outlaws

[GEM33]

i ve got a 7mnth old dd. for the first time today i left her with in laws. they came round to our house and as i was leaving i explained to them that i was only going for half an hour or so as i had a works do to go to afterwards. i told them that dd would be ready for her afternoon nap in 40 mins so in 20 mins i wanted them to put her baby einstein dvd on as it relaxes her before her sleep. i got back and they hadnt put her dvd on and she was looking tired so i just put it on and told them i would get changed ready to go while they were still here. when i came back they were still trying to entertain dd. then they wanted a drink and stayed for another hour and a half.
they understand that we have great problems with dd sleep and that she really needs to go to sleep in the car seat to get to sleep in the afternoon. she has to go after being awake for 3 hours. so dd got exhausted and got stranky while they were here but they still wouldnt go. i felt too polite to say ok can you go now. in the end i had to put dd on my boob to get her to sleep and she slept a 45 min sleep cycle and then later when i put her in the car seat she couldnt get back to sleep. (she needs 2-3 hours in the afternoon)
i kept dropping hints i was supposed to be at this works do but they just stayed until i finally said i really am going to have to go.

so for the rest of the day dd was really massively overtired and didnt sleep long enough now she is awake i missed the works do. ive got a ball of anger inside me that wont go away.

1. they didnt listen to my instructions about the dvd and the sleep times
2. they dont seem to have listened to me that i was telling them when my dd was tired and needed to go to sleep

3 they totally disregarded the fact that i was due to go somewhere (with my dd i have to point out)

1. im angry at myself for not having the balls to say quickly at the beginning ok i have to go.

if it was my mum i can talk to her straight but my partner has this like mega awkward respect for his mum and dad and they can never do any wrong and if i say they have done something not quite right he always sticks up for them. they ll probably enver know the bloody shitty day i ended up having all because they outstayed their welcome and now ive been up all frikin night with an overtired baby that cant settle,.
they ahve pissed me off loads before by not respecting me and not listening to things that i say.
it makes me not want them to spend any time with my dd. (this is unreasonable of me i know) and i definitely dont want them to have her in their charge as they clearly wont follow my dds routine.
i just wanted to get this off my chest somewhere because i cant do it anywhere else.
thanks for reading if you have. im sure theres worse things could happen.

The way I understood the OP was that the ILs had come round to babysit. The OP told them that she would be out for half an hour. Upon return, she told them that she was going to a works do. Did she tell them that she was taking the baby? It's quite possible that, if the babysitting had been arranged, the in laws might have thought that they were babysitting during the works do as well.

The OP's timing is all off anyway. Baby due for nap in 40 minutes. Einsteins in 20 minutes. But in 30 minutes OP would be returning and immediately taking baby to works do anyway.. so prior to the nap. So what's the point?? OP completely unreasonable based just on this alone.

triggles ...I wondered about this too ...

FormerlyTitledUntidy toattaly agree if i were you i would listen to your mil she kniws what she is talking about

I think you might need to get off your high horse and expect that mil might know what she is talking about

Its somtimes hard to take advice when we want to do things our own way but in my view the best tupe of mum is one who knows when they are wrong

Grand parents have a wealth of experince when did we start ignoring the, and instead talking advice from blogs and baby books this is a inceasing thing on here i persume your oh was well raised

My mil is a prat but she raised for children so knows a thing or two about rasing babies

oh you lot, (smile) i cant remember who said what but i kind of agree with all of you partly or wholly.
yes totally pfb. I am so over the top, im already cringeing about how worked up i got yesterday.

re car seat thing, god, i didnt realise this could do harm!. because my afternoons are quite busy i tend to take her in her pram (lying down flat) or in the car seat to where ever im going (adjusted to lying position). i didnt mean i put her to sleep in the car seat and just leave her there in the house using it as a cot kind of thing, we always go somewhere either walking with the pram or in the car is what i meant. and yesterday i wanted to take dd in the car with me to the works thing. dd has her morning nap and night time sleep in a cot. i think the car seat thing happened because she had bad reflux and we found she slept better more upright than totally flat and ive just got used to going out with her in the pm.

