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!

Thing is some people with good sleepers will always secretly think it's down to them and what they are doing and it's somehow someone else's fault or their own bad habits that causes their bad sleepers.
The amount of times I've heard "oh it's because we are chilled that's why baby is chilled"(cringe) insinuating that other ppl with bad sleepers are again doing something wrong or not relaxed enough! Me and my dh are v chilled ppl who loved sleeping, I could easily have slept 12 hours a night pre kids and I'm generally very "chilled", we also had a great routine , aren't the types to rock our toddlers to sleep for 3 hours, one of our dc still didn't sleep through until over 3..
They are older now and all sleep through and sleep really well but now all of our friends are pregnant or having their first I still heat the bs about "we won't be taking any nonsense or making a rod for our backs" blah blah. All the parents i know who co-slept had good sleepers. My bad sleeper wouldn't sleep anywhere and believe me we tried. I really hate the lack of empathy though and although some ppl do say "oh maybe we are lucky buuuuuut our strict routine definitely helped " still on some level think its them.

@GoldenOmber

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”?

It meant, in my view, they would end sooner.

@LolaSmiles

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.

But waking every hour isn’t biologically normal for an older baby or toddler. A newborn, yes.

And the amount of desperate posts on here from mums that are imprisoned by co sleeping and breastfeeding is ridiculous.

It is a lot less frequent that you see a poster complaining of exhaustion whose baby sleeps in their cot, and is night weaned.

Just to add, one of the positives of having twins (lol) is that you can see right in front of you the truth that your approach, personality and routine have absolutely buggerall to do with what type of baby you get 👍

I have 5 month old boy/girl twins, they’re on the same strict daytime routine (not my style but the only way to cope), have been treated the same ways since birth and we separate surface co-sleep them.

Our girl slept 9hr stretches from 9 - 16 weeks. She just started doing it! We discovered she could self settle when we put her down in the cot at night and nipped off to get something or go to the loo and you’d come back to her sleeping softly 😂
If she wakes in the night at the moment she will go back to sleep by herself about 50% of the time.

Our boy only got as far as 5hr stretches and is now back to waking every hour. He needs picking up 9/10 times or he will scream within about 1min 😂
I saw him self settle into sleep once lol! He’s linked sleep cycles or got himself back to sleep less than ten times so far 👍
Some nights nothing works and he will wake up every time you try to put him down and it goes on for hours or until I give up and put him on my chest.

Mums need to know that it really really is the luck of the draw. You get the baby that you get and if things are tough, none of it is your fault x💐

Just back to say that I jinxed myself on this thread! My baby wanted to be held all night last night (oops 😬).

All 3 of mine were like the babies in your OP, despite me hearing all pregnancy long 'oooh get your sleep in now cos you'll be exhausted with the newborn, they don't sleep'. All mine did was sleep!

But waking every hour isn’t biologically normal for an older baby or toddler. A newborn, yes.
And the amount of desperate posts on here from mums that are imprisoned by co sleeping and breastfeeding is ridiculous.
It is a lot less frequent that you see a poster complaining of exhaustion whose baby sleeps in their cot, and is night weaned
Imprisoned?
Or just needs support to find something that works for them and their baby without having people on either side of this silly divide trying to argue that their way is the only way?

I'd not come across co-sleeping prior to having DC other than people who did it out of sheer frustration and it wasn't something they actively chose. They also included people who bottle fed too.

During the early months I found that most advice was all about endless different programmes to get baby off night feeds, get baby in their own room, rod for your own back, you'll never sleep well if you continue night feed and so on. In the end I chose to do a mixture of safe co-sleeping and DC in a separate cot in my room.

But what I found the most exhausting thing as a new mum was the way that some mums (both team sleep training and team bedsharing) were positively evangelical about their way to a point where it was white noise. It felt like they were more interest in validating their own motherhood choices than offering support.

All I heard from people when I was pregnant was horror stories about how little sleep I will get. As it turned out my first was naturally a pretty good sleeper and it was fine. If anything I think people are too honest. All babies are different, some sleep well, some don't.

@UhtredRagnarson. Calm down. The OP never accused anyone of lying or tried to find someone to blame. She just wanted to open a dialogue about the realities of newborn behaviour and to explore why new parents have certain expectations. You sound so angry

What @FlashesOfRage said. I totally believe sleep is like every other aspects of being a human being - variable from person to person.

For example, I am an awesome sleeper, always have been always will be. Surprise surprise, out of 4 siblings, I slept the best. My Mum had to wake me up in the morning, I was that fucking good at sleeping.

