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 :-(

I wish I hadn't read PenelopePipPop's post just before leaving the house. (Dabbing away tears) - that's a lovely point to make and so true.

I have a DS who WOULD NOT SLEEP until he was about 2 and slept in his cot about a dozen times. But I wouldn't have traded those mornings cuddling up to him for anything.

My second daughter can sleep on a knives edge she ate slept ate slept from day one almost you can't think that 2 will be the same as 1, although we waited until dd was nearly 4 to have another and she was sleeping better, it will pass honestly it will

I'm another one that says how well a baby sleeps is down to nothing more than their own personality. My first dc slept really well, 12 hours a night from 6 weeks. I was very smug and wondered what my friends were doing wrong. Then I had dc2. Oh my lord! I didn't know what had happened, he slept appallingly until he was about 2. On a good night he would wake every 2-3 hours, I have no idea how we got through that time. Dc3 was in the middle, some nights really good, some nights not so good. What having three children and parenting them all the same has shown me is that what you do has little effect, it's all about the child. And the baby whisperer and gina do not know your child and what is best for them.

Op, you have done nothing wrong, your dc will sleep through and this will all become a hazy memory.

Penelope, please don't beat yourself up. As a mom of a bad sleeper, i can totally relate to the exhaustion and desperation you are feeling. However, I look at it from a different point. You are giving your baby what he needs by cuddling him, rocking him to sleep and being there. I witnessed SIL "sleep training" her babies, and boy, was she smug about it. However, she forgot to mention that she left both her babies to wail for long periods of time on their own in the room to achieve them "going to bed on cue". I personally would not like to be treated like that, even as an adult. And I would not like to treat my baby like that especially when they are helpless, can't climb out of the cot themselves and come and join me and tell me all they think about it.
I see it as unethical due to unequal power balance between a adult and a baby.

My son did eventually sleep in his own room. I must say, he sleeps much better now that he has got his younger brother sharing the room with him (they are now 5 and 2). I guess it is just having company and not being alone. There is now no issue closing the door to the bedroom or with it being dark, since his brother is there with him.

My youngest, on the contrary has always been a very good sleeper and no, we did not do anything differently. If anything, he was held, cuddled and carried about even more than his elder brother.

I think you are doing well, it will pass. You are there for your baby when he needs it, it is the only thing that matters.

My husband threatened to burn Gina ford's book. It was making me feel worthless. Best thing anyone ever said to me was 'if my 3rd had been my 1st, I wouldn't have had another'. It shows it sometimes is the baby not you. Controlled crying stopped when my 1st pooed all over the cot twice. When I got pregnant again I was not as excited as I should have been as I just couldn't ever imagine sleeping again. Then I had a miscarriage and, although it was grim, I had several uninterrupted nights sleep in hospital (earplugs and screen round me and meds) Which made me feel human again. When I got pregnant again I was excited and happy about it. 2nd child ate and slept. 2nd Woke up for a feed in the middle of the night once and that was it. Both sleep well now. A lady I know who did controlled crying to the letter and boasted about it, now has a clingly child who crys a lot - revenge lol! Someone once said the poor sleepers tend to be the bright ones as they have so much going on in their brains they can't sleep. Hope some of this helps.

I'mTooHecsyForYourParty I really, really couldn't put it better.

(I like your floater as well hecsy. It's driving me off MN at the moment that every time anyone describes a studious, introverted child everyone screams ASD)

14 months?? and you feel like you have failed? Oh dear lord!

OP you've so done everything your baby needed. Please don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

She's still a baby and I bet she is getting her molars as we speak. Of course she isn't sleeping well. There is always a reason.

My children sleep beautifully and I co sleep/slept with all three, breastfed on demand (till 4 and a half with ds2) and it's called responding to their needs. It works and they do learn to settle.

I blame the pervasive nastiness of 'train your baby to [whatever]' books which are purely a money making exercise on the part of the authors - babies do not need training.

It filters through society with peer pressure and so on, and everyone feels like a great big failure for not 'teaching' their child to do what every child eventually learns to do all by itself, and all the more secure for having been given what it NEEDED as a tiny infant.

