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.

Anyone can leave their baby in a cot until they give up asking for them. There's no skill in neglecting your child. The skill is in meeting your child's needs together with your own. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

@BertieBotts

Your list is spot on. My DH is no paragon but he ticks all those criteria and is a completely full-time partner and parent.

I wouldn’t have got married for anything less.

And that’s not smugness. I grew up in a family where car crash relationships were coming out of everyone’s arses and I was determined my life would and could be different.

my oldest is autistic and NEVER slept through, ever... only way I could get him to sleep was to sit on the floor of his bedroom until he fell asleep and then crawl out silently.

I had to do the 'not looking, not talking' thing and over a few weeks gradually sit further and further away until I made it out onto the landing and then sitting on my own bed!

I had to do the same when he woke at night too. I co-slept with dd so never had any sleeping issues with her as I was always happy to lay with her until she fell asleep, same as I did with DS.

I know you said you're trying to do some work on them now, but my advice is one child at a time, sort DS out first because if he's coming in disturbing DD then you'll never get anywhere!

Couldn't agree with you more op, as long as it's done at the right time. I night weaned both of mine at 8months and then did some further sleep training at 10 which helped them sleep through. They were both bloody awful sleepers and I was so tired at one point I smashed a wing mirror off my car and popped 2 tyres (separate occasions).

It's hard but worth it. They are both now sticklers for routine but I would much prefer that, and a good nights sleep, to being so tired from night wakings that I'm not capable of keeping my children safe.

FittonTower speaks the most sense on this thread.
BertieBotts comes pretty close, I have always said I judge people on how they treat waiting staff and shop assistants. If they treat them like shit, they are not people I want to associate with!
Bertie, please post that in relationships, so people know what to look for, not flowers and compliments, your criteria are way better and more reliable!

Oh and as for co-sleeping - I tried it and it's a bloody nightmare. I could never sleep with a baby chomping away on my boob and they took it that if they were in bed with me then it was playtime. Cue lots of throwing toys/ loveys around, being poked, prodded etc. Just didn't work for us.

YANBU. When my 2 DC were tiny I managed to cope with them waking every 2 hours because books and friends assured me they would gradually sleep for longer periods. Nope, never happened. It ruined my relationship, turned me into a weeping zombie.

Gently night weaned DD (followed the Dr Ferber method, over a couple of weeks fed for a minute less each night until we were down to almost nothing) then sleep trained just before 12 months. Sleep trained DS at 15 months. Both went from waking every couple of hours to sleeping through in about a week. By sleep training I mean went in when they woke up crying and shushed them and said ‘go to sleep’ then left. Went back in after a couple of minutes, did the same, left.

So as for this

I'm sorry you are struggling but I'm afraid there is no evidence to support sleep training. Sleep research does not show any significant long term improvements to infant sleep through sleep training methods.

it certainly wasn’t true for me.

You don't have to 'sleep train' but you can start getting babies into good sleep habits from the start.
Don't feed to sleep.
But them down
Give them a chance to go to sleep my themselves
Good routines
Lots of sleep cues
Hahahaha

I did all of this with all 3 of my dc. Dd1, was sleeping through 12 hours a night at 6 weeks. I thought parenting was so easy and thought I was an expert. Then I had ds. He woke at least every 2 hours for at least 9-10 months, and then at least 2-3 times for the next year. He still needs far less sleep than his sisters and he is nearly 10. Dd2 was far more average, woke once/twice a night and was sleeping through between 6-9 months.
All the routine in the world didn’t help ds sleep through. He was his own person and didn’t need or want the sleep. I tried everything on that list and it didn’t work. Different baby’s have different needs. I very much believe That you could have had 3 good sleepers but that it is nothing more than luck. Try your luck with a forth baby and you may well find your luck has run out.

I almost lost my mind trying to (gently) sleep train my second child.
Third and fourth coslept. Much more sleep, much easier on all of us. I still sleep with a three year old but it doesn't bother me because I'm asleep.

She does settle at bedtime though.

Well.. my ex gets a BIIIIG fat 'F' on Berties testing criteria..

He liked to think he put others before himself, and he did, but it was always with a view to making his life easier in the long run.... it was NEVER without ulterior motive, ever, which kind of ruins the effect.

