Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Breastfeeding, co-sleeping, broken nights

155 replies

Turkkadin · 02/11/2017 23:12

There are regularly threads started on MN about months of broken nights, breastfeeding and having babies sleeping in bed with you.
I'm not trying to be goads or unsympathetic, just trying to compare styles of parenting young babies. Maybe it's a generational thing as I'm 52. All 3 of mine were breastfed from birth for 3 weeks then bottle fed.
They weren't rocked to sleep and were often put to bed at night awake.
None ever co slept with us. They all went through the night from a matter of weeks old and all were good settled sleepers. I'm not saying our way was better but it seemed a lot simpler.

OP posts:
HeteronormativeHaybales · 03/11/2017 07:11

You call it 'simpler'. I could, if I were so inclined, call it 'making things simpler for yourself at the expense of your tiny children's sense of safety, security and being loved'.

I've been on MN for years and years and never felt the need for this before. But I think you need a Biscuit

Notthisagainnow · 03/11/2017 07:14

Maybe it's a generational thing as I'm 52. All 3 of mine were breastfed from birth for 3 weeks then bottle fed.

My mum is 52. I was breastfed til 2.5 and co slept til then too. She never left me to cry. My brother was breastfed til 3.5.

As it happens I only breastfed my DS til 6 months (this was not my choice but hey ho) and we actually did do controlled crying as he would not be rocked, fed, patted or otherwise comforted to sleep OR co sleep and I was losing my mind through sleep deprivation.

But there you go.

What I really hate TBH is the judgment of one parenting style vs another. We all parent according to the child we've got, surely.

Notthisagainnow · 03/11/2017 07:15

And see how this thread is already bringing out the judginess from the attachment parenting set.

I imagine that's why it was started so well done op.

xhannahx · 03/11/2017 07:15

Op, my baby has been bottle feed since 1 week, never co slept as she was happy in her cot, but at 9 months is still up once or twice a night.

Your theory is narrow minded and only applies to YOUR children. It's extremely judgemental. Hope it made you feel better as clearly thing can't be all roses for you if you feel the need to passively aggressively put others parenting methods down.

Fishinthesink · 03/11/2017 07:19

Children share a bed or a room in 67% of the cultures around the world. It is, actually, the oldest way. Separate rooms and formula feeding have only existed since Victorian times in the UK (and the Victorians have a lot else to answer for in terms of enduring parenting fads).

Do find it odd how people are so entrenched in their own cultures they can't look outside. Slings for example also come in for stick as some new fangled parenting fad rather than the method the vast majority of parents globally use to transport their baby.

maddiemookins16mum · 03/11/2017 07:21

There will be many people agreeing with you OP, most of them won't admit it on here though.
The breastfeeding bit, I think that's great for babies (albeit I never), the co sleeping, I think many make a rod for their own backs (indeed we did and I truly wish we hadn't but I cannot change that now).
Btw, I'm your age and I do think it's a generational thing (but again, that expression is also frowned upon).

Notthisagainnow · 03/11/2017 07:22

I'm your age and I do think it's a generational thing

It definitely isn't.

Zebra31 · 03/11/2017 07:22

Wow I wish it had been so easy for us with DD. Sleepless nights are a killer.

My MIL says she never breastfed. DH and SIL had bottles (carnation milk). She also thinks breastfeeding in public shouldn’t be allowed. “No one wants to see that” Hmm Apparently they both slept through from 3 or 4 days old and they were fully potty trained by 12 months. I think DH may have been using a knife and fork by 2 years old. My brain normally shuts down when she starts going on about how amazing the old days were. I am not joking or trying to goad when I write this. I think she’s mostly talking crap but hey maybe not. Maybe she was just better at this parenting malarkey.

kaytee87 · 03/11/2017 07:28

Biscuit here’s your medal.

Juancornetto · 03/11/2017 07:38

They weren't rocked to sleep and were often put to bed at night awake
See when people say this they always seem to forget to mention that the baby was awake and crying. They're never explicit about the fact that the baby would cry until it came to accept the fact that there was no point doing so because they weren't going to be comforted.
If I could have put DD in her cot without her crying hysterically I would have done. As it was I fed her to sleep and breastfed her on demand every time she woke and she started sleeping through from 14 months. It felt like a long 14 months at the time but not really in the grand scheme of things. If I were lucky enough to have another I'd co sleep from the beginning, for a long time I was too scared to with DD

Pickleypickles · 03/11/2017 07:39

I hate threads like this they always make me feel shit Sad
I BF for a few weeks but due to issues i couldnt continue.
I put my baby to bed awake and she goes to sleep no problem.
We have coslept 3 or 4 times because she was poorly but never before 6 months because my HV made me convinced i would squash her in the night or something.
I never leave her to cry if she cries i go in straight away.
Why do people always make out on here that you should permantly have a baby on tit in arms or in bed or you a bad mum?
What about people who have happy healthy loved babies but dont do any of those things? Mumsnet sometimes makes it sounds like that cant be a thing and unless i have 5 years of sore tits and broken sleep im a rubbish mum. Sad

Notthisagainnow · 03/11/2017 07:40

Why do people always make out on here that you should permantly have a baby on tit in arms or in bed or you a bad mum?

