'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?!?!

he's just not a sleeper and it's tough.Her two sleep through and I just find it smug- she's got lucky

I had "just not a sleeper" waking every 45 minutes, every night.
2 nights of sleep training and he has been happily sleeping through the night ever since. I don't think I suddenly got "lucky" exactly at that time. And he does not seem to be traumatised - actually asks to go to bed, climbs in, I can leave the room and he is asleep in minutes, every evening.

So if I was your friend, this is exactly what I would tell you as well. Nothing to do with being smug. More about saving sanity.

There follows the Voice Of Ignorance, as I don't have children.
So feel free to ignore what might be a ridiculous question.
Um, surely no matter what you do with a baby, from the most whipcracking Miss Trunchbull school of rigid sleep bootcamp training, to the most hippyish wafty baby-as-part-of-my-body thing, most of them sleep for a few hours in a row most nights by the time they're nearly a year old, don't they?
Could babies who don't do this have something medically wrong with them that needs checking out?

OK will get that

Love how you are slagging all us cc users off but in fact what you are doing is so much worse.

All 3 of my kids were taught to sleep using cc.
We co slept from birth until at least 2 years with my eldest and they never learnt to settle themselves.
I guess I got lucky 3 times right.

So you don't want to cc that's fine but what you are doing isn't working either so use some of that very valuable energy that you have left to find another way instead of trying to find evidence that cc is damaging...jeez get your priorities straight!

So it's mean and judgy and aggressive for the OP to think that CC can be harmful to babies, but it's totally fine to tell her that by not doing CC, she personally is harming her baby?

There are lots of sleep methods out there that aren't CC. CC does not work for all parents, and it does not work for all babies (really!). There are other approaches. And sometimes babies just sleep like shit for a while, no matter what you do. It's unfair, inaccurate and unhelpful to someone dealing with sleep deprivation to tell her that she has to do CC, which will work miraculously and nearly instantly, or she will be damaging her baby.

Ncss that is

Although not sleeping for more than an hour is hard going on yourself it is extremely detrimental to your baby.

You may think CC is cruel but you should also look at the negative implications of sleep deprivation on the actual baby.

I did CC at 9 months because my baby was a bad sleeper (no where near as bad as yours though) and he went from waking every 2-3 hours to sleeping through for 11 hours. It took about three days to get this result.

Following CC he was getting 4-5 more hours sleep in a 24 hour period than he previously was which is a huge difference. He was such a happier baby for it.

Making parenting choices is hard and you just need to decide whether three nights of CC is more or less cruel on your baby than making it life a life of extreme sleep deprivation. You must he shattered and so must your baby be.

You are the only one who can change this and teach your baby to self settle and how to sleep for longer periods.

Ultimately it's up to you but the issue of sleep training isn't black and white and sometimes it a case of realising that the 'crueller' aspect if it may actually be more beneficial for your baby in the long run.

You really do have my sympathy as poor sleeping babies is so physically, emotionally and mentally draining

Thank 53

How can such an extreme lack of sleep be safe ??
Its a form of torture !

No-Cry Sleep Solution on Amazon.

Also lots of information on the author's site here.

CC is definitely not the same as CIO so you might be a bit mixed up. I couldn't leave DD crying it out but I have let her cry for a few minutes then gone back to reassure her to help her go to sleep herself. That's very different. Perhaps do a bit more research to see if some gentle CC might be something you would be happy to try?

It'd all very well saying it's "the natural way" but times have changed and you have to adapt.

thousands of years ago there weren't cars, women didn't hold down jobs. family was always close by. It takes a village.... and all that.

there wasn't sanitation or vaccinations either. people died before these days we even would think about having babies. we wouldn't go back to those times would we?

predators aren't going to pick off a child if he makes a noise these days. but it will be hard on an unroutined child to go to a nursery and not be Co slept with or carried around.

why when we don't have to, would you make it impossible fir anyone but you to look after your child.

The answer is simple, forget labels. use the whole range of ideas and find one that works.

There's nothing else in life that if it didn't work you wouldn't try something else.

Op I really do feel for you, you must be exhausted! I personally could not do what you are doing because I value sleep too much (for myself, as well as the rest of the family!) - you can not underestimate the importance of sleep, this when a lot of development occurs. It sounds like you are surviving with naps during the day, can you sustain that long term? I think yabvu for knocking other parenting choices and being so rude about your friend - surely you can see that just because AP is your preferred choice, it isn't necessarily the best choice for everyone? If you were working full time do you think you could cope with this level of sleep deprivation (remember not everyone can nap during the day like you do).

There are lots of good arguments against AP as well as for it. I have friends like you who are absolutely exhausted and sometimes I do get fed up of hearing how lucky I am to have such good sleepers unlike theirs - it doesn't seem to dawn on them that it didn't just happen that way - I never did cc, but I did religiously put them down awake in their own cot even when I really didn't want to get out of bed during the night after a feed - because I believed it was the safest place for them to sleep and because I wanted help teach them how to get to sleep themselves without having to rely on being settled to sleep.

