To get wound up about MN and sleep advice

[LittleMilla]

I love MN and will often come on to get advice...can normally count on it for sensible pointers for everything except for sleep.

AIBU to wonder why noone on MN seems to want their children to sleep through the night? I no of noone in RL who co-sleeps - but everyone on MN seems to? And people seem to think it's entorely normal for a 8 month old baby to wake repeatedly through the night.

I just don't get it. So much valuable advice...yet everyone on here seems to go madly soft when it comes to sleep.

Am I the only one?

I don't think an 8 month old needs food in the night though, really. I did do the " dream feed" thing until around 6/7 months(despite my MIL furiously denying that a baby could feed while asleep!") whereby I would lift the sleeping baby out of bed and he would latch on for a feed, then place him back in the cot, still asleep. I do think, however, that implying that babies need to wake several times a night past the newborn stage or they might die is basically rubbish.
My sisters dd's both slept thru from about 3 weeks old, and she would dream feed them at around 11, and then nothing until morning. They are, miraculously, still living.
I have a few friends, made from toddler groups, like your friends traininthedistance-older parents, lots of theories about slings and co sleeping, and I remember one couple who would cuddle/rock their toddler to sleep at night, and took turns getting into bed with him at night when he woke (six times a night) The woman was so frickin grumpy all the time due to lack of sleep, and never wanted to play with her kids, or read to them, or have any fun really. I would rather feel human in the day, so that I can interact with my children than martyr myself to some theory, based on the fear that my constant nighttime ministrations are the only thing keeping them from a cot death.

Oh, and I also think it's untrue that EBF babies don't sleep as well. Breast milk is better digested and causes less irritation and wind. It's just that bf ing mothers are instructed to feed 24/7, "because of nature", and so end up getting no sleep!

I don't think an 8 month old needs food in the night though, really. Who knows? My 3 yo eats like a horse and always has. Hungry all the time. She's below average BMI just always running and moving. She eats three squares and about four snacks a day including just before bed. At 8 mo, she was always hungry too. Maybe just a hungry baby...

My ebf baby was the only one who slept well

OP are you sure most of the difference isn't just in knowing people who mostly ff rather than bf? The whole way you practice so-called "sleep hygiene" is different if you are EBF or extended BFing. Nearly everyone I know breastfeeds and cosleeps, so clearly it depends on your circle. Most mothers and fathers I know are mid-late thirties or early forties, work (normally flexibly), do attachment parenting, don't wean until 6mo, share childcare equally between mum and dad, and talk endlessly about how their baby doesn't sleep through the night. It's definitely not thought of as normal for an 8mo to "sleep through

This is my suspicion too. I know from my formula feeding days how important it was that a child slept through because night time feeds are soooo painful. When I had DS I had the same expectations as with the other 2 but once I met people who bf longer term it was obvious that I needed to change expectations. I remember at my first bf meeting lots of talk about babies not sleeping and I knew mine would be different, like my other 2 but he wasn't. I was also surprised by how it was less important as the lacating hormones knock you out and you get the sleep you need so long as you don't get up and about duirng the night.

The reality is that it is only since industralisation and really the Victorian era that the circumstance has developed where we try to toughen our babies up and make them stand on their own two feet before they can even stand on their own two feet. For generations everyone slept well because mothers and babies slept together and that was how it was. That practice still goes on across the world. Modern advice which supposedly is trying to encourage bf even discourages co sleeping which shows just how out of touch the establishment is with what is normal or often even really possible for bf babies.

ifnotnow my point was that tiny babies do wake in the night so they don't die - they feed, they get their needs met from a carer to prevent neglect. And the current direction of SIDS research is exactly that routine waking stops a baby from entering too- deep sleep states during which the autonomic nervous system may shut down (currently though to be one of the mechanisms of SIDS). So yes, little babies wake to keep themselves alive. But who says when a baby "should" have "grown out of" that? Since we now know a lot more about the age-linked risk profile of SIDS (hence the advice to avoid lone sleeping before 6m), why should folk wisdom about when babies should or shouldn't sleep through still get parroted about? Most advice I was given by well meaning people (including HCPs) was totally free of any evidence base and mostly dated from years ago and/or is based on mainly FF babies. Eg. where's your evidence that all 8 month olds don't need to eat in the night? Why not?

And it's not true that bf mothers are just told to feed 24/7 (!) formula takes longer to be digested by the gut compared the breast milk; this may be a reason why ff babies tend to wake less often for feeding (though it doesn't apply to all babies of course).

Anyway, babies gain more from feeding at night than just a full tummy.

According to large observational studies there are no differences in the sleep of bf and ff babies.

Both my ebf babies slept through the night from 4/5m. From my own unscientific study ( people I know who bf/off!) Feeding method made no difference to sleep patterns.

I've also been blessed with kids who don't want to sleep through the night until they are about 2.

Did you know that ADULTS didn't sleep through the night before the invention of electric lights? Sleep was staggered and there was an awake period in the middle of the night when people would be up doing all sorts. Sleep patterns changed once everyone had to shift to industrial work patterns. We are trying to train these natural habits out of kids and, whilst it's great of they can do it, some find it difficult.

Do whatever makes your life easiest but there is no "right" way.

No one has really pointed out the obvious which is that no baby actually sleeps totally through the night. Every baby/child wakes up. They sleep in cycles. It's how they cope when they wake up that is the difference.

Babies that are secure in their beds/not in pain/not stressed/basically quite happy will merely mooch a little and then simply go back to sleep.

