To think if you had to, you’d be able to do this?! (Parenting)

[Youurrs]

It was just me and my baby from when he was around 5 weeks old. I had absolutely no choice but to sort a sleep routine and subsequently have organisation and a routine after nursery and bedtimes (almost always on time) because I literally would not have been able to look after my child if I didn’t, as a single parent and then as a working single parent after maternity leave finished.

I have noticed that mums who have no choice seem to make these things work, those who have options seem to struggle. For instance my sister went through several weeks of walking everywhere with her dd as she couldn’t get dd in the car seat. I could not identify with this as I HAD to get my child in the car to go to work. There was no option. Yet she will to this day say it was impossible to get her child in the car.

Have other people noticed this? Maybe it’s just my personal experience from some small examples!

I did find it strange when one of my friends said her baby would only go to sleep when being bounced incessantly on one of those pregnancy balls. She said there was absolutely no other way to get that baby to sleep.

I don't have one of those balls so I guess if I had her baby then he just wouldn't ever sleep?!

I didn’t know mine had ADHD and autism when they were a baby. No one does when they’re tiny. I had all sorts of reasons given to me and as they became a toddler I was told they were “difficult”, “bad tempered”, “badly behaved”. I was told I was not parenting them correctly, I was too soft, too strict, not holding their bottle correctly (I had tried and failed at BF, having Bfed my first two).

You won’t know if they’re ND when they are 4 months and screaming all the time.

my first was great. So was my second. I don’t think I was smug but I might have been.

I was a single parent from my youngest was 18 months. And I worked full time. With 3. And I went to uni via the OU PT.

mine are all reared up now and functioning adult members of society. What age is yours?

These things are really easy to say, but there is an element of luck and personality. Babies are all different. Some sleep well or take to sleep training and some don't.

I know a single mother who has a baby who won't sleep on their own and just like you said, she doesn't get to eat properly or shower unless it's a snatched moment here and there, and/or she leaves them to scream hysterically, or someone comes over to help. You were lucky that your baby allowed you to put them down/sleep train them.

My first was also similar. There were no parenting techniques or sleep training techniques that would have made him sleep on his own (he just became hysterical and inconsolable). I have since had two more children and have been amazed at the complete difference (having been almost broken by my first).

Mine needed the pram, the car or the boob and then still might have woken immediately if I tried to put him down from the boob.. he needed movement to sort of soothe him to sleep or breastfeeding for comfort and then it emerged that he's autistic/adhd. I can just send him to bed now as an older child but still takes him ages to actually sleep. We make him physically stay in bed but he's allowed to look at books until he can sleep.
The pregnancy ball is a new one but I'm not judging as we used to take our baby for a drive or a walk in the pram and others told me to just put him.down and walk away. Knowing him now that would have been incredibly cruel.

We just deal with what we have to, irrespective of circumstances.
Resilience builds, depending on circumstances

This isn’t the point of OP’s post, it wasn’t directed at you.

Absolutely.

I have a friend who is a SAHM to a teen, precisely because he has complex needs and refuses school/ends up being sent home. There isn't a job that could accommodate her constantly having time off due to her child. She's desperate to work and very unhappy that she can't.

Of course. We do it because what is the alternative?

I've been on my own with ds for the last 15 years, although ex did nothing to help before that. I've done every school run, every night waking, every nappy, worked full time, paid the mortgage, paid every bill.

BUT the advantage that we single parents have is we don't have to pander to man babies, tiptoe around their egos, watch them waste stupid money on cars, alcohol, gambling, golf, cycling, (add expensive hobby...). We don't have to cope with their mess.
We don't have to cope with vile in-laws or family politics. There is no need to compromise. We can set a routine and arrange a home that is efficient and works.

Sometimes it is MUCH easier to focus if you don't have to worry about your intimate relationship going south while you are dealing with everything else.

Agreed. I know a mother who refused to return to work for about 7 years after her child was born because “sally wouldn’t like it”. The child grew into an overly indulged teenager, refused to go to school or get any qualifications, and now in her 20s still lives at home and does very little. No friends, relationship, or job.

But. There will be lots of parents who read this sort of post and think it’s just something in them because they don’t know their child is disabled yet.

smugness is never a good look.

I agree with you OP however whilst I was forcing them into a sleeping routine etc I would’ve felt like a shit parent and I didn’t want to feel like that despite the long term benefits.

so that’s why I couldn’t do it

When I worked with families I had parents who were having difficulties parenting who said ‘I don’t want them not to like me’ and ‘It upsets me if I make them cry’. Those were often the reasons they were having issues with their children, it was all about how they felt, not what was best for the child.

