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.

The science showing harmful effects of sleep training is extremely sketchy

There is reliable science to say it causes no long term harm.

I'll tell you what is scientifically proven to cause mental and physical harm - long term sleep deprivation.

^ I agree with this a million percent.

I had a period of about seven months of not sleeping more than half an hour. It's almost broken me, physically and mentally, and it can't be good for Ds either. I cannot believe that sitting by the cot reassuring him while he yells can have a greater negative effect than that.

Cio as in 'shut door, leave to scream ' is grim stuff and I can believe that has negative effects. But 'I'm right here and I love you but you need to lie down and sleep and if that means you have a paddy for an hour' ... No, I can't see that having long term effects.

I can vouch for the negative effects of almost total sleep deprivation for months on end though,

Likewise. We've just hired a sleep consultant to help with 5.5 month old DS as I've got terrible PND caused by lack of sleep.

If he has to cry for a few nights so be it, it's more important he has a sane and functioning mother.

Maki I would also think that there was probably something underlying already that was making it hard to settle.

Every baby is different. My first would have a cry just before going to sleep, but if I picked him up he just seemed to get overstimulated and it would go on and on. He never cried for long and was the happiest, smiliest baby and toddler you could meet. I probably wouldn't do it again like if I'm honest but at that time it was drummed into me that cosleeping was dangerous too. I'd never heard of mumsnet or AP.

My second would get hysterical if left and we ended up cosleeping. I got told rod for my own back and all the rest of it but he eventually just slept through in his cot without any sleep training and I will always treasure those middle of the night cuddles.

They both seem ok now.

I did a nice relaxing bedtime with them both, bath, feed, itng and cuddles

Sympathies awful ... Lack of sleep is brutal. We had a sleep consultant but didn't see any improvement (probably not what you want to hear) - they ended up trying a few different things but we drew the line at leaving him to cry. We e had the specialists from the hospital involved but they've not made much difference either. Apparently a small proportion of kids are just bad slerpers :(
He's gradually getting better as he gets older but we are having to go very slowly because, well, he's stubborn and sensitive!
Do get them checked out physically as well. Reflux, issues with food etc, all can lead to shit sleep. it's hard!

Eh, what rubbish. I'm an "ap" if you wish to call it that, and my son goes to bed at 7.30-8 in the evening, with cuddles from me, then I get back up and stay up until I want to go to bed. It's not exactly rocket science.

I think he is quite responsive as we did cc and it worked fabulously for a couple of weeks but then we went on holiday and it all went to shit.

He hates being rocked or fed to sleep, won't co sleep etc so I have little choice

No physical issues! I know he can sleep long stretches as he's done it before, it's just a case of tweaking his routine. His mood is so vastly improved when he's sleeping well it's clear the issue is tiredness

Attachment ime is about emotional, not physical, attachment.

So being an 'attached' parent and child you recognise your child's physical and emotional needs and respond appropriately to meet them. Be it feeding (breast or bottle or food when older) or dressing, washing, getting them to sleep. How you do it is up to the parent and child - you may need to rock in arms, co sleep, or put in cot without cuddle because that's what baby responds to best. So long as the loving attachment is there and the instinct to help your child grow with love is there.

Babies do cry when they are not distressed. Crying it out theory states that the baby should not get distressed, just cry a little but then get picked up/soothed and begin again until baby learns they are ok to fall asleep in their bed and stay safe in there all night. Co sleeping has it's risks, but some babies literally will not be put down in their cots and a sleepless parent imo is very risky - you might nod off at the wrong time or your patience is lower.

Point being, you really don't need to sleep train to get a set bedtime routine, and a sensible life. I completely agree that sleep training has nothing to do in a "gentle parenting" group.

Point being, you really don't need to sleep train to get a set bedtime routine, and a sensible life.

Disagree. Depends on the baby. There was literally nothing else that worked for mine. Nothing. He was so miserable as a result of no sleep. How would it have been in his best interests to let that continue?

