to think that parents contribute to the sleep issues?

[ChocolateBiscuitCake]

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?

Hmmm I've got a friend whose 3 children are poor sleepers, one is 9, one is 8 and the other 5. The children have no routine and fall asleep on sofas up until midnight and because the mum has deeprooted anxiety fears stemming from her childhood, all the children have to sleep with their lights on (mum won't let them turn lights off) and the 5 year old is up till the wee hours because she can't sleep. Strangely enough these kids sleep perfectly at grandparents house.

I think my friend is to blame for her childrens poor sleeping habits for sure but some babies are just poor sleepers, all the routines and cc in the world cannoy make them sleep. My dd2 was and still is a bad sleeper

On reading my earlier post, it appears I lost my sense of humour about this topic. Having thought about it, anyone can judge me as frankly I am rubbish at getting my child to sleep. :)

My first was extremely demanding. I subscribed to attachment parenting theory but also followed guidelines for sleeping. I also got confused about my ds' need to feed for 16 hours out of 24 and thought that couldn't possibly be right and felt too overwhelmed to meet that need, especially when he was supposed to sleep in a cot, go down at 7pm, and not be carried too much or else he would get clingy etc.

It was friggin hard work.

With DD I knew better. I just kept her by my side, offered feeds in advance of my wanting any 'peace' to gain myself that space for a journey out, time to do houseowork whatever, and went to bed with her at 9pm every night, getting up at 8am knowing that somewhere in amongst all that I'd get a good 8 hours sleep however often she fed. Okay not consecutive, but I got what I needed, and so did dd.

It was such an easy and natural thing to do, I honestly can't remember when she went in her own bed, weaned etc. but I know it wasn't particularly late. I'd just learned to have confidence in myself and not give a toss about the right way to do things.

Incidently, in countries where newborn babies have unlimited access to the breast, they feed on average every 24 minutes day and night!

Starlight I completely agree that it is normal in under developed countries but most of the work women do outside the home is such that they can wear the baby in a sling all day.

The issues arise in Western society when women need to go back to work and leave the baby in childcare. i.e. how do they nap in the day if they are nursed to sleep all night - they end up tired and grisley mostly. Co-sleeping when babies need to be breastfed at night is fine if you choose to take safety precautions in my personal opinion. I just fail to see how having a larger toddler/ pre-schooler in your bed and getting kneed in the back is going to facilitate sleep longer term. If you have disrupted sleep due to this then how do you function well in a full time job? I am genuinely interested in this, its not rhetorical. Do you all have toddlers and pre-schoolers who lay perfectly still and the same way up all night?

Anxiouselephant I've got a 14mo who is still bf in my bed and work full time. The answer is no, he doesn't lie still but kicks me in the head and is generally a pain and I'm very tired but my employer still thinks I do a good job. I could just look and feel 10 years younger if he did sleep. When he sleeps through the night, I'll probably be able to run the world or something.

OP YA definitely NBU. DS2 who is 3 is the most horrendous manipulator around bedtimes and I must admit, it is one of my parental undoings. Virtually every night ends with shouting. I have always felt very strongly that a limited amount of crying and jiggery pokery before bedtime is ignorable and unnecessary intervening protracts the misery for child and parent alike. I was much better when he was a baby but my discipline has definitely lapsed in toddlerhood. It's a bit like giving small children too many choices. However I do recognise that there are some child developmental issues which create an exeption

I guess I struggle to understand why you co-sleep still because I can't function without enough solid sleep i.e. fine having 6 hours but not in bits iyswim. I end up getting cross with the dc over trivial things and life becomes a battle. So having them kicking me all night would be my idea of hell

We co-sleep because while DS will happily sleep in his own bed for some of the night, he tends to crawl about in his sleep and often gets up without opening his eyes and tries to climb over the bed rails. And succeeds.

We could never get him in the cot without traumatic screaming episodes. And he never once slept in there. We tried for months and then gave up, co-slept and introduced his bed at 10mo, which he has liked from day one.

So it's really just me worrying about him breaking his neck in the night that means we co-sleep. We are leaving him in his bed for longer and longer though so hopefully one day he will stay there all night. Also, since he still breastfeeds at night, co-sleeping means I can just get that over with quickly and drop off back to sleep.

Sorry, went into a bit much detail!

I went back to work full-time when DD was 7 months and breastfed at night until se was 13 months. I honestly did not wake up. She just helped herself. I'm sure she didn't lay still but neither does DH so I think I've been used to it before she was born. She continued co-sleeping until her second birthday whe she got a bed as one of her gifts. No crying or sleep training needed. I have a theory as to why that was but it generally gets ridiculed by the "know it all brigade".

I'm aware many children don't go from co-sleep to own bed as easily as DD though.

Sorry, couldn't load it... What is it?

we manage fine. i am doing a full time degree, work p/t and on my own and still managed to do it well without training my ds

ds wiggles in his sleep, i do too you get used to it but nothing is more natural to me than a young child being close to their parents

while sleeping ....

I actually used to sleep far better with a toddler in the bed: I find a child's presence very soothing. Besides, it meant dh couldn't turn over on his back and snore.

I have to say that I have had my dd1 in on one or two occasions when DH was away but that wasn't so bad because there was more space. We definately would be very squashed if we all were in with DH 6.4, me (lardyish) and 2 very tall gangly dds for ages like a 5 and 8 yo, not 3 and 5!

Don't think I'd mind two toddlers in my bed but I'd be very uncomfortable with a baby and and a toddler. I make a sort of nest with my arm for the baby to sleep in (or did with DD) which takes some space. And I'd panic that the toddler would squash the baby.

