To warn MNers with small babies not to make a rod for their backs

[PenelopeChipShop]

I am already up for the second time tonight with ds and he won't let me put him back in the cot. He's now 14 months and has never slept for more than 4 hours at a stretch - that was twice and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven at 4 hours sleep. Average is 2-3 hours, but hourly wake ups are not unusual. This is EVERY night, when healthy and not teething, he just cannot sleep for long stretches.

I have come to the conclusion that I can only blame myself and DH I suppose for not teaching him good sleep habits / self settling etc. I didn't read any books on Baby sleep until we already had a problem so did everything you aren't supposed to do - let him nap in my arms, rocked him, fed him to sleep. And co slept for a year. At the time when friends warned me about the things I should have been doing I was relaxed about it and is it thought I want to enjoy snuggling him and not worry about the future. He hated being out down so I never pushed him to sleep alone.

Now I have a 14 month old who still won't sleep and requires constant re settling throughout the night. I am broken with tiredness. Always thought I wanted 2 dc but both DH and I are no longer sure that we could go through this again. I do all the nights though!

So if you have a new baby and thought the same as me be warned. If you don't try and teach babies to sleep before they are too old to object, well guess what - they don't just learn it on their own. It's too late for me but maybe I can save others from my fate. So so sooooo tired :-(

Following a broken night with my LO waking due to teething, coupled with me being ill, I woke up this morning feeling crap that I just resorted to co-sleeping last night instead of getting up, bf-ing, rocking etc. I've been worrying about these invisible rods and bad habits you see... Well it wasn't the best night's sleep ever but at least we all did get some sleep. Thanks to everyone who wrote reassuring posts. I'm much happier knowingmy LO was comforted last night and hopefully it will all work itself out in time.

I'm with the 'Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes not' brigade.
Almost all of the self-help books mentioned on this forum were published well after my two were at school.
I did all the things you did OP, cuddling, co-sleeping, rocking and feeding to sleep, always coming to them if there was a squeak or a loud burp...and both of mine slept through from 4 weeks old, from around 10pm to 5am.
It's not your fault, nor was it my skill and talent, it is just the baby we had.
I'm so sorry that you are sleep-deprived and miserable, and beating yourself up about it, but I really don't think it is because of what you did or didn't do.

Yabu, some babies like to sleep and some don't. Once you take out factors like reflux or colic it's pretty much random.

Mine are both (touch wood) good sleepers at 3 and 1.5, dd used to be a velcro type and took work to get off to sleep and woke once or twice a night till she was about a year, DS slept on his own in bouncy chair or pram but never in cot and slept through from 3 weeks (ebf so shows its just him!).

We had no routines, it's just how they are. They had both dropped all daytime naps by 12m though...my house is a tip!

Meant to add in my earlier post (but just didn't have the mental dexterity to do so following 1.5 hours of crying baby at 3am, urgh) that when he slept longer at night when he was younger, he did so entirely off his own back, he just seemed to 'get' night and day, nothing we did to influence that! I agree with others that with the best will in the world, it can often be down to temperament. Good luck again.

You simply don't know what would have happened if you had followed any advice.

Still, it's not too late and you can still encourage goo sleeping habits.

in a few years you'll be trying to wake him for school and wonder what the first years were all about. :)

I did everything you did op and dd slept through from 10 weeks.

sorry you have a bad sleeper.

YABU

A lot of it is temperament. Both of my two are very different - dd coslept until 9 months, ds until 4 months. Ds was the harder in terms of self settling (he's the oldest) and dd is a dream.

My friend has a DD the same age as my DS. My DS was a horrible sleeper and we did everything we could in the first year to get some sleep. In arms, co-sleeping etc. She did all the 'right' things, not creating sleep props, self-settling, not leaping up at the first whimper etc. Her DD slept through the night at a very early age.

Now they are 4, DS is a great sleeper and her DD is bloody awful at going to bed.

Don't think once sleep is sorted it's sorted! She thinks that because she never helped her DD get to sleep that has caused problems now as she can't help her get to sleep.

