to think good eaters / sleepers / tempremant is just down to good luck?

[Beatrixemerald]

My baby is not a great sleeper by any means but turns out she is a brilliant eater, loves all food, and breastfed immediately really well, she is also really happy. I totally think all of.this is luck, I have worried where I have gone wrong with bad sleeping but since she is starting to be weaned and doing so well (through nothing I have done) I have decided all of it is just down to luck, AIBU?

No I actually don't.

I really believe in routines for feeding and sleeping, if they haven't had a good night's sleep then they're going to be miserable the next day fall asleep at 4 in the afternoon for a nap and then not go down at night and repeat.

For me feeding them In a routine and a daytime nap the same time and the same bedtime meant both mine were happy babies. I wasn't inflexible with the routine and they were both so used to it they would go to sleep in their pushchairs wherever we were.

Food as well I think is down to the way they've been weaned, if theyre funny about textures that could be large tonsils, and if they have been introduced to a wide variant of foods .

For example my dd went to a nursery that you had to provide food for, so I gave her jars and yes she had normal food at home but she liked jars and turned into those dc that only like chips and nuggets for a few years. Now she loves good but it was hard work. My ds on the other hand had exactly what I ate never had a jar and he's still a human hoover 7 years on.

So yes I do think it's a parenting thing and everyone thinks their way is right.

YANBU. Some babies sleep well, others don't. Same with eating and absolutely everything else. Like you say, it's down to the individual child and luck of the draw.
People forget that babies instinct is to wake every few hours though, they're generally not programmed to sleep through the night. wish DD would...just once

DS1 had undiagnosed tongue tie until he was 6yo.

It caused issues with his breathing, eating and sleeping with a knock on effect on his behaviour. Not one HCP picked up on it. I had to figure it out myself.

But if only I had parented him better then he would have eaten, slept and behaved better would he FriedFish ?

DS2 was quite the opposite. It is sod all to do with parenting in many cases.

It's all luck.

And of course changes over time. The DC who was the least fussy eater as a toddler is now the world's pickiest teen.

You can definitely do things to help, but temperament is just luck.

I am big on routines, don't pander to fussy eating etc and had two sleep through at 8/9 months and one at 3 years. Two fussy eaters and one dustbin. And even within that the worst sleeper and fussiest eater was BLW, I have one fussy and one non-fussy weaned on purees, a non-fussy sleeper and a fussy sleeper. Breastfed variously for 12 months, 18 months and 8 months also unrelated to eating or sleeping!

Whether you feed them jars of baby food will have no effect whatsoever on whether they will just eat chicken nugget + chips later on - that is a coincidence and/or a generalisation that is simply not true!

I don't think it's purely luck.

But I don't think it's purely down to what parents do, either.

Let's face it, every child is an individual - some will naturally need more sleep than others, or find it harder to wind down and settle to sleep than others. Some will naturally have bigger appetites or a more adventurous palette. Some will be naturally quieter, or more eager to please than others.

All of this will have an impact on how 'early' they sleep through, how 'good' an eater they are, how 'easy' they are to manage behaviourally....but what parents do will have also an impact on what their child does, regardless of that child's natural temperament.

A child might naturally find it incredibly hard to wind down and settle to sleep, for example. But if they have a parent who is consistent about bedtime, they will probably benefit from that and sleep, perhaps not brilliantly, but better than they might have done without that consistency.

Similarly, a child might naturally tend towards fussy eating and go through long phases of food refusal and fussiness. That might continue to be their natural tendency, but again, if they have a parent who doesn't panic about it and is consistent about mealtimes, they might conceivably end up a better eater than they would have done had their parents gone down the 'give them cheese sandwiches for every meal because that's all they will eat' approach.

OP I can see where you are coming from but I think overall YABU. There's a lot more to parenting than luck.

But mawbroom you said yourself that your DS had tongue tie. If he hadn't had that health issue then do you believe that he would have been the same as your DD?

Health issues/illness/disease will certainly have a bearing on how a child behaves but in HEALTHY children I don't think it is all down to luck. All three of mine were good sleepers and eaters (still are) despite having entirely different temperaments. Out of my fairly large NCT group, my children are the ONLY ones who slept well and have had no issues with fussy eating. I think that is down to our parenting. We are also quite strict with our children compared to most of our friends and I think that also makes a difference.

We had four months of hell when DS was first born - he didn't sleep for most of the time and cried for most of the time too. Turned out he had silent reflux but it took four months for that to get diagnosed and treated. Once it was, we were able to get him into a good routine and he absolutely thrived from that point on. It was almost miraculous.

No I don't think it's down to luck.

Have to say, only have one DC, so can't do personal comparisons, but I'm quite an organised person, so we had a routine after breast feeding on demand. From 14 weeks old DC was in own room in cotbed (too big for crib), and was sleeping 12 hours with no waking. Meals and naps were always roughly at the same time. Lunch time sleep was mainly in his cotbed. It worked for us. Now have a 9 year old who sleeps 10-11+ hours a night and eats mostly anything - except chips and carrots! A little bit of Gina Ford (tiny amount) helped us! Not sure if it's luck, the particular child or a bit of routine. I will never know as won't be having another DC!

Well, dd sleeps for 12 hours plus,eats everything and is pretty chilled out so of course its down to parenting

In all honesty, I think its a mix of both. That she eats well is nothing to do with our parenting. That she is generally chilled out is possibly because we are pretty relaxed too, however she is very like how DM always said I was as a baby whereas dsis was the opposite so more likely not a parenting thing. Sleep is definitely down to us as parents as for the first 12 months she would wake frequently. It was only after sleep training that she slept through, and even that I think worked so well because of her temperament. She never really fought it and took to the change straight away.

