Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think sleeping through would be nice but isn't a necessity?

56 replies

VictorianSqualor · 07/05/2008 17:01

I overheard a conversation yesterday, well, the whole bus did, two women discussing their 5 and 6 month old babies, and how they ahd had to start them on hungry baby milk almost straight away, start weaning at 3 months, add an extra meal, then start feeding two meals a day, etc etc.

The reason they gave for every decision they made they justified with the line 'Well, it was obviously needed cos as soon as we did it s/he started sleeping straight through' and also talked about each time baby stopped sleeping through again they would up the food intake.

Now, stats and facts regarding feeding aside, surely people realise baby sleeping through is not something that you need to aspire to, babies are not made to sleep through, and physically not able to for a good while.

Of course we all want a full ngihts sleep, it's the one thing that makes having a baby so bloody hard, sleep deprivation! But can't we wait until they are ready?

OP posts:
Original poster
VictorianSqualor · 07/05/2008 17:45

But surely you feed a child because it is hungry, not because you are tired.

OP posts:
BabiesEverywhere · 07/05/2008 17:45

Interesting discussion.

IMO Babies are designed to wake up at night and have done so for millions of years, why try change that ?

I don't understand why mothers would feed solids to their baby earlier than recommended (with possible health risks for the child), to try and achieve an artificial goal.

Lastly isn't there a tentative link between deep periods of long sleep in babies and increased SIDS risk ?

MrsTittleMouse · 07/05/2008 17:49

DD was an awful sleeper, both day and night, but I exclusively BF until she was 5.5 months (and then a just teaspoon of rice with BM a day until she was 6 months). She was fed on demand, because I just couldn't bring myself to do anything that might be going against her body and what it was capable of. Having said that, after 6 months I was so sleep deprived that we got to the stage that we would have done almost anything to get her to sleep through, for the sake of my sanity. We tried the gentler methods, which didn't work, and so ended up with CC. To be honest, once she slept though, she obviously felt better, as she was much more content in the day.

I was actually chatting to my Dad the other day, and it's true that if someone has a baby that sleeps well, they can't understand what people are doing "wrong" when theirs doesn't. Or if their baby feeds well, they assume that it's because of them doing everything right, and forget how much of it is down to the baby. It's the same in adult life too; people who are lucky enough to be healthy can't understand why other people are ill all the time, and assume that ill people can't be taking good care of themselves. It's just human nature I think.

KaSo · 07/05/2008 17:51

My lot slept through from 6wks and I'm very glad they did as I don't do well on broken sleep.
I hate the assumption that I bound and gagged them as 'everyone knows babies wake in the night for the first 3 years"
Some babies are night wakers, some are genuinely hungry at 3am, others have been put into bad sleeping habits by mothers who think that every time a baby cries it must be crying for milk. A friend of mine was gobsmacked when I suggested she not offer a bottle to her 6 month old, but just pat the baby's back and see what happened. Funnily enough the baby went straight back to sleep. Prior to that she'd been hoiked out of her bed and her sleep at the first peep and given milk she'd not 'asked' for. All she wanted was help to resettle.

There are so many scenarios with sleeping and night waking it's unreal. But I don't believe in force feeding a child in the hopes of sleeping.

VacantlyPretty · 07/05/2008 17:53

Message withdrawn

pointydog · 07/05/2008 17:55

I thought this might turn into 'I went to hell and back to feed my baby properly in the night so why can't everyone else'.

DaddyJ · 07/05/2008 17:58

BabiesEverywhere, you know I respect you lots but that last sentence is a bit naughty.
Nowhere in the SIDS literature is this 'tentative link' ever mentioned.

Co-sleeping, on the other hand, gets mentioned lots in the SIDS debate..
tis a slippery slope, this scaremongering business.

VacantlyPretty · 07/05/2008 17:58

Message withdrawn

Original poster
VictorianSqualor · 07/05/2008 17:59

I really didn't want it to become about weaning early etc.

Wean when you feel is right, what I personally would do is my choice not yours, unless you want me to tell you my ideas on the subject I'll leave you be, same goes for how you choose to feed your baby etc, But I really beleive that putting a child onto 'hungrier milk' at 6 weeks old because you want it to sleep through is wrong.
Once you've done months of waking nights and want to get into some form of routine, fine, but give the baby a chance first no?