i totally agree, someone said this is a ridiculous routine ive got into. i totally agree that now she is older and quite big enough for the next size car seat up (on order) which looks like it doesnt adjust to as comfortable a position, i think she should be going in her bed for her afternoon nap.

re baby einstein dvd, i dont think i explained well, I dont use it to get her to sleep, it just happens to be one of the last things we do before her nap as it involves sitting still and we watch it together and we are interactive. but yes again, you were all right, it didnt really matter yesterday that they didnt put it on BUT if i was told by someone while looking after their kid, oh please can you do x,y,z at such and such a time i would stick to it out of respect for the parent????

oh,whatthewhatthebleep, the points you make about babies falling asleep when they are tired, please come and meet my dd. ive got to point out that my dd has MAJOR sleep issues. at 7 months old if you dont HELP her to sleep she will scream and cry and has been known to stay awake for 8 hours when left to her own devices. she will not fall asleep by herself lying in her own cot without major trauma. believe me we have tried. whether it is my fault as a first time parent that ive got her to rely on props to sleep maybe my fault whatever, ive tried controlled crying/leaving her to cry and she will cry solid for 3 hours then sob in her sleep for 1 hour (we did this over 3 days) and by the third night and no improvement, i felt ill that i had done this to my baby and vowed i wouldnt leave her to cry it out as it just didnt seem to be making a difference to teach her to self settle. once we have got her to sleep (morning naps takes 40 minutes rocking to sleep) night time takes about 2 hours to get her to sleep with feeding/rocking shh pat etc and she was woken every 45-60 minutes through the entire night for the last 4 months. she is so tired in the day that it is vital she gets a good afternoon nap because she is shattered. she never watches tv or dvd to get her to sleep she is in a dark room with nothing happening i dont rely on things like that to get her to sleep at all. she doesnt sleep little and often she has 2 naps a day. every baby is different, maybe thats what yours did? no, 45 minutes wasnt enough for her she was really tired still but ended up overtired and couldnt get back to sleep. my baby does at the moment, "need" help to fall asleep. its an exhausting and upsetting situation. all my friends say, oh dont be silly babies wil fall asleep when they are tired. honestly, not mine. but i agree with you, the routine has to change. (we're all exhausted).

re respect for parents, i mean like an awkwardness about it. i respect my parents but i can talk to them eg, if they said, we are coming to see you now, i could say, well now isnt a good time because whatever reason, but my dh wouldnt say anything at all as he feels he cant tell them. he would be put out himself to work around whatever they wanted to do is what i meant by awkward respect, maybe respect was the wrong word?

i didnt think that many people would post but youre all right, i have thought about yesterday and i did make a bit of a mountain out of a molehill. it did make dd really tired by not sticking to her routine which upset me but its not the end of the world. at least i can laugh at myself. i was posting after being up for 2 hours (i think it was about 2-4am she was awake and myself and dh were trying everything to get her back to sleep) which didnt help. In my silly little head at the time, i was blaming the pils for the bad night because dd hadnt got enough nap time. ;-(

oh, i missed some posts, um in response to the second page of what people said, ?mil didnt give me any advice? she didnt say anything about dd or the routine. i would listen to her if she gave me advice. i listen to what anyone has to say and filter it and use the bits i agree with and we get by.

rule britannia, yeah, i didnt think about this, that they thought they were staying for me to go to the work thing. you could have a point.

triggles, whats with the timing thing? dd had been up for give or take 2 hours and 20 minutes. by the time pil arrived. generally she is tired and ready for a nap after being awake for 3 hours at that time of day. so thats why i told them, dd would be ready for her nap in 40 mins (i dont time to the second, its just a general thing ive noted about dd and as she gets older the time she manages to stay awake increases).
so, i was going to pop out for half an hour so i told them i would be back to take her with me.
i explained that she might get niggly and grumpy in about 20 minutes on their arrival and so to put her dvd on would keep her happy until i came home and we could go.
but yes as many have you have said, i need to relax about what people do with dd when they look after her!!

