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?!

And if you think I'm a lone voice then you clearly haven't read the thread.

Too busy being PO?

There is an interesting study on sleep patterns of children from birth to 12 months in New Zealand from 2010. It found that half of babies sleep through the night for 5 or 8 hours from the age of 2 or 3 months, and concluded that parents must focus on improving babies sleep patterns in the first 3 months of life.

Link for those that are interested.

So, in theory I guess that allows 50% of parents who followed the advice in the study to be "smug". Me included.

I really don't see why it should be an issue that apparently NT children don't always sleep. Sure, sometimes it can be shit parenting but sometimes they don't sleep because they.......just don't sleep.

Plenty of adults don't sleep well either and they have various techniques to help them. Sometimes they get up and do the ironing, cleaning, watch TV, read a book, have a cup of herbal tea or a horlicks. That is all deemed absolutely fine. Funnily enough a 4/5/6/7 or even 10 year old is not mature enough to, at night, when it is dark and the house is quiet and everyone else is asleep, get up and make themselves a soothing drink/find another way to allow their brain to wind down. Why is that seen as a sign of bad parenting?

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

Have you read the thread grasshopper? Because lots of people on here are referring to children with SN. There are many parents of SN kids on here talking about their sleep issues.

I started this thread. It's about kids with sleep issues. Some of those kids have SN and some don't. My kids don't. Many the things that the parents of SN kids are saying are relevant and interesting. Unlike your posts, as it happens.

Obviously every so often someone wakes up in the night, but its rare. DD age 10 was recently sick during night and managed to do this without waking us up. Also went through phase with DS1 waking age 2 demanding bottle in night, and DD having nightmares, but generally managed to nip these things in bud quite quickly.

Why didn't she wake you up when she was sick, and how do you nip nightmares in the bud?

I'd hate to think that one of my children had got up and been sick and sorted themselves out without waking me. Helping them is what I am here for!

I never once said don't post about SN.

I said whats the point of parents of children with SN offended by posts which are not referencing their children.

Can't you understand the difference?

Because they don't think that their children should be a different category that is automatically excluded from discussion, grasshopper?

Children come in a range of varieties, with a range of behaviours. Some of those children have SN. It is a bit silly to say 'All non-SN children will sleep through the night from an early age if parented correctly. All SN children are entirely different and excluded from discussion.'

Can you understand that?

Here's an idea....how about anyone who needs support or a hand to hold in this tough situation, and anyone else who can put their smugness to one side band together to give one another hope through kind words and useful, non judgmental strategies.

I will start with some supportive words to those who are feeling truly exhausted today -I would like to acknowledge you all for being the best parent you could be today. Although you may be silently suffering through this perhaps reaching out to a RL friend for support (even just to have a chat today) could make a difference.

I had 7 years of horrible energy-sapping, nausea inducing sleep deprivation. DD Is now 7 and reads quietly in her room if she wakes up early, but generally wakes up after 7. DS is 4 and sleeps through until after 5.50 around 5 days a week and generally after 6.30 at least once a week. The test of the time he climbs into bed next to me and falls straight back to sleep.

It is bliss and before long you will have it too.

I actually just laughed out loud that apparently parents of SN kids need not post because this is for 'normal' children and anyone that posts otherwise is PO

Surely this highlights that you cannot categorise!

Some dc with SN sleep. Others don't. Same with neurotypical kids.

There should be no exclusions, because every child is different. They dont come with a standardised instruction manual.

my eldest is 13 in July - I'm due with our #7 just 2 weeks before.

so that's almost 13 years of sleep deprivation.
add a couple more after baby's born and I'm looking at 15+ years of no proper sleep at night!
at least.

but I don't think I will ever have a proper night's sleep - worrying about them or their problems will probably always interfere with my ability to fall asleep easily (I'm naturally an owl and probably have a touch of insomnia).

I have come to the following conclusion...people are in general dicks.

Bare with me...

Some people (like myself) are depressive dicks. I have a tendency to believe that everything that goes right with my parenting/DD is due to chance/genetics nature or luck. Like BF. DD was a fecking genius at that....had her first tummy full before I came around from the GA. In my head that's all her / luck.
But I think everything that goes wrong is my fault. If she is sick it is my fault, if she has a nightmare its my fault. Needing GA in labour - my fault.

Other people are smug dicks. They believe everything that goes right is down to their own personal excellence and everything that goes wrong is just bad luck/ genes. These are the kind of parents who after 3 years of telling you how you should just do what they do to get their kid to sleep through give birth to a non-sleeper and then declare it is all down to genetics/bad birth / anything that isn't their fault.

In reality I would guess that 95+ % of how your child is in the first few years is down to nature/genetics/environmental influences out of parental control. So anyone that either thinks what they did made things substantially better or that what they did made things substantially worse is being a dick.

Of course if you screw the 5% up badly enough you really can make a difference....but really not many people do that....

people with kids with SN are not "the PO" because they want to join in discussions despite your thrown out disclaimer.

And I wasn't even offended by your posts but I am by that epithet.

Your posts were totally insensitive and could well have done with just being advice based rather than critical. even if you were addressing those with NT children only.

You have not shown yourself in a good light on this thread.

hmmm am I desperate to be offended? nah. Just get offended the normal way when people spout shit.

Am I defensive? Not on the topic of sleep...my DD sleeps fine. So maybe there is a third option?

Some people think it is ridiculous to claim causality without proof. You did stuff and your kids sleep well? Okay, but you have ZERO evidence those two things are connected.

Some people are scientists and get that correlation isn't causality.

Some people get pissed off with people who don't understand that.

I am one of those people.

So actually I am "professionally pissed off with people who don't understand that correlation does not imply causality"

It isn't as neat as PO....PPCC maybe?

Some people are outright insulting because they are pissed off with what someone has said.

Some people are passive aggressive arseholes who wind people up on purpose with wanky smiley faces when they are being knobheads.

Some of you..hand out insults like sweets to make yourself feel better

And in the same post, Grasshopper, you call parents of children with SN the Professionally Offended.

So ironic. Catch on to yourself, eh? Deeply unpleasant.

fanjo do you think that parents of children with SN are simply more likely to understand that there is a spectrum of behaviour and that the two size model (SN or NT) doesn't fit all? I would imagine they are certainly better placed to understand that being a good parent and doing everything right is no guarantee of plain sailing....

high...oh..er...a wanky smilie face? That is one suggestion for an expanded glossary of MN emoticons that I do not actually support....

I completely support your sentiment though.

Actually young most of us are not desperate to be offended, or defensive, or anything else. We are just tired, and were sharing a bit of sympathy until you decided to come into the thread and start preaching about how bloody marvellous you are.

And me, PO, are you actually joking? I think that boot needs to be on your foot, because you are clearly outraged that we haven't all fallen to our knees sobbing with gratitude at your wonderful advice. Because no-one here has tried doing anything to help their kids sleep

Ice..yes. we go through the same issues as all parents just with different causes and different methods of dealing with them.

We aren't some "other" kind of parents that shouldn't post on a thread.

Often we are parents who have been through every issue known to man and tried everything to deal with them.

But people still think they can put a disclaimer and keep us off threads.

Also wtaf kind of person posts the equivalent of 'ha ha at least I will get sleep tonight' on a thread full of people saying they are varying (small) distances from total collapse?