To tell new parents not to make a rod for their backs

[PenelopeChipShop]

I’ve thought about how to phrase this but I really want to post it. I just feel like i’ve made so many mistakes and I don’t want others to go through the same.

My DC are 5 (nearly 6) and 2 and neither are good sleepers. I didn’t sleep train either of them and was quite laid back/ attachment parent-ish about their sleep, believing all the relaxed people (lots of them on the munsnet sleep boards!) who said that children will sleep through when they’re ready, you won’t regret the cuddles, etc. I was confident in my choice and while I didn’t judge those who did sleep training, I thought it wasn’t for us.

Well almost 6 years of sleep deprivation have taken my youth, sanity, skin quality, patience and all my confidence in what I thought was the right path. It also isn’t an exaggeration to say that conflict over how to handle sleep issues played a huge part in ending my marriage.

I am now a LP to two children who still don’t sleep, ex H doesn’t have them overnight (though he has said he will ‘in future’ - I think this means when the little one is weaned off boob, which I do understand tbf) and every morning I wake up sandwiches between them, utterly exhausted, and angry because it takes all fucking evening to get them to bed. I have no energy or time for myself, all because I thought Dr Sears was right about traumatising children who are left to cry.

Well guess what, he is a man who has never actually breastfed every fucking night for hundreds of nights on end. So he can stuff his theories up his arse.

AIBU to tell new parents to get their kids used to self setting and to night wean them earlyish (6-12 months) so they don’t end up like me, ie a husk of their former selves.

YABU. Every child is different. My almost 1 year old is FF and co sleeps and we have a lovely nights sleep every night. DP sleeps in the spare room and is happy with this arrangement, he also feels its best for DS to be close to his mum.

He is a bit of a little bed hogger though but I find it cute

TheKitchenWitch - nope they don’t necessarily, depends on the individual baby. One of mine slept through from 5 weeks. I woke them up for a feed at 11pm. They then woke themselves for another feed around 5am then went back to sleep for a few hours and again woke themselves around 8am for the next feed. By 8wks they were stretching the sleep out and waking more around 6.30am.

My ‘latest’ at sleeping through was 8 weeks and then went straight from 11pm feed to 6am feed.

Not sure if it made a difference but from birth through to them dropping the night feed at 5-8 wks I made the room as dark as possible, absolutely minimum light needed in order to do proper nappy change then virtually no light at all for the feed. No eye contact the whole time from waking them up to putting them back down at the end of the feed. No speaking at all. No phone light. No TV. Boring as batshit but it programs their brain with the message it’s night, not a time for communication with mum or play time and there’s absolutely nothing of interest. That’s what they taught in the hospital baby care program and it seemed to have worked with mine. I also made the 11pm feed very boring but had more low level light as opposed to complete darkness where possible.

TheKitchenWitch Baby down to bed at 8pm, feed at 12am (before DP or I went to bed), then sleep through to 8am. DS did this religiously from a month old and was little fuss before that. DD took 3 months to do it consistently and would usually wake by 7am rather than at 8am, but that was no problem as we were already up for work. Daytime feeds were 12pm and 4pm.

In hindsight, it's always taken DS about a year to settle down from any big change. Leaving XP - he didn't eat for 9 months. Moving country - his behaviour was horrendously stressful for a year.

It gets better, I hope you're on the home stretch and I'm sorry your ex is being a knob. X

NO EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT SLEEP TRAINING
That statement is bonkers, the evidence is in the generations of reasonably well balanced people who grew up in an era, where mothers didn't have the time to use new ideas like Dr Sears rhetoric, they just got on with it!
My kids, now in their 40's were sleep trained, potty trained, manners trained and life trained, there were never screaming meltdowns, no dramas, it just happened.
I think the OP has justed busted the idea that new methods are always better, and that maybe old fashioned is sometimes best

Slightly off tangent, but somebody on here recommended a Netflix show - The Letdown (bloody hilarious Aussie comedy about a new mother). The 2nd episode is all about sleep training if you fancy some light relief.

I totally understand. Can we be pen pals!

Horses for courses.
DS1 is very independent. Sleep training worked a treat.
DS2 very stubborn and cuddly. A much more rested night if I let him in with me.

I was a LP when mine were your age. It’s a difficult time. Not too late to sleep train them now though.

If anyone is interested in a summary of the current research into sleep training, the Durham infant sleep research centre has some interesting information:

https://www.isisonline.org.uk/howbabiesssleep/sleeptraining/considerations/

I think it depends on the child. I nightweaned and moved DS into his own bed in my room at 2. He cried for five minutes before falling asleep (for three days), and slept through from the first night.

