to feel like I have just messed it all up with my baby ds

[rosycheeksmum]

He is 3 months old and just breastfed. I have fed him on demand during the day and at night, and now he just wants to feed all night and won't sleep in his own bed as I often fall asleep feeding him in our bed.

I suppose it's comments from family that are getting me down, you can tell they think I've ruined him and created a child who won't sleep when 'he should be starting to sleep through the night by now'.

I won't leave him to cry which is the other suggestion, that I just 'need to be tough with him and teach him to sleep in his own bed' - I don't want to be tough with my very small baby! But I feel v down today and as if I started off with a good sleeper and through my own bad habit of falling asleep with him (I try so hard not to do this, even go on MN on my phone to keep me awake at night but sometimes even if I'm sitting up it just overcomes me) i have ended up with a difficult baby and have really mucked things up. :(

You haven't messed anything up. Your baby is getting everything he needs.

My DS wasn't BF for various reasons, but he went through a stage from around 3-5 months where he would only sleep on me or my DH or in bed with one of us. He is now 7 months and sleeps through the night in his own cot.

We never left him to cry it out and didn't change anything, just kept putting hin in his cot every night and one night he slept through.

It will happen for you. If you're unhappy with advice you're being given by family and friends, then don't follow it. The best advice I got was from my auntie who said "just do what feels right to you".

I have a 13 wk old who won't be put down in the day without screaming and crying so he lives on my (or DH) knees, shoulders as he also is not a cuddly baby. He is too young at the mo to be ruined or "taught" what are you expected to do just him Cry and cry?

It's all phases ignore the comments you are doing the best for ur LO I would say those people assuming they have kids should know better

Can you please tell DD that all 3 months old should sleep through the night? . She didn't until over a year and she is a happy, clever, tough, beautiful, easy child. Don't listen to these people. You are doing fantastically.

My friends, who told me that their FF baby slept through from birth in her own room have only just added, "because we shut the door and left her". They also suggested I FF on a routine and put DD in her own room from birth. Ignore!

You haven't got a difficult baby - just difficult advisors.
Your wee baby is just three months old - you are NOT ruining him, you are doing what you are supposed to - looking after him!

You are right, they are wrong. Do continue being an excellent mum! xx

I did exactly the same with my daughter. She is now seven years old. Sleeps all night in her own bed. And has done since she was a year old (barring the occasional nightmare and even then she stays in her own bed).

Three months old is still tiny and as far as I'm concerned you're doing everything right. Trust your instincts.

you absoloutely have not runined your baby. you are doing the right thing by feeding on demand. i think you have to learn to switch off when family start telling you what you should and shouldn't be doing with YOUR child. my mum was very interfering and thought she knew it all but i had to be firm and tell her i was doing the right thing for my baby. also remember that babies change as they grow. one week your aby will be teething and require comfort from feeding the next week maybe the teething has stopped but he is going through a growth spurt (these can be mental growth spurts as well as physical so not always something you can 'see' happening). try to relax and trust your own judgement. there is lots of support here in the Breast and bottle feeding section so ask lots of questions if you need to. your baby isn't difficult by the sounds of things, perfectly normal IME.

You can't "spoil" a baby. Ignore your family and carry on doing what works for you.

You haven't messed it up at all. You need support, rather than people telling you to do things you're not comfortable with.

Are you happy to co-sleep? Because if you're happy, and that's where baby settles the most, then you should continue (with all the safety measures in place - are you're aware of them all?)

Three months is young. I breastfed and co-slept with my children until they were two (not everyone's perfect choice, but it worked for us). I worried that I'd never get them to settle by themselves and they'd never sleep in their own rooms and guess what? I was wrong. They went into their own rooms just fine.

He's your baby and you need to parent him the way that you want to parent him. Whatever's best for both you and him to get the rest that you need.

