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?

Reap not real, obviously.

I let my children sleep on my for months on end and they are both excellent at going to sleep and staying asleep.

I put it down to attachment parenting and them feeling secure and independent and knowing that they would not be abandoned.

It was hard work. People say I am lucky when they are battling with some version of CC and it still isn't working. I say it was all completely down to my insistance and relentless resolve to continually meet the needs of my babies.

Good for you, Starlight, you chose not to do any sleep training and you are happy with the way things turned out. Lovely. But you are missing the point of this thread, which is about people who choose not to do any sleep training and then complain about the consequences; ie like the friends I refer to who enjoyed their babies falling asleep on them for the first few months but 16 months on are tearing their hair out because now they are desperate for an undisturbed night's sleep and it still takes them hours of rocking to get them to sleep in the first place.

People who chose not to do any sleep training are not unaffected by societies expectations and judgements upon them. They don't do 'attachment' properly. They do some wierd in between thing through guilt, and performance and they constantly struggle between what they instinctively want to do and their assessment of themselves against societies expectations and the judgement of other.

That is what leads to uphappy situations.

just because you dont want to do cc does NOT mean you cant complain about lack of sleep, i would say most parents at some point complain about lack of sleep, its a normal part of parenthood.

i co-slept with all mine, still do with 10mth old dd, but she goes down at a normal bedtime and sleeps in bed on her own in the evening, its taken a while to get there but i have never left her to cry, dp and i dont agree with it, and would never do it, it doesnt mean that we dont have a consistent bedtime routine etc or that we cant moan about lack of sleep at times.

why should the fact that a parent WONT do cc mean that they lose the right to have a moan about lack of sleep?!! thats a ridiculous argument. i wont do it because i fundamentally do NOT agree with it, that doesnt mean i dont have to be 100% happy all the time about sleep or lack of it.

Absolutely. I hate hate HATE clearing up baby vomit, and changing nappies and it is a part of parenting I sometimes have a whinge about.

and thats another issue with cc, or any prolonged crying, all of mine are very quick to cry and then within minutes if i cant get to them ie on the toilet, in the shower, they will cry, cough, gag and throw up. dd is a pro at it, she can cry and reach vomiting point in under a minute most annoying, so even if i wanted to do cc, i couldnt as they would just be sick and you cannot say that is NOT traumatic for a baby/child, crying to the point of vomiting is upsetting for anyone!

I agree madboys.

I am always amazed that some people think that one size fits all babies (and parents) which they will happily disregard as the child gets older or another area which they have a problem with and therefore assume there is not a simple solution.

Eating is a good example. All children go through a fussy stage but I know that DS1's fussy stage was nowhere near as extreme or severe as a friend's was. I just kept feeding him and eventually he relented. For her, it's a constant battle to get him to eat different things (and no she doesn't just give him pasta/toast/yoghurt or any of the other rash assumptions other parents make).

DS1 is also now (at 6) a reluctant reader or actually doing anything at all outside school apart from tearing around. I can complain about this but 'I make DS do 20 minutes handwriting practice a day and he does it happily and never complains' is not helpful or relevant.

I realise I've gone off topic here but I fail to see why mothers beat each other up. Both my DS slept on me (and only on me) for the first 4 months of their lives. DS1 is a terrible sleeper, DS2 an excellent one. However I wouldn't have swapped those 4 months of cuddling for the world. They are my most cherished memories of early babyhood, amongst all of the angst.

I feel really sad that some mothers denied themselves that very short, special window and then crow about it later that they must have done something wondrous.

I have seldom seen a more unpleasant, bitchy and judgemental thread on MN - even on AIBU.

So parents who feel that their children deserve to be responded to when they need comfort, who refuse to leave their children to cry because of the extensive scientific evidence as to the severe stress that it causes a baby and the potential damage to their brains caused by them being flooded with cortisol, and refuse to follow a relatively recent cultural system rather than the way that humans are designed (to be close to their parents at all times) are just making a (yawn) rod for their own back and it's all their own fault? They can't from time to time mention that this parenting lark is tough? Wonderful, amazing, but just sometimes a bit hard?

What a shame.

There are many, many ways to manage what is NORMAL in a baby and toddler - ie night waking - other than CC. Many ways which follow the instincts of both baby and mother, and don't leave a baby to feel that they've been left out for the tigers (which is their natural, instinctive reaction to being away from a caregiver - a baby will be, in his mind, without understanding it, screaming for his life).

