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!

It’s so true @SnuggyBuggy. I just wanted someone to tell me how to do it. How the fuck do you get a baby in a cot when every time you try they wake up and scream for hours and hours. But then also not let them sleep on your chest. With my second I decided I was gonna be a lot more strict. Guess what? It didn’t work. All them at happened is I had a 4 day old baby who had just come home from NICU, screaming and screaming until 4am. Because every time she fell asleep, I put her down because I was trying to be a ‘good’ mum and she woke up. So by the end she was hyperventilating, unable to feed because she was too upset, bright red and blotchy and hadn’t slept for 8 hours. It was so awful. And I tried everything regularly. Waiting til the right point of a sleep cycle, waiting til their arm is floppy, hot water bottle, sleepy head, muslins that smelt of me etc etc. Every trick I’d read about I tried. And every time I put her down she cried. And she was the easy baby!!! I am never ever having another baby. My neighbour on the other hand, put her baby in the Moses basket on the first night and he went straight to sleep for 3 hours. And within 6 weeks was sleeping 10 hours a night.

Also don't get me started on that drowsy but awake state that neither of my babies had.

I think as with many other things such as special needs, relationship problems and familial strains, MN attracts people already struggling.

For my part my baby sleeps fine at night (he is 11 weeks) and usually goes in his next to me crib at about 9, wakes around 2, back in the crib by 3, wakes at around 5, sometimes goes back in the crib and sometimes won’t I would say that’s normal and in line with my expectations.

What is harder is daytime naps. He does sometimes sleep on me for maybe an hour in the morning if I’m lucky, then if I want an afternoon nap it’s either a drive or a long walk in the sling. Sometimes I get half an hour in the evening but not much.

He has a rocker, basket, swingy chair, bouncy chair, crib, cot and Dockatot but won’t sleep in any of them he does like some of them though so they are worth it!

But it does therefore mystify me how Gina Ford and Tracy Hogg work. They tell you WHEN your baby should nap but not how you should achieve this and that caused me some stress.

Now I don’t worry. I know if he sleeps badly one day he makes up for it at night.

But I would really struggle with holding him all night. I’m glad I don’t have to do that and people yelling at me that it’s normal wouldn’t help.

Yeah fuck drowsy but awake. Also, re Gina Ford... she slept in her mum’s bed until she was 11! No joke. And then got upset coz her mum got a new boyfriend and she wasn’t allowed in her mum’s bed anymore.

Yes, and no.

I have seen lots of threads before from pregnant women bemoaning the fact that mothers keep teling them how hard it is going to be, and while I do detest that "hahaha just you wait, your life is over wink wink" thing that people like to do, I think the information is out there.

My first was unputdownable, but my second was much easier on the whole. My eldest was however, a good napper right through toddlerhood whereas my daughter is 11mo now and would go all day without a nap if you didn't make her go to sleep!

@willowsandroses

So did mine... I was getting regular 6-7 hour stretches at 11 weeks.

You know how much I got last night with a nearly 2 year old - 2 broken hours. I might get a 6-7 hour stretch twice a month if I'm lucky.

I hope your baby keeps up their good sleep, but I wouldn't suggest you've avoided sleep problems just because you've had an early first few months. Sometimes it's the easiest bit for sleep. But no one warns you that...

I also think that it would help for people to be prepared for the realities of newborn baby behaviour for successful breastfeeding. Many women would worry their baby wasn't getting enough milk if he/she refused to settle or didn't sleep for very long.

Daytime sleep was a massive shock to me as a ftm. Genuinely not being able to have more than a few minutes without a baby in my arms and panicking about showers , taking it in turns to eat tea while one holds the baby etc

I didn’t say we’d avoided sleep problems I said he was currently waking twice and this was in line with my expectations. I also said I struggled with daytime naps (I think he had less than 2 hours yesterday!)

Maybe it will get better and maybe it will get worse. I don’t know. I do know the absolute definitive answer isn’t co sleeping though which was all I was really saying.

That’s my big challenge thirty

He will tolerate the playmat and bouncy chair for ten minutes so I use that as my shower and teeth window. The rest of the day he’s generally being held or in his pram/car seat (travelling somewhere I mean!)

@SwanShaped

Yeah fuck drowsy but awake. Also, re Gina Ford... she slept in her mum’s bed until she was 11! No joke. And then got upset coz her mum got a new boyfriend and she wasn’t allowed in her mum’s bed anymore.

Yes, and look at how she turned out! Devoid of empathy maybe co sleeping caused that!

Haha wondermule.

@Wondermule, the thing is, cosleeping isn't necessarily about getting babies to sleep better or longer, but for the parents to get more rest themselves for the duration. For example, if you're breastfeeding, it means that baby can latch on whilst you're half asleep, lying down and you can safely nod off again while they're feeding. You don't have to get up and down and you get more rest and more sleep.