Ach look - we've all stewed over daft things. Every single one of us.
Seeing as you are looking at the situation without your pfb goggles on, I think you'll be grand.
Take care xxx

Very gracious admission of pfb and bu :o Nicely done Gem!

We've all done mad things when tired, or gotten madly offended over something tiny the in laws have done, you're not the first, and you won't be the last :) Don't worry about it.

I'm sorry OP...my advice may be all useless or naive maybe...speaking as a child minder, nanny and parent of asd/adhd DC...sleep comes and you persevere...that's all

some/quite alot of babies really respond well to wrapping...if you haven't it's worth trying for a week or two

took my friend 2mths to get the move from cot to a bed and her 2.5yr old to stay in it and sleep....because they like being coddled and knowing where the boundaries are...wrapping of blanket and when older it becomes the cot bars and bumper...a big bed...that's when teddies and cuddlies come into the picture much more...bloody bed has so many there's no room for the child...and thats how they like it!!!...try a warmed microwave thingy and something you have been wearing tucked along the sides of DC...it gives a little pressure and smells of mum

you've had 7+mths of mostly winging it and hoping it works (like we all do)so you will be undoing whats not working but is familiar to DC, in favour of a new plan/routine that works better for you all...your DC doesn't know that!!...3 nights is not going to change anything I'm sorry...maybe after 2/3/4 weeks....perseverance....it is never because it is impossible!!!

hi whatthe, thanks for your suggestions. ive tried half swaddles and them sleeping bag things but dd is very active, she flings her arms and legs and gets angry if you wrap her, she likes to wriggle., we co sleep so she is always near me. (we ve tried her with distance in her bed as well but that doesnt work either). i have left my pajama top under her, over her, in her hand - doesnt work. ive tried one of them soothing teddy things with the heart beat. ive tried water. ive tried sticking to exact times so she is supposed ot know when to sleep. doesnt work and is totalyl impractical/ she occassionally uses a muslin to rub on her face and rarely self settles with that but not very often. ive paid for that dana obleman sleep solution thing and that was the crying thing. ("im sorry but i just cant bear to hear my baby cry for 3 hours its just not my style). i dont just mean she whinges a bit i mean sweating and screaming until she is sick and loses her voice/goes hoarse. ive had people on the phone trying to support me through it and they have ended up saying to me, she is too distressed it sounds awful.
i have ended up accidental parenting as you say. i think some of it is her character and alot is what we let her get used to early on. anyway, we are in this situation now and i feel like we have tried everything so now im just doing whatever it takes to get her to sleep that seems to make her content and happy. that seems to be attached to my boob right next to me.
i havent tried the microwave thingy though. i have got one. and that does seem like a good idea, do you know if i could buy a fake boob to attach to it as she wont take a dummy!! ha ha

Very gracious Gem I think your inlaws simply wanted to play with her and if they're anything like mine, that's just 100% love and not purposely making life awkward (although it is very irritating!)

DD was an awful sleeper too, both day and night, and my only advice would be to do whatever it takes to get you all through it. I bf DD to sleep until she was about 16mo, only then did we all feel ready to tackle it, she's now brilliant at self-settling (2.11). Ignore everyone else and do what you need to do, your DD is still very little and it's a skill she will eventually learn.

purple, i really appreciate your post, thanks for that. when you say tackle it, what did you do out of interest ??

I would add that it then took a couple of months to switch from bfing to sleep, via a bottle, to shush/pat and pickup/putdown, to finally self-settling. However, by that age she only woke once in the night so I had loads more sleep, was feeling much better and therefore more able to tackle it. I simply couldn't have done anything (despite buying all the books!) earlier than that as DD was waking multiple times in the night so I was totally sleep deprived. You need to be on good form to mentally get through it.

Clearly the car seat isn't good for long naps, but we would drive DD around in the car sometimes as it seemed to calm her. If she wants to feed to sleep, I'd run with it for now - she is only 213 days old!

