AIBU to think a lot of people don't really think of children as people?

[weaningwoes]

So I am a softie and I know it. But so many threads on here have people (who are probably fine people and lovely parents in many ways) advocating such extreme 'briskness' with very young children who are struggling with their feelings that it borders on harshness to me.

Problems with sleeping, giving up bottles/dummies, 'tantrums' (or 'being overwhelmed by emotions' depending on how you feel about that word!), so often the solution seems to be "make them safe and then ignore". There's this fanatical devotion to the idea that "three nights of hell and then that was that" is a good enough outcome to justify what would amount to neglect if it was done to any other group of dependent, vulnerable person, say frail elderly or someone with developmental issues in a care home, and bloody cruel and cold at least if directed to, say, a partner who was crying for some reason.

It feels like a lot of people think their compassion for their children should just stop at 1 minute past bedtime, or the second their feelings or behaviour ceases to be convenient.

I know I sound a judgy bitch, and lots of people will be laughing at me for being so wet. But surely children are real people, even from babies, and there's no reason to imagine they feel what they feel any less truly than we adults do - just that they have far fewer tools to manage and rationalise those feelings!

I don't remember being a toddler but I do remember being a teenager and a small child - how my feelings would take me over and how utterly devastating it was to feel so much and be dismissed, overridden and ignored, even ridiculed for those feelings by adults I loved. Sure, they were right in the scheme of things that I needn't be as upset/passionate about x y z thing, but my feelings were nonetheless genuine. And they hurt!

Surely one doesn't have to agree with someone's assessment of a situation to sympathise with the strength of their emotions about it, especially when it's somebody dependent and helpless, who you love?

Prepared to be told IABVVVU.

*they don’t want to go

@Barbarafromblackpool completely agree with your comment about family size. Everyone I know who was adamant about attachment parenting has moderated with additional children. And I’ve never seen it practiced by parents of twins. It’s impossible to let multiple children sleep/nurse/eat when they like and meet all of their emotional needs at the same time.

One very extreme AP mum I know was wanting to get early discharge from hospital after a planned c section (medical reasons so she knew in advance) because her 4 year old had never spent a night without her and she was worried about his emotional well being. When you begin putting your health and the health of a new baby behind the feelings of a 4 year old I’m sorry but you’ve gone too far.

She’s also learned that despite her best efforts to raise a kind gentle child, sibling rivalry has brought out some nasty behaviour in PFB and she’s been thrown for a loop.

I do wish there could be more realistic advice for when you have multiple children. My DD was a high needs baby and if she'd been a younger sibling I don't see how I could have avoided leaving her to scream in order to provide meals, change of nappy/clothing, teeth brushing etc. for an older sibling.

For goodness sake, my kids are well looked after, loved unconditionally and listened to but I am not letting them walk all over me. My job is to make sure they grow up able to cope as adults once they no longer have me there to sound out. Yes I made them brush their teeth 2 times a day from their first teeth whether they wanted to or not so they would have good dental hygiene later in life, my parents didn’t bother and I have loads of fillings, I know small kids 5 year old at my kids school with fillings because the parents don’t say no, think massive bags of haribo to themselves etc

I also put a stair gate on their doors when they went in to a bed so they could make the connection that it was bed time, I checked in on them every 10 minutes and would hug them and say night night again if they were upset

So yes my children are people but not responsible for themselves yet so I need to lay the ground work so they can cope later on

Just to say the stair gates was only for a while until they got used to bed time they are no longer on the doors

@Sockworkshop I am well aware my daughter's sleep wasn't normal. She wasn't a 'normal' baby in general, trouble breastfeeding, very unhappy for the first six months of life, better after she could roll/crawl/walk but still had issues - turned out it was a dairy allergy and when I stopped eating dairy and giving it to her she became a completely different child. I had gone to various GPs countless times about her crying, her wakefulness etc and was told over and over I was making a fuss about nothing, babies cry, I just needed to sleep train her, and that she was crying to manipulate me. Also when I continued to say that I didn't want to sleep train and was still concerned about how often she was waking that I had PND and should stop breastfeeding (when actually breastfeeding is correlated with better maternal mental health outcomes, and in any case I wasn't depressed, just knackered). No-one ever suggested CMPA, and when I suggested it to HCPs after frantic Googling I was laughed at, told I was being silly and a hypochondriac by proxy.

