To hate the sleep threads that say...

[Jennyusedtobepink]

'My 5 week/5 month/4 hour old baby won't sleep'. Try 16 fecking months of it.

I do realise most of this is down to me, and probably am BU, but I just had to say it!!!!!

Awwww. OTOH 3w is still very early - the baby's barely woken up from being in the womb. I wonder what he'll be saying in a month's time...

When I hear of babies never crying in the night, what comes to mind is the NSPCC advert with the baby who has learnt to cry because he has learnt that no-one comes when he does. "Sleeping through" is not the ultimate goal in parenting, I'd rather have a baby who knows I will be there when he needs me. (Of course I know it's not one or the other, hope you know what I mean!)

YABU - my 2.2 year old old doesn't sleep so don't tell me about your 16 month old

just wondered when people are referring to "non-sleepers" - are they talking about waking in the night - or non-sleepers from dawn until following dawn??

My brother and sister in law have a new baby who slept through at six weeks or thereabouts. It makes me sightly sick to see just how well-rested and unstressed they look. I mean, I'm pleased for them and everything, but I worry that they're looking looking at me and thinking that I'm pathetic to be so tired, old looking and stressed. I can almost hear them thinking "having a baby isn't so hard*...

Of course, they're lovely people and they're not thinking that at all. But a year of small amounts of broken sleep makes you paranoid, apart from anything else...

SIL is pregnant for the first time. Her comment to me when hearing that ds wakes at 5am, was "I'm sure my baby will be a good sleeper, because we both really like sleeping, so it will have our genes". And, bless her, she absolutely isn't joking. (I haven't broken the news to her that a 5am start, for ds, represents a magnificent sleeping step forward compared to 6 times a night a few months ago)

DD was 2 before she slept through. DS is 9 months and has just gone down from waking 6/7 times a night to 2/3.

What I don't understand is why it is all everyone ever asks you. I mean I know sleep is important, and I know how shit I have been on no sleep but why is "sleeping through" the most important thing to so many people? For me the early days were all about bonding with my baby and making sure they were feeding well etc but so many people seem desperate for them to not feed at all in the night right from day one-that doesn't seem right to me (unless your baby is one of those that just does it all by themslves).

I stopped going to one toddler group because all anyone ever asked me was "Is he sleeping through yet?". Ds wasn't even 2 months old at the time. They weren't interested in ANYTHING else, I never got asked if he was feeding well, if he was smiling/rolling etc just is he sleeping through.

My almost 17m DS has slept through twice (and once was after a crap night of terrible CC and he slept over a hedgehog with a large ball of snot hanging out of his nose so not a pleasant night of meal with DH etc)
However since a few months ago he (usually!) goes to bed at a reasonable time, comes into our bed at around midnight, wakes another 3ish times for a feed, and more often than not goes back to sleep after his feed, so I count myself very lucky.

What it think is BVU is that it dosen't tell you anywhere when pregnant that sometimes you do everything right and your children won't sleep through and sometimes you do everything wrong and they won't sleep through
IT JUST DEPENDS

I think there is a certain amount of karma in it- mine were all pretty different, but they were sleeping through by about 12 months, but were horrendously bad eaters by that point, while my friend whose kids were up several times a night until school age wolfed their 5-a-day and turned down chocolate in preference to fruit. THose parents whose babies sleep through at 6 wks will have some other trauma to deal with at some point, I'm sure! Noone gets away with that easily- do they?

I also don't think it is a marker of good parenting that your baby/ toddler/ preschooler sleeps "well"- I think it is luck, or that for some people it is a priority and they are very focussed on making it happen. I get a bit upset at these so called experts who seem to make it the be-all and end -all to have your baby sleep 12 straight hours at 8 wks old- to me, that's crazy!

When I am old and grey and looking back on my children and their achievements in life, I don't imagine I'll put "Slept through the night at xxx weeks" up there with winning the Nobel peace prize! I know it seems crap just now, but you DO forget how awful it was (I still remember sitting, sobbing, in the dark, holding dd1's hand in her cot for hours and hours on end, and feeling dreadful, but I can't really remember the desolation of it, iyswim) It can only get better!

I agree it's karma. Easy baby = difficult toddler. Easy toddler = difficult child.

My son was a goodish sleeper. Sleeping 8 -8 (with a 6 am feed) from 4 months. BUT at 1 year starting waking at 5am and stayed like that for a year.

Really, really good baby but terrible eater from about 18 months.

Really good 5 year old but had a year of being really aggressive at about 18 months onwards. In fact from 1 to 2 and a half was terrible - early wakings, not eating and really aggressive!

If you escape all those things then I'm sure you'll have a difficult teenager!

I'm ashamed to admit (in this particular thread) my dd (now 7) slept through after a few weeks (Waits to be lynched).

I can't say it was anything I did...I think it was just part of her nature. Certainly nothing to do with my inept/inexperienced parenting.

DD's still a very placid, laid back kind of girl. Nothing like me as a baby, apparently!

