To blame ILs for DS terrible sleeping?!

[Peanutbutternutter419]

Slightly lighthearted but slightly a rant to get off my chest!

So 6mo DS started comfort feeding through the night after being poorly so I had been doing the no cry sleep solution over the last few weeks. Great success when we had managed to get his night wakings to 2 (from 6+) anyways then comes Saturday night and the do we/dont we go out dilemma. DH says its fine my mum and dad will babysit.

We both outline the dos and donts according to what we've been doing for last few weeks, e.g. If he wakes dont turn light on, dont take him downstairs, try not to make too much fuss as he gets very over stimulated quickly an can be wide awake within seconds and then will want to feed.
Anyway get a txt to say he's woken, FIL is trying to settle him and not to worry. So i txt again an hour later and he is still awake, so we come home early.

Pull up outside and can see ALL the lights on, get in and ds is asleep on the sofa, toys next to him where they have obviously tried to play with him to get him to stop crying. I told them to txt if he wouldnt settle and they didnt so i had assumed they had got him back to sleep ok. We were only 5 mins away from home.
I can understand that they were probably nervous and just did what they thought was right at the time but its not the first time they have dismissed doing something a specific way for a reason.

Every night since then ds has been so bad at sleeping and is often wide awake in the middle of the night, something he has never done. He is really hard to get to sleep and wont sleep longer than an hour without waking and needing help to get back off to sleep (something we had managed to curb with sleep training)
I am so exhausted and am starting to lose my patience and then i feel so guilty. Im really struggling. He has only just gone to sleep now and he's been in his crib since 9.15. (Not usually this late)
This could all be due to teething/growth spurt etc but it is just a coincidence that it has been this bad since that night!

Sorry ended up to be all rant im afraid. Feel a little better to have written it all down now though.
Think it will be a long time before i let them babysit again!

i feel like I'm right where i started 2 and a half weeks ago

This is what parenting is like, and my advice is to accept that and try not to get stressed out about things changing and shifting. Don't feel like you can't do things, because that way lies madness.

FWIW I would have viewed your evening as a broad success. You got a night out, you came home to a sleeping child. These are good things!
I'm sure your PILs were nervous about getting it wrong, don't make them feel bad when they have clearly done their best.

I never leave specific instructions with babysitters - either family members or a professional sitter. Guidelines of how each child is likely to behave, but you need to give the person/people looking after your child the confidence of your confidence. Children will always behave differently when their parents aren't there, the younger they are the more that applies. You cannot legislate for that.

I really hope that you thanked your PILs and that you haven't been huffy with them, because they did you a favour.

I know this sounds like a lecture, and it sort of is but I mean it kindly. Parenting is hard enough work without setting unrealistic expectations all round :)

I don't think YABU, I've still not forgiven DM after my dream sleeper of a DD suddenly couldn't sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time after a sleepover at 18 months even though I've since read about 18 month sleep regression
The following 10 weeks almost killed us before she got back to normal, so anyone surviving this has my sympathy and respect. Good luck with the sleep training.

He's 6 months. Yabu

If it helps, mine did exactly the same thing except there was no change in his routine and nobody else looked after him. He just stopped being able to sleep as well, and I can also tell you that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the babies I know has gone through periods of sleeping through and then been unable to sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time. I know it's frustrating - I actually started a spreadsheet trying to identify exactly what we had done the last time my son slept well - it was going to be like groundhog day in our house if we could identify what it was that had yielded the magic night, but there's no real rhyme or reason to it, same as there isn't really for adults!

Stop expecting a baby to sleep when you think it should, that way you won't be disappointed,

You have teething to get through yet,

and take your in laws a lovely thank you present round and say thank you a lot.

I think you still aren't listening

Babies change all the time - it's just one of those things and will have very very little to do with them doing what they did for one night!

YANBU. Babies do change all the time, but that doesn't mean your ILs didn't screw this up a bit. I have a similar tale of twins who had a great night routine, that involved keeping things dark and never getting them out of their cots to play with them after bedtime. And in-laws who came to babysit, did not call us (as requested) when they couldn't settle one of them, instead got them both up and played with them until we got home.

I spent over a week getting them back into routine (they went back into the same routine). I could have throttled the in-laws at the time.

But fortunately I didn't, because 5 years later and the ILs are still babysitting and taking their DGCs out for the day. My DTs love them and can't wait to see them. My DH and I get to go out for dinner once a fortnight and have the odd weekend away with no worries about the children, who probably do stay up later than they should but are always asleep like little angels when we get back.

Rant away. It's horrid to be sleep deprived. But don't be ungrateful to the ILs, they did try their best. This time will pass and your ILs will be worth their wait in gold.

*weight

Sadly if you have a "bad" sleeper then you will probably be going through ups and downs for a while yet. Sleep training isn't always a permeanent solution. Some babies will happily self settle and sleep through for a few weeks, then go right back to having multiple night wakings.
I can't lecture because I went through exactly the same stages and I know how frustrating it is, but I wish someone had told me earlier and I would have appreciated the nights where she did sleep well more.