Good luck!

OP you say you've got great problems with your DD's sleeping. But she's only 7 months old. I think you're being a bit regimented with those sleeping routines. My DD wasn't a very good sleeper for the first year or so. DS was loads better. But those regimental routines. Sleep at such an exact moment of the day. No it just doesn't work.

Ohh.. just saw your message.

• From about 16mo I switched from breast to bottle, to remove the skin contact & bfing snuggle time.
• reduced amount of milk to keep the bedtime feed short (so DD then didn't really have time to fall properly asleep)
• started to put her in the cot sleepy rather than asleep
• then did shush/pat and pick-up/put-down. I would sit near the door out of sight and finally would sit outside the room. We did have to do some tough waiting while she cried for a minute or two, but at 16-18mo, they're so much bigger than little ones. This stage was the longest and we simply persevered as we couldn't bear to go backwards so kept pushing forwards. DH and I would tag team if necessary. It was only ever a max of 8 mins crying before one of us would go in. We'd wait 1min, go in, then wait 2min, go in, then 4min, go in and finally 8min. I used a timer.

Sleep stuff is so hard to do and I really believe that you can't do it while you're knackered.

I tried to start a little bedtime routine with bath, story, milk, bed, 'night night DD, time for bed' speech, tuck in, kiss and out. Now she's 2.11, she has story, milk in a beaker during the story, I tuck in, kiss, 'night night DD, time for bed' lights out and she goes to sleep herself. She also self-settles for nap time too.

Check out pick up put down technique online. My now 6 yo dd was a nightmare sleeper and d this cured her. Good luck (no controlled crying involved)

Sorry I have to say there is a lot of hysteria about this car seat thing and I dont want the op to worry. I was actually advised to use a car seat as my babies had bad reflux by a paediatrician and a gp. Yes a car seat is not ideal but there are different rules for babies with reflux. All the traditional advice just goes out of the window and you have to try different ways to get the babies to sleep which seems crazy to people whose babies do not have this condition.

We actually use the car seat as a afternoon sleeping place for my son too as we are often out and about or at friends houses. We never intended it to happen but it was the only place he would sleep and it was only for a couple of hours each day. I actually read that it's fine for a baby to be in a car seat for a couple of hours in one go - so have no concerns about it. Oddly enough he goes to bed at night no problem and sleeps through.

I do think you need to grow some ball with IL's. Just apologise and say you have to get on with the normal routine. My first two were awful when out of routine too. Some babies seem to manage but my eldest two never did.

Actually forgot to say Ds spent most of his nap times sung in a sling for the first 7 months. Now he rarely stands/sits still and is so very mobile but the car seat is the only place he will have an afternoon nap.

vivien i think because i left instructions with pils about 40 mins etc it comes across that i have a strict routine but i can assure you that after trying and failing in the early days and advice on here i have been a total go with the flow parent and am totally led by my baby wrongly or rightly. i had to tell them the time she was due her nap because they didnt know how long she had been up for and i was aware she would have been up for 3 hours by then and at this stage of her life, and for her,(everyones different) thats all she can manage. i agree that being regimented with babies doesnt work (well actually i have one friend who has stuck to a gina ford routine since 5 weeks old and baby is 1 now but i ve no idea how she does it coz we couldnt be so strict).
tried pick up put down, it just winds her up completely.
holyfish, thanks. i agree, to grow balls, i ve always had a problem with saying what i want to say and often dont speak up and go through life wishing i could have said what i wanted but always feel to polite.
snoopy, thanks for your post about reflux, i know its not ideal in a car seat (that link about the baby dying was a bit of scaremongering especially as the baby was premature and had slipped down the car seat which for my 20lb dd i cant really see that being an issue. although im not taking away from the fact that that incident was a horrific tragedy).

