"once she hit 9lbs, we never responded to her after that..."

[Popscotch]

Namechanger because I don't want my neighbour to clock this one IYSWIM....

Today, I had a cup of tea with a neighbour. She is my age (late 30s), well-educated, SAHM, former professional and extremely friendly. She has 3 girls of similar age to my 2 DDs. So far, so normal. But when we got talking, inevitably, about sleep routines and bed times, I was, ahem, surprised by what she said.

I mentioned that my 15 month old still wakes at night and I am still breastfeeding her, even at night. My neighbour responded with:

"All mine slept through the night from veru early on. My little one [aged nearly 1] slept through almost as soon as we got home from hospital. And now, she goes to bed at 8.30 and wakes up at 7am [pause]....I mean, I realised that as soon as a baby weighes 9lbs, they can sleep through the night, so once she hit 9lbs, we never responded to her at night again. So, we did used to hear her crying of course, small house and all that, but it was never a problem. We knew we didn't want to start that asscoiation of crying in the night, mummy will come and you'll get milk. So, she got used to it and slept through really well. For a bit, she would wake up around 6am which was too early for me, and i knew I would be too knackered, so I never went into her until gone 7 ish. She still wakes up now but she's generally a really good sleeper. As were my other two DCs."

I might add, she is currently pregnant with her fourth child.

AIBU to put my judgey pants on? I mean, 9lbs? Some babies are born at 9lbs....

Its her problem not yours. But ok to be judgemental. Some people will be judgemental of me....

Although not sure that would work for all babies at 9lbs though some might cry all night. Others would vomit on themselves as they were so stressed or fill their nappies and end up with bad nappy rash from sitting in in all night.

Also IMO big difference in letting an over tired well feed, winded, fresh nappy etc baby cry down for a bit (say 15 - 20 mins) than letting a starving baby cry when they haven't been fed for 4 hours.

I am not against some controlled (ignored) crying in the night and I think its ok to let even quite new babies see if they can settle themselves if they cry in the night esp if its only been an hour or so since their feed BUT what you describe sounds like it is close to neglect.

I agree 9lb is very very little, ds was nearly that at birth and definitely needed feeding regularly including through the night.

However do we know the full picture? My ds went thru a "phase" at 3-5 months of taking virtually no milk in the day and having it all at night, it was torture. I had to stop bf as a result just so dh could do some feeds and I could get some sleep (the sleep deprivation had made me physically and mentally unwell, quite badly hallucinations and paranoia). We managed to turn it round but it took a LOT of effort and hard work.

Once we established at 6.5 months that ds (fully weaned onto solids at this point) was waking out of habit rather than any nutritional need we did cc. It took 1 night and fingers x-ed he's slept thru ever since and is fine. Eats and drinks LOADS between the time of 8am and 8pm and is a lively happy big baby. The whole family (have dd 3.8 as well) is also a lot happier.

TBH I'm always a bit when i hear people are still bf their toddlers during the night or when they're 18m + or whatever. They don't need it for nutrition (in the majority of cases) why not do something about it?? What is bf at night doing for the mother? Is it actually more to do with her needs? I happen to think habits like that are dealt with sooner (6m to 1y) rather than later (eg local Mum who still feeds her nearly 4 year old up to 4x per night and is sleep deprived and depressed, the 4 year old isn't too happy either).I'm not saying cio btw there are other less punitive methods obviously.

minxofmancunia - lots of children wake briefly in the night until they are 3/4 - this has nothing whatsoever to do with parenting and everything to do with biorhythms!

My DD slept through the night from birth - and I mean REALLY slept through, did not cry or of course I would have gone to her.

My midwife at the time was a bit funny with me when I told her this, asking "was I sure I could hear her properly". At the time this annoyed me as I thought she was being unreasonable to say this to me.

However, having heard this story I can understand why she said it as there obviously are mothers who are stupid enough not to feed a hungry baby.

