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?

Some sympathy with both camps, we went from from co-sleeping, BF to sleep, to controlled crying twice when we were at the end of our tether with the time it took DD to go to sleep and then the wakings at night. I do say now it wasn't DD who needed sleep training, but us as her parents who needed to be trained into how to manage sleep issues.

I have two children. One sleeps like the dead, every night, has done since he was 4 months old. The other still wakes every night, screaming. (she's almost 2 so it's loud screaming, I feel bad for my neighbour!) Didnt do anything different with the second one, she has the same routines and rules as her brother, she just likes to wake up.

I want to slap anyone who thinks I'm somehow enabling my 20mo DS's sleep behaviour (still gets up once for milk and milk alone) by actually giving him milk. I've tried making him cry it out & it backfired. Started getting up much earlier than usual and refusing to go back down after a bottle. Left me shattered.

You can be tough and still have problems. Some children are just not good sleepers.

I have 3 - the middle one was the incredible non-sleeping toddler despite my best efforts. Sometimes patience and consistency just doesn't work.

This sort of thread reminds me of the 'fussy eaters - it's all the parents fault'.

If you manage to get your child sleeping through the night, good for you but please don't patronise the rest of us. Especially those that are sleep deprived.

yanbu at all, its not rocket science!

thetennant you say that your DCs' two week stay in SCBU gave them a perfect sleep pattern? My DD (now 4.6) spent nearly 8 weeks in SBCU and yes had a wonderful 3 hour feeding pattern when she came out. I've no idea about her sleep pattern as I would often walk into the unit in the morning to be told by one of the nurses that she had been up half the night crying.

Having said that from 6 months on she was the perfect night time sleeper and I comforted myself that whilst she hardly slept in the day at least I got a good nights sleep.

roll on the clock until she turned 2.5 and I can safely say that she has probably only slept through completely for about 3 months in total in the last 2 years. She can get up and walk into our room anything up to 4 times a night and all I do is walk her back to bed without talking, tuck her up and leave her be. Come the morning she has no recollection of getting up and often prides herself on having slept her way through!

So I am glad that your DCs are great sleepers for now, but who knows just what is round the corner? Don't think I haven't tried everything going to get her to stay in bed but sometimes poor sleep habits do not appear in the way they do on supernanny - ie screaming, crying children and parents who haven't a clue. Enjoy your full nights sleep whilst you have them

My DS1 (6) is a terrible sleeper - DS2 much better.

We actually co-slept with DS2 until he was 18 months and then we did have to do a bit of CC to get him sleeping through the night in his own bed. Every now and again he'll have a blip but only for a night or 2.

DS1 on the other hand has always been a nightmare, from the day he was born. I'm sure part of it is our fault but I think a lot of it is just down to how he is wired. He gets very hyperactive when he's tired and finds it impossible to wind down. He has never been one to snuggle down and go to sleep, he'll do headstands, thrash about, leap - even though you can see he's absolutely exhausted. And if he wakes early, he never just rolls over and dozes off again - he's up bolt upright for the day, no matter how tired he is. If he's tired he's loud, over exuberant, frantic and just annoying really .

I'm sure people will be along and say we could have sorted this when he was a baby and 'taught' him how to settle but really - I don't think he has it in him.

I was absolutely taken aback one day when DS2 said that he was tired. I have never heard DS1 utter those words in 6 years.

'This sort of thread reminds me of the 'fussy eaters - it's all the parents fault'.'

It is actually the same thing. There are people who despite all their best efforts/routines etc cannot get their DCs to sleep well. Just like their are people (me!) who despite their best efforts (no treats between meals, consistent menu etc) cannot get their DCs to eat.

HOWEVER, there are also people who enable poor sleep by
rocking DCs to sleep, answering every peep, co-sleeping with older DCs, giving older DCs milk in the night. AND their are people who enable poor eating by encouraging treats/snacking between meals etc.

The OP is talking about the second lot of people.

I'd love to invite people round to come sort out my DD, she's 3.5 years nearly and still not sleeping through the night most nights. I've done it all, from the co-sleeping to rapid return to crying it out to locking her in her room, and none of has worked so far. I'm awaiting a referral to a child psychologist for what I hope will be some sort of sleep clinic advice because I've tried and failed.

well we have 5, have co-slept with them all and fed them on demand in the night! but they all slept well, just in our bed, not an issue. then as they got older the night feeds gradually fased out, (took longer for ds2 and ds3, but very quick with ds4, and dd again fairly quick but not as quickly as ds4) then as they got older we put a toddler bed next to our bed and they slept in that and then they moved into their own rooms between 2-3.5yrs, all with no trouble at all and sleep well barring illness.

out of all of them the best sleeper has/is ds4, purely i think because he sucked his thumb pretty much from birth and so soothed himself.

we have always had a consistent bedtime routine of clean nappy, pj's milk, teeth cleaning (when they got teeth!) and cuddles/story and bed, sometimes i would lay with them, othertimes not, whatever, they let me know but at no point did i just leave them to cry. i think its cruel and unnecessary and my elder 4, who are 12yrs, 9yrs, 6yrs and 3yrs all sleep well, dd is just 10mths, has her milk and a cuddle etc, is swaddled still! and i lay her down and she is asleep within minutes, i probably re-swaddle her once or twice in the night if she needs it, she is needing it less and less, occasionally give her a bit of a cuddle, but as she is in our bed it doesnt involve me getting up so not a problem, she sleeps 11hrs at night and has a good 2hr nap during the day sometimes not as much if she is teething etc. YOU can STILL comfort your child and have them be a good sleeper, and i would much rather offer the comfort than leave them to cry.

fazed rather than fased?

