To think that we should be more honest about babies' sleep?

[star1401]

Inspired by a few threads on here I've read recently.

When I was pregnant, I had visions of rocking my baby to sleep and putting them gently down in their Moses basket where they settled for a few hours. I was under no illusion that I'd be up a few times feeding in the night, but thought I'd be able to put baby down again and go back to sleep. Aside from the nights where they were teething or poorly, this is how I thought it would be.

The reality was that neither of my babies would be put down to sleep for at least the first few weeks. Or at least if they did, they woke after 10 minutes. It wasn't because of the temperature, or the noise, or their clothing, or reflux. It was because they wanted to be close to me. I've read so many threads lately with new mums feeling so stressed because their babies won't sleep unless on them or being constantly rocked/moved.

AIBU to think that it would be far better to be honest with pregnant/new Mum friends about the realities of babies and sleeping? Yes, there will always be some babies who sleep like angels from day 1. But the vast majority of people that I know have all had babies who won't be put down to sleep.m in the early days. I'm not implying terrifying pregnant woman and telling them they'll "never sleep again." But saying "don't be surprised if your baby won't be put down to sleep, they will probably prefer sleeping on you for the first few weeks/months at least."

I remember feeling like crap because I thought my baby was the only one who wouldn't be put down. No one told me that babies often wake as soon as they are put down and that the fourth trimester is a thing. I wish someone had because I'd have spent less time over trying to get my baby down and more time just accepting that they will only sleep on me and that's that!

I agree OP. Because I'd spent some time reading on here before I had my baby, I expected it and he was actually fine a lot of the time. Sure, he preferred being held but it was possible to put him down and sleep. And I count myself lucky because he could have been worse and it would still have been totally normal.

My opinion is that our whole historic culture of baby care is totally at odds with what babies actually need (4 hour routines, rod for your own back) and you only tend to find this out when you are caring for one yourself.

I always see these threads and think I'm really lucky - I never had this impression that it would be easy. I was told a range of things to be honest so prepared for the worst and like most babies my daughter went through rough and smooth periods. Most of the time rough, lol. Where did you get your information from?

I did know this before birth, but I spent a lot of time on attachment parenting websites so maybe it's more clear on those?

You say people imply that the baby sleeps in a cot though - perhaps they are assuming that you already know babies don't like sleeping alone and aren't implying anything about the sleeping location, but you just filled in the blanks with what you expect?

@SnuggyBuggy

What is the truth about babies a generation ago? Were people more keen to sleep train at a younger age? Were older formulas heavier and made babies more sleepy? Have our parents just forgotten how long it really took babies to sleep through?

Probably more than a generation now, but culturally not sleeping through was seen as a problem so all sorts of methods were employed to get them to sleep including overfeeding, early solids, harsher sleep training than we would consider today and even drugging and medication!

This is very interesting.

Some people don't have baby sleep issues. My own all slept very well as babies. Yabu because not everybody tells lies about how well their babies sleep.

The babies gave up asking for their needs to be met, most probably causing poor attachment.

This really is balls, you know. We don't have an entire nation of people with attachment disorder!

Yesterday 23:22Babyboomtastic

@SenecaTrewe

In that case the vast majority of people now have insecure attachments. This doesn't make sense...

This.

There do seem to be people who can't cope with a baby or toddler fussing at all. Someone up here saying their 2.5 year old "won't" stay in bed.... who's in charge, you or them? My 18m old hate the car seat and "won't" go in it, you can bet I don't give her a bloody choice. Adults do need sleep and it is ok not to give in to tyrannical toddlers just because they kick off/cry.

Also formula-fed babies sleep way better in general. I bf but I'm in Ireland and most people formula feed and their babies all seem to sleep way better.

Nah its balls. Lots of my friends ff and I bf, DS was the best sleeper! However I did notice that there was a big overlap between bf and being a person who couldnt stand to let a baby fuss for even 30 seconds.

Also I noticed that people didnt seem to get that with babies you GRADUALLY change. You dont bf them to sleep for the first 4 months then suddenly decide you are going to put them down wide awake and then are baffled when they scream about it.