This is mad and cruel as at that age you would EXPECT a baby to need a feed in the night. I was expecting this with DD but she was unusual in not needing it. My DS, however, was very different and needed hourly night feeds for about 9 months. And I got up and fed him. Once he got to 9m and was obviously not hungry when waking (smiling at me when I walked in and wanting to play) I did do controlled crying to get him to sleep through. But would not have dreamed of doing this with a very young baby who is obviously hungry.

It is cruelty, but I don't know what you can do about it.

Bonsoir - yes, even adults wake briefly in the night, but it is important that they learn to settle down by themselves without requiring the attendance of their exhausted mother!

Just to play devils advocate here ...

Do her children seem happy and healthy?

If so, then maybe take off the judgey pants.

My mum and uncle seem happy and healthy, but my mum can still remember the horror of listening to her little brother screaming with hunger for a solid week at the age of 8 weeks when my gran decided it was time for him to stop night feeds. That was apparently standard practice then.

And my uncle has had a lot of problems with relationships and showing affection in his life. Just makes you think....

Minipie
I don't want to give too many details because it seems a bit mean on the kids (who is to know why /how these things happen) but I would not really say they seem healthy and happy; her DD2 (aged 3.8) is seeing some type of psychologist for rage issues, which nursery pushed for and the one year old is very unhappy to be separated even momentarily from her mother.

I really don't want to put my judgepants on about the DC though, as I really feel it is not their problem. They are really very little. But the mother is a different matter. Did I mention that she's pregnant with her 4th?

If dd2 is seeing some type of psychologist, thier first line of assessment is whether problems are due to 'bad' parenting. So im sure they will set her straight on the wrongs and rights of how she handles situations.

They will also ask her in depth about her other children.

what you describe is neglect
no question

How can you physically do it? My body responds to my baby's cries before my brain even gets a look in.

I wear earplugs at night because of DH's snoring and can still hear every sigh and shuffle from DS2.

He was 9lbs at birth, I just couldn't leave him to cry at night. Feel quite sad at the thought of a tiny little baby screaming their hearts out and then just giving up. It is mean.

Popscoth - judge away... I am!!!

That's is awful,it may have worked for HER but has it worked for her babies? Clearly not!

It makes me feel sick to think of leaving a baby to cry like that, FFS that is how they communicate, it's not as though a 9lb baby can shout "hey mum, come in here a sec, I need a nappy change" or "mum can you turn the heating up I'm cold!"

DS didn't sleep through reliably until he was at least 2. I made a decision not to feed him during the night when he was 2 (he was still having 1-2 feeds in the night), but he was ready for it as he didn't protest very much.
However I still get into bed with him around 4-5ammost mornings, because he calls for me. Plus it means we can both sleep in until 7am and I don't get woken up by DH's alarm clock at 5:45!!
I see it as responding to the needs a very small person who still sees me as the centre of his world. He won't be this age for long, and there are lots of things he used to do (like feed every 2 hours) that he doesn't do now as he has grown out of them.
We still have boundaries, and a loose routine (he goes to bed and has his meals at the same time every day) as I think it is good to have some structure to your day. But I hate this idea of forcing very young babies into your idea of a rigid routine.
If you need to introduce a routine, you need to make sure that not only it is right for you but it is right for your child as well.

Hmm sorry appeared to have rambled on a bit there!

A client phone me at work the other day.

I could hear a young baby crying - a really piercing distressed wail. Oh I can hear the baby Mr So and so I'll call you back. Client sounds suprised ..oh he's ok, he's been fed. so we spoke.

The five minute call felt like an eternity and I couldn't wait to hang up.

Really distressed crying from any baby unsettles me. I couldn't leave DD to cry like that and a hungry baby would certainly cry like that at least at first.

I'm definitely not 'lentil weaver'. DD well over 9lb at birth and definitly required feeding!

It reminds me of that awful TV programme a few years ago where different styles were tried with babies. The woman doing the truby king routine - claire verity, swaddled two tiny twins and sent the parents out for the evening and said to the babies on camera that's the last we'll see of you until morning!