What used to kill me when mine were babies was the HV saying 'well, baby should be sleeping through by now'. She should have let my babies know as they clearly had no idea what they were capable of...

What used to kill me when mine were babies was the HV saying 'well, baby should be sleeping through by now'. She should have let my babies know as they clearly had no idea what they were capable of...
It's so irresponsible to do that in my opinion. When it comes to sleep there's no golden 'baby should...' They're all different.

It would be so much better if the discussion was around whether baby is sleeping regularly, is mum getting enough rest, how does she feel about the current situation, would Mum like to be signposted to a range of support options, instead of fixating on the idea of babies 'should' do blah blah blah.

Being told by a HV that 'baby should only have wake windows of...' and to log their sleeping was something that exacerbated my PND. It was just another needless stick to beat. When I spoke to someone more supportive at the children's centre, it made me feel much better.

I do think a lot of people are blindsided by the particular nature of what poor sleep in infants really looks like. Part of that IMO is because people are less likely now to have much experience with infants before they have their own.

When my kids were little I read a lot of Dr Sears who advocated cosleeping, and actually I coslept at least to some extent with all my kids. I read in lots of AP forums and such as well.

But I came to feel like there was a lot of silence about what kind of situation the type of sleep solutions they were advocating could result in. Because it did, absolutely, result in a good number of children who would not sleep unless someone was laying down with them all the time. And this was a huge burden on mothers. The tendency was to poo poo it or say there were some easy solutions like babywearing, etc, and they never really acknowledged what this meant for many mothers who simply never got a break where they weren't rushing to get back to the baby.

Later on, after I'd had three other kids of my own and raised two others, I also came to the conclusion that there were two other areas that were neglected within that narrative - one being that getting baby into the routine being able to sleep without mum, or another adult, in a somewhat regular way, is much harder after about the six months mark. So while it would be crazy to expect perfect sleepers or a baby that won't change, it's worthwhile to be shaping sleeping habits before that time.

And the other is that older babies and kids often, without some effort to develop good habits, can suffer themselves from lack of sleep. This idea that "if they will need sleep they will sleep" is simply false.

I think it might be a lot easier to talk about the relative merits of different approaches if people were more aware of what infant sleep looks like - not just that they won't sleep as an adult, but how that manifests.

@UhtredRagnarson

Why are you so angry?

I'm trying to pinpoint where on earth at any point in this thread I have accused anyone, anywhere, of lying to me?

As PPs have pointed out, I just encouraged some open dialogue about babies' sleep and how naive I was about it all before I had my own children. The individuals who have posted on this thread, whether they agree or not, have added some good points to the conversation and it has been a healthy debate, in my opinion.

Before posting with such an air of rage whilst hiding behind a screen, perhaps consider whether you'd walk up to me pointing your finger and hollering your opinion at me face to face? I doubt it.

I've always questioned whether or not it's a good idea to post on Internet forums these days. There always seem to be a few people gunning for an online rage-fest with people they don't even know.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed positively, it's interesting to hear of people's different opinions and takes on things.

[quote star1401]@UhtredRagnarson

Why are you so angry?

I'm trying to pinpoint where on earth at any point in this thread I have accused anyone, anywhere, of lying to me?

As PPs have pointed out, I just encouraged some open dialogue about babies' sleep and how naive I was about it all before I had my own children. The individuals who have posted on this thread, whether they agree or not, have added some good points to the conversation and it has been a healthy debate, in my opinion.

Before posting with such an air of rage whilst hiding behind a screen, perhaps consider whether you'd walk up to me pointing your finger and hollering your opinion at me face to face? I doubt it.

I've always questioned whether or not it's a good idea to post on Internet forums these days. There always seem to be a few people gunning for an online rage-fest with people they don't even know.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed positively, it's interesting to hear of people's different opinions and takes on things. [/quote]

I’m not angry. There is no “rage”.

You said this

“AIBU to think that it would be far better to be honest with pregnant/new Mum friends about the realities of babies and sleeping?”

Which suggests you think people aren’t (for some bizarre unknown reason) being honest when discussing their child’s sleep. Why on earth would you think people are telling lies about this?

Before posting with such an air of rage whilst hiding behind a screen, perhaps consider whether you'd walk up to me pointing your finger and hollering your opinion at me face to face? I doubt it.

Just as you would walk up to people in the street and tell them to start telling the truth about their babies’ sleeping habits.