The point is, I didn't know that was what was wrong. But I knew she was too tiny to be crying by design. If i had believed what I was told, ignored her crying and just left her to scream, I would have been leaving her in pain. Just because I thought I had covered all the basis - clean, fed, comfortable - she still had a reason to be crying, whether I knew it or not. It may have taken me a while to figure it out, and I feel bad for that, but at least I can know I comforted her when she was in distress and couldn't tell me why.

And I never needed to 'teach' her to 'self-soothe' - as mentioned in earlier posts, she got the hang of it all by herself, at around 2ish. Started sending me and her Dad out of the room after her cuddle. No crying, no ignoring, no sitting downstairs listening to her call for me and eating my heart out. Just the natural consequence of her issues being dealt with, her confidence and sense of security being nurtured, and growing up. 2 years of my life having bad sleep is not to high a price to pay I don't think. Others of course feel differently or have different constraints on them that mean they have to do differently. I suppose it's possible other people's under twos are Machiavellian geniuses who cry when they are perfectly happy and just want to troll you. I don't think other people are shit (unless, as with the poster in the other thread I mentioned, they are tying up their toddlers). Just that people ascribe adult motivations to little babies when it comes to much of their behaviour, while at the same time diminishing the reality of their feelings so they can behave as if those feelings don't exist or matter. This is not the same as saying the feelings always have to be appeased or given way to; just acknowledged and dealt with.

@SipperSkipper When the Cochrane start hiring economists to do systematic reviews of medical research, I'll give Oster some consideration. As it is there simply isn't enough research to indicate the long term effects of 'sleep training' (which is a very broad church as others have pointed out, ranging from cry it out to shh-pat and everything in between, so long term effects would surely also be similarly stratified if there were any). But why are long term effects the only ones that matter? There is pretty solid evidence that being left to cry is extremely stressful for small babies in the moment. As it goes, there is no evidence that proves conclusively that sleep training improves the sleep of children in the medium term either, with there being no statistically significant difference by six years old between children who were trained and those who weren't (this bears out my own experience of a child who 'sleep trained' herself quite naturally after being an awful sleeper as a baby). Everything about Oster's MO is aimed at selling books to overextended, undersupported US mothers with minimal maternity rights and limited social safety net what they need to hear to feel better about the choices they are making in extremis. She's in it to sell books.

@EssentialHummus in that situation, I'd get down on her level and ask if she wanted a hug, if she did I'd give it to her, if not I'd stand nearby to prevent her hurting or snatching and to be available if she did decide she needed physical comfort. I'd verbalise her strong feelings for her if she wasn't in a condition to do it herself: "Wow you are really feeling angry and sad, poor you. You decided you did want that toy, but Jack has it now and it is his turn. It feels really hard when we can't have the things we want." With my daughter, this is often enough - one of the things that most frustrates her with tantrums is she can't get her words out to say what she's feeling, or if she feels like we're not listening to her - if we try and hustle her out of it she just escalates, whereas if we verbalise for her and ask if that's right she often agrees it is and starts to calm down. If it didn't work, or if she seemed like she was going to try to hurt the other child, I would take her somewhere she could have some space and continue to offer a hug from time to time. What I wouldn't do: shout, isolate, punish, or insist she stopped crying or that her crying was strategic and that she didn't actually feel how she felt. In that moment, none of those things would help her. And I'm in the game to help her understand and manage her feelings and the feelings of others, not squash them away.

@Cerseilannisterinthesnow

Yes I made them brush their teeth 2 times a day from their first teeth whether they wanted to or not so they would have good dental hygiene later in life, my parents didn’t bother and I have loads of fillings, I know small kids 5 year old at my kids school with fillings because the parents don’t say no, think massive bags of haribo to themselves etc

My parents didn't make me brush my teeth either and I too have loads of fillings :( that is because they didn't prioritise me, they couldn't be bothered to go through the process of getting me to do it. It wasn't 'permissiveness' or because they were terrified of upsetting me, they just couldn't be arsed.

I 'make' my daughter brush her teeth twice a day. But I don't hold her down while she screams and force a brush into her mouth. There have been spells where it takes bloody ages and has been exhausting. But it always gets done in the end without any violence. Plenty on here would call it pandering that I have sometimes spent 20 minutes getting her to allow me to brush; or that she gets to 'brush' my teeth first; or that now she gets to watch Duggee's toothbrushing badge song on my phone while I brush. Fair enough; but the outcome is she will now willingly open her mouth and let me brush her teeth, twice a day, even when I can't produce Duggee or whatever, because it's just what we do and hasn't become a battle ground or a frightening thing for her. I don't have to nerve myself up to using force against her twice a day. She has perfect teeth. Everyone wins; it just took that initial investment of time. That's 'laying the ground work' to me. Helping them collaborate in their own interest rather than overpowering them and taking all their agency away just because it's expedient in the moment. Not saying that's what you do, just saying the two schools of thought are not antithetical.