Tbh I would be very concerned about an 11 month never sleeping for more than an hour at a time as he isn't getting the chance to get much time in good quality deep sleep. I personally would be consulting the hv for advice in your shoes. Is he alert and active for periods during the day? Children of that age should really be getting at least 13-14 hours of sleep in 24 hours and shouldn't require feeding every hour. Perhaps your hv could help you review his diet to see if he is getting enough food to allow him some sustained sleep?

Let him grizzle in bed dont soothe him even though your instinct is to scoop him up let him cry for 30 seconds then up it to a minute place your hand on his tummy or head shush him but dont pick him up and see if he stops crying this is self settiling he is fine and feels secure he may drop off at this point or may just lie still and not be so frazzled.

OP does your DC go to bed at the same time as you ?
Maybe its time to put them down earlier, alone if that's the case.
They will then be in a deeper sleep when you go to bed.
At 11 months both all DC happily settled in their own cots at around 7pm and slept through ( one wake up if ill or teething maybe).

I BF all for 2 years plus.

YABU.

All she can do is share her own experience. And the thing is, sleep training does work with the vast majority of children, so had she not done it she might have been in your shoes, how do you know she's just 'lucky'? What do you expect her to say if you talk to her about sleep issues? What WOULD you talk to her about sleep issues if you already know she sleep trained and her children sleep through?

both my

Op personally i would buy a cot. Do cc or a form of it. It's quite gentle you know. Keep breast feeding in the day but no 11 month old needs night feeds. They just don't.

11 months old needs his space now. You can't co sleep for ever. Maybe now is the time to move into the next phase towards toddlerhood?

Fwiw my ds2 would have hated co sleeping. Not all kids want endless cuddles he's 23 now and more cuddly than dd4 who loved our bed.

Good God - this is madness. My DC are 2 and 1. Both very good sleepers which I put down 99% to luck. The other 1% was always putting them down to sleep whilst they were awake. If they cried, they were comforted straight away bit if they were happy and comfortable, they were left to their own devices to go to sleep.

One of the mum's in my NCT group parented similarly to you. She now has a 2.5 year old who hardly sleeps at all at night, he's clearly exhausted and - when we meet up - can't really join in with any activities as he's too tired and grumpy to engage or is having a cat nap. He doesn't have established meal times as it's not clear when he'll be awake during the day. Her mum looks after him as he couldn't adapt to nursery at all.

She and her husband are exhausted and at total breaking point. The difference in them from when we first met them is unbelievable and plans for a second DC have basically been cancelled

It now seems an insurmountable issue to sort out as her DS can climb out of his cot so is much harder to sleep train.

Obviously I would never ask - but it's quite clear that they regret taking this approach from the come they make. And I dint see any benefits. I don't think their child has a better attachment to them than any of the others in the NCT cohort. In fact, the three of them seem thoroughly miserable

FWIW OP prior to doing sleep training my DS never napped in the day unless he was in my arms or lying next to me in bed and when it came to night time we ended up co-sleeping every night because feeding him back to sleep seemed to be the only option.

As part of the sleep training my first step was to put DS into his own room. Although I think CC played the main role in addressing his sleep problems I genuinely believe that putting him in his own room played a huge role in the success of sleep training.

Is it something you would consider?

I never did cc, but I did religiously put them down awake in their own cot even when I really didn't want to get out of bed during the night after a feed - because I believed it was the safest place for them to sleep and because I wanted help teach them how to get to sleep themselves without having to rely on being settled to sleep.

I did that religiously for four months, then nearly walked out in front of traffic one day because I was so sleep-deprived I forgot how pedestrian crossings worked or something (that part of my life is all a bit of a blur). At that point I thought "to hell with this, we're co-sleeping". Worked much better and we both got tons more sleep

Some of us are doing AP stuff just because we have babies who respond better to it than the alternatives, honestly. Maybe your friends are the same?

I didn't do CC (or CIO) either, but my advice would be:

Have a routine. No, a routine does not mean you can't be AP. Children thrive on routines. Choose a wake time (probably between 6am and 8am) and stick to it every day - treat any waking before that time as night time. Stick to a consistent bedtime.

Regular naps - usually a 2-3-4 schedule works, e.g. 1st nap 2 hours after waking, second (longer) nap 3 hours after waking, bedtime 4 hours after waking. Initially it doesn't matter how you get them/keep them asleep for naps - sling, swing, car. Try to do different things though.

Bedtime routine. Short, sweet, consistent. Separate feeding and bedtime - so bath, milk, brush teeth, story/song, bed. Not feeding to sleep is vital if you have a baby that wakes to feed every time they go through a light sleep phase at night.

Introduce a comforter. Use it at every feed, cuddle, bedtime. Try a dummy.

Put your baby to bed. Pat them, stroke them, sing to them. If they get up, lie them back down. If they get really upset, pick them up and cuddle but put them down again as soon as they calm down. Yes, it will take a while the first few night. Yes, you have to stay consistent. Gradually you can reduce the amount of patting or stroking.

What about 1 of those side cots so its attached to your bed but you can put the side up , in the nicest possible way your rigid approach isnt working you need to relax loosen your rules a bit and be more flexible open to different ideas your baby needs sleep you need sleep its all very well saying but i chose to do this so i will cope with no sleep but what about your son he needs to sleep to grow and develop