AIBU to get annoyed. Mum's of baby's that sleep well

[Sleepysleepysleepy]

I have a non sleeping 8 month old who has maybe one 45 minute nap in the day and is up every 1-2 hours at night.

I've come to terms with the fact that this is my baby and it won't be forever and try really hard just to get on with things and not grumble.

But....

AIBU to get annoyed by mum's who have baby's that sleep 10-12 hours at night and nap well who then moan about how hard it is to find the time to do things?

I know there may be other factors like pnd or other difficulties in their life, but just on face value i can't help but get a little bit annoyed! If I had 15 hours a day to myself including a solid nights sleep I'd be a gazillion times more efficient!

Ok. Moan over.

I have absolutely no idea whether my DCs being good sleepers is 100% down to good luck, or whether it has anything to do with anything I did. But I did do EXACTLY what Pretty has written (although I did of course bf them in the night when they were tiny).

My first baby was pretty much born in a routine, very straightforward easy baby. dd on the other hand was a nightmare. We used exactly the same approach with both of them. It worked with ds and failed with dd. They were and are very different children, and the same approach just didn't work for them both. ds we swaddled and used controlled crying and it only took a couple of nights before he self settled. dd on the other hand just cried. and cried. and cried. She cried if she was put down on her own, and she cried if she was in my arms. She cried if she was swaddled and she cried if her bedding was loose. She cried at the breast. She cried with music on. Basically she just cried. The only way to get her to sleep was to jiggle her for hours until she finally zonked out. It was very painful!

On the plus side she has been and still is the most lovely daughter ever since (even now she is a teenager) whilst ds was a very challenging little boy (also mostly lovely now too though).

It will get better OP, although I am sure that time feels like it's running as slowly as treacle right now. My biggest bugbear when my two were small were all the people who said 'it goes so fast' - it didn't feel that way to me at the time!

So what are you doing to tackle the naps then OP? One 45min nap a day will be causing the broken sleep at night.

Have you tried sorting the daytime sleep?

Without being facetious I do think there's an element if luck about it. My 3 have had differing sleep patterns and adapted more or less well to routines. My smallest one screamed for 5 hours each evening. But it's what you then do with it which and makes a difference.

The parents I speak to whose babies don't sleep seem to justify why the standard methods (controlled crying, routine, no eye contact etc) simply won't work for their child. And usually don't stick at them for more than a few weeks.

I don't think it's something you can just try for a few weeks. You need to be wholly comfortable with the ideas from the day your baby is born and build on it from day one. We never had a monitor, which certainly helped. Lots of parents don't feel comfortable with that which I can understand. But it does seem to impact on the quality of sleep they get for the next year or so.

And for those of us who do 'get lucky' (ahem) it can be a touch frustrating

That said, my good sleepers are a pita over other things so it's swings n roundabouts .

Pretty's list.... mm glad I didn't follow that. I'm glad of the precious moments DD1&2 have fallen asleep feeding. As for not feeding them during the 4-month growth spurt... way to sabotage breastfeeding

OP you have my sympathy. Cake cake cake and coffee. My DD is now 16 months old and only up once - we didn't "do" anything as such. The No Cry Sleep Soltion (Elizabeth Pantley) is a good book which, even if you don't try the ideas, made me feel less alone. I also found it helped to take ownership - yes I could have sleep trained but I chose not to as that's not the way I prefer. Somehow that helped me see it as a temporary thing and seemed less helpless.

Pretty's list seems quite standard to me (apart from the bad breastfeeding advice) we did all of that with both children as I suspect most of the other parents with poor sleepers did too. We expected dd to sleep in much the same way as ds had (there are only 16 mths between them so the experience was fairly fresh in our minds) and apart from controlled crying we started as we meant to go on, so we are talking months not weeks. Controlled crying we gave up on relatively quickly as it became clear that dd could and would cry for hours, compared to the max of I think 10 minutes that ds cried for in the days it took for the method to work, and then perhaps a minute or two after that.

