to be fed up of people expecting their new babies to be sleeping through?

[IRCL]

It is so frustrating.

babies are supposed to feed frequently and wake in the night.

even more annoying are the idiots who suggest putting solids in the bottle and trot out the never did mine any harm line...

I'm not on about them complaining about sleep deprivation. More the other mums suggesting Rusks in bottles. sorry didn't make that very clear!

timeto I have an 8 week old actually so even if I had forgotten I've been swiftly reminded.

Giles it seems some do still put rusks and rice in bottles. I've just read a load of them saying that their kids sleep because of it. so unfortunately people can be stupid enough..

Ok IRCL with an 8 week old I will allow you to say anything you want - and stroke your back while you say it! :)

FWIW our DC slept through very early on. Now at tiny toddler stage we probably have more disruption. But I will NEVER forget how completely mentally and physically shattered I felt with PFB. And if I am ever a GM I swear not to spout bollocks but instead do anything I can possibly do to help!

Time you're dead right I think.

I don't think it so much the case that people 'expect' babies to sleep through, I think it's the sheer desperation and hope that they will.

The lack of sleep when you get home from the hospital, possibly post-surgery or long labour, stitches etc - and then you have to stay up for a significant portion of the night for the forseeable future.

I remember the tiredness being quite shocking - and I mean that - and it being quite a factor in feeling really low. I mean, what was there to look forward to, when I couldn't even go to bed without lying there, tense with anticipation, waiting to be woken up again.

Please, please, can women just give other women a flipping break!

captain it honestly wasn't about anyone complaining about lack of sleep, more silly suggestions to try and get a 10 week old sleeping through.

I'm always bloody moaning how tired I am.

Yes...but why are they desperately searching for a magic sleeping baby potion? Because they're knackered and struggling!

that's fine, it's more the people who suggest dangerous things to said struggling mum I was referring to.

like adding stuff to bottles.

I feel a bit silly; I didn't have any idea that's what 'is he good?' was code for! (How do you know this stuff?) I was there looking slightly blank going 'err yeah? He's a good boy' not really knowing how a baby could be good/bad in terms of behaviour.

As it happens when he was tiny he woke often and went straight back to sleep now (which was great) he is now 16 months and has never slept through and is very difficult to get to sleep/back to sleep... I still think he's 'good' :D

Same here HeyMan. I had no idea people were referring to his sleeping habits either.

The thing is, we are getting it from all angles...

Quote from my GP at 6 week check
"Baby boys are very hungry. If he isn't sleeping through try giving him a bottle of formula at 10pm"....I was BF'ing.

MIL has moved on from 'putting rusks in the bottle' to 'a bowl of porridge at bedtime will see him through' (he's 15mo)

I'm confident (clever?) enough to ignore this advice. Not everyone is.

"I feel a bit silly; I didn't have any idea that's what 'is he good?' was code for!"

It's not. It's just a meaningless thing people say to which the answer is always yes.

"(How do you know this stuff?)"

You think you know it because you are paranoid and cranky.

But it's really not what anybody means.

Ds1 slept through until 5/5:30, had a feed and slept till 9ish from the day we brought him home. By the time the midwife came round in the morning I was showered and dressed, had the pan of soup cooking, the bread baking and was just rousing ds for his bath. I couldn't wait to get the midwife out so that I could pop into town to meet friends for coffee or lunch or do a bit of shopping. Then I had ds2. .........Oh the shock!

God what unkind people there are here

Sleep deprivation is hell and talking about it ought to elicit sympathy not horrid horrid comments

I was properly unstable and depressed because of sleep deprivation and really didn't need patronising people telling me to suck it up

"Ds1 slept through until 5/5:30, had a feed and slept till 9ish from the day we brought him home. By the time the midwife came round in the morning I was showered and dressed, had the pan of soup cooking, the bread baking and was just rousing ds for his bath. I couldn't wait to get the midwife out so that I could pop into town to meet friends for coffee or lunch or do a bit of shopping."

