Aibu to think that attachment/ gentle/ natural parents minimise how dangerous sleep deprivation is

[ScrumpyBetty]

I have thought about writing this post for a while, and I want to write it in a respectful way, this is in no way about 'bashing' anyone for the parenting choices that they identify with or choose to make,

If you are an AP and you co- sleep, breastfeed on demand, choose gentle sleep training- I think brilliant! You are very lucky and well done for making it work for you.

When I was an anxious new mother, I identified very much with some of the things I read on AP websites and wanted to AP.
However after 18 months of waking up every night 6 or more times, I was at breaking point. Seriously sleep deprived, crying every day, anxious, depressed- I could go on. I reached out to the AP community for help and advice and was told to continue to use gentle sleep training methods such as the No Cry Sleep Solution, continue to Wait It Out, and definitely not to do controlled crying or CIO. But by this point we had been using the NO Cry Sleep Solution for months, gentle methods were not working!
I read loads of stuff on AP blogs and was given advice such as: let the housework slide and sleep when your baby sleeps! Try yoga or meditation to relax a bit more! Etc. loads of articles warned me about the perils of sleep training.

Eventually we did do controlled crying, and it wasn't that brutal, it was 3 nights of leaving DS to cry for no more than 5 mins at a time. He was 18 months and it was the best thing we ever did. I cannot stress how much of a better mum I am now that I am getting regular sleep!

I know I will be told I was silly to listen to AP advice when it quite clearly wasn't working for me, but I know loads of new mums who do AP and who do treat it like gospel, and who think that controlled crying is abhorrent.
I think that sleep deprivation is abhorrent, and if I hadn't done CC I may well have had a nervous breakdown, so what good would all that gentle parenting do then?
AIBu to think that AP/ natural parenting etc websites minimise the dangers of sleep deprivation- which are depression, mood swings, memory loss, a whole host of health problems? I agree that sleep training methods such as CC should be a last resort but if they need to be used then they need to be used surely?

Analysis of bed sharing risks.

sarahockwell-smith.com/tag/cosleeping-safety/

But in some ways wasn't it simpler when you were bringing up your 16yo? The sheer information overload a new parent faces today can leave them totally confused and unsure of what they even thought in the first place!

To return to the OP's point somewhat, I do think there is a specific kind of guilt that gets laid on by the more evangelical proponents of AP. As many have said on here, that gives the majority of AP parents a bad name since most do it for a combination of idealistic and pragmatic reasons, and because it works for them and their particular child.

The trouble with any parenting orthodoxy is that they come with their own flavour of emotional blackmail - do this system or else. Wih Gina Ford type stuff it's "do this or else you will have made a giant rod for your own back, and whatever is tough about parenting from here on out is your own stupid fault for not sticking to The Plan".

With AP at the extreme, it's "do this or else your child will be emotionally screwed up in ways you can't repair later".

Both are clearly over the top, but as OP said when you're a new parent it's hard to get the "or else" out of the back of your mind when things are tough.

Manatee - well done, completely agree.

Time magazine did a great article in 2012 looking at the science behind Dr Sears and attachment parrnting. A great article which debunks all the scaremongering about leaving children to cry.

ideas.time.com/2012/05/10/the-science-behind-dr-sears-does-it-stand-up/

ButterflyBalls

If someone thinks they are mature enough to have a baby then surely they should be strong in their convictions to do things that work for them rather than thinking it has to be one way or another. If co sleeping works then do it, but you don't need to do every part of ap.

Go with your instincts, not some parenting bible that dictates a right way and every other way will put your kid into therapy for years.

Sleep deprivation can be very debilitating and is not the same thing as being tired especially in individuals with certain underlying medical conditions.

New parents must expect it to a degree but it's different when it affects their health. Don't feel guilty for looking after yourselves - it's in baby's best interests (I assume) to have healthy parents.

Yes Disappointed - I still think it's far riskier than having a baby in its own room (assuming you can still hear them). DH and I were both exhausted, we also liked to have a glass or two of wine once DS had gone to sleep - not to get pissed, just to pretend we were still fully fledged adult members of the human species. Both heighten the risk for co-sleeping but are not of themselves unusual or risky behaviours.

So if you co-sleep and you & your DH go out and have a few wines, how do you get the baby to sleep?

I think everyone makes a big deal and gives a label to something very normal. You don't need a book.

If your baby is tired, you just leave them to cry for a bit and them they go to sleep. They learn to self settle after the first couple of times and then its easier the next few times.