Gem - when I questioned the timing, I meant that you told PIL that baby was due for nap in 40 minutes so you wanted the Einsteins thing on in 20 minutes. But you then said you'd be back in 30 minutes and were taking the baby to a works do.... which just made no sense. Your arrival home would interrupt the Einsteins thing and then you'd be taking the baby out.. so it would have interrupted her sleep schedule anyway. So I couldn't understand why you'd be annoyed at the PILs as either way her sleep schedule was going to be interrupted.

Hence the confusion...

But it good that you're saying you're not quite as rigid as it sounds, because I was wondering. Schedules get interrupted... not worth getting worked up over. And I say this as someone who had a child who had (still has actually due to SNs at age 5) dreadful sleep patterns, while dealing with another baby who wasnt sleeping great either (although he is now 2 and sleeps much better thankfully). Lack of sleep can make you stress over everything, so make sure you get some extra sleep at some point if you need it.

the dvd only lasts 20 minutes. i was going to come back in 30 mins and then by the time i got changed dd would be ready for her nap but we are getting a bit hung up on the minutes thing. i wasnt saying i had a stop watch and i would be doing everything to the last second? the work do was over an hours drive away so dd was going to nap in the car on the way there??? i dont know why you are picking at this 20 min 40 min thing i was giving them rough guides.
i dont think a 7 month old would be that bothered if i stopped her dvd at some point before it was over and didnt watch it to the end?

my main issue was that i had made it clear (or i thought i had) that i would be coming back and going pretty much straight away WITH the baby. i told them the time that everyone was meeting and they didnt seem bothered that i had to be somewhere. then because they stayed an extra hour and a half after i came back, i missed the do (well what i mean is everyone was going off to the pub after and obviously i couldnt go on a pub crawl with a baby).
the fact that dd was up for 4 hours mean she was over tired. im not on a schedule and im lead by the baby about sleep times but i know she cant really handle 4 hours awake time in the morning and if you have experience of babies you know when they are up too long they get over tired and then are difficult to settle.
i was mainly worked up that i missed the do because they stayed too long more than anything and being on maternity leave makes me feel out of it and i was really looking forward to seeing everyone before they all got drunk later on.
the crux of the matter is that a.i shouldnt have been bothered what they did with dd while i was away, i accept i was unreasonable. and b. i should have had the balls (as everyone has pointed out) to say i have to go in a polite way. and c. dd missed a chance for a good afternoon nap and so i had a really shitty night as a result of the missed sleep.

It sounds as though you should have been far more assertive about going to your do on time and shooed the inlaws out of the house, although having them round to babysit for only 40 minutes seems a bit odd, couldn't you have taken baby with you?
It's your fault you missed the do. You should have just said "sorry I told you my work do starts at x so I have to leave now, will see you again soon" It's your house it's up to you how long you let guests stay for.

what on earth is PFB!!!

yanbu
Lots of people use the car to get babies to sleep. Then move baby to cot etc
As far as I read it - the op used the dvd as part of a routine to let her know its sleep time soon, like brushing teeth, milk etc? It doesnt sound calming but I assume op - knows her DD and wouldnt put something on to over stimulate her.

My DD was an " excellent" sleeper - yes, the routine was loosish and after illness and things was totally thrown out but we were VERY very lucky with her.
HOwever - she was an awful eater, and it was bloody annoying when people would come in for two seconds and start preaching about how to feed her!

In the end we had to make it new all the time and /or totally distract her, often with the TV. People would comment but at the end of the day if it meant she ate - she ate.

NOw she is 4.5 and eats without any TV or the need for distraction.

Its really annoying when you are trying loads of things and people come in preaching, yes - if someone is giving good advice - step back, can we tweak etc...but dont act like the OP isnt doing her best on sleeping, it sounds like she is trying everything.

YABU in expecting GP to watch her sleep for two hours - I didnt see how often they see her etc....but my MIL used to wake my baby up! If they see her alot -on a regular basis - YANBU - if they dont - you are.

Complety also understand about how you feel they are not listening to you - and you cant say anything and your DP wont.

I would smile politity and say next time they are round - wow - i had an awful time after you left, x,y,z - would you mind terribly following this routine, it may seem odd to you but we have been through the mill etc...