'The only way we've sorted a sleep prob in this house is controlled crying' - fuck off!!

[Smataya]

I text friend who has two under two how hard it's been of late with Ds 11 months just not sleeping. I've explained before he is just not a sleeper and likes to be close at night, wakes a lot for milk and that I'm doing attachment parenting. She knows how against cc I am and I will not ever leave my child to cry. Ds has not slept for longer than an hour since he was 5 months which is starting to take its toll, but as I say, he's just not a sleeper and it's tough.

Why the f is she doing this pa bull shit about cc over text?? She's been like eerr have you tried sleep training to me before and I just don't want to hear it. Her two sleep through and I just find it smug- she's got lucky and now claiming its all down to cc. Am I justified in texting back to say ftfo to the far side of fuck?!?!

Coming late to this, I have actually read most of all of it, but would like to add another AP-ish perspective. Or possibly just a lazy parenting perspective.

I saw it as a two way relationship. We coslept, I bf, we followed babies' leads as much as possible; but when it was not working for us as adults, we tweaked the things that weren't working. Not rewrote the whole book, not suddenly pop them in a cot in another room to cry.

So my approach in your situation would be to try a minimum fix. What's the problem actually? Feeding so often. So don't change the cosleeping, don't leave to cry, just don't feed so often. My two weren't nearly as bad so we didn't need to do this till around 2 when feeding at night started to bother me, but if it's bothering you now then I'd say it needs a tweak. Pick a mantra like "Not milk time now, do you want a cuddle?", he may not understand it immediately but he'll learn to. We found that as soon as I stopped feeding at night they stopped waking (or stopped waking me at least!). At 11m you may not want to stop feeding at night completely yet, but you could e.g. space feeds out gradually, or start establishing a longer sleep period at the start of the night and gradually extend it.

I'd also maybe try giving him a snack of some kind close to bedtime. Banana, cereal, something like that, just to reassure myself that they weren't actually hungry all night.

I must be a bit of a crap parent then, because my 'instincts' always told me that I desperately needed to get some sleep and I was prepared to do controlled crying in order to get that sleep!

Not with a young baby who needs milk of course, or with an ill child who is waking for a reason or because of a nightmare. But, once they got past the stage of needing to feed at night, I wanted my children in their own cots, sleeping. That we all got sleep and felt rested and happy the next day.

Staying up all night for nights at a time is what you do when you have a child who in hospital and they need you to comfort them & check on them. Why on earth would you do that on a nightly basis with a healthy child?

I would never tell anyone else they SHOULD do this, but I would find it boring if a friend constantly moaned about a situation but made no move to change it.

thatsshallot you drugged your kid so you could get a bit of sleep?!?! Just wow!!! Y

smataya sorry you're not getting any sleep. Been there it is so tough.

Haven't hand the chance to read the whole thread as it is so bloody long but do you have a DP? Have you tried getting them to settle baby back to sleep when they wake rather than you. I'm assuming that you are breast feeding (forgive me if I'm wrong). We found with DS at that age that me stopping feeding him in the night quickly lead to him sleeping longer (though after that we did do some gentle cc as well) but at first I would still feed him at bed time and he'd drop off then after that until about 5/6am if when he woke my DH would go to him and offer him some water from a cup and settle him back to sleep. He soon stopped waking for milk that he really didn't need in the night at that age.

If this is completely unwanted advice/ personal experience just ignore.

treeshine - did you miss the part were she explained that she was feeling suicidal? Do you think a dead mother would have been a better option for the child?

Binkybix it sounds like you did CIO not CC

Nope, CC. It's just that it didn't work and he didn't stop crying. It increased when we went in.

treeshine bloody hell did you read shallott's actual,post?
You know, the one where she said that she had been to the GP because she was suicidal from severe lack of sleep deprivation?
She didn't just need a 'bit of sleep', I suspect she desperately needed a continuous run of good, deep, nights of uninterrupted sleep for her physical and mental health. The effects of severe sleep deprivation can be extremely dangerous and can cause memory loss, poor health, poor immune system, low mood or mental health problems....etc etc.

Yes I gave him the GP prescribed medication to get some sleep as was suicidal and on verge of being sacked. Having DS pushed us into debt we were struggling to repay even in a dmp, if I'd been sacked we'd have had to go bankrupt and that would have tipped me under the edge. I also had a 3 and 2 yr old and was working full time.

I share this one as I see no shame in treating my son's sleep problems with cc so my children still have a mother (and a much nicer one too)

And two to show how utterly close to the edge over a year of hourly waking sleep deprivation can send you.

But do read the drugs were prescribed and calculated carefully to buy me a small blick of sleep, I did not just buy drugs to knock him out, and took a week for DH and I to pluck up courage to give them (although turns out we were all regularly dosed up in it in 70s by our parents so they could go to dinner parties etc, not OK IMHO)

A doctor isn't going to prescribe to help a child sleep unless it's a major problem. Lack of sleep is unhealthy for parent and child so if that can help a child settle into a better sleep routine then it is much better than the alternative.

treeshine don't be such a knob.

MrsD thank you for your support and sorry your DS had to go through similar. It really got me raging when I read that posters were actually comparing leaving a baby to cry for a few minutes to actual emotional and physical abuse that some children have to suffer. To compare children that are well loved, fed well and in a secure and happy environment to children that are hated, starved, neglected, hit and the rest is just...well I actually cannot find a word.