OP posts:
Blandmum · 07/05/2008 18:01

I think that while it may be possible to maintain broken night is they fall into the ' Baby wakes, feeds for 10-15 mins and falls straight back to sleep with no fuss' pattern, repeated, unpredictable longer wakings are not.

In fact that procedure is used to torture people

pointydog · 07/05/2008 18:03

You obviously had a terrible time due to lack of sleep, vacant, but also appear rather unsympathetic about other people finding things tough. Have I read you wonrg?

VacantlyPretty · 07/05/2008 18:03

Message withdrawn

Original poster
VictorianSqualor · 07/05/2008 18:05

Something else I don't want to do is sound like I have no sympathy to those who ahve real sleep problems, liek MB describes, I know there is a sleep subject on MN where many people are really suffering from no sleep, but I imagine even they weren't so desperate at 6 weeks nor would they be quite so bothered by the one or two feeds a night type scenario.

OP posts:
BabiesEverywhere · 07/05/2008 18:05

DaddyJ, I wondered where I read that comment and how accurate it is (or not), which is why I posted it with a question mark. I was hopeing someone else might have a link to more information one way or the other...do you ?

Original poster
VictorianSqualor · 07/05/2008 18:06

VP, My post wasn't aimed at you btw, I'm cooking dinner and keep thinking of more things I'd like to say but have to wait for strategic points in the cooking to come back and type it!

OP posts:
belgo · 07/05/2008 18:06

KaSo -I do think it's a good idea to offer comfort before milk when a baby wakes up at night (but not talking about very small babies who obviously need the milk).

Unfortunatley this never seemed to work for my children! And yes, night wakings did feel like toture sometimes.

VacantlyPretty · 07/05/2008 18:06

Message withdrawn

belgo · 07/05/2008 18:08

BE - were you thinking of the recent advice to give small babies a dummy to help decrease SIDS risk - I think the reasoning behind that is something to do with how deeply a baby sleeps and the sucking on a dummy reflex helps encourage their breathing to be regular?

cory · 07/05/2008 18:08

I don't think it was intended to, pointydog- just an antidote to the 'I went to hell and back to train my baby to sleep through the night in the first 6 weeks'.

Which can be quite a relief for those of us who have had to learn to live with broken nights.

Dd at 11 (years, that is!) still cannot be relied on to sleep through due to chronic pain; I found I could deal with the broken sleep once I had learnt to ignore the competitive parenting brigade.
(Besides, if I can't cope, who cares? just because you need something is no guarantee you're going to get it)

Speaking for myself, I am very happy for anyone who gets a good night's sleep, by whatever method, lucky them! I am simply not interested in it as a gauge of somebody's parenting. Which it very much was in our local baby group.

WilfSell · 07/05/2008 18:09

Weaning is a separate issue and it makes little difference to sleep IMHO and E.

But sleep: feel mixed about it. At the start, I loved all the night feeds. Snuggly, lovely baby in bed, we fell back to sleep together.

Now he's a 9mo monster with sharp toenails (I can't bear to cut them the poor little mite) who kicks, wriggles, wants to play, sits up and whacks me in the face and stays awake for hours each time he wakes (at 1am, 4am and 6am) it's getting to be a PITA.

And if I wasn't going back to work in 4 weeks, I'd probably be a bit less depressed about it. But as it is, I agree, they're supposed to wake till they're ready. But while we have to go out to work and can't carry em with us there or fall asleep on our desk (well, I probably will put a yoga mat behind it ) I think there's a conflict of interest there.

VacantlyPretty · 07/05/2008 18:10

Message withdrawn

VacantlyPretty · 07/05/2008 18:11

Message withdrawn

belgo · 07/05/2008 18:14

don't let it bother you prettyvacantly, it's very easy to be misunderstood on mumsnet

belgo · 07/05/2008 18:14

I mean vacantlypretty

BabiesEverywhere · 07/05/2008 18:20

Thanks Belgo, I knew I had read it somewhere

Yep, Dummy reducing SIDs risk.

I had a quick goggle and I also found the following quote.
"Babies on their backs have twice as much motor activity while sleeping, and wake up more often. This seems to help protect them from SIDS."
From here Pants webpage as it doesn't back up with proper references.

I also found many sites linking increased SIDs risk if the baby gets over warm and hence is more likely to go into a deep sleep. So deep sleep does seem to be something to avoid in babies.