Aaargh since some people with good baby sleepers are out being smug on this thread I have to retaliate. Normally I'd smile and nod.

When my DD was 8m old I became dangerously ill with encephalitis. At the worst point I was in hospital in intensive care, struggling to breathe, horribly confused, paralysed and unable to talk. When I started to recover I was terrified I would become ill again and die and DD would grow up without a mum. And I can remember thinking that if I had only ever had 8 months with her I was so so so so so so glad that I had spent the time comforting her when she cried, and snuggling her and looking at her contented little body curled up asleep next to me in bed. And that I hadn't wasted a single fucking second leaving her to cry so that she'd sleep through.

I lived, she is 3 now and sleeps just fine.

You will not get to the end of your life and wish you had spent less time cuddling your tiny children. I should know. Be proud of the choices you have made so far. They were good ones.

Having said that if you are broken with tiredness it is not wrong to want to change things - you deserve not to feel broken! The best thing you could do would be to get someone else to help in the night so you can get some longer stretches of unbroken sleep and so your DS can learn some wider sleep associations. Like err your DH. Again, he might not want to and he might feel tired by work, but after 14m you must feel tired all the sodding time and if this is what is making you think you never want another child it is time to be assertive about your needs.

My 'rod for my own back' is now 2 a s sleeps beautifully in his own bed with no problems and is very happy/outgoing. I can remember doubting our co-sleeping around the year mark and purchasing the no cry sleep solution. He eventually slept in his own room with no crying and no trauma. Plenty tips in the advice section.

For what it's worth I don't think you can blame yourself. My ds2 sleeps really well in his Moses (3 months) despite us being ready for co-sleeping. Different babies have different needs.

Dd cosleeps. She starts the night being bf to sleep and into cot. Between 730 and 12 she can either sleep soundly or want another bf every hour. Once I go to bed if she wakes I bring her in with me. Good nights she feeds twice 12-7. Bad nights she feeds every hour.

As long as my nipple is in reach she generally doesn't cry much.

She is one now. Lately she seems to be sleeping longer 730 -12 and the last few nights has done 730 til 2 and last night 4!!!

It's purely comfort. When I'm on nights (I do two night shifts a week) she sleeps soundly until 2 when she goes in with dp occasionally has a bottle and back to sleep and is often still asleep when I get home at 8. Now that's unfair!!!!

I don't sweat it. She will sort herself out in her own time. Since she has got bigger I'm not so paranoid about her being in my bed although I wish I had bought a king size.

dd1 seemed to stop sleeping at 6 months old I tried cc but she kept waking up so yes she would fall asleep but be up and down all night, non sleeping babies don't read books im afraid and honestly can't be trained I know it is exhausting for you but you can read every bloody baby book out there and the baby will still not comply ,

dd rarely slept the whole night untll she was about 3

What PenelopePipPop said! Glad you're better now PPP.

My friend did GF and was a bit smug for the first three months, then her DS thought screw that and has been an awful sleeper since. For some reason though she's right cos she did CC and CIO and I'm wrong, I don't care though CiO is not for us and I tried cC once, lasted three minutes! Horses for courses (though I don't like CIO at all or CC in babies under 18m).

DS2 still comes into bed with us (or his big brother) most nights.

DS1 never does any more, he grew out of it.

They will grow out of it.

It doesn't last that long, no matter what you do.

Mine are 13 & 14 years old now. My eldest woke every two hours, every single night from the day he was born until my youngest was born 15 months later. Then they conspired to make sure we got about 2 hours sleep in every 24 hours.

yeah, you're knackered, but that's what having kids does to you! There's actually no escaping that, no matter what you do! co sleep, sleep train, stick with their schedule, whatever, you all come out of it the same way in the end. older, wiser, greyer and knackered.

I spent a good couple of years walking into doors and putting my keys in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard Pretty soon, it'll all be a distant memory anyway, no matter what choice you make.

I really think that there is no one right way that someone should advise everyone to follow. People have to find their own way, figure out what's best for them.