Of COURSE some babies settle after crying for a couple of minutes. It is PROBABLY FINE to do that if you want to/feel it's right for you. There is a whole spectrum of what's called CC and following parts of the spectrum are absolutely fine. Different to what some people may do, and that's fine too.

BEING A PARENT IS EXHAUSTING, no matter what choices we make. Babies and toddlers are DESIGNED to be poor sleepers - it's a survival mechanism. There are virtually NO cultures in the world which sleep train other than some western countries and that's only a recent cultural change. It is NOT necessary to sleep train to get a "good sleeper". Babies are designed to easily wake as it's a SIDS protective mechanism as well as a way of ensuring that they are not left alone and in danger (in fact in countries where co-sleeping is the norm SIDS is virtually unknown). Understanding this helps parents to accept what is normal, and what will pass (yes, a baby who is used to falling asleep on his parents will eventually - shock horror - learn to sleep alone). It is perfectly fine to "complain" about how tough this is.

I'll stop now and go back to my normal forum. Serves me right for venturing in here :( and, obviously, .

"However I wouldn't have swapped those 4 months of cuddling for the world. They are my most cherished memories of early babyhood, amongst all of the angst."

I wish that there was a "love it" button or emoticon sometimes.

Or, in the words of the wonderful Dr Sears:

"Babies will wean and someday they will sleep through the night. This high maintenance stage of nighttime parenting will pass. The time in your arms, at your breast, and in your bed is a relatively short while in the life of a baby, yet the memories of love and availability last forever."

exactly oraganiccarrot they are little for such a short period of time and it is totally normal that they want to be close to their mother/father, even WHEN sleeping

we have 5 kids, eldest 12, youngest 10mths, the one time we tried to do cc, as we were told to by my mum, hv etc it broke my heart and dp's and we didnt even leave ds1 to cry but dp sat by his cot, he was distraught, it was awful so no we didnt do it again and when we had ds2 we packed the cot away and now dont own one, never used it for the younger 4, just co-slept which they all grew out of on their own with no tears.

interestingly we have just rearragnged bedrooms and until we get another mattress for one of the bunk beds, ds3 is in a room on his own and at 6yrs old having always shared, either with us or with one of his brothers, he doesnt like being in a room on his own, makes a fuss going to bed etc, he does then sleep fine but he is much happier with one of his siblings in the room wiht him. humans tend to crave contact with other humans, again totally NORMAL, so why anyone would deny that to a BABY is beyond me tbh.

Starlight - so my friends' problems stem from them trying to fulfil society's expectations rather than doing what they instinctively want to do? Funny, the impression I get from them repeatedly is that what they instinctively want is a good night's sleep. I'll tell them they're just not 'doing attachment properly' then, I'm sure that will reassure them .

Interesting how a lot of people say they regret cc their LO's but very rarely say they regret not cc'ing and co-sleeping/bf ing or cuddling them to sleep instead, obviously if they've made that much spoken of rod in general they don't mind living with it too much...

For a good night's sleep, reduce your housework, go to bed really early with your baby and co-sleep. If you go to bed from 8pm to 8am with your baby you'll certainly get at least 8 hours sleep in that time, most likely a lot more as when you get used to it you just don't notice when the baby latches on and off.

yeah i just used to go to bed earlier, it doesnt have to be that early either, i was in bed by 10pm, then was up at 7am the next day, i was fine with that amount of sleep, and i got so i didnt notice the latching on etc.

and yes we regret the night of cc we tried with ds1, but have NEVER regrettedt eh next 12yrs of co-sleeping we have had with our kids, thats not us co-sleeping with a 12yr old! but the subsequent kids we have had and probably another 2 yrs with dd will make 14yrs of co-sleeping and i dont regret it one bit. i have years in my future to sleep on my own and i also think we have been led to believe this 'must have 8 full hours sleep' regime and yet taht is not how humans are designed to sleep, its normal to wake, to have periods of light sleep etc and then doze back off again, not to be out cold for 8hrs, i dont every remember sleeping that long in one go, even before i had kids!

I don't believe in CC. I think its cruel and I think it does emotional damage. I am not however, against other methods of getting your LO sleep FROM THE AGE OF 12 MONTHS and not before this. Just my opinion.

