To wonder how attachment parents get some evening adult time?

[Ketchuponpizza]

I am a little crunchy, We have four kids and I carry my babies in a sling, cloth nappy, co sleep, breast feed on demand, etc. My DH is supportive of this, but after 7-8 months, he wants the manority of his evenings/bedroom back, and some time with his wife. Fair enough, we need time to be a couple. And so, he does sleep training. I hated it every time, so he used to send me outside with a glass of wine. If they wake up in the night, he offers them water, they have a cuddle, whilst he explains that it is night time, they look outside at the dark sky, check the other kids to see that they are asleep, and he puts them back to bed. Anytime from 4:30 onwards, I bring them into bed with me, and stick the little one on the boob. (We always wake up with at least one kid in bed with us on a morning. We don't mind, we are a cuddly family).

Thanks to him, our bedtime routine runs pretty smoothly. The odd hiccup/difficult evening, but hey, they are kids.

Recently, on another group, a young single first time mum, wrote that she was really struggling/tired with her 7 month old, asked for no -judgemental, non-negative comments. I wrote about my experience, and that now bedtime is pretty uncomplicated. My comments were deleted and I was given my first warning from admin, as they don't promote sleep training, because it can diminish the BF experience, and doesn't comply with 'gentle parenting'.

This is all news to me. If you don't give kids a bedtime, how will they ever go to bed as a toddler? How do they ever have time to be with their husbands? Or even to just do the housework? (What I end up doing most nights!!!)

I feel so sorry for that new mum, alone, and being told the only way is to co-sleep, despite her exhaustion and lack of help.

That's my point soft. AP assumes all babies want to be rocked or fed to sleep.

Mine hates it

Haven't RTFT. Don't know the group your talking about, my comments are in general about breastfeeding support groups.

Sleep training can affect milk supply. If you sleep train at 8m, and go back to work at 10/11m (common) you have effectively removed the opportunity for the baby to reverse cycle. This is in part where the myth that working mothers can't breastfeed comes from.

Breastfeeding rates at one year and beyond are atrocious in the UK. Anything than can be done to help working mums find a way to continue to breastfeed is important. And let's be honest sleep training advice is EVERYWHERE, even on the NHS website.

It's less about making judgements about your choices and more about not allowing suggestions that are detrimental to the breastfeeding relationship. Breastfeeding being the point of the group after all.

My mum managed to bfeed 4 of us into toddlerhood, work and still sleep train.

Besides the anti sleep training thing on most of these groups has got nothing to do with bfeeding, they just say it is. Cruel.

I went back to work when my daughter was a year old, she had a bedtime as I would have killed me if she was up through the night and then I had to work. At aged 2 she still breastfeeds morning, after nursery and night. We are trying to gently cut down but she's not having any of it. I don't know if those few months after 8 months make a difference but from a year it was absolutely fine. There has been no need for co sleeping and she usually sleeps through.

" AP assumes all babies want to be rocked or fed to sleep"

I don't think that's an AP thing, but there are people who think that.

I would say that AP assumes all babies are different and have individual needs. Some want to be fed to sleep, some like to be rocked, some like a dummy, or a teddy. My DS grabs my hand to pat his back whilst he's going to sleep. And some just want to be left the hell alone to do whatever it is they do to get themselves to sleep.

In the simplest way: read your baby, not a book or the clock.

I would say that AP assumes all babies are different and have individual needs.

I disagree. On one of these groups I said my son preferred to be left alone in his cot to get to sleep and I was told no he didn't as all babies want to be close to their mothers as they fall asleep.

I think in fact many AP groups advocate being lead by the baby except for when the baby wants to do things outside the AP dyad.

Well of course some people can breastfeed fine after sleep training. Some people have a milk supply without ever being pregnant! But some bf might (will?) suffer from this advice and that's not a risk most admins are willing to take. Given that they run these groups for free with the sole aim of providing bf support to everyone, and particularly those experiencing difficulties.

You might argue a woman with more vulnerable supply is more likely to be a member, whereas a woman who has sailed through breastfeeding is more likely to think WTF why would I join a FB group about it.

I think it's right for a breastfeeding group to have a blanket ban on sleep training advice. Every baby is different and it's nigh on impossible to pick an age when they definitely 100% don't need milk at night anymore.

I agree but I have seen some women on those groups ask for advice on how to sleep train because their 2 year old wakes to feed every 30 mins.

At 2 years old there is no way a 2 year old needs to feed on demand all night if the mother wishes to stop this. Sleep training advice is appropriate in that situation IMO.

Oh and to answer the thread title we waited. At 19m DD has a loose bedtime routine and goes down between 7-8. First wake generally 10-11pm. That's a sufficient evening for us. Similarly with DS we just let him grow into it.