My issue with sleep training is that it's something that is clearly (to me) upsetting, frightening and difficult/impossible (dependent on age) for the child to understand. I don't think it's traumatising as such I just think that those three things are bad enough and I wouldn't do it without good reason.

However, that applies to lots of things. And if the benefits are high enough it can be worth it. For example, I also think that vaccination via injection is probably frightening, painful and impossible for babies to understand - so not something I'd do just because (ear piercing for example) but because there are massive benefits to being vaccinated it does make sense even though I'd love for there to be another way to do it.

Same for sleep training. I've never personally been in a position where I felt the benefits would outweigh the negatives so I haven't done it, but I can see how people get to the end of their tether and it can be the best thing for a family. (I do admit to being a bit baffled at parents who want to sleep train at 3 or 4 months though - what did you think having a baby would be like? But perhaps I was just lucky and I didn't have the same experience.)

Haven't read the full thread, but we put guards up on our bed, took the covers down and after DS or DD had fallen asleep I just snuck out of the room. It's not really complicated.

Babies do cry when they are not distressed.

See, I disagree with this. Crying is an indication of distress. Just because a baby cries at something that an adult would find mildly annoying doesn't mean that the baby doesn't find it distressing. They haven't experienced as many things as adults have.

bertie

I agree wrt people who want to sleep train at 3/4 months because baby is "still" having 2 or 3 night feeds or whatever. That's barmy.

My 5 month old will wake at 1am, not want food, be miserable because he's tired but yet refuse to be rocked, fed, cuddled etc and then be awake for hours before sleeping for 30 mins and then getting up for the day.

I think sometimes babies won't sleep even with their parents and nobody is getting any sleep.

It's all very all lying with your baby while they drift off peacefully then sneaking out of the room. What about when you're lying with your baby for 3 hours and they're getting more and more tired then when they do go to sleep they wake up as soon as you move?

Yy history

That's why "gentle" books like the no cry sleep solution piss me off tbh, they assume your child is co sleeping or feeding or cuddling to sleep. Bollocks. If co sleeping or feeding to sleep worked I'd do it every night but it doesn't!

Yes. That is true History.

There's also a lack of understanding of baby psyche. When we lived in caves night time was the most dangerous time of day. Babies needed to be alert at night. Evening breastmilk contains hormones that help baby to be alert at night. And then people wonder why babies don't sleep all night. We haven't evolved much since out cave dwelling days. It's not baby sleep that's the problem - it's that our society has developed into something that works against it.

(It's also why women have menopause and tend to sleep badly/less later in life. It was beneficial to the race to have women (grandmothers) that were invested in the family without producing babies themselves. They would be more alert in the night allowing parents to sleep more soundly. Makes sense, doesn't it?)

I don't think babies necessarily needed to be alert at night, babies are pretty defenceless. But the twilight clusterfeeding probably has the function of forcing new mothers to rest and not do anything taxing or active during this dangerous time.

Like rainbow we've had a nice soothing routine and bedtime since very early. He's hine through phases of being ok, and phases of barely sleeping at all and absolutely nothing we did or didn't do made any difference at all

They're all different, all families are different. We do what works and nothing we do is in my opinion in any way harsh or controversial. I hugely resent being guilted by the AP lobby on the parenting group I'm a member of (which I won't just up and leave because it's specific to expats speaking my language in this country.)

Also this:

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/babies-evolved-to-wake-new-mothers-in-the-middle-of-the-night-as-a-survival-tactic-claims-harvard-9249338.html

WRT sleep in general, I read an article a few years ago that suggested that adults sleeping one solid block through the night is a fairly recent thing, and that in the past we'd have a period of being awake in between two longer periods of sleep over night. I've just found it so I'll link it here in case anyone is interested.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783

However, it doesn't make me feel any better when my 2 year old decides he wants to spend a few hours awake in the middle of the night!

Yes. According to Georgian relationship books, the best time to conceive was 'between the sleeps'. Something about being rested enough to be up for it. Which shows that not only was an awake period in the night common, it was also encouraged (for married couples anyway)

Yes yes. I've tried this in the past and liked it.