OMG I have never heard of anyone having it quite THAT easy!

And on your first as well, lucky you. You must cherish those memories :)

I couldn't really leave the house to go further than the local park for about 10 weeks because I could only breastfeed lying down.

I barely coped and my baby slept OK and had no reflux or anything.

I was just really shit at it. It did not come naturally to me at all.

To the "is he good?" nonsense DH and I say stuff like "No, he's not, he's been drawing on the walls/stealing our gin and replacing it with water" etc.

I didn't find DC1 bad as far as sleep deprivation goes as I used to sleep during the day whenever they did. DC2+madcap toddler on the other hand ... utterly exhausting. Sleep deprivation is used as torture for a reason. I've never seen any way of a solution though, you just have to endure it and muttering "this too shall pass" at 4am.

The problem is society seems to view sleeping through as some sort of indicator of babies 'happiness' and we expect it to happen at a young age. So much talk around babies is about their sleep etc its no wonder parents come to expect it to happen at a young age.

We do forget that some adults don't sleep through let alone children!

With my dc1 I woke him up every 3 hours to feed as that was what Hv told me to do.He would have slept through from weeks old if I let him.Dc2 was sleeping through by 3 months and dc3 by 6 months. 3 and 4 year olds getting up through the night or at the crack of dawn would not be tolerated in my house.I need my sleep or my mental health suffers.

I slept through the night from 2 weeks old. Was I some kind of abnormal freak then? I like to sleep.

I see it on fb all the time, how do I get my 6,8,10 week old to sleep through. They are waking once, twice a night.

It is always best to be sympathetic, some people find sleep deprivation harder than others. I found it a nightmare and it really affected my coping ability. Also with your first one, you don't know what you are getting into so people do need to vent/have sympathy. Unkindness is usually never fair. I can remember the kind comments of strangers even now.

My DD slept through from 7 weeks. Obviously we had off nights and even off weeks but generally she would sleep from 7pm-7am. I thought this was relatively normal. Since more friends have had children I realize it's not always the case and I was one of the lucky one's with my lazy baby.

I'm 28 and don't sleep through the night (even when not pregnant!). Sometimes I'm thirsty, sometimes I need to pee, sometimes I just wake up. I see no reason why a baby/toddler wouldn't wake sometimes.

Sleep deprivation is hard, but it's harder when as a first time mum you are told by everyone you meet (so it seems) that their babies slept through from 6 weeks etc. etc. and it makes you feel inadequate which makes it feel worse.

I used to be obsessed with it, but then I had my DD and we managed to breastfeed and co-sleep. It was a dream, I could sleep naked next to her, she'd latch on whenever she wanted to feed or comfort herself and I barely woke up. Made it much easier to understand that they have a short cycle, they sleep a bit, then eat, the sleep, then eat. I didn't expect her to sleep long, it was always just a bonus if she did, made parenting a newborn much less stressful. I think our expectations are sometimes what makes parenting hard.

But some babies do sleep through really happily - I never had the sleepless nights you read about on here - I suppose I assumed my baby would sleep though and wasn't particularly surprised when he did (7pm - 7am with one very quick feed around 1pm and no trouble getting him back to sleep) - it wasn't until I found Mumsnet that I realised I must have been exceptionally lucky or just very strict.

It's certainly not down to my parenting ,

I've had 2 good sleepers, only waking once or twice in the night and one lazy bones that slept 10 hours from birth, I sometimes woke him to feed as I was worried he hadn't drank enough. The first sleepless night I had with him was around 6 months when he was teething.
I consider myself very lucky. I didn't do anything special, certainly never added food to bottles and done the same with all 3.

I'm currently considering ttc with Dp and if we do I'll expect a baby that doesn't sleep/wakes many times, the same as I did while expecting my other dc - bonus if it does and completely normal if it doesn't.