And of course, three months is classic growth spurt age, so that could be affecting his sleeping. If that's the case, this too will pass

he's a baby, not a little robot who can be programmed to do what others want. Do what you think best and ignore the unhelpful advice. For your own sake you can try getting more of the feeds in the day than night but it's up to you not anyone else.

also, my ds2 didn't sleep through the night until 16 months. i think it helps not to have any expectations as that way you aren't frustrating yourself when your baby isn't sleepig through at 4/6/10 months. all babies are as different as the mums that give birth to them.

Sounds like your baby is loved and is getting her emotional and feeding needs met in a loving way. That sounds like a great mum to me!

All the little ones get there in the end and at 3 months I think giving them unconditional love and the security of knowing mummy is there is fantastic.

Psychologically I've heard that methods like controlled crying, etc won't work until they are past 6 months anyway.

he sleeps all night long now at almost 3 in his room from 7pm. i have no issues settling him down for the night.

You've done everything right, right for you. Dd is a year and never sleeps for more than four hours but she is the happiest little thing, developmentally forward and growing beautifully.

At six months I moved her to her own room and got an ikea rocking chair and started feeding her in there in the night.

I do it - it's fine by me. Personal view - I think it's natural to do this but other people do other things and as long as it works for their children then that's fine too.

If you want to change how your baby sleeps then you should work towards that but 3 months is certainly too young for controlled crying. Lots of babies sleep through at 3 months (both of mine did) and lots dont.

Try not to get into the martyr thing of not getting any sleep and that being a badge of honour - good selfless mummy etc. If you can work your baby towards sleeping then do it, its better all round.

You are doing fine and your baby is thriving? If you get more sleep by co-sleeping and feeding on demand and your baby is healthy and happy then if someone asks about his sleeping just say it is all good and do not engage in a conversation, if you know what your family is going to say then do not bother getting advice from them.

I learned by baby 3 that I was happy with my method feeding on demand, co-sleeping etc. and if I just went on my sweet way without complaining expressing concerns or asking for advice from people I knew would stress me out with their responses - I was much happier.

If they insist on thrusting their advice on you unbidden, smile, thank them and carry on doing what works for you.

Ds2 co slept and is mostly happy in his own bed now at four. (Ocassional three am serenades and cuddles in my bed)

I have always put mine down in their cots awake so they self settle and never rocked to sleep etc, but have had no problems with them being in my bed during breastfeeding at night. I never intentionally stopped feeding at night either - they did it of their own accord, just once theyd done it a few times I didn't offer a feed at that time again if they woke. Never did controlled crying. One slept 10-6 at eight weeks, the other 8-4. One formula, one breast. No child is the same, there is no set rule for "sleeping through"

They are talking bolllocks. You are doing absolutely the best thing for him. If you are really struggling then there is no harm in trying to gently change things but he is too tiny to have bad habits, or be manipulating you. Him falling asleep with you (in your bed) will be his idea of heaven. I have co slept to varying degrees with my 2, they are now 5 and 2 and sleep all ngiht in their own bed. A friend's DD slept nowhere other than on her chest for the first 18 months both for naps and during the night, she again is fine now, own bed, sleeps all night. So whatever bad habits you're worrying that you're instilling, they will not be that hard to gently chage when the time is right.

But if you are falling asleep with your baby on the sofa that is quite dangerous. Better go to bed with the baby and have a decent sleep stretched out and comfortable.

Don't worry, you haven't messed it up at all.

I think 3 months is still very early to sleep through the night, I don?t want to frighten you, but my daughter only really started sleeping through regularly at 18months... and I say regularly as she still doesn?t always sleep though. My son however slept throught from about 8 weeks and I think this is key... ALL BABIES ARE DIFFERENT! Why don?t some people get this? Same as people are different, why do some people expect that all babies will behave in the same way?

