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?

Humphrey you have my sympathies, we've just been through the waking every 45mins weeks. There's light at the end of the tunnel, DD went 3hours solidly lasts night.

What Humphrey said.

DS (8 months) is on a strict routine, in bed by 7pm every night, not fed/rocked to sleep, goes to sleep happily, nice and healthy..... for the last 2 weeks has woken up 2 hours later screaming and screaming and screaming!!

Advice? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

You can do every thing 'right' and by the book and STILL have a cr ap sleeper - do you really think every single baby is exactly the same? Bizarre

It doesn't annoy me one bit Humphrey. It is okay to be a little lighthearted now and again.

I am not in anyway smug, I just think I have helped my daughter to sleep to the best of her ability. She still wakes up sometimes, I still have shit nights, She still only eats two varieties of vegetables, she still throws almighty tantrums. I will also be teaching her to manage these things to the best of her and my ability with varying degrees of scucess. Not smug, just doing my level best at parenting as I'm sure you are - we just have different approaches to sleep.

Smug is another MN favourite isn't it? If your baby or child does something well then you are a definitely a smug parent. This is a very emotional forum sometimes with people getting way too wound up about different approaches and opinions. Using your own child as an example is not smug, it is just an example.

OP, your last post makes it very clear that neither of your babies have slept well at all. See if this was me, this would indicate (anecdotally) to me that it isn't actually normal for babies to sleep a lot/at adult times when they are tiny.

' He's now sleeping through again but it hasn't been easy. '

That's because it isn't supposed to be the case. You are swimming against the tide.

Fwiw all three of mine have slept pretty well - in my bed, fed on demand, without crying. It isn't rocket science.

but slightlyconfused85, imagine if I said to you that your child's fussy eating was the result of your lack of parenting. And then added . WOuldn't you find it annoying?

I am assuming that you do your best to get your daughter to eat vegetables. You should assume that we are doing our best to get our children to sleep.

What is equally annoying is when you're called "lucky" when you've put thought, research, time and effort into developing and applying a consistent routine that works for you and your baby.

not nearly as annoying as putting thought, research, time and effort into developing and applying a consistent routine that COMPLETELY FAILS TO WORK and being called lazy and disorganised for it.

It is lucky not to get a non sleeper.

To all those who really do think they have it cracked I would genuinely like to hear what advice you can give me re my post above...

but ok, i do accept that people try to get the children sleeping and their efforts often do work

When have I ever said that you are not doing your best? I have never said this humphrey I just said we have different approaches to sleep.

No I wouldn't find it annoying, because although I do my best to get her to eat vegetables, I'm sure there is something I could have done/do to have more success. I would most definitely also be open to help and suggestions from people who have more luck than me. What would annoy me is if people said 'Well, some people are just lucky and their kids eat vegetables, and the rest of us we have to suffer and muddle along in whatever way, until the child is 3 or 4 and is naturally developmentally ready to eat vegetables'. That is what would annoy me. I would also not consider the mothers of good eaters to be 'smug', simply that they have cracked a technique or stumbled upon an idea that I haven't yet tried. I certainly wouldn't jump down their throat for making suggestions,or get annoyed with them. But we're all different hey.

Humphrey I would not call you lazy and disorganised?

I reserve that for the family I know where the children are allowed to be up and playing at 3 am and are then too tired for school, and so are allowed to stay home and sleep instead.

but why would you assume we have a massively different attitude to sleep? Is it because I am co sleeping?

you seem to equate having a bad sleeper with not trying
most of us tried it all
I am open to suggestions

you are smug if you think that only your superior parenting skills are the reason your child sleeps and mine doesn't - if you don't think that then fair enough

I have a great eater and a terrible eater.
Both treated exactly the same, both good/bad eaters/drinkers from birth.

But in response to my DS's poor eating, I have not just fed him any old crap, I have persevered in encouraging him to try new tastes, in different ways. It has been nightmarish at times, hiding veg in sauces, cooking healthy dinners that go uneaten, being nagged for snacks, epic mealtimes. But I have read up on it, tried different approaches with quite a lot of success and some compromises.

I have friends with bad eaters who constantly give into demands for unhealthy snacks, allow these snacks close to mealtimes and then act surprised that dinner goes uneaten.

In relation to the sleep analogy, I don't feel like I have failed in getting my son to eat well, I think I have tried everything I can with some success. If I gave in on every bad-eating whim I would feel I'd failed.

Same is true with sleep. If you can make some in roads into achieving good sleeping, then you have made a positive difference.

Slightly, if your child does something well and you claim credit for it when there is real debate about how much influence you had over it, then yep, that's smug.

Statements like '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.' in the context of your own children who have cracked sleep relatively early does come across as smug.

I tried very hard not to be smug when I had a 10 week old who went down to sleep at 7pm every night, having set his own bedtime, had a dream feed at 11pm and then slept until 6am because that was nothing to do with me, really.

