Page 12 | To have a late night / early morning rant about how no sleep is ruining my entire life?

Notsleepingandnotcoping · 2022-04-29T00:54:23+00:00

Lying here unable to sleep as have toddler with me. He refuses to go in his cot. I have a three hour window (you can almost time it to the minute) when he goes to bed where he will sleep. Usually 730-1030. Then he wakes and that’s it. I can either try to sleep myself then, or get all the other shit done. Either way I’m exhausted but if I sleep I am in chaos. If I don’t I have literally no sleep. I can’t see friends, have a glass of wine, there is no enjoyment or pleasure in anything at all. rant and moan and misery, pure misery. i wish I had never done this.

EYProvider · 29/04/2022 23:53

@DonnyBurrito - I bet ‘contact napping’ is behind 99% of the disrupted sleep patterns described on here. I don’t know what the Mumsnet obsession is with how we evolved; we used to live in caves too - so what?

The child in question is 16 months, not 16 days old. He doesn’t need to wake up frequently to be protected from SIDS, he needs to sleep so that his brain develops in a healthy way. His mother needs to sleep so she can function. She has two choices: she can let herself be guilt tripped by the likes of you into accepting that ‘this too will pass’ (one day in the distant future), or she can let the child scream for a couple of hours over a couple of days and nip it in the bud now.

Good luck, OP. If you listen to advice from people like @DonnyBurrito , you’ll need it.

Preg19 · 30/04/2022 07:20

EYProvider · 29/04/2022 23:53

@DonnyBurrito - I bet ‘contact napping’ is behind 99% of the disrupted sleep patterns described on here. I don’t know what the Mumsnet obsession is with how we evolved; we used to live in caves too - so what?

The child in question is 16 months, not 16 days old. He doesn’t need to wake up frequently to be protected from SIDS, he needs to sleep so that his brain develops in a healthy way. His mother needs to sleep so she can function. She has two choices: she can let herself be guilt tripped by the likes of you into accepting that ‘this too will pass’ (one day in the distant future), or she can let the child scream for a couple of hours over a couple of days and nip it in the bud now.

Good luck, OP. If you listen to advice from people like @DonnyBurrito , you’ll need it.

I do not know where you get your information from, sleep is developmental, it cannot be taught.
I have contacted napped with both of mine and co slept and my older one has been sleeping through since 2 1/2. I never had any issues with sleep deprived grumpiness he always had enough sleep. I can assure you his brain has developed in a healthy way.

roadsweep · 30/04/2022 08:10

AnxietyLevelMax · 29/04/2022 20:19

@BorisJohnsonsHair your nick is hilarious.

@roadsweep @LuckySantangelo35 there is no point in even trying to explain how wrong you are.

That's a get out free card isn't it

roadsweep · 30/04/2022 08:11

Notsleepingandnotcoping · 29/04/2022 19:36

I am very grateful for the kind and supportive tone to many later posts. I realise it can be very frustrating when there is what may seem an obvious solution but I do feel I know my baby/toddler well by now and the traditional methods of sleep training which mostly involve being there, either at timed intervals as per Ferber or others such as shush and pat seem to serve to distress him even more. I imagine if he could talk he would say ‘why aren’t you picking me up?’

Last night I tried just leaving him and it worked him up a lot. I left him for thirty minutes and I realise that doesn’t sound long but when you are listening to your child screaming it’s a very long time indeed.

For a variety of reasons I have had DS completely single handed for a week now or I have been at work and it has unfortunately coincided with a challenging sleep phase. He hasn’t always co slept: he was in a Snuz pod for six months then transferred to a cot. But from time to time he will simply refuse to go in his cot and I do find the lack of personal space extremely hard, especially since neither of us sleep well when he is in bed with me.

It is a bank holiday weekend and I am hoping to snatch a bit of peace. Thanks again.

Op I understand it's hard, but 30 mins just isn't enough. Especially for an 18 month old who has entrenched habits

roadsweep · 30/04/2022 08:17

I do not know where you get your information from, sleep is developmental, it cannot be taught.

