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?

[CarmelaDeAngelis]

Just wanted to say - I had recommended the continuum concept for reading material - it was not intended as an instruction manual - which is why I also suggested the dr sears baby book - which offers some great suggestions to a range of different parenting types that also take the infants feelings into consideration.
thesecondcocking yes many infants that stir in the night do indeed settle themselves - especially those who are confident and trusting that their parents usually meet their needs and those infants who are aware their parents are close by because they can hear them still it would seem.

My youngest child sleeps in his cot next to my bed at 16 months - he stirs in the night - but rarely cries - I often stir in the night and check on him too - we are reassured by each others presence. My husband is happy to have him in our room with us at present - I have no immediate plans to put him in another bedroom away from us.
This is what we like to do and it works for us - it won't work for everyone - but the two books I suggested for reading material are a starting point to find your own way to what might work for you.
Sometimes changing the way you think about the situation may make it seem less of a problem - understanding why the baby wakes may seem less frustrating once you realise the evolution behind this behaviour, and why it happens. You may then feel less stressed about being awoken.

[TotallyAndUtterlyPaninied]

Why would 11 MO children need milk twice a night? They stop needing night feeds at 5 or 6 months, after that it's just a habit thing.

If my LO wakes in the night (rare as he's a sleep-hog), he'll have a little sip of milk or juice and go back to sleep- he doesn't need a 'feed' in the middle of the night. He has 3 meals a day and fruit snacks so why would he?

Babies form habits so it's what you allow those habits to be. Happy parents means happy babies and it's worth a few nights of crying it out to get to the end result. As I said earlier my DS is the happiest sleeper in the world and asks to go to bed. He's rarely reliant on us at night time (teething/ illness/ upset routine etc is the exception).

I accept that some children sleep better than others, but there does have to be boundaries and running in to their every whimper is not helping parents or baby in the long run.

[fandango75]

yanbu - yes babies do wake in the night but there are proven techniques which i am not saying work fully but do imapct on sleep. I agree with totallyand utterly..... good luck - try and get it sorted (your wife sounds rathr unhelpful and narrow minded sorry)

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

I always roll my eyes at these threads because they invariably turn into a competition of who is sleeping worst. Sigh.

There's also this baffling idea that babies are 'biologically programmed' to do this or that (whatever it may be). I really wonder where these 'theories' are based? Do you think in 'traditional' societies (whatever that means, as there are huge variations between societies) children were cuddled & given milk all night through? 2, 3, 4, 5 (or more) times a night? Really? You believe that? I'm talking of societies were families as a matter of course contained 6, 7 or even more children. To me it would sound very normal that children in such large families would have to be left to self-settle just due to necessity. What I'm trying to say is that anyone can argue anything is 'normal' or 'natural'. The discussion would just go around in circles. Nothing 'normal' or 'natural' about parenting. Apart from the extreme situations (neglect, abuse etc) there are loads of variations & I really get angry when people seem to suggest that responding to a child many times a night is somehow less 'conditioning' than helping them self settle.

Anyway, my sympathies to the OP. Having 3 children under 3 must be hard enough, dealing with sleep deprivation on top of that must be even harder.

[3littlefrogs]

The one thing that I think made the difference between ds1 and ds2 was that I just couldn't drop everything and run to ds2 if he was crying - I had a very demanding 2 year old. - I never left him to cry for more than 5 minutes, but he learned to self-settle very early on, and was always a good sleeper, and a very happy and contented baby.

[DaddyJ]

Hey, it's the old gang! Ah, this thread brings back memories..

TotsDaddy, I think you're going to have one hell of a battle on your hands if you try and change your wife's mind.

So I will second the foxy one's suggestion: just take your dd into bed with you until she grows out of the night waking.

If you two do decide to go down the sleep training route, let us know. Plenty of advice here.

I've just sleeptrained our 7 month old dd2 so happy to help.

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

[wolfear]

Sleep training definitely worked for my DS1. He's now 2.3 and has been a brilliant sleeper since about 5 months old when we did controlled crying (took 2 nights). From about 4 weeks old he had a bedtime routine and although it was hard sometimes, we always stuck to it and it's really paid off. However, DS2 is 4 months and wakes frequently at different times each night. I've been feeding and cuddling him to sleep, purely for fear of waking DS1 and it's been a big mistake. I'm up several times a night and am knackered.

Sleep training worked so well the first time around and I truly believe it's helped DS1 become the content little boy he is, we started controlled crying on DS2 tonight. He cried for an hour with me going up at elongated intervals giving him a gentle sush and pat and he's now asleep. I'm sure that's not the end of it tonight but we're going to stick it out as I have so much faith in it even though it's heart breaking hearing him cry.

