atrocious manner. To be fair she may have been tired and overwhelmed but still she was BVU.

You are a lovely SIL for agreeing to come and help them and stay overnight with their baby. The baby slept well and that is the important thing - although this may also be what unsettled your SIL...

I feel that if you ask someone to do you such a big favour to look after your baby overnight they should trust you enough to let you get on with it as you see fit.
And your way worked so they should be very grateful.

I would have done exactly the same thing, poor little mite obviously didn't want to be on her own in the cot. Would they have preferred you to let her scream in her own room

I wouldn't apologise personally either but that's just me. You must do what you feel is best.

Good luck!

Oh yes Pomme. I remember those nights. ds would wake at three and finally settle around six (after another feed)

I also dont get why IL's can't take feeding/getting up in turns.
I did it solo- that's when you don't want to co-sleep but end up sleeping with the baby lying on your chest, held on with a blanket out of sheer desperation!

The thing is, on this website, there are plenty of people who co-sleep, and point you in the direction of good sensible research saying it's fine.

In the real world, your midwife and parents act as though you're putting your baby to sleep six inches from a cliff. Which is probably why it freaked her out.

I think the people who say she was upset you settled her might be right, but that's far from certain. Who's advising her, other than you? Her parents may well have convinced her that the baby in its own room is fine.

I think YABU - you knew they didn't co-sleep, a 6 week old in their own room would indicate that even if it wasn't explicit.

I bet your SIL was pissed off because she's suffered 6 weeks of sleep deprivation trying to do things the hard way and been desperate for help and you've come in and taken what she probably considers the 'easy' way when she's battling against it for so long.

I also don't know much about your relationship with them but they are only related by marriage, it's not like BIl or SIL are your sibling and I think what you did is quite a personal thing.

which is why it seems so daft to go against the flow.

the nights I tried stopping bfing to sleep, and the crying, and the holding and carrying about and going out in the night to try and calm him down, and all that, when he just wanted my milk.

so after trying about twice, I gave up and he still has it at four
luckily the mastitis I kept getting calmed down a lot
that was what made me try to stop, he was over a year old, I'd been really ill because of it. I thought bfing was going to kill me.

seem to still be alive though despite continuing. Luckily

to northernrock btw

But if this has been going on since baby has been home, I wonder what else they have been trying?

In hospital, my second wouldn´t settle & I slept her in with me as I felt so bad for the other mums.