If your baby doesnt like being put down from day 1 you start working on it then, you dont wait till they are older and in the habit of being on you constantly, you try swaddling and dummies etc right away, it then pays dividends 3 or 4 months later

Absolutely

I think a lot of the realities of having babies is not shared publicly - or as you say sanitised by dreamy visions of cradling baby in a Moses blanket & napping next to baby or whatever

I truly believe women are essentially sold a lie about the average experience of motherhood & if more were honest about it then less would opt to choose this path.

DC1 was a relatively good sleeper, but 2 and 3 were exactly as you describe, OP.

I think the notion that women are just 'doing it wrong', 'making a rod for your own back' etc is almost entirely due to the fact that men's normal sexual expectations and general comfort must come before babies needs and women's sanity.

As soon as you have a baby, you will find no end of commentators with exactly this agenda. This is when a lot of MIL problems raise their head. You have fallen short of meeting her darling boy's 'needs'.

I think most people expect newborns to be crap sleepers. I think there is less sympathy re toddlers/older children and interrupted nights. Many of my friends have had more challenges with 3/4 year olds than they did with them as babies. Both of mine slept through from 10-12 weeks with the exception of sickness/teething. However... my eldest went through a phase of waking us up at around 3. It’s just as likely she’ll be the one to wake us up as our 2yo.

I expected to be tired when my was born, I expected little sleep. I didn't expect to hallucinate with sleep deprivation, to spend hours sometimes with him screaming at me, clearly tired yet unable to fall and STAY asleep. I didn't expect that.

Someone up the thread mentioned how much women are sold a lie about motherhood and frankly it's true, we do this ourselves. Our hormones trick us but then the myth of motherhood and the patriarchy fucks us.

Ferber didn't get best selling books merely out of breastfeeding moms.

I knew babies slept terribly. I am confused by people who ever believed different. The part I didn't understand is how badly I would cope with the sleep disruption.

My (now grown) DSs were both non-sleepers. I decided that we would co-sleep and carried them in a sling. This whole idea was very frowned upon at the time, so I told no-one and just got on with it - it was my family and my choice. I make it sound like I had it all sorted, but I did have wobbles and it wasn't all plain sailing. I just knew in my gut that keeping them close was right for us.

ps: Ferber himself coslept with his own kids so never lived CIO. He started the programme recommending that CIO not be applied to children under 18m. His initial programme was entirely targetted at toddlers/preschoolers who didn't sleep solidly. That was 1980s, I think, he became a best seller? CIO is traced back to 1890s otherwise.

Nothing new under the sun.

"I'm not implying terrifying pregnant woman and telling them they'll "never sleep again." But saying "don't be surprised if your baby won't be put down to sleep, they will probably prefer sleeping on you for the first few weeks/months at least.""

Why would I tell someone that when it's not even nearly true in my experience?

In my experience people don't shut up about "sleepless nights" and "oh just you wait?" type stories (all anecdotal, just like this thread).

Both of mine always slept well though...not every baby doesn't sleep plus of course some people come better with sleep deprivation then others. For example I've never been a long sleeper and like a previous poster said have felt more tired after busy periods at work...

Yeah I also didn’t realise that some babies wouldn’t be put in their coat ever. I tried to put my baby in the Moses basket once and he instantly woke and then proceeded to scream for two hours. That’s just one example. There’s many others. He slept on my chest for months. I asked everyone I could, including professionals how I could get him to sleep in his cot. Even next to me in bed would have been an achievement. No one had any answers. It was so so awful because I was so worried about SIDS. But he just would not ever lie flat on his back. Didn’t even like the buggy.

If your baby doesnt like being put down from day 1 you start working on it then, you dont wait till they are older and in the habit of being on you constantly, you try swaddling and dummies etc right away, it then pays dividends 3 or 4 months later

Hahahahaha.

Believe me, people whose babies won’t be put down have usually tried dummies and swaddling. And white noise, shush-pat, ‘just put them down drowsy but awake’, having a Good Bedtime Routine, reading this book, reading that other book, everything that anyone could possibly suggest. I would have tried interpretive dance and goat sacrifice if I hadn’t been too tired to even function.

That baby still did not sleep, no matter what I or anyone else did, so eventually after months of it I gave up and embraced the sling naps and co-slept. The baby got more sleep, I got more sleep, it was bloody brilliant. Still got head-tilty people saying “did you go running in at every little whimper?” but I was beyond caring.

