Am I being unreasonable .. about sleep

[TotsDaddy]

We have twins, now aged 2y10m and a little girl aged 11m.
The twins didn't sleep through the night until they were a year old, both had a 10pm and 4am feed. The 10pm feed continued untill they were over 2, I was exhausted. At the time my wife declared that she didn't believe in sleep training techniques, and there was nothing we could do except grin and bear it. It was if fact so bad, that that the constant waking damaged my eyesight ( No I'm serious, the consultant said, even before I mentioned our situation, "This sort of damage to the cornea is caused by stress and continued sudden waking")

When we had the little girl I hoped we could do better. She is now almost 1, and has been cuddled/fed to sleep on a regular basis. Again any form of sleep training has been rejected outright. She still feeds at 10pm and 5am, and for the last week has spent 2am until 4am awake while been cuddled back to sleep.

I'm told that this is all just normal and if I really asked people in private they would admit it was quite typical.

So.. am I being unreasonable about sleep?

Maria I think people defend the waking at night is normal/snti sleep training stance is becuase to acknowledge there is another way that works to everyone's benefit is just to hard to take.
BTW I agreed with another of your earlier posts where you said (I think it was you) that establishing and tweaking routines in young babies was the best way as trying to sleep train after getting into an unhelpful routine was much more difficult.
That's what I did with DD nudged her into a routine and then tweaked it to get it just right. DP did that with DSD too. Both are great sleepers.

Another btw...
I remember DP saying that sleep deprivation is used as torture. To quote a spokeswoman for Amnesty International Australia "At the very least, sleep deprivation is cruel, inhumane and degrading. If used for prolonged periods of time it is torture."
Why anyone would impose that on their family is beyond me!

I'm not actually sure it's such a minority view Lenin. Certainly not on MN where if someone admits they're following Gina Ford or something similar they're treated as if they're monsters. In fact, I think that nowadays AP is very much the newest thing, it's considered by many more 'natural', more 'kind to children' etc. I'm just not so sure it's kind to parents or even takes their needs into account at all. In fact (having read lots of AP books, as it's part of my research) I have to say I'm pretty convinced of this: AP is child centred. It's NOT looking at the whole family's needs as a whole. It's mainly looking at the child's needs, a view with which I profoundly disagree theoretically, but in any case a view which I've been unable to follow in my everyday, practical life. Is it that I'm too weak? Too set in my ways? Too unconvinced about anything that proclaims 'nature' is on its side? Who knows.

I do agree wholeheartedly about the whole 'to each their own kind of thing'. If something works for you- mainstream or not- then of course that's the way to go. I just get very annoyed with posts such as those of Starlight which seem to be unable to see that what she suggests i.e. sleeping when the baby sleeps (beyond the newborn stage) is simply NOT a solution for most people. It's not a solution!! And she's insisting that it's THE solution & that whoever is not following that is simply failing the child.

But Lenin, if your way works for you then why wouldn't you be able to talk about it among friends?

It is only when people moan about their child's poor sleeping that I might suggest cc or at least explain what I have done to help my DTs sleep through.

My SIL winds me up because her DS is a poor sleeper who is always fed or cuddled to sleep. She is always thinking up new ways to try to get him to sleep, the latest one being stopping BFing (now she gives him a bottle - he is 16mo). So for her to moan about his sleeping when she is rocking and feeding him to sleep really annoys me. I try to keep my opinions to myself but sometimes I just can't help saying 'you have to leave him to cry!' Her mum tells her the same thing.

But any mum who decides to do no sleep training and is up in the night cuddling/feeding/playing with their baby and feels it works for them has my utmost respect. We all just do what we feel is right for us and our children.

Totally agree with you Maria, that Starlight is wrong to say that her solution would work for everyone 'if only they tried it'.

From what I've read it seems to be the people advocating sleep-training who are saying that their solution would work for everyone 'if only they tried it'.

I've no idea if this has been said yet, but do all the people who say co-sleeping is the way forward recognise that many parents have concerns over co-sleeping and the fact that FSID link it to SIDS?

That's not what I asked though Lenin, I asked if you recognise other parent's concerns.

I have said this before but will say it again (as I think that was me quoted as being grumpy because my DS had been awake since 2.30am). I have done sleep training. About 6 times. I have done it every 3-4 months since my DS was 6.5 months old. The problem is that every time he hits another developmental hurdle, it all goes to pot again.

And one really crap night every two weeks followed by a couple of weeks where he wakes twice a night - at midnight when he comes in with me and then again at 5am when he has some milk - but for only 5-10 mins at a time are much less disruptive to my sleep than doing 5 nights in a row of sleep training, him sleeping through eventually and then starting to wake up again once he is able to do something new. That's exhausting.

"AP is child centred. It's NOT looking at the whole family's needs as a whole."
I'm not a follower of any parenting dogma so I do agree many parenting fads do not consider the family's need as a whole.
I feel a lot of parenting is by the numbers ie parents read some book or other and follow it, without really looking at the situation as a whole. People follow Gina Ford, Attachment Parenting or whatever and blinker themselves because they believe have found the parenting way.
Personally I feel being pragmatic in parenting is the better approach ie consider the child and situation as a whole, then after much consideration find a way through for the benefit of all.

I'm not asking about your opinions on co-sleeping, and yes, I did read the webchat, thanks.

I'm just asking if you recognise that many parents have been fed and digested the message by FSID that co-sleeping could increase the risk of cot death.

So for many parents the risks of sleep training, which AFAIK (but happy to be corrected) have not been shown to increase of cot death are less troubling than the risks they have been told are associated with co-sleeping.

I'm not asking you to agree with them, but a bit of understanding goes a long way, I think.

Apologies I have not read the whole thread (just first few pages and last few pages) but I really feel for TotsDaddy and anyone else in the same situation. I have been very lucky and have 2 very good sleepers, who have had occasional 'blips' which have only served to remind me how lucky I am the rest of the time.
I am AMAZED that some people manage to go so long without a decent nights sleep without resorting to some sort of sleep 'training'.
StarlightMcKenzie - apologies if I've missed something in your previous posts, but do you have more than one child? I can understand how sleeping when the child sleeps can work with one child (although I never managed it very well), but how on earth do you do it when you have more than one DC who sleep at different times in the day?

Undercova some parents have resorted to sleep training and found that it didn't work for their child. They then had to find other ways. And surprisingly found that once they had accepted a different way it was actually a much better alternative.

Although I have co-slept I don't consider myself an ap-er.

Leningrad I'm just asking if the people on this thread who are telling other people that they should co-sleep rather than sleep train understand why many parents don't consider co-sleeping a suitable option.

If you're not someone who has told people on this thread that they should co-sleep rather than sleep train then the question did really apply to you.

didn't really apply to you.

I think the anti-sleep training posters need to accept that those posters who do choose to sleep train have the right to do it without criticism. A couple of posters are coming across as pretty smug and self righteous about their choices. Parenting is not about being the best, always being right, or getting one up on other parents. It's about muddling through, making choices, feeling guilty, feeling elated, and most of all LOVING your family. The child is a part of the family. It is not the ONLY member whose needs should be taken into account. As an objective outsider who has been privileged to see the inner workings of many, many families, I can only say the families that seemed happiest were the ones who ALL felt validated and valued, and decisions were taken to benefit the whole and not an individual.

One of the reasons that we didn't leave some of our later babies/toddlers to cry for long was because we were considering other members of the family who had to get up for work or school.