You’ve completely missed my point. The point is OP doesn’t know everyone’s circumstances. She had a child for whom routine worked. Great. That doesn’t mean she gets to denigrate others who don’t do things the same way as her, because she has no idea of the challenges other parents might be facing.

You’ve completely missed my point. The point is OP doesn’t know everyone’s circumstances. She had a child for whom routine worked. Great. That doesn’t mean she gets to denigrate others who don’t do things the same way as her, because she has no idea of the challenges other parents might be facing.

I agree with you OP (and I have been shouted down on other threads where people are insistent that it is down to 'luck'). My dsis is a nanny and got many many kids into routines. This is down to consistency and hard work, not luck.

Yes. Before I had my first, I had naively said that I wouldn't co-sleep and would be putting him down "drowsy but awake" just like people had told me to, so that he slept safely and well on his own. HA! At only a few days old my health visitor told me that what I was doing (staying up holding him so that he slept, because he would only sleep on me) was absolutely unsustainable and that I must safely co sleep. We co-slept for nearly 3 years and he required one of us to be with him (cuddled up or holding a hand) so that he'd go to sleep for another couple of years after that. No amount of parenting techniques or sleep training made a difference - it was simply his personality.

My second was easier/pretty average, slept and napped reasonably well. Three children in, I did actually end up with a baby that would go to sleep if put down "drowsy but awake" and each time she fell asleep I was honestly astonished, because it was so alien to me. She's 20 months old now and I still think it's strange. 🤣 It's nothing I did and I actively roll my eyes at people who tell me it's because I now "know what I'm doing".

It's all down to luck and personality...

The trouble with parenting is that you can only judge and offer advice based on your own experience, which is usually only limited to the children you have (but, as with adults, there are hundreds and thousands of personalities and variables out there). It's easy for people to feel smug about parenting when they've nailed it, but they fail to remember that that might not nail it with a different child. If I had given birth to my first child last, I would have been in for a huge shock.

🙄

With all due respect…your dsis will have been trained on all of those techniques and builds on experience. Parents are not given a manual or training, nor do they have the breadth of experience that a nanny would have.
On top of that a nanny has the sole focus of the children, they are not holding down a second job…they are not dealing with the household work (or they shouldn’t be), they are not emotionally attached to the child in the same way it’s not the same relationship etc. The child and their routine IS their job! It’s very very different

I think this is exactly what OP is saying though.

i coslept with my first- out of necessity- until she was NINE so no judgement there.

my second child was horrendous sleeper (she doesn’t sleep through now, and she’s 7) but hated cosleeping. I spent every night up feeding and cuddling her until she was old enough to go into a bed, when I had to buy a double and she would allow cosleeping in her bed

where did that leave first child (who was 4 when second was born?) co sleeping with DH.

As OP is saying, if I had been a single parent something would’ve had to give. Likely, weeks of child 1 screaming her head off distressed walking the landing in the dark finally collapsing defeated into a traumatised sleep at 2am. Likely both of them doing this as I ran between them. Likely weeks of me struggling through work and driving on minimal sleep and maximum stress. Until something gave, until they reluctantly accepted their new life.

I didn’t have to do those awful 2 weeks only because I am not a single parent.

She wasn't trained and was always looking after older children as well as babies. She has worked with older children for years and is good at applying common sense. She got her dd into a good routine as well. My point was more to illustrate that when people say their child is unable to get into a routine it is most likely the parent not the child (I always include the proviso about children with disabilities of course)
I am just reiterating the OP's point really.

I think most people could if they had to. Pretty sure I could have. But I am grateful that I was lucky enough not to have to-and I wish everyone was as lucky as I was.

Absolutely this!!!

Agreed. I have twins and don't have the capacity for indulging a lot of things. Even if l had a singleton then l probably wouldn't be doing the hanging around until they fall asleep business, l want to eat dinner and get on with other stuff. Childcare is very expensive for twins so my husband and l both do a fair amount of solo parenting to enable the other to work. So often it's toddler twins and just 1 parent

Yeah but you're right.
When you have zero options, you literally have zero options.
You have to make it work, or else.
There's no one else who can be your backup, there's no second or third choice, you HAVE to make it work no matter how difficult it is.
When you have options, you can afford to have doubts, you can afford to try different things which wastes time and divides efforts.
When you have options, you have the freedom to try different things. They might work, they might work fantastically, or they may not work.
You say that you had no options because of being the only caregiver and having to work, you HAD to make it work.
You had the motivation and you also had nothing else to fall back on.
This is how a lot of successful people become successful. When the choice is sink or swim, and no other options....
Congratulations on everything that you had to do because I'm quite sure that it was extremely difficult then and I'm sure that it's still very difficult now.

You are absolutely right op. And it goes for many things in life that seem impossible to do until we have to do them. At which point, we just get on with it.