Having said this, all babies are different and different techniques work for different people.The older the baby, the more difficult it will be I think but you should definitely give it a go. You'll be grateful in the long run. Hope you can get your wife to agree. Good luck.

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

By the way in case anyone's wondering what did work: yup, you guessed it, sleep training . Which wasn't too bad at all tbh- I was dreading it for months. My DS went from waking every 1-2 hours to sleeping 12 hours straight (only waking when ill etc). Which led me to change my mind about whether there are 'good sleepers' and 'bad sleepers'. I used to think my DS was the sleeper from hell. Now I've come to believe parents have a much larger input in how their children's sleeping goes.

And if you ask me, if I think about DS's future, I think it's much better for him if he's in the habit of good, sound sleep from an early age, better for him as a chlid and as an adult, and if there's anything I can do to influence that I'm up for it...

[Babymakes4]

In response to the question in your post - I don't think it is necessarily 'normal'. My DD2 sounds the same age and sleeps through til 6am and my DD1 was the same at the same age. We didn't 'do' anything like CC to make this happen, but we did structure sleeping quite carefully with a bedtime routine, lots of cuddles at bedtime and reassuring cuddles and milk in the night but all in the darkened room etc etc. Know it isn't very 'Mumsnet' but just wanted to say that, in response to the qun, and from my experience and that of my friends, it isn't always as you describe.

[MegBusset]

"Do you think in 'traditional' societies (whatever that means, as there are huge variations between societies) children were cuddled & given milk all night through? 2, 3, 4, 5 (or more) times a night? Really? You believe that? I'm talking of societies were families as a matter of course contained 6, 7 or even more children. To me it would sound very normal that children in such large families would have to be left to self-settle just due to necessity."

Actually, in 'traditional' societies I would guess that yes, the DC were cuddled and given milk all night through. Co-sleeping and natural term BF allowed this -- and also helped space pregnancies to 3-4 years apart so that there was only one young child at a time.

To the OP: there is nothing abnormal about an 11mo baby waking once in the night, at all. If you are not happy with this state of affairs then of course you can try to change it. But it's not unusual, really it isn't!

[thesecondcocking]

i think what i am saying carmen is that i and many other parents don't actually WANT a toddler in their room. Mine was in our bed until she was 15 months old,then a few months in her cot in our room then we kicked her out into her own room.
we are all much happier.
and wrt pregancies 3-4 years apart precisely when did this happen? and where? are we talking rainforests here?
In victorian england,did people of any class co-sleep and natural term bf? or are we going further back than that? and if so why? children died from measles-we don't want to go back there do we?
real modern life,where people have to get in cars and drive to work to pay hideous mortgages and deal with pressurised jobs and christ knows what else is not enormously compatible with foggy headed tiredness IMHO which if can be avoided,should be.
like i said in my original op the problem is the wife not the kids...

[CoteDAzur]

TotsDaddy - YANBU. If your wife refuses to sleep train, she should be the one to wake up and put babies back to sleep.

To answer your question: Yes, it is "normal" for babies to continue to wake up for a feed in the night, in the same way that it is normal for teeth to decay. That doesn't mean it is a good thing. As parents, you can intervene to change these sleep habits.

There is no possible medical reason why a normal "almost 1" year old should continue to feed in the night. It is purely habit. Stop the night feeds. She will quickly compensate by eating/drinking more in the day and she will stop waking up for a feed in the night.

This is not to say you should leave her to cry for any period of time - I'm guessing this is your wife's real objection. Just stop the night feeds and when she wakes, comfort her with hugs etc. She might surprise you and sleep through with very little additional effort.

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

Yes, I would be interested to hear which 'traditional' societies we're talking about.

Maybe ones where in all sorts of other ways children were raised in completely different ways than we do now? Ways that we would disagree with on many levels? e.g. children working from very early on, boys raised completely differently to girls etc. If we're going back to some supposedly more 'traditional' and 'natural' societies we can't pick & choose can we.

Plus, there were all sorts of reasons people did things in different socities, very different from our reasons. For example, in the 'continuum concept' there's this idea that it's desirable to carry your child with you everywhere. Well the reason that children were carried around had to do with their mothers working out of the home (on the land) & having to carry them around with them. Nothing to do with attachment parenting where having a child in a sling all day is done for different reasons e.g. emotional wellbeing of the child etc. A psychological language that has nothing to do with the society described in the continuum concept.

And in any case I don't think (and I believe this more generally, not about parenting only) that comparing our society & our lives to something supposedly more 'natural' or 'traditional' gives us any clues or directions about how to lead our lives. I find it a very weak argument tbh.

