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?

I think she is being a bit unreasonable about sleep. Why should you both be sleep deprived and what purpose does it serve? In the long term it won't do your relationship any good if you are both tired.

Our DS is 4 months and I am sleeping the spare room at the moment so that I can feed baby without disrupting DH who sleeps very badly anyway.

I don't know what techniques you are referring too but I think the best thing to do is to not make a big fuss when they wake up. Feed then put them back to bed again, don't fuss. If she is doing this they should learn that sleeping is what happens at night.

I agree with sassybeasts posts.

Haven't read all the posts, but I can imagine.
If you stop getting up and doing night feeds then your DD will stop waking up expecting a night feed. It takes about 3-4 nights for them to break the habit (and that's what it is).
If I were you I'd put my foot down and say enough is enough.

another vote for the No Cry Sleep Solution. Or if you have the money think about Millpond www.mill-pond.co.uk/. Just knowing they exist was helpful - we never did call them but we kept saying "if its sill bad in... we'll call" and in the end ds sorted himself out. It seemed to take forever and was completely awful so you have my sympathies.

'it takes about 3 - 4 nights for them to break the habit'

oh, if only....my ds unfortunately didn't realise it only took that time and soldiered on with the crying/screaming/vomiting for aaaages and yes we gave up in the end because I did not want him screaming and vomiting in the night. It's about accepting that they will wake and just finding a way round that which enables everyone to just about survive this period.

I do think your wife is unreasonable not to even give a go to simply stopping the night feed for a very few days and seeing if that will help. My mum tells me it took me two nights to get the message. Sometimes, it works.

If it doesn't then as i said it's about teamwork to enable you to cope. In whatever way you can eg taking turns.

i haven't read whole thread btw but NO this is not normal, well it may be but only because parents do it! waking at 10 and 4 for feeds? and until they were 2? nightfeeds should stop long before that, waking up for two hours just to be cuddled? this is madness if u ask me, the thing is, its obviously affecting your health so it needs to stop but if your wife doesn't agree then not much u can do, except tell her she has to wake up and you won't be doing it anymore

I don't think what you describe is 'normal' although I know/knew lots of parents who thought it was. I had three dc's in three years and I didn't have this amount of broken sleep.

I also agree with the posters who say that there is a difference between letting a baby cry for hours and leaving a baby to cry for short periods of time. I believe that as long as you are gentle but consistent they soon get the message. Although my babies all slept through from fairly early on, it took work and there were times when they'd start waking again (teething, illness etc). You can sleep 'train' them. My three dc's all have very different personalities and I don't believe it's about having and 'easy' baby.

I neither bf my 1 year olds on demand, or indeed at all at that point and neither did I cuddle them to sleep but I had lousy sleepers. I am also a terrible sleeper so just because the books say so why should my children automatically sleep 12 hours. You could adopt a different strategy. It sounds like your big ones are nearly there and yes, it can take that long to get a full nights sleep, I suspect that you coud certainly have knocked one night feed on the head earlier but such is life. If the little on is waking between 2-5 I would say that's normal. If it's a chat and a squeak and a sing then just ignore her, she'll get cross and she'll go back to sleep. None of us are in a deep sleep all night and the middle of the night chat is part of that. If you are using a dummy I bet that plays a massive part in the wakings, with hindsight my DS was as bad as he was because he was always looking for the dummy.

Oh and check that she's eating enough during the day. Maybe something like a bowl of weetabix before bedtime along with her milk may fill her up a little more.

I wonder if part of the problem is that you've wound yourself up into such a stress over it? If you're stressed about being woken it'll be much harder to go to sleep in the first place. Like when you have noisy neighbours and you just lie awake waiting for the noise to begin.

Perhaps you need to do what we do and take turns having nights off - we sleep in the spare room and the other does any getting up necessary. I'm a absolute demon after a couple of broken nights and just because that's normal with a baby doesn't mean I can't find a way around it!