Am I the only one who is a bit at the idea of co-sleeping for 12 years and going to bed with your dc at 8pm?

well its what we have done, there has been brief periods inbetween children, when one stopped co-sleeping before the next one was born, but i dont go to bed at 8om, when they are little i go to bed by 10pm and as they get older i can if i want to stay up later, ie at the moment the earliest i am in bed is 11pm more often is between 12-1am, which is too late really when i have to get up at 6:30 but i do like my evenings.

and you do co-sleep with your husband/partner i am assuming rhubarb child/adult, its still co-sleeping with someone in bed wiht you and not on your own.

i actually will probably feel quite sad when dd moves to her own bed, she is our last baby and whilst there is the odd occasion when i long for a bit of a break (like most parents) i love having her snuggle up in bed, sometimes she sleeps in my arm, normally not, but if she has a cold cough etc then she sleeps better sort of proped up in my arm and she snuggles her head into my shoulder and its lovely, her fluffy hair and baby smell, i love snuggling up with her like that and falling to sleep and then waking up to her babbling and huge grin in the morning, whats not to like?

Rhubarbgarden, your comment earlier on in the thread reminds me of a colleague who once put her arm around me, patted my shoulder and said "Seriously, take two weeks off and sleep train your child. It will be the best thing you ever did. I never regretted it." Fast forward three years and she is now tearing her hair out with DC3 who won't respond to ANY of her training techniques. She looks very shocked. Permanently. I'm not sure whether that's down to sleep deprivation or the realisation that she has been talking self-satisfied bollocks all these years. Either way I'm there for her...

Now for everyone else, let me break it down for you because you are obviously FAR TOO THICK to understand.

If you do not leave your child to cry themselves to sleep for as long it takes you may not complain about being tired because you have brought it on yourself. Furthermore you are a Bad Parent who is unable to discipline your child at all. At all.

And when your DC are adults and being led away to jail people will cross their arms and say "And you know that's all because their parents didn't train them to sleep when they were babies. It's a life skill, you know. Falling asleep."

Got it? Good.

lol latsia yes that is the assumption isnt it, that if you dont sleep train then you must be a 'soft' parent who doesnt discipline your child and is all lentil weavery etc. so far from the truth, yes i co-slept, yes i bfed (and also bottlefed the younger 2) and used a sling sometimes, but am i consistent, do we have a routine, do i say NO to my children, do i tell them off and have i brought them up to have good manners and be polite etc hell yes. you can co-sleep and still have boundaries and be a good parent, it doesnt mean you are a lazy parent who takes the easy way out, which seems to be the assumption of many on this thread.

Rhubarb, it is what most people, the world over, do. As I said, it is just our warped cultural and societal anti-child influences that make us feel like it might be wrong.

And we don't teach our children's digestive systems how to work, so why on EARTH do we need to teach them to sleep which is another necessary biological function. How did babies sleep in the womb without such training?

yes arent we lazy and 'odd' starlight, doing what most people do all over the world

Dear ChocolateBiscuitCake, some of us do not want to traumatise our children by forcing them into unnatural sleeping patterns. It's not natural, normal, or developmentally desirable for babies to sleep for long periods. Not only do sleep training methods line CC have implications in brain development and cause detachment problems, but forcing babies to sleep for long stretches also increases SIDS risks.

So do take your stupid judgemental tone and off you jolly well fuck. Theres a dear.

i can guess on here who just loves to ask the question at baby groups does your ds sleep 7 to 7 with a smug mile

I do think that this is a useful discussion to have but I think that the problem is that some are viewing this as a very black and white issue and others as a very murky grey. That's the crux of the argument - personally I don't think it is black and white.

The decisions around sleeping (and many parenting issues) are based on a balance of things including circumstances (work / stay at home / working hours / help / impact on other children / impact on marriage etc), child's temperament and I think a parent's priority on the parenting scale - so if there is a risk that you will look back and remember putting your child through it and feel guilty you are less likely to do it, but if you're quite pragmatic and think - well they won't remember - then possibly more likely. If your child falls asleep after only 5 or even 15 minutes of grizzling or so (as in OP's example, presumably drawn from another thread) while you attend to your toddler, then you are perhaps more likely to do it than if your baby hangs in there for 45 minutes, red faced and hysterical, irrespective of whether someone tells you that it will work if you keep doing it. People draw their lines in different places. Just because the imperative for some is to cuddle their children over leaving them to cry, doesn't mean they don't want their sleep and it doesn't mean they can't complain. Equally it doesn't make those who took the decision to leave their children to cry and it worked bad parents either necessarily (well, it does sometimes but not always). We all know that parenting isn't supposed to be easy. It's all a balancing act. There will always be camps and there will always be parents who refuse to acknowledge that other routes are equally valid.

Then of course there are the ones who have done CC, regret it, and target parents who aren't confident into doing it in order to make them feel better about their own decisions. But they're another story IMHO...