to think we can parent differently to SIL and avoid sleep problems?

[GoingToRegretThis]

I have actually NC for this as not sure this thread is a wise idea, but want honest opinions.

We are just starting ttc number 1 after ages debating about it. One of DH big concerns is that the baby simply will not sleep, as this is what happens with SIL's children. They go to bed okay but are up and down all night, for example, waking up at 2 or 3am, getting into bed with their parents, refusing to sleep and wanting to play. SIL's children are 2 and 5.

DH is terrified of this as for financial reasons we will both have to WOH. He is prepared for a rough few months with a new baby but feels it will be a nightmare if we hit 2 years and are still surviving on < 4 hours/ night.

I think that SIL has naturally wakeful DC, but I also keep telling DH you can parent to minimise that. For ex, SIL will take the children into bed and not insist on them staying in their own beds. That is NOT a criticism, as she is a lovely mum and very child-centred. But I think we can be stricter, parent differently, and not encounter the same problems years down the line as she does.

Am I just a crazy optimist? Are there just some children who never sleep no matter what, and getting up with them is what you do? Or is it actually possible if you are a working parent to work out an okay routine with wakeful children?

[GoingToRegretThis]

NannyOgg - oh God no, I have learnt one thing from MN it is never never criticise another mum's parenting esp when she is sleep deprived!!!! Actully one reason I NC is cos I think SIL may know I am on MN. Although not my name.

Molly yes I hope so :)

[dreamingbohemian]

Ah, that does sound hopeful

I think the problem in the newborn days is that if things are tough, you both find yourself wanting support -- it's a lot harder than when just one of you is going through a tough time. What kind of famiy support do you have? Will you be able to afford a cleaner, babysitters, any other outsourced help?

You haven't answered my questions re maternity leave, whether you can both cut back hours, etc. I mean, obviously you don't have to! But just to say it's not all about the emotional issues, it's whether you have really planned out the practical options in a way that will be fair to both of you.

I'd be asking really specific questions, like: if things do get really hard, and you can't both continue working so much, who is going to make the sacrifice at work? Is it an option to move so his commute is shorter?

He must be a nice guy to do all that shopping and cooking, but children can require much deeper sacrifices -- is he willing to cut back at work, see friends less often, move house if necessary? These are the things you need to get a sense of now.

[DeWe]

I like the innocence....

We treated all our dc the same way for sleeping. All were exclusively bf.

Dd1 slept through the night at 8 weeks. That's 12 hours through the night. If we went out she'd go to sleep later and still sleep 12 hours. She never slept less than 6 hours from birth, and never woke more than once (for about 30 minutes) even when ill. By about 9 months she slept 3 hours in the afternoon too.

Dd2 slept through from about 2 years. She typically woke twice during the night, although we did have the waking at 2am and going back to sleep at 7am. Never worked out why.

Ds slept through at 7 weeks, about 10 hours through the night. He then started on ear infections every 10 days or so and didn't sleep throuhg until he had grommets in at 20 months. Often the only way he'd sleep was being held upright in a chair with his ear egainst me, and even then he'd be moaning in pain while sleeping.

[GoingToRegretThis]

Dreaming sorry

I will cut back some hours, I am already planning this, and my dept has two other working mums with small DC who are allowed to leave early and make up time by working different patterns if their DC get sick etc.

DH company also quite family friendly. We have decided not to move as I am now very close to a good nursery and my work so thus I don't really have a commute to speak of and can be more flexible. If we moved we would likely be halfway between our jobs as we cannot afford to live near DH work (v pricey area) and we think it's better to be more 'grounded' near one person's work.

I will take 6 mos mat leave probably for financial reasons.

I think he will make sacrifices if they are really needed, as he already moved once a copule of years back to accommodate my job but I guess like most people I am hoping it doesn't get that extreme!!!

[GoingToRegretThis]

Oh also we have budgeted for a cleaner, as this is one luxury we can afford if we lose other things (no Sky etc) and we feel this will make life easier.