No, sleep can't be taught. BUT, you can teach babies' brains sleep cues and teach them that their cots are safe places to fall asleep.

Just like you can't teach them how to eat, but we don't expect them to cook for themselves so we.

roadsweep · 30/04/2022 08:18

EYProvider · 29/04/2022 23:53

@DonnyBurrito - I bet ‘contact napping’ is behind 99% of the disrupted sleep patterns described on here. I don’t know what the Mumsnet obsession is with how we evolved; we used to live in caves too - so what?

The child in question is 16 months, not 16 days old. He doesn’t need to wake up frequently to be protected from SIDS, he needs to sleep so that his brain develops in a healthy way. His mother needs to sleep so she can function. She has two choices: she can let herself be guilt tripped by the likes of you into accepting that ‘this too will pass’ (one day in the distant future), or she can let the child scream for a couple of hours over a couple of days and nip it in the bud now.

Good luck, OP. If you listen to advice from people like @DonnyBurrito , you’ll need it.

Preg19 · 30/04/2022 08:45

roadsweep · 30/04/2022 08:17

I do not know where you get your information from, sleep is developmental, it cannot be taught.

No, sleep can't be taught. BUT, you can teach babies' brains sleep cues and teach them that their cots are safe places to fall asleep.

Just like you can't teach them how to eat, but we don't expect them to cook for themselves so we.

i respectively disagree, leaving them to cry doesn’t teach them their cot is a safe space at all.

op I found the gentle sleep book really helpful in the midst of all the sleep deprivation. I hope you can find a solution!

Avonacha · 30/04/2022 09:35

JulieBeds · 29/04/2022 14:18

If you've got room could you put two single mattresses together on the floor, two mattresses side by side.

i used to find if my DD could feel my hand next to hers, just the presence of us together was enough. I put it on the floor so she wouldn't fall and hurt herself from a normal bed.

Then when she cried at 10pm, I'd go up and go to bed then. She didn't sleep on me, she'd sleep next me, curled up. I'd talk to her and say I'm here, right next to you, now try to sleep, I'd do it over and over, and she'd feel my hand next to hers so we were touching - but enough space both of us. Roll a duvet up and put it between the two single mattresses on the floor and that will stop his feet and legs kicking you. Two separate duvets as well. You only need a kiddie duvet for him he's so small. Or a sleep sack maybe.

Once he knows you're there and there for the night, he'll calm down.

it's the fact you want to get away from him and put him somewhere alone that he's stressing out. many kids out at nursery all day long look at nighttime as a chance to reconnect/bond with their Mums. They do need lots of snuggle time. He can feel your need to get away, his senses your stress - but 10pm is OK for a bed-time isn't it? For a while until he grows out of this phase.

The other thing is the sleep association of the first sleep before your DS sleeps.

You must make sure that first sleep is how he will find sleep again, through the night.

So you need to make sure you're lying with him at 7pm in the same position with hands just touching as he goes off to sleep. That will help bed in the idea that Mum is with him when he first sleeps and in that same way.

As far he's concerned 7pm, 10pm, 2am, 5am they're all the same to him and every single sleep must be entered via the same pattern, just touching hands. at 10pm you're not there so he goes crazy.

I'd suggest being in bed a little earlier than 10pm, say 9:50pm so you can be there to touch hands just as he wakes. He'll think you've always been there.

No this isn't a great way to live - but in time, in a year, he'll be bigger and you can definitely move him to his own room by then. By then, you could put the mattress further away and just the sound of your voice will be soothing.

You have to keep lying him back down and putting him in the same position to sleep, on his mattress, with your hands touching, you lying down too. You do this over and over again for the first night, all night if you have to, through the tears, through the protests, through everything. Then the second night. By the third it will embedded, maybe earlier. I did this with my DD.

I'd take 3 days off work to do this. And then it will be sorted, finished and you'll be sleeping again normally and life can restart.