Are you happy with the situation... obviously I think at that stage we?d all like them to sleep a little more ;) but are YOU happy having him sleep with you? If you are, leave it that way. (I?m a fine one to talk though as I still co sleep with my daughter who is now 2). I wouldn?t leave my daughter to cry either (esp at that age, it is their only means of communication) and being ?tough? with a baby is just plain batty imo.

If you want to change it, do something, if not, don?t. Just don?t disscuss it with them... or for a quiet life LIE! You are mum, you decide.

Good luck!

You haven't mucked things up and also babies learn really quickly at this young age.

I did a lot of the things you are saying with DS1 and I'm sorry to say he didn't sleep through the night on a regular basis until he was well over a year, near on 18 months actually. We never put him down awake and he was never left to cry at all day or night. He was in his own room at 8 weeks as we had a moses basket as didn't have room for a crib so when he was too big for it we had to put him in his cot, I fed him in the nursing chair in his room.

With DS2 I was determined not to make the same mistakes, for 8 weeks we had him in the moses basket in our room as obviously with newborns they don't go that long without milk and it is a bit all over the place routine wise but as soon as he was in his cot we made sure we put him to bed awake, he cried a little bit but I waited outside for about 30 seconds then went him and stroked his head or gave him his dummy and then went straight outside the room again. It wasn't full on controlled crying or anything (not like we eventually had to do with DS1 - all very traumatic) but by 10 weeks he was going to bed at 7pm, going to sleep on his own then waking up early hours for a feed then back off to sleep until 7ish.

We were a lot stricter with him and learnt how important it is that a baby can get themself to sleep but who knows he may have been a good sleeper regardless of what we did. I do wish we had listened to everyone about DS1 but we just weren't ready to change things at the time, if we had we wouldn't have had the upsetting experience of controlled crying with a young toddler.

Don't listen to anyone else if you don't feel ready to, its whatever is right for you but I just thought I would share my own similar experience with you.

Neither of my DC slept through the night until they were about 2, and I won't lie it was hard and I felt like a zombie. DS wasn't too bad though, from fairly early on, he would wake, feed, then I would put him back down.
DD OTOH went through periods of wanting to feed ALL NIGHT, and of course I had a toddler then too. But I was a big softy. I could have changed things. In fact they started sleeping when I went away for 2 nights with work and they only had DH. And even he wouldn't have left them to cry, he was just a bit firmer than me and took no nonsense (till 5am when he lets them in his bed for a cuddle :))

he's 3 months old.

you haven't spoiled anything.

DD is 15 weeks, and she sleeps in with us - makes BFing so much easier, and makes the night so much better because she doesn't have to cry for ages while I wake up and get compis mentis enough to realise she wants food (yes, we did struggle with that in the first few weeks, which is why she's in with us)

You do what makes your life easier. sod what everyone else wants you to do.
DD feeds practically all night - she'll feed and fall asleep while doing so. she'll stay latched on most of the time even when she's asleep. I just sleep while she's doing it (i'll wake up when she moves around too much or when she catches the edge of my nipple!)

Your DS is fine, you are fine.
it's all normal and natural and is much better for the baby than sleeping on his own in a cot where he thinks he's been abandoned and left.

do you know how to feed lying down?
i really think you should give it a go, so that you don't have to spend all night awake.

not saying you must, but definitely think about it.
it works for us.

Current NHS advice to new mums (here in Scotland anyway), is that babies should, where possible, be sleeping in a cot in the parents bedroom until they are at least 6 months old........ something to tell your interfering relatives/friends!

Our 17mo DS4 was in a crib by the bed for about 8 months, co -slept sometimes, then moved to a big cot in his own room. If unsettled, he still co-sleeps some nights, or if he wake early (5am!) he will usually go back to sleep in our bed rather than me having to get up at that time!

You are NOT spoiling your baby! Just do what ever gives you and baby the best nights sleep! Babies cry when they NEED something - food, warmth, human contact, I don't understand why anyone would leave a really young baby to cry.

i found this guide