YABU. What Penelope said.

Although I do remember those early days when you would try everything to get your baby to sleep. And you would have a routine that you wouldn't deviate from, and it would involve weird things like turning on the extractor fan for 45 seconds at 8pm while stroking the baby's head six times in a clockwise direction. It worked, damnit!

With a little distance you might find some of your rigidity will seem quite funny.

YABU although I would answer differently if they were consistently night carers for him. Your method is good though - try to stick to it. Another tip which worked with both our kids at about that age (little bit older) was not picking them up at all (you can usually tell by then if they are hungry/need a nappy changed or if they just want attention/play) but gently stroking them through the bars of the crib and singing softly if they cried for more than five minutes. When they stop crying or after five minutes, leave and repeat as necessary. Over a few weeks, the time needed in the room will be shorter and shorter and they learn to self-settle without being picked up. Also a good routine before they go to bed eg bath, feed, story..

Sorry OP, but when you leave someone else in charge of your 6mth old, you need to accept that they will not be able to soothe him as well as you. Part of the soothing process for him is your smell, the sound of your voice. They cannot be replicated!

You also need to understand how rapidly babies change. This is just what babies do! You think you have nailed it & then they spoil the whole thing by being....well, babies!

How much does he sleep in the day?
Does he still sleep in the afternoon?
If so try to stop it.
They do tend to not need as much sleep in the day around 6 months.

He could be having too much daytime sleep so doesn't need so much night time sleep.

Hope you got a good nights sleep

Oh! Just remembered that we made MIL sleep with the recording of a tumble drier going because she was in with baby DS and we thought the white noise helped him. Bless her she just said how much she enjoyed spending the night with him and never treated us like we were loons .

Hope you had a better night OP. The PP who said that accepting these things are outside your control and will get better when they get better can be helpful. But boy does it seem to last forever while you're in it.

If you are babysitting dgc and they wake up all you want is that they don't get distressed. If Mummy/Daddy aren't there as usual that is the established 'routine' gone anyway so you try to make the child feel happy and secure. An unexpected voice in the dark is unlikely to achieve that whereas a cuddle/play with loving grandparents will. YABU.

Signet your post made me laugh; especially the "if she smiles carry on, if she cries stop"

Yabu

Blame the baby not the inlaws

Hoo blooming RAH!!!!!

I have found a thread where I PITY the MIL!!!

It's a baby. Imagine. It's doing what babies do. EVERY night is different. Just because you get two weeks looking vaguely similar you think you've cracked it. I'm 2.5 yrs down the line and that's not true or anywhere close. Just luck.

Apologise to ils.

YABU. If they're babysitting, then they deal with your DS as they see fit, I'm afraid. It's also very unfair to blame them for subsequent sleep problems, as sleep is all over the place at that age anyway.

My DS is eight months and a terrible, terrible sleeper. Has never slept through. I've left him for the evening a grand total of twice - once with my mum and once with MIL.
On both occasions we've come home to find him up and playing with the lights on, at gone 10pm. And I don't blame them for that. I can hardly ask them to sit in his room, lights off, shushing, when he's upset and kicking his legs frantically. If they're good enough to have volunteered to babysit, I'm going to let them play with him - not force them to adhere to a routine which may or may not be working anyway.

It's a tad precious IMO to "outline the do's and dont's" in this situation. Your MIL and FIL presumably raised your DH perfectly well. They probably think you're bonkers for trying to tell them how to settle a child as they've been there, done it.
I also think it's a bit cruel not to let them babysit again for the time being. I'd apologise for being over-zealous and accept that they know more about baby care than you're giving them credit for.

For those who think im the big bad DIL... I have definitely not made my ILs aware of my feelings. I did say thank you and meant it when they were here. I haven't even mentioned to Dh about this, hence why i am ranting on here! I am not a horrible person...really im not. Im just very sleep deprived and a first time mum who doesnt know what to expect.
I think those with bad sleepers may sympathise as you get so excited when they have a good few nights that you dont want to jinx it, to the point that you are desperately trying to remember every step you took leading to that golden nights sleep!!

I am not trying to stir things up but my mum babysat just a couple of weeks ago and lo and behold we came home to her rocking him to sleep in the dark in his room. Just like i had asked. And i told DILs that if they couldnt settle him after half an hour to call an we would come home. Which they kindly ignored too.
DH actually made a comment out of the blue this morning asking i i thought they had given him food treats 'chocolate pudding' as he wouldnt put it past them. Clearly outlines how much he trusts them!

I am only this paranoid about them as i remember them looking after their son's step niece overnight and she was up until midnight eating bag after bag of hula hoops...age 22 months.

I do appreciate all the IABU comments. I think I needed a reality check into being a parent of a 6 month old.

Ha, you are being unreasonable but you will look back and cringe, things that seems so important now really aren't in the grand scheme of things.
I have three and my youngest is 2, I have given up and if she wanted hula hoops at midnight then anything for a quiet life