I found the Infant Sleep Information Source valuable reading. The bit about parental input having less impact on sleep than other factors (teething, hunger, etc) under 2 years struck me. Anecdotally it coincides with most children I know, in that by 2 years old they are responsive to a bedtime routine and a bedtime in a way one year olds often aren't.

awful we will have to agree to differ there. I do think a 2yr old might 'need' to feed all night. When I say need, obviously they won't die if they don't - I am using need in a similar way to when people use it in the sentence 'parents need adult time'.

I need adult time for my mental health otherwise I can't look after my baby

So that to me is a need I'm afraid, not a want

I said people, I don't think most people use it in that sense.

I didn't mean anything personal against you.

No sorry, I am being defensive

i don't understand what adult time is

Well not the pub for me (antisocial non drinker.) I've no desire to go out on the lash but what I do need is some quiet alone time without a tiny hurricane of destruction at my feet who needs to be watched like a hawk lest he eats/climbs/falls/destroys something he shouldn't.
I have to have that quiet time. For me it can be sewing or reading or even just staring at the walls but I need to just have a break from that constant, high level vigilance that comes from having to watch them all the time. If I don't have it, I start to fray mentally.

Adult time isn't code for 'tequila slammers' (although as long as someone responsible is watching the baby then go for it)it's about switching off from 'high Alert' mode.

i am a better parent on days I've had a bit of me time.

i have to have that quiet time. For me it can be sewing or reading or even just staring at the walls but I need to just have a break from that constant, high level vigilance that comes from having to watch them all the time. If I don't have it, I start to fray mentally.

Obviously babies are different and we all have different tolerance levels but I can do all of that whilst my baby sleeps next to me in the front room.

I was meaning more the basics of AP, rather than individual muppets adherents. There are definitely some people who take it all a bit literally.

I think some people equate sleep training with CIO methods. I would say that the very AP friendly Dr Jay Gordon night weaning method absolutely is sleep training. And it worked really well for us with both kids.

In short, some people are batshit.

We'd just watch tv in bed with a glass of wine and ds would sleep right through it. Or we'd just go out and take him with us and he'd sleep right through it. Where we live most other parents are similar and bring their kids to everything too.

Ahhh... You've got one of those babies that will actually lie down and sleep? You lucky sod.
Mine barely sleeps. He certainly won't sleep next to me in the living room and he hasn't since a few weeks old. He needs quiet and dark and even then he wakes up every bloody twenty minutes. When he's awake he is constantly on the go. Weve had his little cousin to stay several times and she's a totally different creature. You're not on constant high alert with her. She will actually lie down and go to sleep. Completely different parentin experience- her parents have had more than an hours kip in the last several months.

They're all different. Adults are all different too. I personally need some time to myself with no one scratching, biting, clinging, whining, shouting etc. I just need to be by myself for a bit.

We didn't to begin with, no biggie.

My friends who are AP don't have any time on their own, child has no bed time and they are still co sleeping. Child is 5. They seem happy but absolutely everything revolves around kids no evening out without them, no adult time, no personal time alone.

I've always breastfed my babies and put them into bed for naps and overnight they have all been excellent sleeper and very content babies.

With the usual disclaimer that everyone is different and it it works for you etc etc.
I do wonder what sort of children this parenting style will raise? It's all very well allowing you life to revolve around a baby/toddler but what about when the child is 10, 15? OK they will not want to sleep with you then but will they still expect their every demand to be met by their parents? How long do you put your life on hold for? How do you define yourself when you no longer have small children? Does your relationship with you partner suffer because you have basically sacrificed yourself for your children?
I will come under fire for this but these are genuine questions I am curious about.
I genuinely can not see the sense in doing something that seems like such an effort - and why on earth would anyone not put a child to bed? Surely it's not encouraging good sleeping habits (which are important for good health) carting your child wherever you are going or sleeping on the sofa beside you in a light room with the TV on?
I just don't get it I an afraid

Cath, yes! I do wonder the same thing!

(Not AP bashing. But exceptionally curious!)

That just demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what ap is and entails. It certainly isn't having the whole house revolve around a child, or having them sleep on the sofa to avoid bedtime. We encouraged a bedtime at around a year. Until then the fed to sleep then slept on one of our laps downstairs, as that's how they slept best. Another child may sleep best alone upstairs, ap would mean respecting that, and responding to them if they needed a parent.

Many 'anti ap' posts assume that it is all driven by the mother, which in most families I know isn't the case.

In our house, at around 1 a bedtime was encouraged. As they both still co slept at that age that meant going to sleep on our bed and us joining them later. At around 18 months plus we introduced their beds, eldest would happily go to bed after books at around that age and youngest needed to be fed to sleep still. They both knew they could come through to us at any point.

Now at 6 and 4 they both go to bed at between 8 and 9 unless they're knackered and say they want to go earlier. They then sleep through until 0730,0800 normally. 6 months ago the eldest.was.waking at 0530 religiously so was going to bed at 7...they change all the time.

Both of them still wake in the night sometimes and come and get in with us...normally just one at a time but on the odd occasion both!