[catgirl1976geesealaying]

A cleaner is a godsend

Makes a massive difference to me as a working mother

[ipswichwitch]

You can try (and good luck to you), but however good the bedtime routine is, however well he goes to sleep you may still end up with a multiple waker like we did (yes DS, I'm looking at you!)
Some kids are good sleepers, and some very light sleepers - like adults really, and since both me and DH have sleep issues we can hardly expect DS to sleep 12 hours a night. Much as we may like him to :)

[givemeaclue]

Yanbu. Very possible.

Don't underestimate how shattered you will be in the first few months though!

[ipswichwitch]

I'm also trying to persuade DH to get a cleaner but he keeps getting put off by his DM

[RunnerHasbeen]

I wouldn't worry too much in advance, honestly. You will deal with whatever is thrown at you because you have to, no plan this far in advance can know what kind of baby you are likely to have.

I have a 1yo, but don't know how to fix a sleep problem as she is a good sleeper, nor fix an eating problem as she eats like a horse. I do know better than some of my friends with 1yo's what it is like to have a very stubborn baby with opinions on things like gloves, shoes, people she takes a dislike to etc. and how to change a nappy standing up, sometimes whilst baby is walking. When I have number 2 I will start over learning how to deal with that baby and whichever bits are harder/easier than DD.

A lot of my friends had babies 6 months before me and I put together all the things they were finding hard and worried what I would do about them all. What a waste of energy, as useful as figuring out just now how I would get in and out of the bath if I broke my leg tomorrow. Take it as it comes and you will enjoy it so much more.

[noblegiraffe]

If you are not yet pregnant, I would suggest that you start saving like mad now so that you can afford more than 6 months maternity leave. You might find that you really don't want to go back to work that early, and would really appreciate the option of taking longer. Hormones are mad. I always assumed I would go back to work full time until 4 months into maternity leave when I realised that my priorities had changed entirely and I wanted to go part time. The more options you have open the better, and while people can and do go back to work full time after 6 months, the ones I've known to do it would have liked longer off and found it very difficult to leave their baby that young.

[GoingToRegretThis]

noble thanks, you may be right. Another issue BIL and SIL had is, they both worked before DN 1, and she was going to continue afterwards but then decided partway through mat leave she didn't want to after all.

I think it caused some pretty massive rows as he thought they could not afford for her to SAH. This may be another reason DH is antsy as he is on a limited income and my salary mostly pays the mortgage etc. I do save quite a bit so might work out how much it would cost to take 8 mos, 9 mos, 12 mos etc. Thanks.

[TreadOnTheCracks]

I think there are lots of strategies you can use to help children sleep. I have concurred a very tricky sleeper by the age of about 2 1/2, having initially gone down a co sleeping route, just to get any sleep at all. As others have said it took absolute determination and dedication, followed up with rigid routine but with most kids the situation can be greatly improved.

I do think a small percentage of children are just very bad sleepers. Unlucky parents.

[Greythorne]

OP: you can certainly parent differently to your SIL / BIL.

You won't know what kind of effect it will have on your children. Or their sleep patterns.

[CailinDana]

The really important thing is : do you feel like you and DH will be facing having a child as a team, or do you feel you'll have to manage everything so as not to upset DH? You both seem to be second guessing each other - you wrt the sleep issues and him wrt being a SAHM. Why?

[seeker]

Some sleep. Some don't. In my opinion it makes no difference at all how you parent or what you do, you either have a sleeper or a non sleeper. They are babies, not robots.

[EndoplasmicReticulum]

It is possible to have children that sleep in their own beds all night. I have two, who both stayed in their own beds/bedrooms from the age of 6 months.

I am not smug enough to think that this is due to superior parenting and suspect I have just been lucky.

[Booboostoo]

Don't worry too much about it all. The (massive) disruption that having children brings to your life is one of those things that look scary and terrible from the outside, but hardly noticeable once you are doing it. It is possible that your DP will stress even more when you get pregnant, but it will all work out when the baby arrives.

Some babies sleep no matter what you do, some improve with sleep training and some don't sleep at all, you'll cope (and that's my 19 months totally sleep deprived self talking! I was a 10 hours a night kind of person before!).