Just like when it all went horribly wrong between 7 months and 18 months, it wasn't my fault and others weren't superior parents because, having tried the same strategies and put the same amount of effort in, their children had responded and mine hadn't.

For the record, he's a brilliant sleeper now at 2.5. But we had to put a lot of effort it and, crucially, recognise at some points that he was not ready, even though other people's children might have been.

I don't understand why you think I've said you don't try hard? If you are co-sleeping then yes we have different attitudes. I also believe that it is ok for children to cry a little, and I think that self-settling, and sleeping in their own cot is extremely important and means that by 8 months, many healthy children are able to sleep through most nights, from early evening until early morning. Do you think this? If not we have different attitudes.

If someone asked me for advice, this would be it and as the OP said she never gets any useful advice for sleeping, than that's what I would give her based on my own children and the children of my friends.

My children sleep through most of the time so it works for me- I have no idea what works or doesn't for you and your family. I am not smug, but I don't really care if anyone thinks that I am - I do my best for my children as I'm sure you do.

In response to my DS not eating, I have posted for constructive advice. If posters told me things which worked for them, I wouldn't be annoyed or think them smug. I'd learn from , not get defensive. Someone saying 'oh well lo's don't eat well, that's just how they are' isn't much use to me.

I think that's what the OP is talking about.

Agreed Bee. This thread was originally about the giving of helpful advice, not telling people to just accept that children do things badly if there are techniques which MIGHT make things easier for them.

It doesn't make anyone smug, lazy, lucky, or anything else.

Slightly, I took it as implied when you said that 'I don't think it has that much to do with luck after the 4/5 month point' that, rather than luck of the draw with the child you have, you felt that poor sleepers after that age were the result of something external. What did you mean by that if you didn't mean it was because of something the parents did or did not do?

I've provided lots of sleep advice to people having trouble cracking it based on my own experiences of what was effective and what wasn't for the sort of child who, when younger, didn't have a 'grizzle' mode (either calm or hysterics). Part of that is saying - well, DS was actually still hungry. When we got enough food into him during the day he slept better but sometimes that was physically impossible. Recognising that was crucial for us. Recognising that CC or gradual retreat just don't work for a lot of babies was also important, and knowing that there are other strategies out there including those that minimise, rather than eliminate, the wake-ups.

Statements like the OP's that everyone on MN goes 'wildly soft' when it comes to sleep and yours that 'it's not luck' are pretty galling in the circumstances.

I've never co-slept, for the record. Neither DS or nor I were fans. He went into his own room at 8 months.

But going back to the eating analogy, it is totally down to good luck that my DD eats well IMO. It is bad luck that my DS eats badly. But it is NOT luck that we have been successful in improving his eating habits.

I mean that luck is certainly not the deal breaker, in my opinion. I emphasise 'in my opinion' which I am entitled to. I have not made any comments about trying or not trying, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't imply that this was the case.

If you find the OPs phrasing 'galling in your circumstances' then don't respond, you are free to ignore aren't you?

I'm not really enjoying this thread, I don't enjoy arguing and anger and I was only really interested in answering the OPs question, not entering into a debate about what makes a good sleeper.

I bid you all good day.

The older my dd gets, the more I'm convinced it IS the luck of the draw. From 12 weeks to 6 months my dd slept for 12 hours a night. I was sure this was down to my lovely bedtime schedule and routine, which I worked hard at, as well as my superb parenting skills. Maybe I was a tiny bit smug.

From 6 months, everything went downhill. My amazing sleeper just started refusing to sleep. We hadn't changed anything in her routines etc. All that was different was that she was starting on food as well as milk, and this clearly caused her to be unsettled.

Believe me, we tried EVERYTHING. New routines, dream feeds, co-sleeping, cio, cc, pupd, the lot. Nothing worked. Nothing. Our dream sleeper was in fact not a dream sleeper any more.

We are now at ten months and things are just starting to settle down again. We have no idea why or what had changed to cause this.

Those of you who think your child's sleep is all because of your efforts should think carefully before opening your mouths. They might be about to hit a phase where everything changes.

What kept me going is the knowledge that with babies everything is a phase - but that includes the good bits as well as the bad bits!

widdle mine does it about an hour after he goes yo sleep. Hes done it from about 7 months and hes now just turned one. Think weve had about 6 nights in the past 4 months when he hasnt done it.

I have no idea why, thought it might have something to do with self settling when he starts falling asleep but he self settles in the night fine (although still wakes up some nights.)

Last night he was in bed for 9, woke at 10 and then slept till 7.45. Ive tried all sorts and nothing makes a difference.

Is it not the case that those with "normal" sleep through the night children don't need to post about sleep. The only ones that do are people like me who have crap sleepers, waking frequently and Co sleeping as opposed to gouging out my severely bagged eyes!!?? And most of the time we know we won't get a magic answer but Misery loves Company.