OP, I'm glad you are open to trying something. You can sleep train without just leaving them. As long as baby is fed, changed etc then he will be fine. I did say how we did it in my earlier post and it worked well. It is hard when your baby cries and he will because he has become accustomed to being seen to and it will be a hard habit to break. But if you stick with it, he will soon learn. Just see what works for you.

that phenergen was a staple in our medicine cabinet in the 70's too! I never needed it as I slept like a log, but I think dbro had a few doses in his childhood

I was prescribed phenergen when i was a child in the 60s. I was a terrible sleeper and it was only when i had small children to wear me out. I can still go a whole night without sleep. Thankfully dcs slept through very early so dont seem to have inherited my sleep habits. Dd had patches when she 6 and 11 not needing sleep but got over it.

Oh yeah - I drug my 7yo to sleep, want to flame me too?! I can pass her paediatrician's details on so that you can express your outrage in her direction too.

"until they are steadfastly aware of object permanence then yes, you can get away with leaving them to cry for a very short while before you affect their ultimate trust in you too much"

Ultimate trust? Too much? Right. You know all this... how, exactly?

A baby who is well-loved and cared for every day of his life is not going to lose all trust in his parents just because they don't jump to attention in the middle of the night every time he cries. You have no idea what passes for thought in the little brain of a baby. Quite possibly, what he is thinking of is "These parents of mine get really slow and dumb when it gets dark".

We did CC with both children before 6 months. It worked very quickly, and they have slept through the night with no problems every night of their lives, bar the occasional illness. Within several nights, they were going to bed with a smile and waking up with a smile. At 6 and 10, they are happy & healthy children who have complete trust in us, their parents.

Waking up in the night to feed is a habit not a need at that age - a habit that can be broken and replaced with another one. There is no need to feel guilty about teaching the baby to sleep through the night. Sleep training is not child abuse but a favour to the baby and the entire family.

I used CC with both my boys, worked like a dream.

I co-slept with DS2 until I went back to work at 5 months, and used CC at 11 months after his nanny would rock him to sleep so he couldn't fall back to sleep without either a bottle or rocking.

One night. Some tears. A little angst on my part. And forever more we have 12 hours a night. And yes, when babies and children have a good night's sleep, their behavior is vastly different.

Given that your 11 month old is waking up every hour, something tells me your method isn't working. And raging at your friend for suggesting something that was successful for her isn't going to get your kid to sleep any longer.

"Babies can't self regulate" Go tell that to Professor Brazelton. Look up NBO/NBAS.

And while you're at it stop mis-quoting Gerdhart.

My son is 10 months old and until a week ago woke up anything from 4/5 time a night to over 15 times a night - no joke...!!!!

I've survived on average 2/3 hours of broken sleep a night

I crashed my car a couple of months ago with my son in it , I drove straight into the back of someone purely because of long sleep deprivation , I was in a daze. My son ended up in A&E

I was dead against ever leaving my son to cry and instead the minute he cried I would go get him from his cot and BF him back to sleep, often only a few minutes if that. Clearly more a comfort thing rather than him needing milk as he is on 3 good meals a day

Anyway last week I finally snapped , also scared it was going to affect his development as he was not getting decent sleep either

Anyway I put him to bed and as normal he woke this time I never ran through, he moaned and cried a little and low and behold 20 mins later he was asleep this carried on through the night but every time he cried I left him and he was back asleep in a few minutes , next same again but he woke less times

We are now 7 days in and last night he slept from 6.30pm to 6.30 not waking once

My sons sleeping "issues" were created by me.... Running through to pick him up, breast feed him etc

I wish id left him alone to settle back to sleep months ago.

I thought I was doing right but what I was doing was creating a situation that meant neither of us was sleeping and he could of been seriously hurt (car accident)

So my advice would be just try and leave him to cry a little bit it might just be you are causing the sleep issues like I was.

Jesus Christ.

OP: AP and co-sleeping isn't really working for me, I'm exhausted.

'Well it works for me so obviously it should work for you too, if you disagree with me you are wrong and lying or exaggerating because it is absolutely impossible that anybody has ever had a different experience from me. My way is right for everyone in the world and anyone who says different is lying'.

Bollocks. Some people really are the limit. Different things work differently for different parents and different children. It would take a special kind of density and self obsession not to be able to see that.

OP, co-slept etc and the way I moved on was by bringing the cot into my room. I fell asleep with my little boy in my bed but then gently moved him to the cot (I was lucky, he wouldn't wake). He got used to being on his own in there during the night and waking up in there alone so got used to being put down in there on his own in the end. Then after a little while we moved his cot into his room. Baby steps!

I would say 50% of my friends and family AP, of them most have major sleep issues with their children continuing until the children are 7, 8, 9 and two teenagers.
Most accept it as part of their choice and are okay with the lack of sleep. However a few are fecking nightmares, they are tired, grumpy, horrible to their children if you end up as one of those cc is far kinder to your children than treating them badly because you can't cope with lack of sleep.

I have to say of the 50% that did cc all have children that slept through apart from when I'll since they did cc. However I have heard of people trying cc when they have newborns or ill children which is terrible.

Both have their place but you need to recognise when is the right choice for your child and you.

AP isn't a sticking plaster and cure all for any parenting issue.

Just as an example, Peaches Geldof was an advocate of AP. She might have done slightly better if she'd chosen a less stressful style of parenting which enabled her to stay off the drugs a bit more effectively.

No amount of AP will make up for losing a parent or having a parent who is in emotional distress. If AP is contributing to problems and stresses that are going to lead parents into mental health problems and potentially worse it's just time to stop. And people like Lennon and Sophie who judge people who are reacting to a really difficult, stressful situation in the best way they can should be ashamed of themselves.

Hope you manage to look up some new ideas, you've had some helpful responses.
Sleep deprivation is awful!
Ignore those vile and disgusting posts mrs d, you've done a great job.