This is the 'training' (which is a bad choice of word, but there really isn't another one!) which needs to take place as early as possible. I'm pretty sure once the baby gets to 6months+ it's too late and if your baby is going to wake up and scream the place down/climb the cot walls/wail uncontrollably, they're going to continue to do it until such an age where you can enforce them staying in bed.

I will get flamed for this, but I do remember, we put DD in her cot and her own room at 8 weeks. I also recall saying to DH when she was 6 months, thank god we hadn't waited that long, or else they'd be no chance she'd be happy to go off in her own little room, she'd be scared/worried/missing us etc etc. She was such an independent miss at 6 months. (also just to say, her room is next door to ours, and we could hear everything, plus had a video monitor)

I'm with you on this purple - I know my kids would wake as babies but they could settle themselves back to sleep. They weren't hungry, as had been fed at 11pm and could go happily until 7am. My midwife told me that formula takes longer to digest than breast milk so formula fed babies tend to sleep longer.

As my DH pointed out, why would a co-sleeping baby want to settle itself back to sleep if there is boobies and food and a willing parent on tap?

Well mine self settled and slept through until 7 months so not sure what happened there!

Of course I wanted my life to be hectic & disorganised and never have any time to myself, so that's why I "allowed" my children to be bad sleepers. Silly me, not to realise that before.

With you purple and Megrim. My DD often wakes in the night and has a little chat/sing/move around her cot. Then she happily goes back to sleep on her own unless she is in pain. She also went into her own cot at 5 weeks, and her own room about 10 weeks. This room was right next to us with a video monitor. She is very secure about spending the night alone, without food or drink, and I think this has a lot to do with the help we gave her early on to sleep without too much assistance.

slightlyconfused85 DS went into his own room at just after 1 year and does exactly the same as your DD. We kept him there because I restarted an intense degree course just after he passed six months (I worry about SIDS) and couldn't afford to disrupt the fact that he was sleeping through.

When a bad patch of sleep coincided with a lull in my studies we put the effort in to move his room. It took less than a week and he went back to sleeping through.

Its luck, not moving your baby to their room early that makes the difference.

• We kept him in our room for so long

At the almost certainty of being flamed I don't think it has that much to do with luck after the 4/5 month point. You are lucky if you have a newborn or very young baby that sleeps through, after that point I think it's down to a lot of other things, but not really luck.

The only thing that is lucky is if you have a 12 hour sleeper rather than a 8/9/10. I believe that all children, even babies, can sleep a fairly long chunk without food or a lot of parental assistance.

I have a friend who was still struggling to get her baby to sleep at 8/9 months. She got tough with night feeds/sleeping in own cot and by 10 months he was doing 11 hours with only the occasional wake up.

My mum said I was her worst sleeper, but I just slept for less hours so had to go to bed later. I also slept for a long chunk, just not as long as my siblings.

I have never ever had my two in my bed no matter how many times I had to get up. I think that is a slippery slope. Similarly when my two transitioned to a bed, I never had prolonged problems with them getting out of it. Sure they tried at first, but they soon realised that that was going to be met with nothing but implacable resistance from me. My DD1 slept through from a really early age (she's naturally a good sleeper), my DS1 is much more variable and was much more tricky. Even now at 2.5 if he sleeps through then I view it as a huge positive as he is more typically awake a couple of times a night. I would still never ever co-sleep though I have slept on his floor before when he was tiny! I think there are elements of luck in the whole thing in that it is dependent on the child's nature, BUT I also think that parental approach makes a big difference. In the friends I have who have consistently good sleepers versus consistently bad sleepers, their approach to sleep is typical of most other aspects of their parenting. Incidentally (and I know I will get flamed for this) I firmly believe that there is no excuse for a child of 3 and above to be waking its parents up consistently (unless a medical reason, sickness etc). 3 year olds are easily old enough to understand what is acceptable behaviour and what is not.

So, those who advocate moving the baby to their own room early on, are you suggesting that people should ignore current NHS guidelines that babies should not sleep alone (not even for naps) until at least six months?

The research suggests that it isn't just about keeping an eye on them (by monitor etc.): the physical presence of the parent - noises, and especially breathing and the regulation of carbon dioxide in the room by the patent's breathing, help prevent the baby from falling into too deep a sleep and not being able to arouse. Current thinking on SIDS is that it is linked to a failure to arouse properly from deep sleep states.

To suggest that those whose babies "fail" to "sleep through" haven't been assiduous enough in their sleep training, including not putting the baby in its own room before six months, goes directly against current (evidence based) medical advice.

Concerned about SIDS? Nah, you just want your baby to sleep badly!

Slightly confused as I said up thread my DDs did all of what you say from 8 weeks with absolutely no encouragement from either of us other than to put them in bed.

I do believe formula contributes to that because I have more experience of formula fed kids in my own family and there is a definite expectation that kids need to sleep through the night from early on from family members.

When I went on to bf number 3 for longer than his sisters, he did not sleep and I met a lot of bf mums through bf groups and I found that for them not sleeping was totally normal. In fact the women who bf is accordance with bf norms had no expectation of kids sleeping at all because everything 'evidence based' you read about bf babies explains that this is relatively rare although obviously still possible.

I think it is well and good for posters to say sleeping through is normal but you need to remember that is a cultural norm and not a biological norm. Biologically babies are programmed to wake up.

Feck sake my phone is actung up and I posted too soon again.

But what I trying to say is that they are programmed to wake for feeds.