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.

Mitsufishi, I've just looked back at my journal and I put my daughter in her own room, in her Moses basket within the cot at seven weeks old. I got rid of the Moses basket ten days later.

Though of course that early isn't recommended by SIDS guidelines. Personal choice and all that, but just to flag.

Yes precisely pistol. The title of the thread says newborn.

It's awesome that you found a way you were really confident in pistol my best friend used Gina and her son is thriving and always has been. I'm just too much of a hippy !

Hang on Pistol. The big long nap is one of the main cornerstones of a Gina routine (IIRC she talks a lot about all the things that will go wrong if you fail to implement it) and yet you admit it just didn't work with your baby.

Is it such a cognitive leap to then think that maybe there are babies in a great daytime routine who still don't sleep at night (DD2, looking at you). Or those it doesn't suit at all. So that there isn't a 'one size fits all' solution, but a portfolio of options to choose from until you find one that suits your baby (and hopefully you too!)

OP- I've told this story before, but I tried a routine with DD1. I followed it all, swaddled her, put her down and left the room confidently expecting her to sleep. She did not. I'd heard about crying down. I left her a few minutes at a time. Until I realised that I was doing controlled crying on a tiny, tiny baby. I literally sat looking through the book for what information I had missed to make a baby transition from awake to asleep. Anyone who talks about putting them down 'drowsy but awake' gets a hollow laugh from me as far as my kids are concerned. It becomes "awake, screaming, fists pumping, eyes red and pleading" within moments. Not something I'd do regularly (and I don't think GF followers would either, it's just not the result that they get). I do it from time to time through necessity (urgent need to wee, other children need me, etc, etc) but would never choose to. Sounds like we have similar kids.

'I had one that slept and one that didn't. I did the same things with both. So I don't think there is much you can do and it really isn't anything you can control.'

This is something a lot of people say, but if you think about it doesn't actually make any sense! You've got two different babies, with two different temperaments and personalities, you may well need to try two different approaches. The fact that one system didn't produce the same results with both children is not evidence that there is nothing you can do/it's up to the gods. It's evidence you need to try something different.

The number of babies that are completely immune to all attempts at sleep training is very small.

Guys lets stop with the sleep training debate. We are talking about newborns here. And almost everyone agrees you can't leaving a few week old baby to cry it out.

Penguins, I would disagree that the long lunchtime nap is the cornerstone of GF's routine. I believe her tenet that a baby's nutritional needs should be met in the twelve hours between 7am and 7pm in order to get him to sleep through the night from twelve weeks is the cornerstone. I believe this because a baby who feeds well will sleep well, and a baby who sleeps well will eat well. If your baby is feeding at all hours of day and night; being permitted to sleep when he likes and for how long he likes, he will not differentiate night from day until it is too late to rein in the unhelpful sleep associations.

It is my understanding that Gina's insistence of a long lunchtime nap of 2.5 hrs is to prepare baby for toddlerdom, when they sleep in the afternoon for up to three hours. I know many parents whose children never napped like that despite having succeeded at the long lunchtime nap as a baby. Like I said, it was the single aspect of the Contented Little Baby routine we didn't master, but every other tenet was adhered to and fought for.

When my baby was being sleep trained she, of course, went through spells where her 'crying up' was becoming a cry of distress and I had to go in to her. Under these circumstances Gina advocates something called 'assisting to sleep', which was tedious and took a whole week to implement. We succeeded.

An enormous help to me was DP, who, when finding me on the top stair outside our baby's nursery, fretting and clock watching as our daughter cried in her cot and it was approaching five minutes, would say to me, 'Listen, she isn't in distress; I guarantee if you go in there there will be dry eyes. She is protesting - she is not distressed.' On the occasions I caved and went in to her she was indeed dry-eyed and would laugh in my face as I bent to pick her up My point is that DP was my strength and voice of reason when I needed that reassurance that baby was okay and not, as some would like you to believe, suffering psychologically.

Hang on a minute, Mitsufishi, now that I've re-read your OP it is rather ambiguous; what are you trying to say? What specific help did you come here for? It's all well and good saying you are vetoing any talk of sleep training but the gist of your post is that all your kids have been nightmares when it comes to sleeping. You've said nothing about what your specific problem is with your newborn (and, let's face it; they're all damned tricky when first out of the womb, no?)

