to think very few people have YEARS of sleep-deprivation with kids?

[drivenfromdistraction]

I have 3 kids, aged 6, 4 and 2. The middle one is a fantastic sleeper (since the age of two, was dreadful before that) - shuts his eyes at 6.30pm and opens them again at 6.30 am. If he was my only child, I would be very smug and think I'd done this with my fab routines.

The other two - different story. Youngest still wakes at night 4 or 5 nights a week and needs resettling, which takes an hour or more and leaves me wide awake. Eldest has always been an early waker (5am-ish) and now is struggling to get to sleep, and waking in the night with 'bad dreams' two or three nights a week and then taking hours to get back to sleep.

For seven years, I have almost never had an uninterrupted night. This is unusual, isn't it? Other people don't seem to be sleep-deprived like this. I have just taken the older two to school for the first day after half-term, all the other parents were making comments like 'Oh, it's hard to get up early again after the break, isn't it?' Wtf? I have been up before 6 every day of half-term as usual (either the eldest or the youngest awake and usually both) plus being woken in the night.

Are there other parents like me out there or am I alone?!

Four years here. Not long compared to so many of you

I thought I understood sleep and could teach a child to sleep and then DC2 came along and disabused me of this attitude. DC1 was just a naturally settled sleeper - left to cry a bit but self settled quickly - though very early riser.

DC2 is now 3.5 and though isn't up every night is probably up about 3 or 4 times a week with nightmares and seeing strange things. DC3 is in with me as I wouldn't get any sleep otherwise. DC2 was a terrible sleeper as a baby and I thought I was going mad. I was so unhappy and angry and obsessed and anxious.

One of the many symptoms I suffered from was total despondency / depression. Whilst I wanted and needed sleep I felt completely at a loss as how I could get it. Every time we passed one hurdle we'd hit something else. Tantrums, nightmares, illness, sleep walking etc. I've never recovered really. I think it damaged my relationship with her.

Years of it here too. 3 years with dd and nearly 4 so far with ds. Never ever sleep all the way through the night....not sure I'd know how to any more! :)

6 years so far. On the positive side I get a lot done on mumsnet in the small hours.

"A lot done on mumsnet." So many things to get done! So many things to achieve, on MN!

you know what? I think some people are so stupid they mix up cause and effect.

Having poor sleepers may lead to not having stable bedtime routines...not the other way around...

I knew a smug GF mummy....until her baby hit 6 months...turns out the routine was convenient to the baby up until then...not so much afterwards. Oh how we all chuckled.

I am of course so mega defensive in account of my 2.5 year old who is currently sleeping 6:30 till 6:30 (with the occasional peep at around midnight - oh what a bad unsuccessful mummy I must be).

Now my sister with her toddler with his asthma and allergy issues...that is a whole other story. But yeah she probably shouldn't have rocked him to sleep (although of course she never did in fact) but it must be something...maybe all that pampering BFing or summat. obviously her fault though...thats the key thing....

smug mummies can't be proud of their 'achievements' if it isn't other mummies faults that their kids don't sleep well....

otherwise you have to accept it is luck of the draw...and how can you be smug about that?

terrible.

MN definitely needs levels....you need to be able to level up for making 15 consecutive posts at 3 am.

I would like to add that I think some people on this thread have been quite insensitive and clearly missed some key points that have been pointed out. For some people 2 out of 3 children don't sleep well. So yes perhaps with the 3rd they just "got lucky" with a good sleeper but it suggests that routine and behaviours aren't everything in this situation.

Sometimes there are multiple factors that mean that children aren't sleeping well. If it was a simple solution do you not think that every child would sleep well? And do you not think that all parents would rather get some sleep and would do whatever it takes to make this happen?

Often parents have tried solutions a number of times with no success.

It also does not help that you need to have a lot of energy to be consistent and implement new changes and unfortunately years of sleepless nights does not give you this energy to function day to day let alone get to a better place with this.

So I ask that you be very understanding -try spending a night in one of these households and perhaps you would have a kinder word instead of talking down to people.

Exactly. I have one poor sleeper.

Two good sleepers - though the baby is still too young to be sure but he's nothing like DC2.

I had about three hours sleep last night, ans two or three for the paat week, I haven't managed more than five in almost five months.

I am suffering from severe depression. The baby is sitting growling at me while I try desperately to figure out how I am going to do my job tomorrow because I am so fucking tired. I have no energy. I genuinely feel ill most of the day and sick all evening. There is no help because this is apparently one of the things about having children - that some don't sleep.

