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?

tired people have the same reactions as drunk people when driving.your flippancy is ridiculous bedlambeast.

On these threads co sleeping is always given as an answer- well it doesn't always work for everyone.

Neither of our dds have ever really fallen back to sleep in our bed. It ends up taking longer than staying in their own rooms to get them back to sleep again.

Also realistically if you have more than one child how comfortable is it to sleep with them in your bed?

We have a king size and with our 2 yr old in it we're guaranteed to be kicked all night long.

If they are in our bed and by some miracle do fall asleep- I still can't fall asleep as I'm so worried about hitting them in my sleep/waking them when I get up for a wee/them getting up without me hearing and falling out the window/down the stairs/DH rolling on them.. The list goes on..

My one yo hasn't needed milk at night since 5mo. I think that's fairly normal and pretty much all babies stop needing night feeds around 6 months for a reason.
Of course if you are co-sleeping and BF you are likely to feed at night for a very long time as the baby will want to feed, even if they don't need to. If you want to live like that it's your choice, but I don't think it's necessary to the baby's wellbeing at all.

Agree with Mananny, the best thing you can do for them at this age is teach them how to sleep through... maybe using the word teach is better than "train"
Imagine how unsettled you would feel if you woke up during the night and didnt know how to get yourself back to sleep?
We did controlled crying and i was amazed how quickly he learnt, within a week sleeping through after having only gone to sleep with me and milk! And he was so much happier during the day after a good nights sleep
HV told me that they don't need nighttime feed after 8months if they are eating well during the day.
If your sleep deprivation is having a serious negative affect on your wellbeing, then you should do something.
Your wife obviously feels very strongly about it, which is understandable but they are your kids too, and you should be able to have a say.... unless she does all of the nighttime feeds... but if she is in charge of bedtime.... why wouldn't you be getting sleep?

happy to tell you exactly how we did controlled crying if you want... it does have to be very precise I think

"What to Expect - The First Year" says:

By four months, most babies don't really need to be eating at all during the night. (From a strictly metabolic standpoint, babies can usually go through the night without a feeding once they've reached 11 pounds; whether they will or not is another matter entirely). If the night-waking habit continues into the fifth or sixth month, you can begin to syspect that your baby is waking not because he needs to eat during the night, but because he's become accustomed to eating during the night; a stomach that's used to being filled at regular intervals around the clock will cry "empty" even when it's full enough to last a lot longer."

This is on page 258 of my edition (2003)

Those of you who feel teaching a baby to sleep through the night is "damaging":

Could you explain how exactly a bit of crying because baby doesn't get what he wants for a few hours for a few days will damage him forever? In what way? And how?

Also, would you say this extends to teaching other habits, later on in a baby's life, which quite often involve crying? Is it "damaging" to take the dummy away? (We just did this, because DS was waking up every 15 minutes in the night, crying for us to stick dummy back in his mouth. It was bloody damaging to everyone's psychology!) Is naughty step "damaging"?

I've chipped in to this thread a few times now but will again to demonstrate the advantages of CC. Maybe seeing someone else's routine will help those who are struggling to get there.

Our routine now is that at 6-6.30pm DS (18 mo) asks to go to bed. We put him in PJs, give kisses, one of us takes him up to bed with a cup of milk, he snuggles down in his cot, says 'nanight' and waves and drinks his milk. We hear him singing or chatting to himself for about 10 minutes and then he sleeps (usually) until 7 or 8am. He then wakes up chatting to himself and when he wants us he shouts 'mum', 'dad' and we go and get him. If we're at work earlier we have to wake him up.

We got to this because at one point (about 5mo), DS was crying all night. We couldn't function, we were struggling with work and we were arguing all of the time. Our HV told us what to do and I couldn't thank her enough. All we did was put him to bed and let him cry for 5 mins at a time whilst standing outside the door and every 5 minutes saying soothing things. Same if he woke in the night. This went on for THREE nights. If he ever slipped into his old crying ways in the next couple of months, we did it again.

He now has a very positive and happy bed time. He refuses to get in our bed as he likes his own space and his own cot. When he's poorly if we try to put him in our bed he goes mad so we have to let him sleep in his cot and just keep nipping in and checking he's ok or put him on his mat monitor.

We do have the odd bad night- last night for example, he's getting his back teeth so he's been up crying and coughing. But we know that's it's not going to be every night and we get to sleep other nights so we can manage. We get on brilliant, too.

We usually go to bed about 9.30-10pm which is early but it suits us well. We get some tea and wind down time together and then go to bed.

I cannot recommend it enough.

This must seem to ideal to those who are up all night. I wanted someone to tell me 'the answer' when I was up all night with an unhappy DS.