Help your disabled DW with the housework? Yep, because doing the odd job here and there is better than having to do all of them when she collapses in pain! (bonus point- make sure to let her know this is the only reason you're helping)

I’m not entirely sure what sleep training is but my little girl was a rough sleeper at the start (I know, they all are!) but after reading the experiences of other new mums I just kind of copied them 😂 put her down awake, naps in her own bed and when she woke up she was left until she needed something (not crying it out or anything like that, just waiting for her to let me know she was ready to get up rather than hearing the first noise and running in) she’s now 2 and we have been fortunate that she’s been a 12hr sleeper since about 16wks old bar the odd sleep regression / teething / growth spurt interfering. She still wakes up on occasion during the night but she’s left to go back to sleep unless she requires something. She also hates sharing a bed thank the lord! I don’t know if I could turn down cuddles and co sleeping if she really wanted to! X

YANBU I have two non sleepers. The eldest is now 18yrs old but he never ever slept until he was about 14. The youngest is 8. Still sleeps in my bed every night, cries, runs around screeching at 3am if you dare get up to go to the loo. He has had circadin in the past but it doesn't work for us. He's wide awake now and he will get up no bother at 7am. I'm totally fucked beyond repair. I'm so tired some days I'm incoherent.

I don't know if it would have made a difference but i wish I had been firm from the outset about them sleeping in their own beds and set routines. I did everything to try and keep the eldest asleep and in his bed, which meant I took the youngest into bed with me when he cried as a baby, he slept in our room for ages and he basically never left. Me and DP have been in separate bedrooms for years as the youngest sleeps in with one or the other of us as we also have middle DD to think of and we cant let youngest DS keep her awake too.

If following a rough routine including a bed time routine is sleep training then absolutely, it was one of the best parenting steps I ever took. A combination of Gina Ford and Baby Whisperer worked well for us (along with combination breast/bottle feeding). My babies of course woke for night feeds when they were little babies but waking was in a predictable pattern and didn't take long, it wasn't all-night marathon feeding. I miss those days of night feeding a little baby actually, it was a lovely time.

It is SO important to establish good sleep patterns because a) as adults we all like our sleep b) it helps our relationships (I liked my husband and I valued having time to ourselves, in our evenings and in our bed) c) sleep is essential to brain development in babies and children. I read put-downs like "non-instinctive parenting" and "neglect" from the attachment brigade and I think it smacks of misunderstanding about what you're actually doing for your children when you set them up with good sleep habits. For life.

I slightly think that kids are going to be good or bad sleepers whatever. My dd kept waking me up until she was 5 because no matter what I did she would get the covers off hee and need them replaced. Nothing to do with sleep trained or otherwise (she was come 5 but not as a baby)

D'S slept through from early but not cos I'd done anything right or from the point of view of any ideology. He just did.

I would also think maybe it's time to give up the bf if you are a husk of your former self.

I realjse saying I slightly think something does really make sense.

I mean that I still.havent figured it out.

Also where do people find these men who don’t mind you co sleeping and who help at night?!! Seriously.

Mine's a woman, but men should be just as good.

I'm not sure sleep training or not actually helps. We tried it with ours and failed, the only thing that worked was letting her co-sleep when she woke in the night right up until she was old enough to understand that night time is for sleeping and day time is for playing, which was about 2yo with the help of some godawful sheep shaped lamp thing. She's 3 now and sleeps through (until dawn, a bit later would be nice) but the unrelenting misery of constantly broken nights was horrible.

YY, you don't need a perfect partner - that doesn't exist! I learned most of this from MN relationships BTW and there is already an excellent stickied post there about how to spot a healthy vs unhealthy relationship so I sometimes comment this kind of thing on "Should I have DC/are we ready for DC?" kind of threads - but I defo didn't know how to assess a relationship before I had DS1, and I think I probably didn't really think very deeply about it before.

DH does tick all the boxes too so that's lucky we've been together for 7 years now and sometimes I still marvel at how long I go between crying these days, and when I do feel like crying it's always DH I go to for help/support whereas when I was younger it was practically my normal state of being - and the boyfriend was fairly often the cause or I knew he wouldn't help in the slightest Car crash relationship templates have a lot to answer for, honestly.

I didn't sleep train as such, co slept, bf, and I am blessed with 2 fantastic sleepers. Though dc1 did take until about age 2 to sleep more than 3/4 hours at a time.

Sorry you are having such a tough time op.