As PPs have pointed out, I just encouraged some open dialogue about babies' sleep

Which has been happening for as long as women have been having babies. I’m still confused about why you think it hasn’t.

@UhtredRagnarson

Loads of people lie about how their babies sleep. Not sure why, but they do! Got an nct friend who always talked about her baby sleeping through, yet her husband would tell mine the baby was up all night every night. That’s just one example.

Also, the phrase “sleep like a baby”.

I was about to post a whole response to justify what I've said but to be honest, I haven't got the time or energy to waste, and I'd rather not give you the satisfaction of posting another "witty" reply.

As I said before, thank you to everyone who has posted relevant and helpful comments. I think I'll request this thread be closed now.

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@UhtredRagnarson

Loads of people lie about how their babies sleep. Not sure why, but they do! Got an nct friend who always talked about her baby sleeping through, yet her husband would tell mine the baby was up all night every night. That’s just one example.

Also, the phrase “sleep like a baby”.[/quote]
Some people, sure. But that certainly doesn’t apply to most mothers. I mean- did you? There isn’t some secret pact not to tell the truth about babies sleep habits. It’s no secret that some babies never sleep and some babies slept great and loads are somewhere in between. No one can give anyone any guarantees about how their baby will sleep.

For me it is more nuanced, I think plenty of people do make comments like "enjoy sleeping while you can". What I didn't expect was to find myself obsessed by sleep, to find there are no real answers and very little evidence, to find so much contradictory advice, to realise that you are often having to go with the least worst option. To find that even though I am generally a competent, successful person, I couldn't just fix this. To feel quite embarrassed about that.

I am a cosleeper who started in the early weeks because she wouldn't sleep unless attached to me. And I often wonder if we messed up a bit by not "pushing through". Then I remind myself that my DH was on regular night shifts, it was the first lockdown so no family support and I had to be able to safely look after a baby which meant I had to get some sleep. Of course this got her used to being next to me and then it's an uphill battle to change that for a baby that already likes contact to sleep. We are just going with it now because at least I do get a decent night's sleep and she doesn't usually wake up till 8am. However the older she gets the less I feel like I can tell people and the more I feel judged for it.

@LolaSmiles

But waking every hour isn’t biologically normal for an older baby or toddler. A newborn, yes. And the amount of desperate posts on here from mums that are imprisoned by co sleeping and breastfeeding is ridiculous. It is a lot less frequent that you see a poster complaining of exhaustion whose baby sleeps in their cot, and is night weaned Imprisoned? Or just needs support to find something that works for them and their baby without having people on either side of this silly divide trying to argue that their way is the only way?

I'd not come across co-sleeping prior to having DC other than people who did it out of sheer frustration and it wasn't something they actively chose. They also included people who bottle fed too.

During the early months I found that most advice was all about endless different programmes to get baby off night feeds, get baby in their own room, rod for your own back, you'll never sleep well if you continue night feed and so on. In the end I chose to do a mixture of safe co-sleeping and DC in a separate cot in my room.

But what I found the most exhausting thing as a new mum was the way that some mums (both team sleep training and team bedsharing) were positively evangelical about their way to a point where it was white noise. It felt like they were more interest in validating their own motherhood choices than offering support.

Yes, how judgey of me to write an honest view on babies sleep when the thread is all about... 🥁.... honest views on babies sleep?

It goes both ways really, when DS was a baby all the other mums at groups would be saying how awful nights were and id just sit quietly because if i said that my 12 week old actually slept through 9-7 with no wake ups i was told how lucky i was, the reality was that he didnt nap during the day so i couldnt get anything done and was exhausted from constantly entertaining him but i was literally told i had no reason to be tired when i was getting a full nights sleep so many times i stopped going to 1 group.

@SnuggyBuggy

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

Ha! I am so glad I'm not the only one!

Babies are all so different. I have 5 DC and two of them were basically dream babies. My youngest is 7 months and he almost never cries, he didn’t even cry when he was born which terrified us! My DH often asks if there’s something wrong with him because he doesn’t complain, he just always seems so happy and content . Eldest was similar bar the first couple of months when he had colic/reflux so that was a real battle but once we passed it, he was a lovely happy little boy. DC4 was tough for the first maybe 3 months, some nights he just didn’t sleep at all but after that he was really easy going. My DD’s, on the other hand, were just a nightmare! So it’s hard to group all together, they’re very different.

@Wondermule I think I've nodded and agreed with every one of your posts on this thread 👍