I agree Pretty's list is most common sense - I doubt the OP is going in doing the can can in the middle of the night. I can see why parents of poor sleepers get riled at the suggestion that their child's bad sleep is all their doing.

I had 2 reasonable sleepers and I just went with the flow - I fed at night if they woke and they both gradually dropped their night feeds. There was no way I was going to spend hours hushing, patting replacing dummies etc. A quick 5 minute feed worked a treat. Who was I to say that they weren't hungry or thirsty at 3am.

Although in a way YABU and know you are, I totally get where you are coming from. Dd was a terrible sleeper for the first year. At about the same age as you, when I was back in work pt so on my knees from lack of sleep, I met a friend of a friend at an event with a baby about 2 months younger. We were discussing the babies and I had told her how terrible dd's sleep was, and she said hers was sleeping through the night. Of course I was a bit jealous, but good for her. But she then went on to complain about how hard it was having to get up at 7am every morning and never having a lie in. I was so annoyed with her! I would have killed for a whole night sleep and not getting up til 7 (which let's face it is when most working people or people in education have to get up anyway, if not earlier). I would totally understand someone moaning about missing their weekend lie -ins to other mums with dc who sleep through or childless friends, but I had literally just told her I was up several times a night and early in the morning!

YNBU, I've just got to the stage (touch wood) with my 14 month old where I'm getting 2-3 hours to myself in the evening after he falls asleep, and usually 2 stretches of 4 hours of sleep, or better (touch wood again). Those two hours to eat dinner, have a shower, and then actually still have an hour free to watch tv, or get stuff done feels like such a luxury. I actually watched a whole film one night recently, it was amazing. It's annoying when people take that for granted.

However... I have been a bit surprised when bits of advice I swore blind would never work with my baby worked really well and made a huge difference. The best things were: 1) Getting him to settle in his cot, using a method somewhere in between Pick Up Put Down and No Cry Sleep Solution b) Moving his last feed to be before the bath, not after (to break the feed/sleep association) c) At 1 year, sending DH in instead of me to night wean.

I had a baby who would only feed to sleep, or fall asleep in my arms, and all of these things worked really quickly once I decided to actually try them. So I wish I had done some of them earlier, particularly as he was a bad napper too. That said, I don't really regret any hours spend with him in my arms, especially now I've stopped breastfeeding, I do look back on it fondly.

Just think of it this way.

If you have dc2 and he/she is a good sleeper, you won't be able to moan about anything ............ever.

That's not reasonable really is it.

Time does get swallowed up and life is busy, differently for different people.

I used to work 2 days a week, then I told I was losing a day. I thought of how much I would get done in a whole day on my own. For a couple of weeks it made a difference and I got lots more done and now the free day has just been swallowed up and I am mega busy again.

I started to tell everyone that my dd was a rubbish sleeper even though she was sleeping through at 8 weeks because of other peoples jealousy.

The people who used to roll there eyes at me have no problem now saying how amazing their child reads, writes etc. DD is dyslexic so struggles. I wish now I had shouted her positives from the rooftops.

Yanbu, as a pp said, x1000.

Yes other parents of babies have all sorts of other things to contend with. But non-sleepers' parents are just as likely (actually slightly more so in the case of pnd) to have these problems but are having to cope with them without getting any proper rest at all.

The biggest kicker with parents of babies who sleep is the 'but then we always had little so-and-so in a great routine' as though their child's sleep is anything other than luck, really.

Pretty in blue, not breastfeeding in the night is a great theory but how on earth does it work in practice? My 5month old goes loco if my dh tries to settle him in the night (or I do without boob).

My sil and bil spent the first year of their dd's life complaing that they didn't get any sleep or free time. Now I have a dd and I tell them she isn't napping much and isn't going to bed until 11pm and then is up about once an hour, they say "Ours was in bed asleep 7pm-7am at that age."

Yanbu op. I geuinely don't understand it.

,onkey is that a genuine q that you want the answer to?

I have a good sleeper, normally 9-7 with a rare wake up in the middle.