But now I'm worried about the Karma thing. I had figured it was karma that she was so good (she was my 4th and now only successful attempt at the mommy game) but now I'm wondering. Maybe I'll get the nightmare teen/pre-teen from hell!!! We have food issues though...so maybe that's my karma thing (she said...dreading the dreadful teen years arriving early).

The way I look at it, though, there's no such thing as a perfect child just like there's no such thing as a perfect parent.

YANBU. And you have a lack of sleep to support your less than positive feelings about others in this respect.

BTW I have, in the past, asked whether a baby is sleeping through (a) cos it's one of the questions we're conditioned to ask (like the weight/how the birth went) and (b) cos it gives you an idea about the state the mum will be in.

I never thought of it as an indicator for successful parenting cos it's a luck of the draw kind of thing.

lightweight op

yabu but only coz its mn and we all have worries etc etc etc

Non of mine slept through the night from an early age, infact my eldest was over a year old before she slept at all at night she used to scream or gurgle to herself all night long!! Nightmare! I used to hate all the "are they sleeping through the night" questions, but by the time i had my third i didn't care anymore and used to just say NO, so i am knackered, end of conversation! It really didn't bother me in the end, all this competitive stuff, far to busy to give it the time to even worry about it. Move on i say, just enjoy your baby whilst it is little, mine are all teenagers now and looking back at those early months/years (yes even the sleepless nights) are really lovely memories!! Honest!

Good advice Blossom

I do allow myself a little when people complain their 3 weeker ism't sleeping (as a mum at school was last week)- a moment of superiority that none of my 4 sleep through (though ds2 can, he just does a good impression of asd due to over exposure!) and I still managed make up in the morning

only to glance down, realise my socks were odd and there was baby vomit over my trousers

ah well, pmsl

I am a bit at people worring that their x weeks-old baby isn't sleeping through. DD slept through regularly from about 9 mo - but got up at 5 am. It is absolutely knackering. I am not at my most maternal between midnight and 6 am (as opposed to the rest of the day....).

I remember being so desperate for sleep that I started writing down every ml of milk the ds' had to see if there was a perfect amount which got them through the night. There wasn't and they both did 7-7 when they were good and ready (at about 6 months, sorry.) A good friend had a dd who never once slept through the night until 4yrs old though, her 2nd did at 6 months.

I also remember feeling itchy with jealousy at a friend who had hers going 7-7 at 6 weeks. Now it's just a distant memory which i'd forgotten until I saw this thread and they are older and PITA in other ways..

friend had 1st baby same age as my 1st dd and was smug about sleeping through the night very early on. (all 3 of mine have been poor sleepers,from birth dd would only need a total of 8-10 hours sleep in 24 hours, not the 18 they tell you in books!all 3 were still BFing at 16months including once in night. ds age 3 still comes through to our bed almost every night, but at least he falls asleep again) she would say how she would go mad if her lo would not sleep and how awful it was for me etc.

then my dd crawled, woke, talked etc much much earlier then friends dd. When she expressed jealous surprise I put her in her place - what do you expect, your DC spends 100% more time asleep than mine does, mine has been busy learning! Ha - shut her up about her clever little sleeper that did!

babies are all different , just like real people!

woke? I meant walked!!!

When ds1 was 20 months old, he slept 16 hours out of 24. I hated it. I never saw him/

Jennyusedtobepink, Mine never slept more than four hours (that was twice) until he started school. I had bags under my eyes. I was in a constant state of envy with all the mothers that had their routine down. "Oh, Judy sleeps through the night now", "Richard is in a nap routine and we can plan around that like clockwork". You just want to slap the smile off their perfect parenting faces.

Every child is different. Some strategies work, some don't. I never found something that worked with my oldest (the other two weren't much better). Don't beat yourself up with it. Try putting a bell or something to amuse them that they can bat at or entertain them so you can get a few extra winks when they do dose.
You can't function on sleep deprivation. It is dangerous for you and your baby. Everyone else can just take a long walk on a short pier until you get sleep caught up. If it means sleeping during the day then so be it. Time will march on and your little one will get into some type of pattern...it may not be the one desired so be warned. Good luck on it.

I do think UABU a little bit as surely the mums are just wanting help and wanting tips? I do agree when people with young babies want them throught the night, but most posts are just wanting their babies to stop waking every hours or 2 or something.

My DD went through a phase of literally waking every 20mins or so aand I started a thread. And she was about 4 months or a bit older. She is now 8.5 months and still doesn't sleep and come April we will have a newborn again to keep us up even longer!

well you can't blame them, as all mums lie and say theirs sleep through right away which I now know that is a big fat lie...

my dd is 14months and still does not sleep through so I often do think hey 6weeks try 14months and see how you complain...

but MN is a great support and it is comforting for them to come here and talk about it and find oput their babies are very normal and not all babies sleep through within the first few weeks...

Do mums really lie and say their dcs are sleeping through? Among the mums I know it was the other way around.

Mum1: I was up 3 times with Humphrey last night.

Mum2: Well, I was up 5 times with Priscilla.

Mum3: That's nothing, I was up every 30 seconds with Damian...