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?

Smuggety smug smug

RedRuby 7 yo trashes her room? Have you suggested that they watch or apply for Jo Frost?

To say that no parents contribute to their kids sleep issues is as ridiculous as saying that all parents do.

But as usual some people seem to think the thread refers to them.

Some children sleep badly because that's the way they are, some sleep badly because their parents are a bit crap at bedtime (see 50% of all Supernanny episodes for examples).

It is a polite fiction prevailing on MN that absolutely all posters with poorly sleeping DCs will be assumed to fall into the first group, unless they have revealed by very specific details that they are part of the second group.

I will share my top tip about CC. You don't necessarily have to do it in the middle of the night! If a child's sleep problems really are simply caused by an inability to self settle then a limited amount of CC at bedtime, when you are sane and the neighbours won't be bothered may eliminate nighttime waking (as long as you have also dealt with nighttime hunger). That's what I did with my two - substituted water for milk, then did very controlled crying at bedtime, but continued cuddles/water for nighttime crying. Can't swear that it will work for everyone and will only work if it's really a self-settling problem, but it worked for us, and beats the hell out of listening to a baby screaming at 3am.

I agree TheBestWitch.

I have had sleep deprivation, and I have also ended up with a baby in the middle of dh and I or on the sofa at 2am, we have also put baby in the car seat in desperation and gone for a long drive!

However that was through my own fault, When it comes down to my 3, and my 3 only, routine worked. On nights where the children played up it was basically down to my laziness if they came into our bed, or laziness if we ended up downstairs. If we changed a routine then it confused them, Introduced a drink etc, bad habits start. I for one can't be a martyr mum, and have insisted we stick to a routine.

If I have rushed bedtime you can guarantee bedtime takes forever, no one wants to settle etc. If I have given each of mine the attention they needed, story, a little chat etc, they have settled happily. Tough love maybe, but it works.

Where are these mythical places where parents and children and everyone else spend all night faffing about comforting each other?
I'm betting that it's in places where abject poverty is rife and space is limited, meaning everyone HAS to spend the night in one room, and the low availability of suitable weaning foods makes children's feeding habits and requirements very different from our own.

It is a relatively new thing, babies sleeping on their own anyway, previously when children shared their parents' bed as a matter of course I suspect if they did wake at night their needs would quickly be met with minimal fuss to the whole family.

Children tended to share their parents' bed because there was NO ROOM for them to have their own beds in most houses, unless they were from relatively wealthy families. People also slept together for warmth if they couldn't afford fuel for fires.

I have been to Spain, and while children there do stay up later, they have their own rooms.

DH home now, will bow out of this bunfight.

This is all "a moo point" for me because I didn't want a small child in my bed and I like time with out DCs. Others are not like me.

Just to clarify, I am not talking about young babies - there are countless reasons why they wake and I think it defies most instincts to ignore them.

I am referring to older babies around 10 months plus, who of course wake in the night - teething, sickness, just because they do and I have always gone in to comfort/soothe blah, blah. However, occasional waking and comfort is one thing. Every night is another.

I don't have perfect children and as I said earlier, they have at times been poor sleepers (ds2 was under GOSH care for reflux related breathing issues so used to wake regularly).

However, what I am referring to Parents who moan that they have had no sleep in months/years and carry out some crazy ritual at night (every night) without acknowledging that as parents they have taught their child to sleep this way. Or parents who say they feed their 15 month old three times in the night because they are hungry, for example.

the only one of my 3dc i tried controlled crying with (in desperation) is the only one who steadfastly remains a totally rubbish sleeper.

to say it didn't work - and we persevered for probably longer than we should have done, largely because we were so exhausted we sometimes ended up sleeping through her crying - would be a huge understatement.

The small clanger :) at children have their own rooms in Spain!

CC isn`t for me/us but if others want to use that method I respect that.

I, as others have said, believe that CC teaches them that there is no point in crying and thats not what I want for my DD. Shout PFB at me if you want, but until DD is a bit older and can actually tell me why shes crying then I will bring her into our bed when she wakes. She`s mostly sleeping through the night now and we always brought her into our bed when she woke up.

Maybe I am making a rod for my own back, but I did try CC when she was 8 months old because I was at breaking point and everyone told me it was the only way and I felt guilty for days. So what if she can`t remember? I remembered it for months and I really regretted giving in to what I believed in.

If you have children who self settle it is totally incomprehensible that people rock/feed/cuddle their babies/children to sleep, but also vice versa.

I have a 4mo and a 2.0yo who self settle. If you told me about a mum (40w pregnant) lying on the floor of a 20mo's room waiting for him to go to sleep (being towards the end of gradual withdrawal, having rocked or cuddled him to sleep for 17 months or so), I would now think what on earth are they doing, is she mad??!!!. And yet that was me only 4 months ago!

When DS1 was a baby and people used to put their babies down to sleep in their cots and they went to sleep I used to think their babies must be martians - there is absolutely no way that DS1 would have done that as a small baby, ever, absolutely not. Whether due to nature or traumatic delivery or stress in the womb he just had to be held the whole time. He did sleep through regularly from 7m, but I achieved that through co-sleeping for a couple of weeks to replace feeding, not CC.

The fact that DS2 pretty much always has self settled is mostly down to his personality, and a tiny part down to the fact that sometimes I have had to ignore him for 5 mins while I sorted out DS1. I reckon it is 70% nature and 30% nurture.

I do know some people who have toddlers who still wake for milk in the night, and yes they possibly could sort it with a lot of perserverence (i have a friend who has been trying for a week and it is hell), but that is so hard to do when you are exhausted and have to get up in the morning to go to work. I don't think judging them for it is very helpful.

Pish - I resorted to CC when mine was 18 months old and after 4 months of patting, shushing, gradually moving away from the cot etc etc. It occurred to me after one night sitting in the doorway, only for him to ping awake after a creak in the floorboard, and that the shushing etc was taking up to an hour to take effect, that it wasn't working.

BTW, DS2 did use to self settle as a young baby, but got out of the habit after a nasty bout of teething. I contributed to that habit by doing increasingly elaborate things to settle him.

Completely agree op but I knew you would get flamed. I was very lucky in that ds1 would have slept 23 hours out of the day if I let him-I didnt because I was very strict about feeding him every 4 hours.

With subsequent dcs I stuck to that routine and gradually dropped the night feed at about 8 weeks. Yes it can be hard-3rd dc was a bit resistent but I am one of those horrible mothers who believe a little bit of crying does a child no harm whatsoever.

I am constantly being told how "lucky" I am that I have had 3 good sleepers. Yes it is partially luck but it was also partially down to me working really hard in the first few weeks to get a good routine set.

I understand parents with sn dcs face different challenges.