I weaned dd2 when I split with x and he took dc for weekend. Maybe think about doing that. You can wean and have a massive lie in too! You don't have to do everything yourself. You deserve a break.

What exactly is sleep training? My youngest is 8 now, oldest is 13. Two in-between. All of them were great sleepers from 3 months. I swaddled them until about 4 months or so, then a gro bag with their arms tucked under a thin cotton sheet over the top. They all had a comforter type teddy, I had a lullaby machine that was noise activated and made it sound like a monsoon was occurring. Black out blinds and never put them in cot fully asleep. Always in the verge of sleep right from the word go. I didn't directly breast feed any of them other than the first week or so, I expressed into a bottle so maybe would have been different for proper breastfeeding baby. Worked for me and mine anyways or I was just incredibly lucky 4 times. Or possibly forgetful, seems a blur now. I never left them to cry if they did wake.

Thank you!! Yanbu. I am 30 weeks pregnant with my first child. I have seen many of my friends end up like you and what it does to your confidence. Yet all I keep reading is how you should demand feed your baby, let it lead the schedule and constant put downs towards any sort of routine.

I have no idea what a baby will be like and I know there’s no way I will ever stick 100% to a routine but I am determined to try. I want a tiny, tiny fragment of my own life and not to be made to feel like crap about it.

So thank you! Thank you fir being honest about how hard it is to adopt this approach and what it has done to you.

Bertie that list is great!

I wish I'd understood that when I was younger.

Sleep training means 10 different things to 10 different people, hence it's a completely meaningless argument!

Some people think it means letting a baby cry so that they don't learn to be dependent on you to fall asleep - others will say yes, crying, but only for set intervals. Others use it to refer to practices such as setting a bedtime routine, or slowly weaning off feeding to sleep by reducing amounts. Some consider "leaving to cry" to have different definitions from full on screaming for hours to letting the baby whimper/whine a bit to wait and see if they will go back off to sleep by themself without help first... so it's also meaningless to say that it's effective/harmful/essential since there are so many different ways to interpret it.

I commented on the first page, and said i sleep trained, but to be honest I don't think it had a name then.

I started from weeks old, with the 3 Bs, bath, breast/bottle, bed (although we didn't bath every night, topped tailed instead)

for the first 3 months, I fed on demand, would do the routine about 8pm then feed in bed, swaddle then put dc in the moses basket next to the bed, if he grisseld I touch his head, if he cried I'd pick him up again, then back down. if he woke during the night, I'd wait for him to start crying before feeding.

after about 4 months, lengths of sleep became longer. by 6 months he was in a cot in his own room. same principle applies, rather then rushing straight in I would wait for the crying to start. by then most times it wouldn't get to a crying stage, just him grisselling moving about getting comfortable then back to sleep.
slept through regularly from 7 months

ds2 was very different he was harder to put down and sleep, woke and cried lots. he loved his cuddles. I co slept with for the first 4 months, but still if I could pop him back in his moses basket I sometimes would try.

He was a lot harder, and some nights i spent more time getting up to cuddle him then I spent in bed or asleep. it was shit, and felt like a life time, But with perseverance and making sure he had the reassurance I would be there. he eventually
slept through regularly at 8 months

putting ds2 to bed took longer also for the first 2 years, he'd settle for 10mins then cry, I go in and lay him back down, 10mins later, same again. sometime another 10mins. but although at the time it felt never ending. it's was only and extra 1/2 - hour max before I or DH would be back down stairs.

during the day neither had a sleep routine, they slept where ever, on me, in the car, in a pram, in a pushchair, in a sling.

I didn't read Gina Ford or Dr Seuss, I read lots other stuff (not sure what now) took everything with pinch of salt, and had a great midwife who told me about the 3 Bs.

@Tararhu but you can see from the wide mix of responses here that it's not a definitive thing. I did very similar to the OP and had no issues, and have children that sleep.

I haven’t read the whole thread but I don’t agree with you OP. I believe there is a middle ground which can be different for each of us, and also that partners can be very involved. I coslept and breastfed for several years; when I was ready dh took over night weaning. When we were all ready we moved the kids to their rooms (around 4 yo). There is no need to have a six year old in your bed if you don’t want to.
I know kids who were sleep trained as newborns and can’t sleep by themselves at 12.
You can change things if you want to, especially with the 6 yo.