@SnuggyBuggy I believe Sarah Ockwell Smith (boo hiss from the gallery) has just produced a book about the second baby.. haven't read it as not yet relevant to me but I've generally found her suggestions quite sensible (although her tone gets right on my nerves as she has zero sympathy for parents, only for children).

completely agree with you OP!! some people seem to find their children such an inconvenience.

The thing is, pandering to a child who just won’t sleep doesn’t always help. All it results in is a frustrated parent and knackered over-tired child. Sometimes ignoring is the only option.

You will probably only understand this if you have heard ‘I need a drink/wee/I can’t sleep because my Teddy is looking at me funny/the curtains keep moving/it’s too hot/cold’ et al x infinity.

weaningwoes Your situation was very different though with an undiagnosed cmpa baby. Her distressed crying would have been in no way comparable to a normal bsby’s overtired crying. 2 years of no sleep was too long when there is medication/dietary changes that could have helped you. Someone should have listened to you earlier unfortunately. But that experience probably does skew your perspective.

@Pinkout

*The thing is, pandering to a child who just won’t sleep doesn’t always help. All it results in is a frustrated parent and knackered over-tired child. Sometimes ignoring is the only option.

You will probably only understand this if you have heard ‘I need a drink/wee/I can’t sleep because my Teddy is looking at me funny/the curtains keep moving/it’s too hot/cold’ et al x infinity*

Well that certainly does sound trying and seems to be about older children - being a mum to only 1 2.5 year old I daresay I have such trials ahead of me!

I try to remember for my DC that they need to learn self-regulation, self-soothing, independence, resilience and how to live with and experience their emotions and I as a parent need to give them those opportunities to learn and practise those skills. Their brains are literally not developed in the same way an adult's is and therefore can't be treated the same way. Treating children kindly and fairly doesn't mean treating them like adults - it means treating them like children.

You will probably only understand this if you have heard ‘I need a drink/wee/I can’t sleep because my Teddy is looking at me funny/the curtains keep moving/it’s too hot/cold’ et al x infinity

Hear hear!

With 2 kids you don't have time for all this spending 20 minutes teeth brushing. I need to be out of the house for work..... I think a lot of your ideas are based on a SAHP.

@Userzzzzz I daresay my experience does colour my perspective yes. But how many other parents listen to their child howl but feel (because they listen to their mothers/aunts/baby book/health visitor) that they mustn't give in because they just need to 'break' the child of their sleep association or habit of waking and the crying is normal and nothing to worry about?

It's like the thing where people say they've made sure baby is clean and dry and fed so they know the baby hasn't actually got anything wrong with it so can safely leave them to cry themselves back down: how do they know they are still clean and dry?

Maybe I'm dead insensitive, people were always telling me I'd get to know 'different' cries from my baby as she got older - but to me, all her cries sounded genuine and much the same. She didn't 'whinge', or sound one way when she wanted feeding and another way if she wanted changing. She just cried. So I'd check on her and try things. Because I didn't 'know' she was fine 'really' unless she wasn't crying!

@Teachermaths ahahahaha I'm not a SAHP, I wish. worked full time from 11 months old, now have whittled it down to four (long) days a week. Getting out in the mornings can be a challenge! but fortunately (haha) she gets up bloody early so always plenty of time to start the toothbrush negotiations. Would I'm sure all be very different with 2. But again that's circumstances and exigencies, doesn't change the underlying fact that her feelings are real and not to be dismissed out of hand.

You coped with your sleep deprivation - many can't.
Many cope with weaning later - you couldn't so you helped your child manage their emotions.

Surely it's just what each individual adults limits are, combined with individual children's characters and needs. Less judging of the average parent is needed as most of us are all just juggling, and as a pp said "winging it". Obviously there are extremes of behaviour but most parenting is not in that category.