Turtle that was a lovely post and I enjoyed reading it. I did a similar thing with my dd

she must be the sister of my (quite posh) acquaintance who is working prof Mum, own business.

My DD is about 4 months older than her DD & she quizzed me all about my childminder (who we had & still have wonderful success with). She gave a co-childminder a trial and after being very keen then changed her mind rather suddenly & dramatically.

The trigger for the change was I had commented that as DD was getting older (around 1 or so from memory), it was important for us to get out & about at the weekends (esp as we live in tiny flat). This lady took this to mean childminder = more demanding child (having been in stimulating environment all week) as in having to actually interact with kid on the weekend.

She got a nanny. Instructed minimal interaction with child as she didn't want too much hard work in the weekends. Child often in corner of office with no one talking to her.

Child is now 2+ and doesn't talk. At all. No physical reason apparently - its developmental.

I can't imagine making decisions on this basis - different world.

What sort of nanny would agree to minimal interaction with her charge, I think that's either rubbish or there is a physical reasonthe child doesn't talk tbh.

I am just amazed that all her children were poured out of some Fanny Craddock school of mothering production line..?

Aren't all kid's different??

5YO DS who was born 10lbs did sleep through after 6 weeks from 11pm to 5am after he was put into his own room. (not hunger - husband's snoring was waking him up )

This was after an almost Desperate Dan sized bottle of breast milk that I had expressed early in the morning to stop boobies exploding, plus a good go on Mr Lefty and/or Mr Righty.

PS 5YO sometimes wakes at 6.00am to say mum I'm starving can we go down for breakfast?

Should I say "no go back to bed and cry yourself to sleep till the 7.30 alarm?"

When my ds got past 11 lb I started offering him water or a dummy when he woke up for milk. He was fairly happy with that, we had no screaming (I never would have ignored him crying anyway) and soon learnt that water wasn't really worth waking up for.

But I don't know any mother can ignore her small baby screaming. It's a distressing noise!

dixie I remember that programme very well, it was just after dd2 had been born. One evening I listened to the babies crying on the programme, and had to go and wake my own dd to feed her because my boobs were leaking. (don't worry, it wasn't cruel waking her up, she loved endless dream feeds and spent a lot of the evening feeding anyway)

It upset me a lot at the time. One of the women (who was following the Truby King method) left her tiny baby crying so she could enjoy a glass of wine/dinner/sex with her dp. Fab for her but not so for the tiny baby.

Popscotch - I knew somebody who did similar with her babies, and talked about it to me - like you, I found it very shocking.

This is how my exMIL treated all of her babies, back in the 50s and 60s -- and bragged to me about what great sleepers they were, how she never got up in the night for any of them. None of them are happy adults.

TBH, this attitude towards the needs of helpless babies makes me feel ill.

We are designed to respond to the cries of babies -- their cries are designed to elicit a caring response.

uggh onepieceoflollipop -

HOW COULD ANYONE INDULGE IN SEX WITH A BABY CRYING?

I used to have to turn the monitor off, whip through it in 3 mins (no touching above the waist), THEN get my husband to go and check sleeping DS in his room to ensure that he was alive and that my shenanigans of 3 minutes pleasure hadn't caused Omen style lightening bolt (or evil black crow) to come through the window and get him as payback for sexual sins....

...and I'm not even religious.

Thankfully husband understood temporary madness and stood by me

MiL says dh was 11lb at birth but didn't sleep through until he was nearly 4!!!
I can't believe she had any more tbh...
I'm nit convinced weight has anything to do with it...

Al of mine were heavier than that at birth. Why weight as a criteria? Why not age if you want to do that sort of thing?

My god, my 2 boys were both around 10lb birth weight and used to feed at least every 3 hours and fed in the night up to being around 6/7 months!How very old fashioned and controlling to suggest 9lb as a guide. Feel very sorry for those children