I'm sorry but that's the total opposite to my experience on here. IME posters with terrible sleepers are always told never to sleep train, to keep feeding on demand etc etc

Pickleypickles · 03/11/2017 07:41

juan my point exactly. No my baby doesnt cry when i put her to bed. I dont leave her to scream until she gives up. I put her to bed, read her a story make her all snuggly, say goodnight and leave the room, she is then awake for about 5/10 more minutes with zero crying.

ColinCreevy · 03/11/2017 07:47

Put down awake and happily went to sleep or cried to sleep? If you let a 3 week old cry themselves to sleep and feel proud of it, you're abhorrent but I'm 99% you're just a troll. Find something better to do.

MistressPage · 03/11/2017 07:50

Are you my mother OP? She's similarly fond of smug gloating about how she had us all sleeping through from a couple of weeks and never stood for any nonsense. By the way, as her daughter, she's not as great a mum as she thinks she is...

koalab · 03/11/2017 07:50

In your day you didn't have forums to discuss alternative parenting methods. So if none of your friends did breastfeeding and cosleeping (or just didn't speak about it) then you wouldn't realise it was happening. Among my friends with babies the same age as mine, I'm the only one breastfeeding and cosleeping (it is saving my sanity). Some are just breastfeeding. But I know an awful lot of people out there are also doing it and I've had great advice from forums like MN. I also go to a breastfeeding support group and have met many people doing this. If you stopped breastfeeding at 3 weeks I assume you wouldn't have been to support groups and met these people either.

I think this might be my first Biscuit.

eeanne · 03/11/2017 07:50

Pickleypickles are you talking about Mumsnet?

Whenever a mother says she's struggling with BF, baby not sleeping, wanting to go back to work, etc. the advice here is shove a bottle of formula in baby's mouth, move them to their own room, and voila! Life is perfect.

The people made to feel like shit on MN IMO are mothers who choose to BF for longer than 2 weeks and then have the nerve to go online and moan about being tired. As if, well you wanted to BF martyr so shut the hell up. For a mother's website I find the attitude revolting.

Juancornetto · 03/11/2017 07:51

That's great pickle, I know some babies can be like that, but the well meaning advice that you should put your baby down in the cot awake and then leave them doesn't work for a lot of them - they will cry. Ime the majority of newborns will.
I got so stressed when DD was newborn, I thought there was something wong with her in not being able to go to sleep on her own and wanting to be held all the time, I thought there was a problem that needed to be solved rather than realising it was completely normal, she wouldn't be like it forever and I just had to ride it out. If I'd have known that I'd have been a lot less stressed. All the anecdotes I got about newborn babies just being out down to sleep - without realising that lots of them would have been crying - really didn't help at all. And the whole rod for your own back thing was nonsense in our case, she sleeps beautifully now.

koalab · 03/11/2017 07:53

Just doing my sums and actually you may well have had internet forums to discuss on but they probably weren't anywhere near as popular as they are today.

Zebra31 · 03/11/2017 08:01

BTW DD was bottle fed so I have no issue with bottle or breast. I have an issue with people like my MIL who think the way they did things was the best way. Everyone is just trying to do the best they can in their own way and it’s not easy.

Creatureofthenight · 03/11/2017 08:01

When I put my baby down awake she laughs at me!
I breastfeed but don't cosleep. I honestly don't care what others do as long as it's working for them and is not harming the baby or themselves.

rollingonariver · 03/11/2017 08:03

I think now we have the confidence to do what makes us, as parents, happy. We don’t have to listen to our partners complaining there’s a baby in the bed, we can respond to their every need without feeling guilty for spoiling them.
I understand what the op is saying because if I read all the stories on here I’d be saying ‘just do it the old way’ too. But I think you were just lucky op, so was I my baby has always slept. It would have made me extremely miserable to have left my baby to cry so I didn’t, luckily I’m not guilt tripped into doing so Smile

TheCatsMother99 · 03/11/2017 08:06

YABVU.

HTH.

Sunnyx · 03/11/2017 08:24

I’m one of 6 and my DM (your generation) kindly reminds me we all slept through in our own bedroom from 2 Weeks old. She never admits it but I think it’s safe to say it’s very unlikely that this is true unless we were all ignored and left to cry. I think that is very sad.

We all have some kind of issues in adulthood.

zebedebe · 03/11/2017 08:25

So you had 3 babies who basically gave up on asking for their needs to be met by only a matter of a few weeks old. Well done you.

Sure, not feeding on demand, cuddling your baby when they cry and all that is “simpler” for you, in that it requires less effort. Trouble is it doesn’t actually support healthy emotional development or secure attachment.

And it’s not generational - yes, we know more now about how damaging cry-it-out techniques etc can be for babies. But my mum breastfed 3 of us til 1-2 years of age and co-slept. You just chose to parent in a way that was easiest for you, rather than necessarily in your babies’ interests.

Swipe left for the next trending thread