I think co sleeping can work brilliantly. Just the same if someone says that’s not for me or it doesn’t really work for us I do think that’s fine as well.

[quote Somethingsnappy]@Wondermule, the thing is, cosleeping isn't necessarily about getting babies to sleep better or longer, but for the parents to get more rest themselves for the duration. For example, if you're breastfeeding, it means that baby can latch on whilst you're half asleep, lying down and you can safely nod off again while they're feeding. You don't have to get up and down and you get more rest and more sleep.[/quote]
Yes and I accept that, but in the long run it creates bad habits. This is just my view but if you can push through a few weeks of sleep deprivation and keep using the cot, the regression will end. Whereas it doesn’t seem to end when people start co sleeping.

With my first DD I never really needed to sleep train. We co-slept, then I started doing the ninja roll, then moved her to a low bed and did the ninja roll and she then went on to sleep longer stretches until she slept through. I wish I hadn't wasted so much time worrying about a rod for my back.

if you can push through a few weeks of sleep deprivation and keep using the cot, the regression will end

This is just not true for a lot of babies. It’s really not. Good for you if yours just took a few weeks to learn to settle in the cot, but please don’t imagine all babies are the same and it’s just the parents who lack a bit of backbone.

@GoldenOmber

if you can push through a few weeks of sleep deprivation and keep using the cot, the regression will end

This is just not true for a lot of babies. It’s really not. Good for you if yours just took a few weeks to learn to settle in the cot, but please don’t imagine all babies are the same and it’s just the parents who lack a bit of backbone.

Oh here we go, ‘someone makes a generalisation on mumsnet, so I must remind them that it doesn’t apply in one hundred percent of cases’ well of course it doesn’t. I’m not saying it does.

well of course it doesn’t. I’m not saying it does.

Ah, so when you said “if you can push through a few weeks of sleep deprivation and keep using the cot, the regression will end”, what you actually meant was “it might end or it might not”?

All people seem to talk about is how you'll never sleep when you have a baby.
If anything, I found the dominant view seemed to be 'babies won't sleep, you'll get no sleep so you need to get them into their own room asap so they learn to self settle'.

Instead of normalising biologically normal infant sleep patterns, people normalise talking about the regular wakings but then follow it up with bullshit about needing to get baby to self settle, giving cuddles is a rod for your own back, if you breastfeed to sleep you get into bad habits, don't cosleep otherwise they'll never leave, do controlled crying, do cry it out, do any other sleep training method because otherwise you'll have a 14 year old who will want nursing to sleep.

If you want to make money from sleep training books and sleep consultant books then it's easy because all the messages say that babies need to be forced into a routine, and that not having a baby in a routine is a failure of motherhood.

Who lied to you OP?

It’s never been a secret that some babies don’t sleep.

I’ve never lied to anyone about my DCs sleep.

One slept 7-7 from 9 weeks. The occasional sleepless night with illness and teething. Napped every day for 1.5-2 hours until around 18 months.

The other didn’t sleep through the night until 20 months. Didn’t nap at all during the day. It drove my into. Really deep depression that changed my life forever.

Who do I get to blame for keeping that secret from me?

DD1 slept 12 hours every night from 6 weeks old. She normally went down at 8pm and rarely woke before 8am, often more like 9. She slept reliably 5-6 hours a night from birth. And by 9 months old she used to have a 3 hour sleep in the afternoon too.

Dd2 didn't sleep more than 2 hours at a time until she was about 20 months old, and no more than 40 minutes for daytime naps. She'd not settle if I tried to put her down before 10pm, and was never up later than 6am. At that point she started waking for the day at 3am and I ended up down to the doctor not able to cope. He gave me medised, which is marvellous potion, and no longer licenced for children. I gave it to her for 2 nights, then after that she used to sleep about 6-8 hours normally which was cope-able with.

Both were ebf and had the same bathtime routine.

No one has ever disbelieved DD2's sleep pattern. DD1 otoh...

I think OP’s point is that she knew babies sometimes didn’t sleep, but didn’t know about the specific thing (some) babies do where they want to be held and refuse to be put down, and that means you can’t put them down to sleep.

People speak from their experiences most of the time. You can have one baby who sleeps well and your next child is a bad sleeper.

Just the same as some women have really bad pregnancies...morning sickness, heartburn, difficulty walking and so much more, others have none of this.

@GoldenOmber

I think OP’s point is that she knew babies sometimes didn’t sleep, but didn’t know about the specific thing (some) babies do where they want to be held and refuse to be put down, and that means you can’t put them down to sleep.

So the fact she didn’t know, means everyone lied to her or kept it from her for some reason? who in earth would anyone want to keep that a secret? Who would benefit from that?

Could it just be that OP didn’t learn about every single aspect of parenting before having a child- just like every single other first time parent doesn’t know everything?

Stop looking for people to blame Op.