Tell me your honest to god experiences with your newborn

[Mitsufishi]

I am going through hell for the third time around with a newborn.

Everyone says 'sleep when they skeep'. But how? Mine would never sleep, in bed, on me, maybe in a buggy or sling if in constant motion. They all went on to be horrific sleepers so 'this too' did not pass.

My mother says 'all newborns are like that, people who say otherwise are lying'. So it's just me who can't cope then?

Honestly tell me, what was your experience with a newborn. Because I have friends who seem to have had it easy and have seen evidence of it. My mother insists people are lying to show off. But I don't think there's such a fashion for that any more and that actually if anything people often tend to make things sound worse than they are these days rather than the other way around. In any case I've seen friends newborns and babies that effortlessly doze off and wonder a thousand times over what I'm doing wrong.

I had to do the 'put them down whilst you attend to no. 1' thing with DD2. It certainly didn't teach her to self settle!

It comes down to what I have said upthread. Every baby is different. They are people. Often it does work, and that's great. But often it doesn't too.

Pistol, Mitsufishi is the OP...

Haha pistol I'm the OP and penguin asked me how I was doing. I wasn't trying to be smug I was trying to be positive!

I said this thread isn't for you because it's for people talking about a variety of experiences. If you'd said 'I have to say I found the Gina Ford method really worked for my baby' (leaving room for just a little open mindedness) you would have got a very different reaction than what you actually posted

Glad things are going better for you Mitsufishi. I think with three a key thing is acceptance of bad days. On those days, 'everyone's fed and nobody's dead' calms me down! You have brilliant days where you think "Wow, I have this sussed. Three is great". And rubbish days where the toddler poos themselves as the baby screams and the school child rants about a lost water bottle, all five minutes before you have to leave on the school run. All part of life's rich tapestry.

Last night was a bit better for us and DS is an hour into a cot nap so DD2 and I are building marble runs. Better get back to it, there was just a crash!!

Oh, blimey , talk about discombobulation

OP, I have found that, over and over again, there really isn't any language or tone to be used when introducing the subject of Gina Ford that will not raise the hackles of the most placid and receptive mother. You can try the softly-softly approach with half-catatonic-from-sleep-deprivation mums but there are too many books around promising that 'It will get easier if you continue to just love'; 'Who needs sleep anyways?'; 'Don't ever put your crying baby down; it will become a serial killer.'

Just to add, I am acutely aware that having only one baby makes routine implementation easy peasy, but I am very jealous of those of you with several tots

Well, I get that Gina Ford is a touchy subject, but honestly there is a big difference between "this worked for me" and "this works for everyone and if you say it's not working for you, then the fault lies with you and not the method."

Well, there really is no other way of saying what you believe to be true from the evidence.

What evidence? Are there actual studies?

If you are talking anecdotal evidence, there are definitely lots of people who lean either way, so I'm not sure that proves that routines can work for everyone.

pistol sorry but you really unequivocally believe that every newborn baby (barring medical issues) could be put onto the perfect GF routine (including sleeping happily in a bed without any comforting) if only the mother put in the effort?????

pistol saying "this worked for me" is one thing, saying "this works for all babies and if you are doing something else you are doing it wrong" is a completely different matter. I don't get why you are so invested in making the second type of claim?

As for evidence, a lot of what you say goes against what we know about babies and sleep. For example,

• there is absolutely no evidence or studies of any kind to show that there is such an ability as 'self-soothing' or that it can be encouraged or discouraged by any particular intervention during any age.
• information about breast milk and its production strongly suggests that babies need to bf during the night (both for supply reasons to do with prolactin and due to the different nutritional content of night milk)
• bf supply requires on demand feeding.
• crying for attention seems to be an evolutionary survival strategy for some species, e.g. Species that tend to leave their young alone to go hunting/foraging for food tend to have young that do not cry when left alone, species that are nomadic have young that cry to ensure they are never left behind.
• there is also some evidence that leaving babies to cry may cause them harm.

If we are to critically analyse all your claims it would be useful to understand how parents who respond to crying can be simultaneously out of their wits with tiredness and incapable of functioning because of the massive amount of work they pile onto themselves AND really lazy and unwilling to put in the hard work required for CC.

As an aside I managed to bf on demand, co-sleep and never let DD cry while writing the second half of an academic philosophy book, so maybe it was just you who was rendered witless by the demands of a newborn.

But also are you suggesting leaving a newborn to cry themselves to sleep?? Surely not? No one, even Gina suggests leaving a baby that tiny to cry do they?

My 9-week-old has been sleeping really well at night (generally he just wakes up, eats, gets a diaper change, and goes back to sleep). During the day, he naps only if he's being held, worn, or sometimes pushed in his stroller. "Sleep when he sleeps" isn't possible for us during the day.

I'm not going to repeat myself about whether gina (or anyone in their right mind) would advocate leaving a tiny baby to cry itself to sleep/become distressed/vomit with anxiety or any of the other absurd claims of those wishing to denigrate routines.

I have no agenda here; I merely hate to see women needlessly suffering excruciating sleep deprivation when it does not need to be that way. No harm ever came to a baby through sleep training if the mother is sensible sane and sober (and does her research). There is plenty of evidence to show that mothers who refuse to put their babies down and rush to the cot whenever baby squeaks are in for a very rough ride further down the line - sometimes years

No one said Gina did. And no one said they move at the first squeak.