[warthog]

i also don't believe in leaving them to cry, so this is how i managed to get my dd's off night feeds:

for the first night feed, make them wait 10 mins before feeding. just cuddle, walk around the room, whatever it takes. note the time on the first night, and never feed earlier than that. don't worry about the second feed ie. feed them when they wake for the second feed. we're working on moving the first feed back.

as the first feed gets later and later, the second feed will stop happening.

in my experience it only takes a few days to stop the night feed, unbelievable as that may seem.

you need to view it as a few nights of toughness, but the rewards are great.

i did this when dd1 was 11 mo, and dd2 was about 8 months.

you can do something about it without resorting to letting them cry.

[juuule]

"Do you think in 'traditional' societies (whatever that means, as there are huge variations between societies) children were cuddled & given milk all night through? 2, 3, 4, 5 (or more) times a night? Really? You believe that? I'm talking of societies were families as a matter of course contained 6, 7 or even more children. To me it would sound very normal that children in such large families would have to be left to self-settle just due to necessity."

Thought I'd chip in here just to let people know that even in this society some people do cuddle and feed their baby/toddler at times during the night (even at 11mo, 2yo) even when they have a few children (I have 9)and they are closer spaced than 3-4y apart.

Our dc1 wouldn't sleep through the night for 3y despite trying most things (everything?). Feel quite sorry for him in hindsight. We have had various children either in our room or wandering in during the night for years. Now with the youngest at 6yo we get undisturbed nights and even lie-ins. They all sleep very well. Not sleeping through is a phase (aren't most things) and it passes. The thing to do is get through it the best way you can with as little distress for everyone.

[thesecondcocking]

i am sure this is going to end up in a shit storm but i too would like to know which society we are referring to,in what country and in which 'age' the concept of 'continuum' is harking back to...? if it's stoneage iceland i can probably feel justified and better about discarding it as a child rearing theory.

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

Juuuule I appreciate what you say. I also accept that some children may be worse sleepers than others. However, not everyone can cope with sleep deprivation. Congrats to you if you managed it (and I suspect it must have been hard). DP & I personally couldn't. We were about to collapse after 9 months of waking every 1-2 hours (literally). Things only got worse progressively. And I don't buy it that children necessarily 'grow up' into sleeping ok. Some do. Some don't. We've all heard of school age children who are very bad sleepers (and adult insomniacs too).

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

Why not? well, for one reason: what if you're having sex?!

[juuule]

That may be so Maria but while it may be worth trying to get a child to settle (and it obviously works for some children as evidenced on here)I think it's wrong to assume it will work for all children and that if it doesn't work then the parents haven't tried hard enough or have done it wrong. Some children are very tenacious and insistent in their night-wakening.

[Maria2007loveshersleep]

Also, to answer one of Juuuuuule's points about 'the least distress for everyone'. In our case, the distress has definitely gone down loads in DP, DS & me since DS started sleeping well. It's not just that DS is much less grumpy after a good night's sleep & just seems so rested & much happier. It's also that DP & I are able to look after him properly. We both work part time & are based at home most of the time so spend our days with DS...so for us it was extremely important to be able to look after him properly (which we weren't with so little sleep, we were constantly irritable & semi-depressed, in a kind of zombie state).

[MegBusset]

I didn't say that we should all start living in mud huts, did I?

Just that the OP asked if night waking at 11mo was 'normal'.
Small children are biologically programmed to wake during the night. Over many thousands of years of human evolution it has been beneficial to check that mum is still there and hasn't been eaten by sabre-toothed tigers. And to keep the supply of breastmilk up. 'Traditionally' (ie in pre-industrial societies) this has not been a problem for humans because they slept with their DC all night.

Your baby is just like a prehistoric baby. It does not know that you have a meeting at 7am or a mortgage or that you choose to stay up til midnight on Mumsnet!

Btw I am not anti-sleep training. We did cc with DS1 when he was 9mo, after all else has failed (but he was waking many, many times a night). But I also think that we have to be realistic about what we expect our babies to do, sleepwise. DS2 (6mo) still feeds once a night but this seems pretty reasonable to me so I'm going with it for now.

[ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight]

My DS is a good sleeper and slept through pretty much from 4 months. He occasionally wakes in the night but goes straight back to sleep if you get up, pop dummy in and cover him with blanket.
I tried very light controlled crying to teach him to drop off by himself and it worked. So no, I don't believe there's nothing you can do, but I do believe that babies vary wildly on how good they are at sleeping through naturally and going to sleep by themselves. So some parents are unlucky with very poor sleepers, but they can be trained. I know that many parents can't bear to hear their children cry and maybe your DW is one, but I could't parent like that.