I have to say, I believe there is a stage that babies reach, before one year old, where they start to need boundaries. Obviously very gently done, but I really feel they do. For example, DS only has dummy at sleep times. He gets told 'no' when doing something dangerous and gets 'ignored' if he cries at being told no. He also doesn't get picked up or played with at bedtime.
As long as boundaries are consistent and loving, they are a very good thing for children. Unconditional parentingesque styles that do not allow young children to ever get distressed are not actually doing them any favours. There is a massive difference between the distress cry of a hungry or frightened child, and the distressed cry of a thwarted or pissed off child, and I personally believe that children, even young chil;dren, should learn that being pissed off does not mean that mummy always runs to sort it out, I can't see how that's a positive message at all!

I'll be honest, I didn't have this experience, but I suffer with ME and require unbroken sleep, so midwife recommended sleep training from birth. It worked great, but I am with your DW - I don't think I would cope well with hearing DC crying about being forced into a routine he/she isn't used to or happy with.

My BiL wears ear plugs and a sleep mask so that my Sis doesn't wake him in the night when she gets up with kids. I wouldn't put up with DH doing that, but it works for them - you might get away with it?

Kat I could not agree more, well said.

Can I just do a quick hijack and ask what you do if your DS gets grumpy in day time without his dummy? DS refused a dummy until about 10mo when he was spending a lot of time with his cousins of the same age who always have dummys. Now he's very reliant on one at 'grumpy' times. He'd have it all the time if it was up to him, but I reserve it for when he's fed up and at night times. I'd like him to only have it at night though. Saying that, he doesn't seem to bother with it at night as long as he knows it's there.

To be honest, he doesn't tend to get grumpy unless he's hungry or tired so it's easily sorted. I usually give him a snack or some juice if it isn't near nap time. I do give it during the day for naps.

totally My DS has just given up dummy during the day too. He also is only really ratty when tired or hungry. If it's too early for dinner, a few raisins is usually enough to raise sugar levels and mood.

It is difficult to be around cousins with dummies, but we made a really big deal of how he was a big boy and didn't need one. Sometimes he picks one up, but if given a stern look he will reluctantly hand it to the child it belongs to.

We did go through a phase where he asked to go to bed, just because he wanted the dummy. I have always indulged this, and a few sucks late he is ready to come out. I think the important thing was that he couldn't have it outside the cot. He actually learnt very quickly and doesn't ask to go to bed in the day anymore.

Ah that's what I was getting at, that grumpy 15 minutes before nap time when I think 'oh just 'av it!!!!'

If he is grumpy 15 minutes before nap, and won't accept juice, just ask him if he wants to go to bed. If he's really tired he might say yes. You get 15 mins extra free time - bonus!

My DS can usually hang on now, because he would prefer to play than go to bed...

sorry, cross posted. I think I'll go with the 'big boy' thing. If he understands. He's 18 months and I generally tend to forget he's still a baby IYSWIM

p.s. my DS is in a bed now, with no sides, but he still knows that the dummy stays on the pillow when he gets out. He never brings it with him.

I think establishing a routine in giving it up is just as important as establishing a routine for sleep. It helps them understand the boundaries and eliminates frustration/confusion when they don't know why they can't have it.

DS is only 20 mo, he gave up dummy at 14 mo. He is still a baby, but they understand a lot more than we give them credit for IMHO

That's good to know! I'll definately give it a whirl then. DS is going in his big boy bed for the first time tonight so might as well start it all at once.

As an aside, the big boy bed was fine for 3 weeks, then DS went through a phase of falling out several times a night and had to return to cot for a bit

Worth putting a mattress or something soft down so that he doesn't startle if he does fall out. Mostly DS will just pop himself back in bed, but if it happens a lot it's (quite reasonably) distressing to land on a hard floor.

We've put a folded quilt down as I'm flapping about him falling but it's only really low anyway. Next baby is due Feb so she's getting the cot. I'm hoping to have him out of nappies by then. Tried past few days and he started well but now he just won't wee or poo all day until I put his nappy on him and I don't want him to get ill. It's a difficult transition from baby to small child isn't it?

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

snurk.

and

"OP you owe it to yourself, society and your sex life to sleep train tonight."

what utter puritan nonsense.

Truly. Is there only one place in your house you'd have sex?

co-sleeping is an opportunity to explore your house too.

and then of course, I woke up dd1 when having sex in our bed. the one time she woke up while we were having sex she was already in her own room. I fed her back to sleep in about 3 mins flat and went back to sex.

oops, that what you get for posting without previewing.

I We never woke up dd1 when having sex in our bed when having sex in the middle of the night.

We didn't take the dummy away either. We just let them grow out of that, too.