So yab a bit u as its not all luck.

My friend used to babysit for a local GP. He had two lovely, well behaved kids who would eat anything and sleep all night. Baby number three came along and he was a bit of a nightmare, didn't sleep and would only eat a very limited diet, I can't remember what he would eat but I know his mother was tearing her hair out trying to get him to eat a normal diet. He confessed that he was ashamed when he thought of the parents he had seen over the year who were looking for help and support for eating/sleeping/behaviour issues and who had just been told they needed to set boundaries, have a routine etc.

It's a bit of both.
They come into the world with personalities, and it's up to you as the parent to do your best to fit them for adult life. Some are a doddle. Others are not. You can apply an equally firm or gentle hand to all your children, and they can emerge into their late teens as VERY different people. Mine range from the super-organised to the utterly chaotic, from one who sleeps as if unplugged at the mains to one who lies happily awake half the night. About the only thing they have in common is that they will eat what is put in front of them, because you ate what was served, or you went hungry. But they like and dislike different foods, even so.

My two were total opposites. DD slept through the night from 5 weeks. DS wanted to smile and mess about from 2am till daylight.

Both are good, unfussy eaters though.

I treated both exactly the same routine wise as far as I can tell.

Yes and no. I don't think you can do anything about sleeping but temperament can be improved by setting boundaries for your children.

I've got two children who I've treated exactly the same as far as possible. I tried BLW with both of them. Ds1 just used to sit there with his mouth open, waiting for me to spoon feed him. Ds2 has never let me spoon feed him anything other than yoghurt. Ds1 didjt sleep through till 22 months. DS 2 slept through from 8 months. No idea why. I think they are all different.

I think it's a bit of both. A baby has a natural aptitude for something (whether that's sleeping, or breastfeeding, or whatever) but what you do as a parent can determine where they fall inside a range of behaviours.

For instance, a baby who struggles to latch on will probably be breastfed for longer if mum is completely bloodyminded and keeps on trying than if mum gives up quickly. But even then they may well not be breastfed for as long as a baby who latches perfectly first time, never makes mum's nipples sore and so on.

With DD I couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't breastfeed. It was easy, it was pain free, and she slept for 8 hours at night from 8 weeks (and most of the night, waking up a couple of times for feeds, from a few days).

Then I had DS. Should have been even easier, right, since I already knew what I was doing?

Hoo boy. If he'd been my first I'd have given up within 2 weeks max. As it was, I stuck it out for 6. Him being breastfed for 6 weeks rather than 2 wasn't luck, it was me refusing to give up. Him being breastfed for 6 weeks rather than 6 months like his sister was luck.

What dietcoke said

FriedFish I am a stickler for routine but my DD still doesn't bloody sleep! Eats fine and has a gorgeous temperament though. She just doesn't need as much sleep as other babies. She only ever cries when she falls over/bangs something.
OP YANBU. Definitely luck.

I'm with MehsMum on this one, you are both:

I have two girls, few years apart. I'd like to think I have inflicted similar parenting on both.
2 good sleepers, but one very early and easy riser and one who'd rather hibernate.
1 good and adventurous eater, one quite picky one. They still only get what's put in front of them etc. The difficult one was a good eater as a toddler.
2 completely different personalities - one introverted and quiet, 'obedient' the other shy on occasions but generally gregarious, outgoing, chatty and a lot more challenging.
1 'easy' baby, 1 'hard work' one.

I'd say it's a bit of everything - genetics, parenting and luck.

My DD has my temperament much though I wish she'd have DH's. That's genetics.

She's now a good sleeper because we got advice from a sleep consultant. Before that we had introduced unhelpful things which encouraged her to not settle. However she has fought sleep from a few weeks old so that's bad luck.

She's a good eater because she has both mine and DH's tastes in foods which means she likes twice as many things as either of us. Having said that we did wean at 26 weeks and tried her with loads of different tastes and textures. But some days she'll eat something and then she'll go off it. So that's luck - what day it is!

So if think it's a mixture of everything. Sometimes you can introduce bad habits, sometimes they inherit bad characteristics and sometimes you can have a run of bad luck where everything goes wrong at once. If you think it's only down to good luck that makes you somewhat of a fatalist and almost makes you abdicate responsibility for how your child turns out?

I think it is mainly luck/personality but that you can modify it a little with routine etc

My 4 all have all had completely different sleep patterns and food tastes as babies and small children although it is evening out as they get older.

We didn't do much different with any of them so mainly nature with a tiny bit of nurture

3 kids, all treated the same as far as birth order allows, all utterly different on both counts. YANBU. Most people who think differently have an only who was a good sleeper/ feeder and they want to take credit, or less often had a lot of kids and subscribed to "close the bedroom door at 7 PM, open at 7 am, ignore between no matter how long they cry".

With the exception of medical issues, I think its a mix of nature/nurture with sleeping and temperament.

However with food I believe its 92.5% down to what you wean them on to and wether fast food/ready food is introduced as a staple.

I think it's a lot down to luck. I would say we did things largely similar with both our DC. As a baby DS was a poor sleeper and DD was a poor eater.

Now aged 10, DS still gets less sleep than a child of his age is meant to need and is still very sensitive to external stimuli.

DD is still a fussy eater now she is 8.