If you want to counter your wife's idea that there is something damaging about a baby crying during the night have a look at THIS

"Never in any of these studies is a mother who attends to the baby during the
day and lets him/her "cry it out" at night shown to have caused an
attachment disorder."

There's no such thing as 'normal' IMO, but if we're talking averages then from my observations most children are regularly sleeping through by one, certainly by two.

I am a great believer in TRYING CC because from my own experience and from that of others CC does work. (Note I'm not suggesting you doggedly pursue it for more than a week or two if it ain't working and it's consequently causing WWIII between you and your wife).

I think your wife is being a little unreasonable. If she's so worried about traumatising the children is she not just a leetle worried about traumatising you?? I am obsessed with getting enough sleep, without it I simply cannot function, (and I'm a light sleeper), and find the idea of going through sleep deprivation again infinitely more traumatic an idea than leaving a child to cry for a few minutes at a time for a few nghts.

I think you need to put yourself first here, good luck.

Message withdrawn

Totally agree with Bloss.

i think your initial problem is with your wife.
lack of sleep is shit-we had almost none for a year then every night were up 2-3 times a night until we gave up and got up with her (anything after 5.30 was 'getting up time') so i do really sympathise,what made it worse for us is i have an older child who wouldn't go to bed early so we had to stay up with her.
what worked for us (and it wasn't ideal) one of us would go up early (say 9.30) and the other would deal with the wakings pre say 2.30. then from 2.30 the other was on duty.
the no cry sleep solution is in my opinion having tried it,no solution at all!
we did everything and stuck at it.
we withdrew cuddles/milk/etc unless she was sick and did dummy return only.no speaking.she eventually 'got it' and now,unless she's ill/not eaten anything all day/possessed by satan she sleeps.
do they sleep in the day?
do you knacker them out after the afternoon sleep with something outdoors?
we've stopped her being asleep past 4 and then take her for a walk in the evening regardless of weather to tire her out and make her hungry. the telly is off until she's in bed.
if what you are doing is not working then change something...anything.
good luck

If you're after what other children's sleep is like mine do this-

dd1 2.1 generally sleeps 7-7/8 with 1-2 hr nap in day. Sometimes wakes in night for general toddler type reasons.

From 2m -5m she slept 730-530 then it all went tits up when she got a bad cold then we went to Austraila for a month. Did cc which was hard but took around 3 nights for major improvement.

dd2 is 13m and she sleeps 7-530/6 ish and may wake at night. 2hr daytime nap She has had v bad excema which has thankfully cleared up a lot now. As a result we are a lot 'softer' on her and don't really leave her to cry as she starts scratching.

Anyway have had many a sleepless night so totally sympathise with you.Have you tried giving water instead of milk in the night?

You have my sympathy OP. DD slept throught the night from 6 weeks to 4 months old (when we moved home). She then didn't sleep through the night until she was 6. We tried everything (and I mean everything!) No cry Sleep Solution, dream-feeding (when she was younger), controlled crying, the lot.

Yes, all children have the ability to sleep through the night after a certain age, but not all of them do.

Can you show this thread to your wife? She may get some new ideas.

Yeah totally agree with bloss and secondc - it takes work if you aren't blessed with a great sleeper (we're not), sleep dep is shit but some adults cope better than others. And definitely knacker them all out in the afternoon with lots of running around outdoors in fresh air then no telly at bedtime which we find just winds em back up. Also loooooong bedime routine helps a bit to relax her. best of luck. U need to talk to yr wife pronto. Great idea to show her this thread.

I do not think it is normal or acceptable or reasonable to be woken up this much at night. Nor do I believe a word your wife says about crying being more dangerous than sleep deprivation - there's crying and there's crying.