YABU

I have had 4 children. 3 were good sleepers 1 wasn't. And still isn't - she needs little sleep.

Oh and we did controlled crying.

She woke the house 8 times (on average) a night. For six weeks. To the point where the next door neighbour (and we were detached) asked me in the playground to please shut her up.

And then we tried everything. Everything. In the end she got to about 4 and learned how to get up come downstairs and put the tv on.

at around 5.30am

I've never really understood why parents get so het up about babies crying, its what they do. I would rather leave my dd to cry for 5-10mins and give her the chance to settle herself than spend hours and hours rocking or likewise. I don't think you do babies any favours by not giving them the chance to learn how to soothe themselves. I am not advocating leaving very young babies to cry or any baby to cry for longer than 10mins.

Some parents imo are martyrs.

I think DS is a manipulative child, how dare he want cuddling and comforting before bedtime. How dare he wake up in the night and wander out of bed half confused, end up in the arm chair then call for us because he's a bit scared. Sneaky little two year old boy that he is

My mum left me to cry. I remember lying there aged about 4 at night absolutely convinced that there were dinosaurs under my bed wantin o eat me. However I knew that mum didn't deal with nightmares - I don't know how, I just knew. I didn't even bother tellin her I was scared of the dark during the day. I just put up with it.

So I swore I'd never do that to DS - if he needs me, day or night, I will (or DH) go to him. He woke up a lot at night but we didn't always go - we'd let him try and self settle. And he got there in the end. I think leaving him to cry (as opposed to grumble) is mean.

I am baffled why we expect all children to be able to sleep through the night when adults don't. I know that I wake up a couple of times in the night for water or to go to the loo. Like adults all children are different, some need more sleep than others.

some wake in the night for water or just that they wake up.

Don't.
It's like anything, you don't know what you are talking about unless you have actually been there, I mean really been in someone elses shoes in such situations. Sleep deprivation is hell on earth and while someone may contribute to it when you can no longer think straight and are just desparate well I'll stop and wont waste my time.

but iggly you are not complaining about his sleeping habits and I assume that he doesn't wake every night doing this? You write, "He woke up a lot at night but we didn't always go" because I suspect you knew when he needed you and you knew when he was trying to pull a fast one?

Of course I go to my children if they wake randomly and are upset. But I don't run up and down the stairs at bedtime fulfilling their elaborate demands. Because bedtime is bedtime.

I used to think like you OP, both DS1+2 slept through from 6/8 weeks without any problems, then I had DS3 who just wouldn't sleep, as much CC/routine/co-sleeping I did. God I fell of that cloud of smugness pretty fast. He was 15 months before he slept through and even then it was once in a blue moon. He is nearly three now and gets up very early every morning. He doesn't have SN BTW, just your regular run of the mill toddler.

One of my friends though, is totally to blame for her DC not sleeping as she caters to their every whim through the night, they are 4 and 5 and if they want a drink at 2am they get one, if their blanket has fallen off their bed she will go in to their demands of putting it back on, if they want their nightlight turned off she goes and turns it off.......

YABVU. Try having a child that won't sleep properly before you make comments like this.

Easy to say hard to do. DD only really started sleeping through at 4 1/2 years old and still has disturbed nights.

For years I tried everything - cc, ignoring her, lavander drops on pillow, rapid return, music, hot drinks, visits to gp, advice from HV but nothing seemed to work.

Getting up to put her back to bed sometimes in excess of 20 times a night was so exhausting that I'd often give up and just let her co sleep. She had night terrors, talked in her sleep, sleep walked and never remembered any of it in the morning.

I was a walking wreck and would have done anything to get her to sleep and I certainly don't think I contributed towards her problems.

i have been a nanny for the last ten years and still fell into the sleeping or rather not sleeping trap with my little boy and all i can say is controlled crying does work but unfortunately because of work guilt it is only now that my nearly three year old goes to sleep on his own in his own bed. i guess everyone is different but in my situation it was definitely the parenting and not the child.

My dd has a sports bottle with a little water on her bedside table, she has that if she is thirsty and gets it herself usually, or if she wakes i silently give it to her and go to bed, i don't make any communication or eye contact.

I refused to do CC and now DD sleeps through the night. Co-sleeping worked for us and now she sleeps on her bed.

Strict routines and CC don't work for everyone and it definitly didn't suit me. The comments such as "your child is tellin you what to do" "you need to show her who's boss" were ignored. I knew we'd be fine. And we are.

We all manage difficulties differently.

So do the people who are saying yabu think that parents who, for example, allow older kids to come down and watch tv after bedtime so they don't make a fuss aren't contributing to their kids being poor sleepers at all?