You've got this. Motherhood is so tough, but you CAN do it. Just keep shhing him. Don't get angry, know that the other side of normal sleep is possible. It is. It will come, I'm sure.

This!

DonnyBurrito · 30/04/2022 09:46

EYProvider · 29/04/2022 23:53

@DonnyBurrito - I bet ‘contact napping’ is behind 99% of the disrupted sleep patterns described on here. I don’t know what the Mumsnet obsession is with how we evolved; we used to live in caves too - so what?

The child in question is 16 months, not 16 days old. He doesn’t need to wake up frequently to be protected from SIDS, he needs to sleep so that his brain develops in a healthy way. His mother needs to sleep so she can function. She has two choices: she can let herself be guilt tripped by the likes of you into accepting that ‘this too will pass’ (one day in the distant future), or she can let the child scream for a couple of hours over a couple of days and nip it in the bud now.

Good luck, OP. If you listen to advice from people like @DonnyBurrito , you’ll need it.

I could just as easily say that I bet the huge rise in mental health issues in children, particularly anxiety, is down to sleep training and insisting from birth that babies 'need' to sleep independently.

You're giving opinions out like they are fact. You don't seem to have read all of the OPS threads, this isn't the only one, she's been posting night after night. Sleep training doesn't work for her child, and it doesn't work for a lot of children.

In any case, at no point did I advise her to wait it out. I just thought your comment was insane.

WoodenClock · 30/04/2022 09:50

DonnyBurrito · 30/04/2022 09:46

I could just as easily say that I bet the huge rise in mental health issues in children, particularly anxiety, is down to sleep training and insisting from birth that babies 'need' to sleep independently.

You're giving opinions out like they are fact. You don't seem to have read all of the OPS threads, this isn't the only one, she's been posting night after night. Sleep training doesn't work for her child, and it doesn't work for a lot of children.

In any case, at no point did I advise her to wait it out. I just thought your comment was insane.

Show quote history

Surely the rise in MH issues coincides with parents who don't leave babies to cry and/or expect their children to sleep independently?
Two generations ago all babies would have been treated like that.

I'm not saying that the reason for the increase, but it can't possibly be because babies have been left (because larger numbers haven't).

roadsweep · 30/04/2022 11:05

Babies from 6 weeks old should be taught their cot is a safe place to sleep.

OP has missed this boat, so now she needs a more robust method. The child will realise the cot is safe after coming to no harm in it.

EYProvider · 30/04/2022 11:30

@Preg19 - Your child did not sleep through until they were 2 AND A HALF because you chose to ‘contact nap’ and ‘co-sleep’?

I’m sorry, but thats just bad parenting. YOU made those choices for your child, and in the process, deprived your child of sleep for 2 and a half years.

It’s quite clear to see why so many children have behavioural problems. Most of them have been diagnosed with autism if Mumsnet is to be believed. But Mumsnet is also a very powerful propaganda tool for a particular mindset. My opinion is that people are being brainwashed and following stupid advice that lacks all common sense and is damaging children. @Preg19 being a case in point.

Preg19 · 30/04/2022 11:41

EYProvider · 30/04/2022 11:30

@Preg19 - Your child did not sleep through until they were 2 AND A HALF because you chose to ‘contact nap’ and ‘co-sleep’?

I’m sorry, but thats just bad parenting. YOU made those choices for your child, and in the process, deprived your child of sleep for 2 and a half years.

It’s quite clear to see why so many children have behavioural problems. Most of them have been diagnosed with autism if Mumsnet is to be believed. But Mumsnet is also a very powerful propaganda tool for a particular mindset. My opinion is that people are being brainwashed and following stupid advice that lacks all common sense and is damaging children. @Preg19 being a case in point.

Wow how misinformed are you, yes I did that and then he slept through when he was ready which is very normal! He never lacked sleep and had a secure attachment with me. He’s now a very secure little boy!

honestly it’s your opinion but it’s worrying you are saying stuff like this!

Preg19 · 30/04/2022 11:41

@EYProvider with no behavioural problems I may add!