Come on now folks, I'm not sure the good sleepers have the monopoly on smugness, there appears to be plenty of smuggness in the matyrdom section too.

Le Queen - Re your MiL, is there nothing you won't lay at that women's door?

Why CANT you teach a newborn baby, or at least make a start at teaching them....they know no different!
This is a really stupid thing to say, it is only in our ridiculous westernised society that we think it is the norm for a newborn baby to sleep through. Babies are supposed to sleep at night AND feed at night. They have an awful lot of growing to do and when else are they supposed to fit their feeding in. Until the age of 1 babies should be waking up during the night to feed. The exception to this is if the child naturally sleeps through and is still gaining weight without being given too much formula during the day. The whole notion that babies should be fed more during the day to get them to sleep at night is irresponsible and a major factor in why we live in an obese society as it is stretching their tiny newborn stomachs.
There is nothing wrong with having a routine and encouraging sleep, and when they are 1 I would agree that it is a good idea to have a routine and be firm about bedtime, a lot of people would benefit from doing this (for their own sanity apart from anything!) but it is also worth bearing in mind that not everybody wants to do this. If a Mum or Dad is nervous about their baby sleeping then what harm does it do for them to co-sleep if they are willing?
If the parents actively want their child to sleep during the night then there is plenty of advice that can be given but its not always going to work, if it did work for you then thats lovely, but you shouldnt assume it works for everyone. The emotional strain of hearing your baby cry themselves to sleep is so hard, especially if as someone else said you have to work and havent seen them all day...it feels like torture. Even if its just Dad that has gone back to work, it must be so hard for him after a days work to have to listen to controlled crying, or to not give in to, 'Dad I need a cuddle'. And not forgetting those with other children in the house that you dont want to disturb. I think Yabu....however, there are some people who dont help themselves, but it just doesnt apply to all.

'Why CANT you teach a newborn baby, or at least make a start at teaching them....they know no different!'

Sorry, that wasnt me saying that...it was a quote from someone elses!

YABU
but I am probably tired and emotional after not much sleep again with my 6mo DS. I feel pretty rubbish already that we can't get him into a good routine.
So thanks for this thread - makes me feel a even worse if that's possible.

newchoos, 6 months is still so tiny - there is nothing to feel bad about. At that age they do what they do, or need to do. Anyone (including on this thread) who tells you otherwise were probably just lucky that their child's needs fitted in with their wants.

And one day really soon, you'll wake up in the morning and realise that you've slept all night - then run in panicking to check that they're still breathing [hwink].

Don't let this thread make you feel bad.

...but this thread is NOT about newborn babies!!!! Of course they don't sleep through the night!!!!! Neither is it a thread about co-sleeping, albeit that many of the parents trying to get a good nights sleep have tended to co-sleep.

It is about OLDER babies (post weaning who shouldn't need to feed in the night - if they do it is probably habit rather than necessity) and toddlers who insist that they watch tv till 10pm, move into their parents bed in the early hours, take hours to settle before sleeping because they concoct some excuse as to why they can't go to bed etc.

I still stand by the fact that if parents were tougher in these instances, the children would stop being boss and go to sleep. Achieving this, however, is hard, because a lot of parents don't like to say NO and can't bear to hear their children cry.

sorry, someone else quoted that about newborn babies. I think youre a bit naiive to think your way would work and everybody else isnt trying hard enough. You have said from 10 months plus though and I would disagree and say they need to be at least a year before they have any kind of reasoning. Youve been told you are unreasonable a lot, which I think shows that people are offended by what you say. Sleep is a highly sensitive subject and if youve had a crappy sleeper, then to be told by yourself that they should be doing this and its their own fault is pretty insulting, so you should maybe stop fighting the majority. And please, please, if you have a friend whose child is sleeping badly, never tell them what you really think because they wont thank you for it.

Posts saying things like, "Just put them down and let them sleep" are obviously written by people who haven't had awkward sleepers. It isn't always that easy, there isn't always something that you can do right.

I have 2 girls, DD1 is now 2.5, DD2 7 months. They are chalk and cheese when it comes to sleep, and have been right from the beginning. DD1 wouldn't sleep in the day, except on someone, usually me. I got a sling which helped. She wouldn't settle herself and didn't sleep in her cot in the day. I remember spending hours trying to get her to sleep in her cot, I tried different techniques, etc. She had 2 feeds a night until around 10 months when a combination of things, including controlled crying, clicked together and she started sleeping through.

DD2 slept really well right from the beginning. In fact, her first night, in the hospital, she slept 6 hours and a midwife told me off for letting her sleep so long. At about 4 or 5 weeks, she started sleeping 8 hours a night most nights. She settles in her cot by herself, sometimes without even a murmur.

I knew DD1 was a bad sleeper, but didn't realise quite how bad until I had DD2, at one point I wondered if she was sleeping too much, talked to a few friends and family, to find out that it was normal for a baby to sleep that much!

I haven't done anything radically different with these 2, I didn't suddenly work out the answers with DD2, they are just different children.

Yes, some parents let their DCs get into bad habits, but it doesn't mean that all sleep problems are down to the parents.

Some babies are good sleepers, some are not and have to be sleep trained at some point, or it can continue. Some parents don't realise they can even do sleep training, and let things carry on because they don't know what else to do. Sometimes even sleep training fails too.

If you have a good sleeper, it isn't necessarily because you've done everything right. If you have a bad sleeper, it doesn't mean you've done anything wrong.

Op, I agree with you. Sleep training my dd was hard work but resulted in a child who is an excellent sleeper. I get so sick of friends saying 'oh you're so lucky'. Not luck, training. You chose to let your child fall asleep on you for months on end, now you complain they can't self settle. You real what you sow.