It makes me so sad.

Can I just say to a lot of the posters on here - what a lovely lot of Mums! I wish I had had mumsnet when I felt I was so useless as everyone elses baby slept. you are not alone OP in your situation and it will get better.

I fed my DS to sleep every night, cuddled him to sleep during the day, co-slept when needed, and had his cot right up against my bed until he was 15/16mo.

He's a fab sleeper, always has been. From day one he only ever fed every 4 hours. So every night he'd sleep for 4 hours, wake just long enough to feed, then sleep for another 4. The 4 hours steadily grew until at 6 months night feeds stopped altogether and he was sleeping a full 12 hours.

When I finally moved his cot into his own room he didn't give a stuff! Slept exactly the same as always. It was me who missed it, I loved waking up to see his face right next to me.

He's now just turned 2 and sleeping in his 'big boy bed'. He asks for his bed every night (and has done since he could talk) and plays happily every morning until I'm ready to get him up.

I'm not smug about it in the slightest I'm just very very grateful. It's luck, pure and simple. (I can't imagine how I would have coped if things had been different, I've been on my own since he was 4mo so if I'd been sleep deprived as well it would have been horrendous!)

I just got very lucky and had an 'easy' baby. He's now an 'easy' toddler who happily entertains himself. Again, pure luck.

You can't "train" babies, they're not dogs.

I literally tore The Baby Whisperer book to shreds with rage when DD was a couple of months old. I may as well have expected her to learn classical Greek as to follow any of the routines in the book. She was just NEVER going to be a good sleeper, and it would not have mattered what I did, which I can see clearly now in hindsight.

At 18 months DD is just about starting to sleep through the night half the time, but until at least a year I was up for hours at a time several times a night. I've been where you are and I massively sympathise.

BUT as to the wider message: I don't think the 'rod for your own back' thing is helpful. Of my friends, their babies either slept through the night early on, or they didn't. Almost none of them did any routine or special technique, and those who think Gina Ford or whoever helped, probably would have had a baby that slept from 8 weeks anyway.

Now I'm expecting DC2 I am comforted by the knowledge that nothing I do is going to influence whether he sleeps through or not, it'll depend on his temperament.

If I were you I would just co-sleep until your DS decides he's ready for his own space. Do whatever you need to do to get your sleep and don't worry about what other people think he 'should' be doing by now.

OP. I so feel for you, but it does eventually get better. I have 5DC and they have all been different.

DD1 just loved to be held all the time ~ I couldn't face constantly getting out of bed to settle her, so we co~slept ~ until she was 5!! Now it's nearly impossible to wake her ~ she is 11.

DS1 slept through from an early age and now age 8, takes himself off to bed as soon as he feels tired.

DDs ages 5 + 3 both co~slept but now sleep through the night,still occasionally getting up for a cuddle.

Which leaves me with the 6month old co~sleeping and bf every 2~3 hours.

I think if you are happy and comfortable with co~sleeping (get a super~king!) it makes things much easier. The two eldest DC have super~king beds also and the younger DC will often snuggle in with them ~ basically, I don't care where everyone sleeps, as long as they are sleeping

Enjoy this closeness to your little one and know the sleeplessness will eventually end. Take care x

'Hippie Mother' here, waves
both my kids come in with me,
My son is generally and 7pm-6am
And my youngest slept through till 5am from the day he came home. Is it because of how I did things? or am I just lucky|? who knows??.

everyones different but i have no problem with my babies "using" me to get to sleep,i have 4 under 5 including an 11 month old who falls asleep feeding while being cuddled in my arms,im happy to d it for however long they want,so no rods being made here,we dont bother with cots or routines,i find they naturally fall into a routine once they start school,my 4 and 5 yr old are at school now and dont want to stay up til late anymore because they dont sleep in the day and are worn out enough to be in bed by 8 ish,suits me!

Don't be too hard on yourself, I done everything you done with both of mine and they both started sleeping through by themselves at around 12 weeks. I've not read any books on sleep and am awful at keeping to a routine too. You could have done everything the books told you and still have ended up with a stubborn 14 month old non sleeper anyway.