[Moiraine]

I guess it's the whole nature/nurture argument - and like with most things, it's both and sometimes more one than the other. Some kids naturally do sleep better than others - mine have certainly varied hugely, one slept through from 9 wks and one not til nearer 18months... But sometimes people set up habits that aren't particularly helpful, and i guess you can do what you can to avoid those - I can remember sometimes as a kid if I got up very early I'd get played with and sometimes not - and I can remember wondering which it would be on a particular day! Felt a bit bad about that once I had kids & knew about how some days my dad had to set off really really early for work & felt there was no point going back to bed after settling me so he'd play with me...).

With our dc1 I was very worried about lack of sleep and fully intended doing gina ford as I thought (naively and somewhat judgementally) that friends with babies that didn't sleep had, to some extent at least, 'caused' it (in a rod for their own backs type way). I then had a low birth weight baby and had no choice but to feed more frequently and for much longer than most! (I never did get her into the gf routine...).

I don't agree that your dh sounds like he's not ready for kids - unless that means I wasn't either- he just sounds like he's understandably worried by what he's seen other people experience.
I suppose my point is that, you may well have a dc that sleeps much better than your dns (they do sound much worse than average!), but if not you will (both) find ways of coping/dealing with whatever difficulties do arise in the ways that are best for you, which may well be different to your sil/bil in any case. I never thought I'd cope/put up with a dc that woke for several hrs a night and still commute for 1h15 to work - but surprisingly even I managed!

[mrslaughan]

Yes you can parent so your children sleep, however anyone who says there children sleeps through 7-7 100% of the time is lying.
Kids get sick, or for a reason unknown to themselves decide to wake at 4 in the morning.
My DS slept really well until he was in a bed, then we had several years of extremely early waking - mostly after 5. Although we stressed it was "not getting up time" and put home back to bed.... Etc etc etc nothing worked - the. He just seemed to grow out of it, he's now 8 and sleeps in
Dd is 3 and has slept really well but is going through a patch of waking in the night- Shea a little unwell, really not sure if that's the reason or not.
So you can do everything possible - but still you will have disturbed nights sleep - it just goes with the territory

[higgyjig]

Why do you want children?
Why does he want children?

Do you actually, truly want them or just think "it's the right time" or "it's what people do"?

[NeverKnowinglyUnderstood]

I honestly feel that you can make a difference to your childrens sleeping patterns.
I have 2 very different children - chalk and cheese, and have friends with a variety of personalities of children.
The consistent theme is that those who expected their children to sleep at night and made effort to make it happen - have children who generally sleep well.
Those who have a a gentler way of looking at it and being more understanding of what the child wants seem to have children with less predictable sleep patterns.
This is truly not judging either way of parenting, just that they are different and seem to have different outcomes.

[foreverondiet]

Sometimes children wake up in night, but you can definitely mimimise the waking by teaching them that night time is sleep time. It can be hard though - my kids are good sleepers but we have been known to do controlled crying on occasion.

But as others say, sometimes the child is ill, or had a nightmare, and on these occasions sometimes easiest to take into your bed.

[nokidshere]

I dont think you ABU for thinking about things before you have children. The problem is that if the only experience you have of them is someone who does it differently than you want to it obviously gives you a limited knowledge.

I have one child who has always slept through the night with no trouble at all and one who goes to bed, falls asleep instantly and always sleeps through the night but has trouble actually falling asleep in the first place. Bedtime doesn't vary though - they are in bed wether they are asleep or not.

DH was late 40's when I fell pregnant for the first time. There is only him and his mum, he had no experience of children apart from my neices and nephews who we saw sporadically. He had his concerns also and ttc was more about me than him. He is a fantastic dad and has been from the moment he set eyes on them. Everything negative he might have felt went out of the window within hours. He needs 8 hours sleep but spent many hours walking around in the night with crying babies so I could sleep and was always the one who got up to them.

Try not to get too hung up on how you think it will be because chances are that it wont be anything like your thoughts.

[nokidshere]

I have one child who has always slept through the night with no trouble at all and one who goes to bed, falls asleep instantly and always sleeps through the night but has trouble actually falling asleep in the first place. Bedtime doesn't vary though - they are in bed wether they are asleep or not.


That should actually say:

I have one child who has goes to bed, falls alsleep instantly and always slept through the night with no trouble at all and one who goes to bed, sleeps through the night but has trouble actually falling asleep in the first place. Bedtime doesn't vary though - they are in bed wether they are asleep or not