We asked if you believe every baby can be put in a Gina routine and any failure is just not trying hard enough.

Also, I asked for evidence all babies can be put in a routine, not what you have answered.

But pistol - don't you get that your 100% Gina stance is just as bizarrely dogmatic as the 100% attachment parenting stance you're denigrating? Because life isn't black and white, and most families' experience of small babies and sleep falls somewhere in the middle. So many of us on this thread, me included, and certainly the OP, have said that we were strongly in favour of routine and really tried to make a go of it. When it was causing us upset and sleepless nights with no end in sight, we eventually stopped, and took the 'easier' route, which resulted in...More sleep for everyone.

Isn't that kind of a no-brainer? Like - why would you go on for weeks on end practically climbing the walls through stress, lack of sleep, and attempting to enforce a routine when...you'd get more sleep by doing things differently? (I am posing this question mostly to myself, btw; I can't believe it took me so long to work that one out.)

As for sleepless nights for years down the line - I'm sorry, but you can't legislate in advance against future night wakings. Healthy small children, even those who slept amazingly as tiny babies) wake in the night for all kinds of reasons (toilet, drink, nightmare). Not always, but often, or in phases. That's just normal.

My dd is currently sleeping which is blissful. However, I also have my ds at home so I'm not managing any sleep during the day. She's up a couple of times during the night which is good for 3 weeks!
I am finding it really hard though as it's constantly exhausting. The evenings are cluster feeding for hours and I feel really restricted in what I can do as she wants to feed most of the time!

What greenstone said.

People said to me "oooh you'll never get him in his own bed" because i co-slept for more sleep. He has been in his own room and sleeping through 99% of the time since 10 months old i.e. when he, and I, were ready.

Right, let me try to answer your questions. I have no evidence that every single baby ever born (notwithstanding illness, SEN or tongue tie) could be a 'successful' Gina baby. Sorry about that.

I myself have had to give up on several of Gina's suggestions: my baby gave up on the 'long lunchtime nap' (12 noon - 2.15pm) when a very tiny baby. No amount of slashing her morning nap to twenty minutes and then topping her up with milk when she wakes forty minutes after putting her down at noon can persuade her to go back down until 2.15) so, I picked my battles: I ensure I wake her at 7am; I do not let her nap for more than a total of 2.5 hrs per day; none of her naps are for longer than 40 minutes; I never let her nap beyond 5pm so that she is ready for bed at 7pm (this works beautifully).

Her feeding times are regimented (we have just started weaning): 7am, 11.30, 2.30pm & 6pm. She wakes at 11.30pm-ish and drains 6oz of formula. If she (and this is rare) wakes again in the night I offer her cool boiled water and she goes straight back to sleep by herself until I wake her at 7am. No, I am not starving her; if she were to cry I would offer milk but she goes straight back to sleep by herself.

What helped me enormously was the conviction, whilst I was sleep training her, that no ill would come of her being allowed to 'cry down' for a period of no longer than seven minutes (this feels like a lifetime, admittedly and is not for the faint hearted). We also do not own a car, thus eliminating the problem of my baby napping all over the place. I pram push her everywhere and have never, ever felt limited as to where I can go and when. Admittedly, for a baby to become used to his cot and to actually enjoy being there surrounded by his favourite toys you have to put the work in and put him there consistently.This may involve limiting your trips out in the very early weeks.

I almost gave up on Gina Ford during two particularly testing growth spurts (I feel Gina does not give adequate space in her book to reassure mums about routine-wrecking growth spurts) but decided that Ford's basic tenets about how babies sleep and eat were right. I ploughed on, picking my battles and never allowing myself to think I was a failure simply because my daughter has never managed the Long Lunchtime Nap.

I was/am a fairly 'attachment parent' person. Within reasonable limits, but I used a sling, co-slept, bf on demand etc. Co-sleeping, not Gina Ford, was what saved me. I rarely roused fully to feed him, and easily sank back into a deep sleep afterwards. He slept contentedly just where he wanted to be (snuggled up to the milk supply!), and all was good.

He is now a happy, cheerful two year old, who sleeps through the night in his own bed; will leave me happily to play on his own or go off with a friend while I chat at someone else's house. He'll also go out with DH for the day and not worry at all. So being there for him didn't do him any harm at all!

I plan to use the sling lots with DC2, so she can bf while I'm playing with DC1, and can be snuggled cosily with my coat around her when I take him to the park, walk the dog etc. We've also bought a Snuzpod so I can co-sleep as much as possible, while still keeping her safe if DC1 has a bad dream and climbs into our bed for comfort.

..I also never co-slept, have never rocked my baby to sleep, refused to wear a sling and was devastated when my baby refused to take a dummy

Ok so pistol tell me what to do here.

My baby is fed, winded, dry and tired but not yet overtired so ready for a nap. My experience (with all three) that I put them into their bed and they lie happily for a while, then begin to become more tired and crochety and eventually start to cry desperately. Tell me, If not leaving to cry then how do I get this baby to sleep in their bed on their own?

How old is your baby, OP, and where has s/he been napping and sleeping until now? Do you have blackout curtains in the nursery? How long have you previously left the baby to cry?

Three weeks, yes to blackout. Left her for around five mins.

Blimey, your baby is tiny. I wouldn't advocate putting her in her own room just yet. A baby that small doesn't have the capability of soothing herself with her thumb/muslin/favourite toy. You also cannot be sure, at such a young age, that their cry isn't one of pain/hunger.