In fact, if I were a cynic I would be saying this OP is a little goady and merely an attempt to flush out the Gina devotees.

Flush out Gina devotees? Ha ha ha.

It is pretty clear that the OP wanted some hand holding and empathy. No one cares if you do Gina. All people are arguing against is your dogmatic view that it is the solution for everyone. That is as bad as the people who imply co sleeping is magic for everyone.

And the milk thing probably works if you ff but is v v hard to implement if bfing. it doesn't match the biological reality of a baby whose intake you cannot measure.

I'm sorry, but your mum is just wrong (although maybe she's trying to make you feel better).

All 3 of my dcs were exclusively breast fed to 5 months (or longer), all were in a cot in their own room by 2 weeks (or less). DS slept through (7pm-7am with one dream feed at 11pm) by 10 weeks, DD1 slept through by 12 weeks and DD2 by 11 weeks.

I used the Baby Whisperer 'easy' (3 hour cycles, 1.5 hours sleep followed by waking to feed, some activity then sleep again throughout the day) for all 3 dcs from about 2 weeks. DS and DD1 pretty much only slept in their beds or in the buggy, DD2 would sleep absolutely blinking anywhere - on my shoulder, lying on the floor, wherever, at exactly the time she was due.

To be fair, I'm a mammoth sleep junkie and slept 12+ hours a night as a child (and still would today given the chance), and I really can sleep anytime, anywher, and i suspect my dcs have inherited that trait. So we may not be a representative sample...

Pistol- have you just dobe the sleep training or was this a while back? Even Gina doesn't recommend sleep training of the CC variety before six months and you say your baby isn't yet six months.

Penguins, I completely agree re formula v breast milk and routines.

My baby was six months old last Saturday but we've only ever practised the 'crying down' method. Because we put our daughter in her own room at seven weeks there was never an issue of her screaming the place down when it came to bed time or naps (unless she was evilly overtired. The times I have sat on the top step outside her room fretting is when she has been going through one of her two testing growth spurts and she went a bit bonkers. CC is a different creature altogether and something to be practised, largely, when your baby is six months old and still waking multiple times in the night.

Filly, I salute you for EBF-ing and managing that marvellous routine. I am in awe.

Though of course Gina says you should follow sids guidance re rooms. That isn't her recommendation

I don't really understand how 7 minute gaps in 'crying down' is different to cc?

Dd1 ever only had the shortist of naps. But slept through the night from 6 weeks.
Dd2 had 2 * 2 hour naps until she was about 2. But didn't sleep through night until she was 3. Dd1 was a toddler by then, so I couldn't sleep during her naps.

So yes, some people do have it much easier. Me included.

Lack of sleep is hard. You have my sympathy.

I didnt do Gina. Wasn't that clear?

She lost me at "do not do bathtime after 5.30pm" and peach water in the middle of the blinking night.

DH didn't get home at 5.30, and really wanted to do bathtime with the dcs, and peach water is not 'sleeping through'.

Baby Whisperer said "you don't need a schedule, you need a routine. You don't want to be stressing if you're 15 minutes early and the baby is hungry, or an hour later because you all woke up late. But you do want to have a plan and know what you're going to do next". And that worked beautifully for me :)

Penguins, please do your research to distinguish, in your mind, the difference between crying down and CC when a child is six months old. There is a huge and nightmarish difference.

That is twice, now, that you have told us that it is Not Recommended To Put Your Baby In Its Own Room Before Six Months. Yes, we heard you the first time. Some of us ignored those guidelines because, you know, we are autonomous and that

Sorry what was swmnbn?

I think I had been here for about six months when that car crash unfolded filly. Still makes me nervous to type Gina.

She who must not be named. During the libel case.

I said it this time because you said it like Gina recommends it Pistol. And she is a touch litigous. Nothing to do with you personally. Though you have repeated yourself too. it is allowed.

Still don't see the difference. To me crying down is when they whinge for 5 minutes and drift off, not intentionally spaced out settling.

Oh sorry yeah of course

You have answered your own question then, haven't you?

There comes a point in every mother's life when she has to hear her baby cry, and whether that is during seven torturous minutes sat on the top stair whilst her baby cries down or a bloody lifetime with her tot strapped into the back seat of her car going down the M1, it matters not; they will not be psychologically damaged (although I would like to bet which scenario is the cruellest).