You obviously can't do it with tiny new-borns, but mine after 3/4 months got the hang of it quite quickly and they were happier and slept better and I was happier too as I wasn't knackered all the time.

Karoleann, does it not occur to you that not every baby will be like yours?!

My baby, and no doubt many others, would absolutely not just cry for a little while and then go to sleep! He would work himself up into a full on screaming frenzy if left alone. It's not as simple as you might like to think.

"Yes Disappointed - I still think it's far riskier than having a baby in its own room (assuming you can still hear them). DH and I were both exhausted, we also liked to have a glass or two of wine once DS had gone to sleep - not to get pissed, just to pretend we were still fully fledged adult members of the human species. Both heighten the risk for co-sleeping but are not of themselves unusual or risky behaviours.

So if you co-sleep and you & your DH go out and have a few wines, how do you get the baby to sleep?"

I haven't had "a few wines" for well over 10 years.

"If your baby is tired, you just leave them to cry for a bit and them they go to sleep. They learn to self settle after the first couple of times and then its easier the next few times."

If your (adult) partner were upset and crying, would you turn off the lights and leave them to "self-settle"?

Or to put it another way, would you do it to your granny?

I'm just intrigued by how it's apparently okay to do things to small babies that it's not okay to do to other vulnerable humans.

Heh I'mnot

Fair enough Disappointed but that's not for me. Having a few wines responsibly and parenting should be mandatory manageable, and it's not with co-sleeping.

(For the avoidance of doubt, co-sleeping is not for me for other reasons, not just the wine one. Heh)

Anyway bit of a red herring sorry - I'm not trying to put the boot into co-lseepers - just noting that it's weird how it's always suggested in sleep deprivation threads despite the official advice, and the other obvious sloution - putting the baby in his/her own room prior to 6 months - never is. Our sleep improved markedly when we put DS in his own room, I wasn't grabbing him to feed him every time he stirred.

I co slept and had a glass of wine. I didn't get paralytic- but I was bf so I wouldn't have even if I hadn't been co sleeping.

As I said. I was lazy and up for the easy life. Routines and stuff like that sounded too much like hard work to me!

I agree 100% OP. Couldn't have said it better myself. Mental health is a personal issue, and should not be belittled.

3 nights is often what it will take to break a habit like that, it's not only the adults who will benefit in the long run.

Someone bought me a Sears and Sears book on Attachment Parenting when DS2 was born, raving that "natural parenting creates such happy babies; look at Steve" (her baby, not actual name).

I never read it, because DS2 was a bellend and only slept in 40 minute bursts for the first year of his life so I almost forgot how to read. I did throw it at Himself, though, when he suggested I ought to not eat the third Double Decker bar. So yes, I'm all for Attachment Parenting books. Because it really hurt him.

DS2 co-slept and at 4 will still sneak into our room a couple of times a week in the middle of the night. I daresay he'll have stopped doing it by the time he goes to Uni. Or else we'll just have to get him some counselling for his 18th birthday and hope that works.

comparing a crying baby and a crying baby is really not the same thing. Baby's only means of communication is crying so implying that a baby crying is feeling the same level of distress as a crying adult is nonsense. And I say that as someone who is on the whole, not in favour of CC/CIO

Surely the baby is just communicating NEED in the only way it can (crying), unlike the adult who is communicating WANT.

op, you seem quite resentful of AP in that it prolonged your suffering, but I can't see that anyone on this thread has indicated that you did the wrong thing letting your baby cry at 18months, and this thread covers a broad range of views.

Any sort of parenting blog is a very bad idea imo. It's just one persons view - at least on a forum you get a broad range of ideas. Someone said upthread that you need to make peace with your decisions and that sounds the case to me too.

What you did is totally fine! 99.9999% of parents would say so and is not incompatible with AP anyway - from what you've described you did what your child needed (it worked, thus it was probably what they needed) so you did the right thing.

I was very fixated on getting my DS to sleep at 'bedtime' which meant I spent hours and hours and hours of my life rocking, singing etc and many times felt such rage when he wouldn't go to sleep. With my younger DD I just let her go to sleep when she's ready. Sometimes it's annoying late but it means that she's great at self-settling. She's 10 months and it's meant she's been up ridiculously late at times but I firmly believe that she will adjust to a natural bedtime (which she is). She gets up at a normal morning time and doesn't sleep much in the day, plus she's a very happy little baby so she's obviously getting what she needs.

There is so little point debating the merits of different parenting styles. 'Doing what works' is so often the best course of action. Each decision, even CC/CIO is in the wider context of parenting. Any one thing is unlikely to cause massive issues in the context of a loving relationship.