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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that parents contribute to the sleep issues?

397 replies

ChocolateBiscuitCake · 12/10/2011 14:22

Disclaimer: I have two DC who have not always been brilliant sleepers and go through patches of wakefullness at night/early in the morning (!) but...

I have been reading some of the sleep threads and am really surprised by the number of people who have older babies or toddlers who sleep SO badly whilst claiming that they don't know how to improve the situation and won't do any form of CC.

From my experiences, babies have to learn how to sleep well and they do this by you setting up routines and helping them along the way. If you feed your 12 month old milk in the middle of the night, they will keep waking for milk in the night. If you bring them into your bed, they will want to be in your bed. If you have to lie down and hold their hand, they will expect you to be there holding their hand if they wake up.

Nothing changes overnight and teaching your baby/child to sleep well takes patience and consistency. But leaving a baby to cry for 5 minutes is not going to hurt it and ignoring a toddler whilst you drag them back to bed and not give into their ridiculous demands is not difficult. We are the adults!

AIBU to think that some parents need to be a bit tougher rather than find some miracle cure for poor sleep habits?

OP posts:
bringmemoonshine2011 · 13/10/2011 21:13

Why is sleep such a sodding competition? What if we swapped it for something else? Like potty training for example ...

Are you TRYING to destroy the last bit of my self esteem?! Eldest is not potty trained and at this rate never will be. Ppl competitive about sleep bec changing a nappy is small fry compared to waking up every hour for 2 years.

OBVIOUSLY!

Ormirian · 13/10/2011 21:18

"Not surprisingly, all 3 of my MIL's DCs suffer with insomnia, and other related sleep problems."

Chicken and egg. How the hell do you know that those problems were caused by lack of 'sleep training' or that the good habits never formed because of problems that were inherent in those individuals.

I am athsmatic - perhaps my mother could have trained me to breathe better Hmm

CristinaaarghdellAaarghPizza · 13/10/2011 21:19

I wasn't trying to make you feel bad bringmesunshine :( I was trying to point out that all children are different, all children do stuff in their own time and competitiveness about any part of child development is, well, pants.

NinkyNonker · 13/10/2011 21:21

My mum was pretty strict with us and I am a bad sleeper at the best of times and a chronic insomniac at the worst. Doing my head in at the moment.

bringmemoonshine2011 · 13/10/2011 21:24

I hope DS2 gets to his own time of sleeping through pronto then!

CristinaaarghdellAaarghPizza · 13/10/2011 21:29

My mum was strict with me. When I woke up in the night, I sat on the top step of the stairs, singing every nursery rhyme I knew.

DS is a shit sleeper but he knows he's on his own in the middle of the night and I won't get out of bed (and demand quiet) until 8am at the weekend. I think that's pretty good sleep training. I can't actually make him sleep though

StarlightMcKenzie · 13/10/2011 21:34

Oh sumgger off OP!

forkful · 13/10/2011 22:01
Morloth · 13/10/2011 22:35

I sleep best when we are all in the same room/bed. Feels like they are 'safer'.

Unfortunately for me the boys seem to sleep better in a different room, but I still like that room to be as close as possible to ours.

So it isn't automatically a hindrance to adult sleep to cosleep.

welliesandpyjamas · 14/10/2011 08:45

Me too, morloth. I love hearing everyone breathe Blush

BertieBotts · 14/10/2011 09:30

Really Cristina? I thought you weren't supposed to tell them off for potty training accidents any more, it's supposed to lead to all sorts of problems.

There is a difference between how you deal with a child who is genuinely upset and one who is doing "fake crying" to make you think they are upset. But a child of the ages we are talking about on this thread doesn't wake up and then demand adult attention because they like to feel important or whatever bullshit reason, they have an actual reason for wanting you - probably because they either can't get back to sleep or feel afraid, and just because you think it's silly to be afraid of being alone at night, doesn't mean they will stop being.

I stand by what I said earlier that some of us actually do feel this is cruel. And we would no more leave our children to cry alone at night than strap them into bed and beat them for daring to wake up in the first place, no matter how frustrating it gets. And nothing you say is going to suddenly persuade us that it's an okay thing to do, so putting the parent on a guilt trip about how they've "caused" the problem isn't going to help and is probably going to make them feel worse. So how about if you have nothing actually helpful to say, stick to the threads where people do want advice about controlled crying or routines or the other things that you actually have done and agree with and have experience of. There is no reason why we can't all exist in the same space without insults and blame flying around.

BertieBotts · 14/10/2011 09:33

forkful that looks good. DP works nights and uses "Relax to Sleep" for Android, which is a combination of white noise/general relaxing sounds, like rain music - there's loads to choose from (although we find the monks hysterical and the Christmas bells sound slightly sinister Grin) and then it fades out slowly when it finishes as well.

hardboiledpossum · 14/10/2011 09:37

Christina, are you saying 12 month olds should be potty trained???

CristinaaarghdellAaarghPizza · 14/10/2011 09:40

No, I am not saying that. What I was trying to say (badly) that if you substitute any other thing that children do in their own time like potty training, it shows up the absurdity of the OP's position.

NinkyNonker · 14/10/2011 09:41

I think she was demonstrating how silly this whole thing is by substituting the word sleep for potty training...apart from the fact no-one seems to have got it she has proved the point I think!

NinkyNonker · 14/10/2011 09:41

Cross post!

CristinaaarghdellAaarghPizza · 14/10/2011 09:44

But thank you NinkyNonker - at least one person got what I was trying to say! :o

hardboiledpossum · 14/10/2011 09:46

So I'm a lazy, sloppy parent because I don't want to do CC. I've had a bedtime routine from day 7, He could self settle from 6 weeks, slept through from 12 weeks but from 6 months he would wake in the night and seem genuinely distressed. I don't think I'm lazy for leaving my distressed baby to scream himself to sleep.

MidsomerM · 14/10/2011 09:50

Sorry, I still believe you are falling into the smugness trap OP. You claim to know what it's like to have difficult sleepers, but actually you say your DCs "go through patches of wakefulness". Trust me, that is not the same as having a baby who from day 1 just doesn't get the sleep thing.

Parents on the whole don't perpetuate or exacerbate sleep problems. They just do what they can to stay alive.

Do you really think that the first time parents have a bad night, they give baby a belly full of milk, bring them into their bed, read them a story, sing them a song, put the TV on etc etc? Of course they don't. These are the things people do after desperation sets in after weeks of sleep deprivation.

Please, you people whose children have always slept well, don't be arrogant enough to think it's your perfect parenting that's done it. It's almost certainly luck.

And the person who said a child who was awake till 5am should see a GP - I'm a GP and that certainly wouldn't constitute a medical problem in the absence of other symptoms.

BertieBotts · 14/10/2011 09:52

Ohh, sorry Christina Blush Yes I agree!

pigletmania · 14/10/2011 10:02

I know Christina where your comming from. She is simply trying to re word op post and substituting it for potty training and letting op see how silly it is

pigletmania · 14/10/2011 10:06

Yes she has it's proved a point quite well. Sleep dies seem quite competitive

hardboiledpossum · 14/10/2011 10:07

Oh I see. Sorry Christina. Silly me.

CristinaaarghdellAaarghPizza · 14/10/2011 10:26

Next time I will flag it much more clearly! I think the only person who is silly is me (particularly as I write for a living :o)

littlewheel · 14/10/2011 10:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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