However, I always seem to struggle. She sleeps well at night but will fight to the death over napping in the day and when she does nap it has to be on me or OH. I'm bored to death of crap day time tv.

Means that by the time bed time comes around and entertaining a baby for 14 hours I'm too exhausted to do anything other than nice hot bath, uni work and sleep. House work gets done depending on how co-operative she is with A) Playing alone B) Not being a hurricane and causing mischief

Fully sympathise how much worse it could be :(

I have a champion sleeper and napper and constantly remind myself how lucky I am when she's flinging yogurt on the floor, biting the dog, screeching for no reason and trying to rip my face off.

Thanks for all the posts. I started this thread as a bit of a light hearted moan, but after reading all your replies, and after a horrible night, I've been in tears this morning. I think this is becoming an issue now. I've got another cold coming (have never been ill so much as I have the last few months) and feel so drained.

We've been doing the pantley pull off and he's pretty good at falling asleep without the nipple in his mouth but is still not settling between cycles. I'm wondering whether I need to stop breastfeeding completely but I don't want to do that, but at least I would know that he would be getting enough milk in the day. He is so distracted at the moment is so hard to breastfeed him.

I'm also thinking co sleeping might help but I sleep talk and fidget and would wake the him up.

It breaks my heart to hear him cry for me, I just couldn't do any sleep training that would involve crying. He cries even more if my dh tries to settle him.

Sorry you're feeling so poorly. I remember it well and it did get better, but it was a struggle. Like you I couldn't do crying methods. I didn't cosleep with first born at all but the second just wanted to be close to me as much as possible - he still does at 3. So although sleeping near you would mean he hears your noises etc, I think he would probably drift off again as he knows you are there. Only you can decide that though, they don't all respond the same way. ALthough cosleeping didn't stop my lo waking up, it did stop me having to get up, and my sleep improved a lot that way. 8 months is still very small, if he is gaining weight then why do you think he might not be getting enough milk?
Can you get support at home to at least get a lie in at the weekend, an afternoon to nap etc? You need little periods of respite to face the next onslaught!

Sleep training does not work for sll babies.

At this stage, it would be best if you really took the non sleeping in hand.

Many mothers end up going down the rabbit hole with this and are trapped in this cycle of no sleep and a overly demanding baby. There is a happy medium between Gina Ford and feeding to sleep and I think you need to find it.

Personally, at 8 months old, if giving up breastfeeding was what it took to get things on an even keel, then I would have no issue doing that. You have done 8 months, so plenty of time,

MrNed - it does work for all babies once they are old enough, its more that it doesn't work for all Mums, in that its difficult to stick to and can go against your instincts.

Sleepy, we didn't stop breastfeeding at night but we did try to stretch the period between feeds to be longer. That is not feeding until at least 1.5 h after last feed even if ds1 woke at an hour and a quarter after the last feed. According to the book (can't remember which one), it was supposed to work within a week. Didn't work at all at 9 months but was more successful when ds1 is older.

merry what method of sleep training? We tried several for the time periods specified in the books and none worked as stated with ds1.

SleepySleepySleepy Sorry to hear you are feeling so down, I can appreciate it can be tough.

As others have suggested is it worth trying to break it down into a smaller chunk and work on just the day time naps first (and you sleep when they do!)

When I decided to get my little one into more of a routine I spent one week at home at key times to help her get used to 'nap times' I arranged to meet people when they would be awake.

I looked at loads of books and formed a routine out of that around meals and feeds etc.

A useful website I found was this one www.mybabysleepguide.com/p/about-blog.html which seemed to make a lot of sense.

For naps I also didn't worry if they didn't sleep but I did make sure we had xxx no of mins calmly in her crib/cot I sat in the dark relaxing as well.

I ended up following a timetable quite close to Gina Ford's but the structure rather than the strict routine and one thing I did find was the early morning nap (mine gets up initially at 630 then goes down again about 8am till 9 having had a feed and breakfast) which goes against logic seems to really help with other naps.

No it really doesn't work for all babies. Some babies are able to cry for eight hours straight.