Just sleep when you can, don't worry about things that really don't matter (like a crusty baby gro or an unhoovered house! ) ask for help and snatch someone's hand off every time it's offered, etc.

What matters in every case is that your child is warm, fed, loved and feels safe. Everything else passes a lot more bloody quickly than you think. Trust me on that!

This soon will pass - is my mantra. We haven't read a book on baby raising, I knew I couldn't listen to my baby cry and neither can DH. When DS turned 16 months I started a very intensive course and could have killed for some sleep. However now he is 2 (26 months) the biggest battle is calming him down after a whole day away from both of us. He can get himself to sleep and he knows when he is tired. Different people parent differently but I don't believe you must teach your child to self soothe otherwise your making a rod for your own back. Some children need longer to learn to self soothing, you can't force them to learn.

PenelopePipPop I had encephalitis too - following measles in my case - when DS was 10 months. God it was awful. Sorry you had to go through that.

And to the OP PenelopeChipShop wow you guys have similar posting names Anyway, don't beat yourself up, you haven't made a rod for your own back, kids are all different. I felt guilty thinking that one of the methods I used must have 'broken' DS' ability to sleep -that I shouldn't have tried CC, that I shouldn't have co-slept, that I should have done one approach consistently from day one rather than casting around desperately for something that would work... He's 7 yo now and has just been diagnosed with a sleep disorder. It had nothing to do with anything I did or didn't do. My only regret is that I was so focussed on myself - trying to 'get it right' and reading all the books that I didn't focus more on him and think 'hang on, maybe there's a reason he can't sleep that's nothing to do with me'.

YABU

All babies are different. Some sleep more / longer than others.

I co-slept, slept in my arms, fed to sleep til 18 months and I've not made any 'rod'.

Op, Dd was exactly like that. I did whatever it took to get her to sleep. We went from co-sleeping straight to a toddler bed when dd was 18 months and we had just moved house. It took a few nights of explaining that mummy was just next door etc. We had 3/4 nights of tears 10 mins before bed but now she sleeps solidly for 12 hrs. Next time round I will do exactly the same if Dc needed it.

I did everything you did except co-sleep and ds slept well.

Every baby is different, hope it works out.

don't be hard on yourself.

I parented my 2 DC the exact same way. DD is a fantastic sleep always have been ( apart from illness and teething) where as my son only needs 4 hour sleep at night.

I think it is just pot luck if you get a sleeper or nonsleeper.

Penelope, my total sympathy. But babies aren't like gym workouts - you don't get out what you put in, at least in sleep terms. You didn't do anything wrong. It will get better as your baby grows and changes.

Why, though, do you do all the nights? That, and your obvious exhaustion, are much more worrying to me. The only way DH and I got through was by taking it in turns to sleep in the spare room.

My HV always told me not to let DD fall asleep while feeding or, if she did, to wake her up before putting her down in the cot. However, if I put DD down awake, she would just cry for ages and not self-settle, so I did all the things you're not supposed to do, just like the OP.

It's never too late to sleep-train. We used controlled crying at eight months and it worked well. Obviously there are a lot of people who disapprove of it, so it's up to you, but my view is that by the age of 14 months the baby doesn't need feeding in the middle of the night, and probably everybody would be happier if all three of you were having a good night's sleep, so you've got very little to lose.

I suppose there is sort of a point in that if you choose to co-sleep, rock to sleep/feed/cuddle/etc, no there isn't going to be a magical transformation at 12 months to sleeping through happily in their own room/bed etc. It's a bit unfair to expect that!

14mo is still so little. I would just carry on co-sleeping if that was working for you before. IME it's quite normal for them to wake a couple of times in the evening (before you go to bed) and then once or twice before that morning ritual where they wake up, you feed them and hope to god they aren't waking up for the day and they go back to sleep for a bit longer, repeat until actual getting up time. Normal for that age and if you can do it by co-sleeping and getting as much sleep as possible, then do that.

I think they have a growth spurt at that age as well - they start needing a lot more from actual food as opposed to just milk.