Personally, if I was in your position, with an un-negotiating partner, I would simply lay down MY stance - "I will get up ONCE per night unless they are ill. Until you at least allow me to try to sleep train them, I will not deal with the consequences of your lazy parenting"

We were both in favour of the controlled crying thing at about 8 months and it worked brilliantly.
I would have hated a husband who got up every 2 hours to a crying older baby/ toddler. Our kids seemed much happier once we did the controlled crying thing and they slept for longer periods as well.

Agree that if you have to get up then you should have some say on sleep techniques. If she won't use any sleep techniques then she should do the (IMHO) totally unnecessary middle of the night trips and spending hours getting them to sleep rather than just putting them down, and turning light off. Different if under 6 months.

Anyone who thinks "controlled crying" is reasonable ought to read this:
The Continuum Concept
It sort of explains how society as whole - and how our expectations of an infants "behaviour" has changed very rapidly in the last few hundred years - faster than the baby's survival instincts can evolve and baby's are programmed to cry "communicate" their needs..... infact - they are often communicating in some way before the crying sets in but adult humans are so tuned in to verbal communication that they often don't pick up or understand the initial "communication" from the baby and it then gets to the stage where the baby has to cry to be "heard".
Your GP wife is being a TOP mummy and is listening to her instinct - she does not want to abandon her infant to cry it out.
Try some attachment parenting for a starting point in learning how to "listen" to your childrens needs before they can speak.
Another tip would be for you all to go to bed at the same time - so you are not trying to stay up in the evenings while your babies are sleeping - that way you will get enough sleep whether they stir in the night or not.
Do you know why settling a baby with a dummy is supposed to reduce the risk of cot-death?
It is because naturaly an infant human would ssleep latched onto it's mothers breast (they still do in many tribes!) and if they become "unlatched" for any reason the baby will stir and re-latch - this ensures the baby's survival - it is safe in it's mothers aarms. The dummy is the "nipple replacement" - the dummy falls out - the baby stirs (to find it's "mother" - the baby WAKES - which is good - baby's are not supposed to get into such a deep sleep for very long periods - lest they "forget" to breathe!!! Baby's are actually programmed to stir - their sleep cycles are different to adults. I would be more concerned about very young infants who are not stirring in the night - I don't mean necessarily crying - but they should stir!
Another favourite book of mine is this one:
The baby book Sears It's less - contraversial than the first book I recommend - but I do feel that first book should be read - because it explains a lot about a baby's behaviour from an athropological point of view - and gets your head around the fact that instead of thinking "poor me - not enough sleep how do I fix that" - to more - "oh, my child is trying to tell me something - I will listen and trust and act on that."
They are only little for a relatively short period of their lifetime - learn to enjoy your night wakenings!!!
Oh - and they eyesight thing and waking up - it's probably the electric lighting combined with the wakings that is doing it! (just take yourself back a few hundred years in time and think how that would work) Us humans have progressed so much - and yet so little!!!

Bring your 11m o old to bed with you (both). That way everyone gets more sleep. None of this staying awake to cuddle them back to sleep.

Hardly nothing else is sweeter than having a smiling tot waking you up at 7am going bbzzzzzt! in your face after everyone has had a decent night's sleep.

And Yes it is all normal. More people cosleep than will admit to it too. Once you tell people you do others own up too.

And get a bigger bed.

Well this morning it was ds shouting "no, no, no, no!" that woke me up - I've no idea what on Earth he was saying "No" about lol.

Totsdaddy, is it you that has to get up with the children all the time. What does your dw do? Why doesn't she do her share?

Carmela - all fair enough for a newborn / very small baby but an 11 month old? I'd think that learning to sleep properly will benefit the child as well, not just the poor parents. I know that my dds are happier when they've had a good, full nights sleep.

TotsDaddy - has anybody mentioned night weaning? It's not a sleep training thing as such, more of a very gentle way to get rid of a night feed.

I can blabber on for ages on this subject so I'll spare you for now, but say if you want me to say what worked for us (DS woke 2-3 times a night until he was 16mo until we did this)