For myself my childhood was not abusive but very dysfunctional. And yes I think that has definitely played a role in my parenting anxieties and the style of parenting I feel comfortable with (as well as my natural inclination for putting others before myself, because I was never raised to think that what I wanted or needed mattered as much as anybody else - in that respect I suppose you could say dysfunctional or abusive conditioning is potentially effective at producing the temperament required for attachment parenting! wink). However, surely even taking what you say as true, it is far more beneficial for such people as me or the "broken, abused" mothers you hmm at who AP to do that, to try and break the cycle, than to just visit it on the next generation because that is what they learned? People without a good example of parenting will need to find their own way, or repeat the patterns they learned in childhood.

But by breaking the cycle and going to the other extreme is just as bad. A child who is bought up to think the entire world revolves around it is going to struggle with life in general and is going to be one of those "selfish" parents with their own children because they've been bought up to put themselves first. Over compensating brings its own problems.

A pp talking about a friend who did AP said this when said friend had a second child,
She’s also learned that despite her best efforts to raise a kind gentle child, sibling rivalry has brought out some nasty behaviour in PFB and she’s been thrown for a loop.

Perhaps those parents who had less of a dysfunctional or abusive childhood and are taking the middle path have it right.

They aren't afraid of upsetting their child because they themselves experienced upset, but this was balanced by loving supportive parents who helped them manage their emotions. As a result they know that you can't avoid upset children and that this is part and parcel of a normal childhood, but they do this whilst teaching resilience and giving emotional support to their own children.

An average parent will get some bits wrong and some bits right. We need to acknowledge there is no such thing as a perfect parent and be less judgmental of others. I'm sure the majority of parents see their children as people.

Our next door neighbours have been doing cry it out with their baby for months. They sleep on the other side of their flat and the baby's cot is up against the same wall as our bed. I'd just got DD sleeping through after two and a half years of hourly wake ups and now I am kept up by their baby screaming for hours and hours every night. People who say it's three nights of hell and then done are very optimistic. He will cry for hours at a time, wear himself out quietly sobbing for a bit then the screaming starts up again, no one comes to comfort him or we would hear it, he is obviously left alone from 7pm onwards, often bashing the wall with a bottle/sippy cup by the sound of it. It's cruel imo.

I think it's also worth considering what you'd do if after 20 (or 30, or 40...) minutes your DC still didn't oblige on the teeth-brushing. My solution at that point would be "Very sorry, but this is important so mum is doing it." We have a few friends in our toddler group where the toddlers are really defiant. Really really defiant. Like, look you in the eye and do the opposite sort of thing. I don't think gentle parenting would work there. And in practice one of the previously "baby led" type parents are finding themselves being quite strict, and the other is continuing to (in my opinion) pander, and the toddler is getting more and more unpleasant.

I don't think anyone on here will disagree with you.

Sorry that was to disney

@katewhinesalot

But by breaking the cycle and going to the other extreme is just as bad. A child who is bought up to think the entire world revolves around it is going to struggle with life in general and is going to be one of those "selfish" parents with their own children because they've been bought up to put themselves first. Over compensating brings its own problems

But as I say I'm not making her think she is 'the centre of the universe' or giving way to her on everything simply by acknowledging and empathising with her feelings. She doesn't get her own way all the time (thus the tantrums!). But when she struggles with that I don't compund her upset by admonishing her for even being upset, or try to pretend that she 'isn't really' even when I know full well in the equivalent adult situation I too would be upset - I've just learned tools to manage the upset!

I feel like there's a long period called 'childhood' where the child can become an adult who functions well, and they don't have to learn it all at once.

I used to have to carry her everywhere because she couldn't walk; now I don't, but there was a long period of time between then and now where I had to support her when she pulled herself up on things, when she wanted/needed me to hold her hands to help her 'walk' around, and then a stage where I had to sit on my hands so as not to interfere while she pulled herself up, toddled, fell down, and pulled herself up and tried again. I didn't have to 'teach' her to walk, nor did I have to leave her to work it out all by herself. I supported her and showed her the way and eventually my involvement became nil. And it certainly never occurred to me to tell her that she could really walk, she was being ridiculous not to walk, and she'd better walk NOW or else there would be trouble.

So I imagine it will be with her managing her feelings.

"Wow you are really feeling angry and sad, poor you. You decided you did want that toy, but Jack has it now and it is his turn. It feels really hard when we can't have the things we want."

That would wind my son up because he dislikes being talked at ( how he would see it) when he is distressed. Being physically close may also have wound him up and resulted in that person being bitten. We had lots of problems when he was younger with other people not getting this.

Part of treating children as people is recognising they have individual needs.

@Underhisi

Very good point and certainly it's trial and error.

Can I ask how you do address his feelings in such situations?