Next baby I went with the sling naps and co-sleeping from birth. That baby ended up having cot naps and going down ‘drowsy but awake’ from a few weeks on. So if I’m being blamed for my first one’s terrible sleep, I’m also taking the credit for my second, despite doing absolutely nothing to ‘work on’ sleep at all!

That's the other thing, I had no idea some babies would refuse dummies. I knew some parents weren't keen on them but had no idea babies also had opinions on them.

The advice based on SIDS prevention along with advice on baby attachment seems to make for a toxic combination that implies you have to be fucking superwoman and not need sleep yourself if you have an awkward sleeper.

Baby won't sleep alone on their back? Oh you can't co-sleep it's dangerous. What's that? They scream hysterically when you put them down? You can't leave them to cry it's cruel. You'll just have to get on with it.

I knew some parents weren't keen on them but had no idea babies also had opinions on them.

This summarises most of my attitude before DC1. “I won’t be one of those parents who cosleeps, and I certainly won’t be the kind of parent who has the baby constantly attached to them.”

Did not occur to me that people weren’t just doing this because of what kind of parent they were, but because of what kind of baby they had. Lesson learnt with the angry insomniac koala child that was DC1!

Hmm OP when I was pregnant people delighted in telling me horror stories. Do you want them to exaggerate them even more?

My son slept through the night from 5 weeks old.

@Wondermule a lot of mothers co sleep through desperation and not because it is going to resolve the problem. It works because it means you don’t have to get up and bend to pick them up, they don’t cry to be fed, just fuss a bit until they latch on. When you are exhausted you do what you can to survive the night. Attachment parenting wasn’t widely known about when I had my first so I was the only one doing it, and only through desperation.

Mine didn’t regress, the first was always a terrible sleeper and cried constantly, struggled to nap too. We still have occasional night wakings and she’ll be eleven soon. She has SEN. The second had a cot but would co sleep for night feeds. I don’t remember this being an issue when transferring out and she slept all night by a year old, pretty much text book.

Evolution tells us kids want reassurance, and some need more than others. This lasts beyond babyhood. My kids are scared at night and I’ve explained that is because nighttime used to be scary due to predators. We don’t have to worry about them anymore, however our primitive brains don’t realise so we can still feel scared. The realisation of death has also been a big issue.

I definitely think the media portrays motherhood as being magical. Even with the sleep deprivation it promises it is worth it for some “magical” reason. You’ll get people on MN stating this even. Maybe it’s true for them but the drudgery is epic and the trace of magic doesn’t make up for it. I really hope the late teens and adulthood are the pay back.

Personally I don’t tell pregnant women anything. I don’t want to terrify them when it’s too late. But I will tell my kids how bad it was so they make the decision to have babies fully informed. I guess genetically they are more likely to have terrible sleepers.

[quote ShastaBeast]@Wondermule a lot of mothers co sleep through desperation and not because it is going to resolve the problem. It works because it means you don’t have to get up and bend to pick them up, they don’t cry to be fed, just fuss a bit until they latch on. When you are exhausted you do what you can to survive the night. Attachment parenting wasn’t widely known about when I had my first so I was the only one doing it, and only through desperation.

Mine didn’t regress, the first was always a terrible sleeper and cried constantly, struggled to nap too. We still have occasional night wakings and she’ll be eleven soon. She has SEN. The second had a cot but would co sleep for night feeds. I don’t remember this being an issue when transferring out and she slept all night by a year old, pretty much text book.

Evolution tells us kids want reassurance, and some need more than others. This lasts beyond babyhood. My kids are scared at night and I’ve explained that is because nighttime used to be scary due to predators. We don’t have to worry about them anymore, however our primitive brains don’t realise so we can still feel scared. The realisation of death has also been a big issue.

I definitely think the media portrays motherhood as being magical. Even with the sleep deprivation it promises it is worth it for some “magical” reason. You’ll get people on MN stating this even. Maybe it’s true for them but the drudgery is epic and the trace of magic doesn’t make up for it. I really hope the late teens and adulthood are the pay back.[/quote]
I know, but there’s no evidence that co sleeping then makes babies and toddlers sleep for longer.

If that were the case, we would get the desperate threads from mums using cots, not co sleeping mums, wouldn’t we?

I really do think it just prolongs the regression, as everyone inevitably says ‘I started co sleeping during a regression, they’re still a terrible sleeper but..’