Preg19 · 30/04/2022 11:45

@EYProvider i would also respect your parenting choices and everyone else’s, I would never call it bad parenting but I suppose that says more about you then it does me 🤷‍♀️

MangshorJhol · 30/04/2022 11:59

Just pointing out that in many many parts of the world kids don’t ‘learn’ by 6 weeks to sleep in a cot and turn out fine. But at the same time they don’t sleep on their parents like this. I slept in the same room as my parents and then in a room next to them (where we could see each other). If I had a bad dream I would climb in with them but that wasn’t all that common. I co-slept initially with both kids, moved them into cots from about 6-8 months and their own rooms quite late- 18-20 months. Both pretty good sleepers then and now. Both in their own rooms and go to sleep on their own at 5 and 10. There is no formula for sleep. But if something isn’t working then you have to change it.

EYProvider · 30/04/2022 12:00

@Preg19 - Lucky you that your child didn’t develop behavioural problems due to disrupted sleep and that it didn’t drive you to the brink of despair or suicide, as it clearly has for this poor OP.

It is not normal for children to take 2 and a half years to learn how to sleep independently. It is normal if you believe what you read on Mumsnet, but that is why Mumsnet (like all social media) has the potential to do so much damage to society.

DonnyBurrito · 30/04/2022 15:15

Preg19 · 30/04/2022 11:45

@EYProvider i would also respect your parenting choices and everyone else’s, I would never call it bad parenting but I suppose that says more about you then it does me 🤷‍♀️

@Preg19 Just ignore the troll, they're clearly equally as miserable as they are batshit. As we know, it is really normal for literal babies (0 - 4 years) to need to co-sleep. It's in built into them to expect it. Sure, you can potentially mess with their future mental health by forcibly breaking their biological blueprint, but it's not 'good' parenting to do so. It should be done as a very last resort, due to the parents having no support system or way of changing their life to fit the needs of their very normal baby. It's interesting that the SIDS rate is almost none existent in cultures that practice co-sleeping/bedsharing as a norm.

The only thing that isn't normal is having no support system, and women being forced to work when they are sleep deprived. Babies are just doing what babies have done for millenia.

DonnyBurrito · 30/04/2022 15:33

MangshorJhol · 30/04/2022 11:59

Just pointing out that in many many parts of the world kids don’t ‘learn’ by 6 weeks to sleep in a cot and turn out fine. But at the same time they don’t sleep on their parents like this. I slept in the same room as my parents and then in a room next to them (where we could see each other). If I had a bad dream I would climb in with them but that wasn’t all that common. I co-slept initially with both kids, moved them into cots from about 6-8 months and their own rooms quite late- 18-20 months. Both pretty good sleepers then and now. Both in their own rooms and go to sleep on their own at 5 and 10. There is no formula for sleep. But if something isn’t working then you have to change it.

Yes it's a very Western concept the obsession with cots and independent sleep. To be honest, a lot of posters are forgetting that the majority of mothers across the world don't have the luxury of obsessing about 'training' their babies. They wrap em in the sling and get on with their day, and would most likely find it laughable that we'd labelled that extemely normal practice 'contact napping', as if there were any other choice. I'd love to see @EYProvider go round telling them their babies are going to have autism and behavioural problems as a result 😂🤦‍♀️

RidingMyBike · 30/04/2022 15:44

It's somewhere between the two and 'training' is really what habit you get the baby used to - we did responsive parenting, so observed our baby for a few seconds if she started to stir rather than immediately pouncing to feed. Half the time she'd settle back into sleep without our intervention, the other half feeding cues would appear so DH or I would feed (combi-fed baby). But that meant she was happy to settle herself back into sleep from an early age, whilst having the security of knowing if she did need something she'd get it. So, yes, she slept through from 6-8 weeks (6-8 hour blocks). She is now 6yo, secure, confident and well-attached and has never slept in our bed, co-sleeping was something we were determined to avoid because of the SIDS risk and saw so many people have problems because of it.