Exactly happy - I would love to implement a completely consistent regime to try to teach dd to settle herself at night. But I'm knackered, so yes, at 3am sometimes I do what she wants and get in with her, so that I can have a few hours of sleep and get up to work, run house and care for family. At 3am when you desperately need sleep it's not always easy to make the "right" decision.

It's a shame a thread that started off with lots of people sharing for solidarity turns into one where a couple of posters come on with their superior smuggery telling us all where we're going wrong.

But then of course I've been sending my children to bed in polyester nighties straight after pie and chips for bedtime snack with a bottle of coke on the bedside table in case they're thirsty in the night. Silly me, should have known I was going wrong somewhere.

And to bonsoir- my sister used to say when I was in objectionable francophile mode - just because it's the French way, doesn't mean it's the best way.

Quite Parliamo- my sister's (French reared) children are pretty sleep deprived most of the time as they rarely get to bed before 10 even on a school night. I think it shows in their behaviour as well.

You are all admitting that you caused the problems and yet you can't see it.

When you say - 'I put them in my bed so I could sleep' - yeah well take a guess why five years later you are still not getting a full nights sleep. That was your first mistake. Try and justify it all you want, it doesn't change the facts.

Oh to be so expert about all things sleep related.

10 years sleep deprivation here. DS 1 has ASD. DD is a fairly good sleeper but suffers night terrors. Ds2 is severely autistic and has no mental capacity to understand 'scream quietly so you don't wake the others'.

ODFO grasshopper, there's a love.

I think everyone on this thread is excluding children with medical conditions.

I don't know how many times posters can say that before people with children with medical conditions stop taking offence.

If your child has a medical condition, a disability or special needs then there is no need to get on your high horse - we are not refering to your child.

Is that clear enough now?

DS1 has always been a crappy sleeper. At 14mo we did cc out of desperation. It worked for about a week. He has always had a good bedtime routine ( bath, book and bed for half 7), we did try experimenting with bedtimes but found in bed for 7.30 the best for him. We frequently got grief from family for being so inflexible about bedtimes and not keeping him out at family dos later because e would be a nightmare (over tiredness). We are always "boring parents" when dealing with him waking up and just guide him back to bed with minimal interaction.

Then just after his 2nd birthday he started sleepwalking, having night terrors and it was then we discovered he has sleep apnoea. We'd been to the drs so often for his snoring and tonsillitis and it was never suggested he may also have SA until I witnessed his breathing stop. He wakes several times a night screaming and terrified so poor DH ends up camping on his bedroom floor, or if he works away I bring him to bed with me as we also have 10 week old DS2. Finally have an appointment with ENT end of March and I hope to god they decide to take his tonsils out sharpish and hopefully solve the problem.

Fwiw, I have always been a crap sleeper, since I was about 7/8 years old. I have bouts of severe insomnia which needs medication to tackle. I never expected to have good sleepers, and I really feel for those of you who have had years of this. I know you can try every trick in the book and it still won't work for some kids. Yes there are families out there who frankly bring crappy sleep habits on themselves, but an awful lot who do everything they should and still it doesn't work. Don't judge unless you have been there.

we are not referring to your child is that the royal 'We'? Because you seem to be a lone voice...

Well, grasshopper, if children with disabilities/medical conditions/special needs may have a reason for not sleeping well, is it so hard to imagine that some children without such diagnoses might also have valid reasons for their sleeping problems?

Is it at all conceivable that not every child in the world is exactly like yours, and that other children may not respond in the same way to the (hardly earth-shattering) techniques you describe.

And by the way, children with disabilities/medical conditions/special needs are not some utterly different category of being. Their parents should not have to automatically bow out of any conversation because 'of course we don't mean your kids, so go away and let us drivel on about our 'normal' kids who show their normalness by fitting into this narrow range of 'normal' behaviour we are now defining.'

Is there a Grrr! icon? Should be.

oh no...its not a spectrum...its a hard line in the sand....all kids are either a) other and are allowed to have sleep issues or
b) normal and can have no possible reason for not being identical in their responses to youngs kids.

here is the for you to use...

lots of people co-sleep and have children who sleep well and get lots of rest. Lots of people who have never ever co-slept even once have kids that don't sleep well.

So how exactly does one do the mental damage gymnastics required to believe that co-sleeping is responsible for bad sleeping in children?

Thank you ice.

Phew. That's better.

off to search for

Its just pointless to come on a thread and waste energy being offended when no one is referring to children who have SN for example.

But some people just love to be offended esp on MN these days.

Once upon a time, everyone became offended if you didn't put a disclaimer 'not referring to disbaled children obv', now people are becoming offended if you do put the disclaimer.

Only on MN