He started cosleeping again because we were warmer together in the winter, and has coslept on and off since (though mostly in his own bed in his own room these days). I don't have a problem with sharing my bed, it was just the breastfeeding at night that was getting tiring.

I didn’t sleep train mine

Just BF for 6 months and put them to bed at a fairly regular time

I feel for OP but not sure if you have are super unlucky with bad sleepers

I can’t even say it’s the EBF as that works OK for some

Onwards OP

That's certainly very interesting assassinatedbeauty

This is the bit people worry about I guess. Even if there's no long term effects, it just seems very sad. My heart is too soft for sleep training my little ones.

*A recent studydemonstrated that mothers and babies undergoing a controlled-crying intervention started out with matching, synchronous, hormonal stress responses (babies cried at bed-time, their stress hormone levels increased, and their mothers' stress hormone levels also increased). After three days, the babies had ceased to cry at night, and mothers' stress hormone levels dropped, however babies' levels - despite the fact they were no longer crying - remained high. This suggests that the babies' behaviour had adapted to being alone for sleep, but that their physiology had not. The response of the babies in this study lends support to the theory that babies who undergo sleep training via extinction may be learning to 'give up' rather than to 'settle' -- outwardly the two behaviours appear the same, but inwardly the babies physiology is very different. As well as being physically separated from their mothers, the sleep trained babies were no longer in physical synchrony with their mothers as their mutual stress response link (maintained by infant crying) had been broken.

Research in this field is still in its infancy; however, behavioural synchrony between mothers and babies has been well studied, and is associated with the maintenance of positive mother-infant relationships and normal infant development.*

Never sleep trained mine. Two good sleepers, one bad-ish until around 2 but he was always needy unlike the others. Every child is different, every family dynamic is different. I hope you get things sorted out.

YANBU. 3 babies here, all sleep trained, all sleep perfectly. They are content, to the extent we've just taken the one year Old's dummy as it was changing his teeth shape. Baby didn't bat an eyelid, he doesn't need it to sleep as he is so content and I am convinced it's because they have such a settled sleep routine. They drive me crazy in other ways, don't get me wrong but I know I would be an absolutely shite parent if I was sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation is the worst, most debilitating thing.

I’ve done nothing different with any of mine. They all partially co-slept for at least the first six months (primarily because I was a lazy fuck and couldn’t be arsed getting out of bed to change/feed them...) The eldest and youngest sleep fine, the middle DC is a fucking nightmare. It’s just who she is, she’s a nightmare all round tbh. She sleeps through the night but getting her to go to sleep is still a twat and she’ll be seven next month.

I don’t think it’s down to sleep techniques or bedtime routines at all.

I couldn't have my children in my bedroom until 2. Mum's are allowed a life, sex life, social life and a career. I went for a weekend away with friends when my baby was 5 months old and I breast fed, expressed before I left, left in freezer with label with date and time to feed, my husband loves looking after her and they really bonded. He had a typed routine for feeds, nappy change and naps, they both loved it She is 12 now and they have a lovely bond, being a mum can be enjoyable

You're right but parents need to leave for themselves you can't really tell people stuff they need to experience it. I saw people i know having what I perceived to be problems such as you described so I decided not to do that. But I would never tell anyone my method was right. It just works for me and my family.

Mum's are allowed a life, sex life, social life and a career

I’m not sure how co-sleeping or breastfeeding interferes with any of those

I managed to conceive DTs whilst DS1 was a 10 month old breastfeeding, partial co-sleeping night cuddler.

Have a great job, lovely friends and a good DH too!

Breastfeeding a two year old must be exhausting. Do many mums do this? Mine were both 9 months breastfed and that seemed enough for me and them. I am curious, not critical.

I personally couldn't have sex with a child in the same room. I also couldn't sleep properly, I like my own personal space

Let me clarify lloyd, our baby wasn’t in the room when we were having sex!

I didn't sleep train either of mine, but was very laid back about things like darkening the room, and sticking to schedule. I used to really judge sil and bil for their stressful, rule-laden bedtimes. Guess what? Her kids sleep brilliantly now and mine don't.

Breastfeeding a two year old must be exhausting. Do many mums do this? Mine were both 9 months breastfed and that seemed enough for me and them. I am curious, not critical

Not in any way exhausting. Usually the amount/number of times they feed decreases. I fed until 3 years and 8 months and she was on one a day

Well to me sex is just before I go to sleep each to there own

You poor thing op.

Have to say pregnant with first, I’ve never intended not to sleep train - I just can’t see how you can survive the sleep deprivation otherwise.