This is the approach we'd intended to take and was also backed up by an experienced foster mum (on baby number 53 when I met her!) who knew when to observe the baby and when to actually pick them up and do something.

But that doesn't help the OP as she's well past that baby stage. And she is going to need some kind of help, whether that's going to a hotel for a few nights and letting her DH get on with it or getting support from the HV to sleep train.

cecilthehungryspider · 30/04/2022 15:51

Sleep deprivation is torture and does a real number on your MH. I actually can't remember much of my youngest's first year because of it. In that case, the night screaming turned out to be related to food intolerance. Once we cut out the offending food it was all good. Not all things can be fixed by sleep training.

Do you have room to either put the cot next to your bed or put a mattress next to the cot?

cecilthehungryspider · 30/04/2022 16:00

@EYProvider my eldest was a good sleeper and always behaved well but is autistic. How does that fit into your worldview?

Of all the batshit ideas for causes of autism the idea that it is because people don't leave their babies to cry in their cots is right up there! I mean it used to be blamed on mothers not being attached enough!

EYProvider · 30/04/2022 18:29

@cecilthehungryspider - You have completed twisted my words. I did not say that autism is caused by people not leaving babies to cry, I said that disrupted sleep patterns in children cause behavioural problems. And the most typical diagnosis sought for a preschool child with behavioural problems is autism.

I stand by that statement, by the way. I notice that one in two posters on Mumsnet have children with autism. It can be no coincidence that they are also being brainwashed to believe (1) that the older generation have nothing of value to teach them (and that they should go ‘non contact’ if challenged on any viewpoint), (2) that good parents practice ‘contact sleeping’ and that it is damaging for babies to learn to self sooth or self settle, and (3) behavioural issues are developmental and never due to over-tiredness, lack of discipline or bad parenting (see point 1 for what happens if anyone disagrees with this).

Personally, I am very ambivalent about the internet. On the one hand, I can see its value as an information tool. On the other, I can also see the damage it has done to malleable brains and how it has indoctrinated an entire generation to believe this nonsense. By the way, evolution is supposed to be about moving forwards, not backwards, but somehow Mumsnet has twisted moving backwards into a positive thing. God help us as a society if we don’t start looking at what has gone wrong and trying to work out how to change things.

DonnyBurrito · 30/04/2022 19:37

EYProvider · 30/04/2022 18:29

@cecilthehungryspider - You have completed twisted my words. I did not say that autism is caused by people not leaving babies to cry, I said that disrupted sleep patterns in children cause behavioural problems. And the most typical diagnosis sought for a preschool child with behavioural problems is autism.

I stand by that statement, by the way. I notice that one in two posters on Mumsnet have children with autism. It can be no coincidence that they are also being brainwashed to believe (1) that the older generation have nothing of value to teach them (and that they should go ‘non contact’ if challenged on any viewpoint), (2) that good parents practice ‘contact sleeping’ and that it is damaging for babies to learn to self sooth or self settle, and (3) behavioural issues are developmental and never due to over-tiredness, lack of discipline or bad parenting (see point 1 for what happens if anyone disagrees with this).

Personally, I am very ambivalent about the internet. On the one hand, I can see its value as an information tool. On the other, I can also see the damage it has done to malleable brains and how it has indoctrinated an entire generation to believe this nonsense. By the way, evolution is supposed to be about moving forwards, not backwards, but somehow Mumsnet has twisted moving backwards into a positive thing. God help us as a society if we don’t start looking at what has gone wrong and trying to work out how to change things.

I'm guessing some of your family have decided to go NC with you for telling them if they don't sleep train their babies they'll end up with autism/behavioural problems? And you think they're the ones in the wrong... 🤦‍♀️

Either you're the least self aware person alive, or you're a troll.

Windypants21 · 01/05/2022 00:51

The op came on here for some help, sympathy, empathy, guidance, whatever, ......glad I'm not her, some of the vitriol being bandied about is quite shocking. Women need to be kinder to women we get enough grief day in day out from other quarters.