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?!

I told you! I don't have "tips" - you have to listen to your own DC and work out what his/her sleep needs are, what his/her feeding needs are and put your DC to bed when they are ready.

Would you put yourself to bed when you weren't tired, not having had enough food to last the night and in a room alone miles from anyone? Probably not. Yet this is what huge numbers of parents do to their DC and then get frustrated when their DC don't sleep.

But, Bonsoir, what if they are well-fed and fall asleep within minutes of being put to bed - but then wake several hours later? It's not that they're not sleepy, and they're not hungry either (they aren't even that hungry at breakfast time). DC2 stays asleep all night, the other two don't. I really would like to 'teach' them to do it but I'm not sure that it's as simple as that.

They should be ravenous at breakfast time! Maybe there is a dietary link? Digestion takes place at night and digestive problems are a major cause of insomnia.

Who should be ravenous at breakfast? I can't eat in the morning, and I'm normally not hungry until lunch, DS is the same (but he sleeps well so clearly not an issue). What an odd thing to say.

If you aren't hungry or feel nauseous in the morning, that is because your digestion is overloaded. You need to make adjustments to your food intake.

Well two of them have coeliac disease, but one of those is the good sleeper. Don't think any of them has indigestion. They tend to be hungry around 9am, rather than the 6.45/7am when they have breakfast, which they eat, but not ravenously.

Could you provide some evidence or links to support that?

We eat a healthy diet, varied and not overly processed. I'm just not a fan of food int he morning, prefer hot water with lemon.

I have been sleep deprived since 2002! My youngest is autistic and doesn't sleep so it's never ending but luckily my mum takes over when she can so we do get a break about every 4 months.

But DC don't always know when they are ready! If I asked DD if she was ready for bed, she would say no until the cows come home. But I can see she's exhausted. Routine, sanctions and being quite firm (not being mean, and not deserting her, just making crystal clear that it is bedtime and not standing for any messing about) are required to get her into bed and off to sleep.

Maybe some "intellectualising" does go on in that both my kids respond better if things are explained to them – DD understands that getting enough sleep is important as it helps your brain work better the next day, helps cuts heal and helps you grow big and strong (all true). I don't think learning about these things is bad.

A lot of people seem to be mentioning autism. Is there a link between lack of sleep in babies and autism?

5 years here. Now we just play musical beds at night as it fixed the problem. Our 8 year old has just left my bed to go into her own bed. My youngest sleeps by herself but the middle is put into our bed everynight, when we go up. He now sleeps in until about 8!

I know what I know about eating and sleeping etc from living in France for 22 years! All the paediatricians and GPs here are informed about this stuff, as is the population at large.

Driven mine are the same - set bedtime routine including all the standard elements, one goes to sleep within moments of his light going off and sleeps all night (although he is prone to nightmares which wake the whole house in phases) one (who used to be a poor sleeper but now sleeps through unless woken by growing pains) faffs a lot and tries it on, the littlest is getting better, will sometimes faff and fuss but generally goes to sleep now, finally, at nearly 3 (it took a lot of work) without needing me in the room. They then have around 10.5-11 hours (depending on child) of possible sleep time, during which the youngest will wake between 1 and 5 times (usually more like twice, not at the same times by the clock). This is far better than it used to be, far better... When the youngest wakes, I tell him it is sleep time and return him to his bed. I have been doing exactly this for about 6 months.

Bonsoir is presumably extrapolating from her own experience to misguidedly assume she has possession of a universal truth.

Ideally DC need to be woken by their tummies rumbling for breakfast - you need to work out their sleep needs and food needs to coincide.

And, no, you cannot expect DC to self-analyse and tell you this. You have to work it out from observation.

Well, tbh, they are quite close together and youngest I suppose is not abnormal at 2 to be waking still, so it's not a 'normal' length of sleep deprivation but it wouldn't be abnormal if everyone had 3 kids 2 years apart iyswim? I hope you get some sleep soon!

Bonsoir it's well known that different cultures have vastly different "well-known truths" about health that don't necessarily have any basis in evidence.

My hungarian friends have an absolute fit if their DC paddle and swim in the sea because "everyone knows" they will be guaranteed to get ill from it. While surrounded by other kids splashing in the sea, non of whom get ill. Some cultures insist babies have to be boiling hot at all times. In other they insist babies will not thrive unless stuck out in the garden rain or shine.

A lot of these things are cultural and viewed from the UK, the French attitude to health is seen as a bit odd.

Oh right, well perhaps my digestive system (not being french) is different.

I mean, I am still sleep deprived and youngest is 4 (does come into my bed sometimes), but the sleep deprivation is mainly because I canno get to sleep and wake up due to depression/health issues, and am working full time so can't nap in day (wondering though, if anyone would notice if I did at desk...). So not really because of kids, except in that they faff in morning and evening meaning I don't get to bed usually before midnight and then up again around 6 which is not really long enough.

If they wake in the night I let them sleep in our bed, easiest way in my opinion.

If the French attitude to eating/sleeping means long un disturbed nights and slim families, I think it just may have something going for it

Bonsoir, does it make them smug too?

Well, tbh, they are quite close together and youngest I suppose is not abnormal at 2 to be waking still, so it's not a 'normal' length of sleep deprivation but it wouldn't be abnormal if everyone had 3 kids 2 years apart iyswim?

That is very true, Fudgeface. I think I would feel okay about it if my eldest wasn't an issue. We were doing quite well with him until a month or two ago (reward charts keeping him reading in his room until the Groclock came on for 'morning') Recently though, he's started coming downstairs in the evening saying he can't get to sleep. I am beginning to think that he has entered a new physiological phase that means he needs less sleep time. We are going to start putting him to bed a bit later than the others. Don't know if that will do anything about his nightmares/night-waking. It does mean that we will get almost no adult evening time (sleep-deprivation means I fall asleep before 9pm) but that may just be what comes of having 3 kids in 3.5 years...

I seriously doubt that no one in France suffers a prolonged kids' sleep problem. Or that no one in France is anything but slim

They just get judged more harshly.

Posters on this thread clearly revel in sleep deprivation and don't want to entertain any solutions

I think moving to France is a bit drastic