I did all those things but my child is an excellent sleeper. I don't think one size fits all and saying 'do sleep training from day one' is necessarily the way here.

ringarosy ~ agree re school ~ when they start nursery / school they do seem to get into a routine but OP has a long time to wait until then!

Just relax, snuggle the little one in and enjoy this precious time.....

YANBU and very brave for posting the OP.

You will never change the minds of some here, but you might have helped quite a few first-timer MNers, which is something.

"Enjoy this precious time"?

Have you forgotten what sleep deprivation is like? It doesn't feel "precious" when you are going through extended periods of it.

YANBU to regret your choice but YABU to think everyone will feel the same or that every baby will be the same.

My almost three year old doesn't 'sleep through' but he does sleep because I co sleep and feed him.

Fed baby to sleep, rocked him, co slept for six months. Never left to cry.

Slept through twelve hours from 9 months old, consistently fom a year. Prior to this night wakings were only minutes. Daytime naps aways fantastic. Put him down in his cot awake and he's asleep in mere seconds.

It's him, not you! They are the way they are.

The precious time is the small window in their lives where they need/want us more than we need/want them.

Right now, OP is the most important thing in her DS's world, that is why he wants to sleep with her, she means safety and warmth and comfort. Being away from her is scary.

That will change on its own, and when that happens I doubt she will be wishing she spent more time sleep training.

It's not just babies who are individuals, but parents too. I couldn't have carried on working with a bed-sharing, sleep when you want, up a few times a night couple of children and so perhaps was more than motivated to get in a bedtime routine than when I was off work and at home in the day. After I crashed/bumped the car twice and was falling asleep (literally) on my desk I did have to be pretty focused on getting some sleep as I felt I'd become dangerous with tiredness. I'm sure being a bit older and being all knackered out from the first didn't help, that bone-crunching exhaustion is just terrible if you have a job which requires mental concentration.

However, I completely agree I was lucky to have two children one of whom slept through without any sleep training (just got it aged about 6 months) and one who needed only a very minor amount (one or two nights at about 10 months old) to be good sleepers. I did put them down to teach them to self-settle from a very early age but there were times it didn't work out.

I would also say though that the need to be by mummy/daddy at night doesn't seem to have gone away entirely as they are older, my nearly eight year old still comes in my bed at night when she's scared or has a night mare or just because it's nice and my husband works away. Not all the time, just as a treat. She was the best sleeper naturally as a baby but still associates night-time cuddles with comfort and I think that's lovely (and am happy to share now and again now I'm not on my knees with permanent exhaustion).

'Have you forgotten what sleep deprivation is like? It doesn't feel "precious" when you are going through extended periods of it.'

Well I have an 8mo as well as my 10 and 6yos and I actually don't mind it - I know how short this time is and I like being with the baby so much, sharing my nights with him means that we bond in a way we would not do if he was left to cry in a cot in a different room.

He sleeps pretty well for a baby, but even when he has difficulties I can't imagine not being there to help him get through them.

Being unable to sleep for any reason is horrid, moreso if you are alone and don't understand what is going on.

I think to put a baby through that is unkind and unnecessary. Society however needs to make more allowance for parents being tired and allow them to prioritise their children's needs.

oh yes. we have one good sleeper and one bad.

The bad sleeper came first in our case. used to feed him to sleep - he had to be snoring before he could go into his cot without crying. He would then wake up 2-3 times per night and be fully awake and crying at 5. We nearly hires a sleep nanny when he was about 3 as things got so bad. i can remember bookng a facial in my lunch hour just so I could sleep!!!

DD on the other hand, slept until 7am from day one (I was awake before she was in hospital) and always went into her cot very happily.

DS is still the bad sleeper (gets nightmares, needs light on, wakes early) and DD the good one (sleeping solidly until 8 on weekends) - they were born that way!

I think you just have to look after yourself - nice hot bath, early nights, taking it in turns etc. It will get better gradually.It's not your fault.