My Babies have all been swaddled in a dark room ...does that make me a hypocrite?

[NotAnOtter]

I have had five babies.
When I was young and naive a fantastic West indian Midwife in liverpool taught me to swaddle.
I have swaddled all my babies in a blacked out room ever since.
i believe i am a natural parenter...I go with the flow with my babies but i am fairly rigid on the sleep issue. My most recent baby (12 weeks) slept through from 4 days.
I resent people saying this baby when he cries will be feeling ' sheer panic'
I feel it much more natural than stuggling with broken nights with a one or two year old who suffers separation anxiety because they feel insecure in a bed on their own.
A contented baby is one who has slept and the quickest way of finding the key to sleep is to make it as womb like as possible. Yes he cries ...he is tired!

I don't actually think sleep is what makes a baby content, i think it's contact.
I guess i'll be one of those you resent for saying the baby on the other thread felt sheer panic as i said that in his case i would.
I have a totally different view to you about it. My first dd loved to be swaddled, i think that's great, second was a free spirit from day 1 but both loved to be cuddled. I don't personally find it natural to let a baby cry but i don't think people will EVER all agree about this.

i was taught to swaddle too, my babies were all premature and the hospital told me that it very like a womb and they used special swaddle thingies in SCBU. They all slept well (though dd2 doesn;t sleep well now she is 4)

For memy baby screaming/crying and causing itself emotional damage was not my issue in the least.
Their crying KILLED me inside.
Simple, I figured I can sleep when they're older.
And they did and I do...

Mine dont have to cry and cry. One of my children had problems early on and we frequently saw a paediatrition ...we had to estimate the length of time he cried and i would hand on heart say less than 15 minutes a day.
When he is AWAKE all my babies have contact...just not when they sleep.
I DO resent the comments and feel a happy baby is one who has slept and is secure enought o enjoy both contact time and time when primary carer is not there.....I see sleep problems going on into schools and causing many more issues than the first few years..

Also NotAnOtter, i don't think they will HAVE to feel seperation anxiety at 1 or 2. I'm not trying to be funny or argumentative honest, but don't you think they feel that when they're babies too?

i didnt start swaddling until DD was two months as i didnt know about it and i started to put her in dark room: instant improvement with her sleeping. i then began to put DD down just before she was asleep and let her settle herself, in a dark room on her own and she never cried for more than a few minutes. now at 13 months old, i can put her down for naps or bedtime and she will be asleep in five minutes in the dark no crying and sleep all night. i did what worked for my DD and me and am personally not bothered if people think there was something wrong in how i taught my DD to settle to sleep, if i were you i would stop worrying about other people and just stick with what works for you both :)

I can imagine ( at best thats what we are doing here) that sometimes as neonates its not nice for them...being alone etc..
what i believe is that for a handful of times until the learned response is established baby would prefer to be snuggled up to my warm boob
HOWEVER over the next twelve months when i am cooking ..racing around..toiletting toddlers..running to collect fro Girls cricket etc etc etc my baby will be happier than the one who no longer has mummy and has to cry because she is absent.
In the same way as mine was unhappy when newborn - my twelve week old is happily asleep reassured that this is what happens when he is in this crib and Mummy WILL ALWAYS BE THERE when he is awake!

haappy bebe i just dont like the feelng from the co-sleeping brigade that its all natural and lovely and those who dont do it are somehow wicked and unatural.

Neither of mine slept through the night fully until they were over 2, teething, illness I always held them, breastfed them through the night until 16 mths as well.
Both started sleeping through at 2 and both always were able to be put to sleep on their own as babies and toddlers
Different strokes, but neither of my kids have oe ever had sleep problems IMHO

co slept with ds, but not with dd, she had her own cot and loved it.

doesn't sound like you're exactly leaving them to cry for ages though NAO - I think that's what people are worried about.

FWIW I didn't co-sleep either but I don't feel that people are telling me off about it. I also had to leave my DD to cry sometimes because it became patently obvious that often me picking her up/cuddling/feeding her made her worse!

Also sounds like you were parenting naturally for yourself, not slavishly following a book - I think people are objecting to parents going against their natural instincts just because somebody else says so!

notanotter i do understand but thats motherhood for you these days as sad as it makes me to see. if you breastfeed for longer than say a year you get frowned upon, if you bottle feed you get frowned upon, if you use a routine, if you dont use one, if you use a dummy, if you dont, if you use jarred food, if you dont and on and on and on. there will always be some mother thinking her way is the only way or believing everything the so called experts spout and because you dont they shit on you. to all these women that have blind faith in everything these baby experts tell us just remember the thalidimyde scandal with all those poor women taking the 'safe tried and tested' tablets for morning sickness and the hundreds of deformed children that was the result.

As a mother it doesnt matter who disagrees with what you are doing if your baby is happy and benefitting, dont listen to anyone and have faith in your own abilities :)

oh and on the co sleeping thing i did post that obviously the so called expert happened to miss the house of tiny tearaways with the poor little 4 year old that had to be put back to bed 298 times in one night because the parents had allowed her to sleep in their bed right from day one. makes you wonder if it is worth helping baby to learn to sleep on its own whilst it doesnt remember that it might have cried for five minutes before it went to sleep rather than traumatise a four year old by suddenly deciding you dont want her inyour bed anymore.

living in tiny places has its advantages!

instead of co-sleeping w/mum and dad, there's co-sleeping w/siblings.

and it can last well into the teens.

expat that's what i'm going to try shortly, dd1 next to dd2.
NotAnOtter, if you're happy with your choices then just ignore others views. As Happybebe says, there will always be something to be criticised for.

NotanOtter I think you might be misreading some of those other posts.
Some people on Mn co-sleep but I think they are in a minority.
What people are objecting to is being told that leaving your child alone to cry in a dark room from almost day one is the "right" way to "teach" what is essentially a post-natal foetus to toe your line.
Nobody debates the value of swaddling, afaik - it's fantastic (when it works).
And blackout curtains made all the difference to us.
It's the leaving them to cry and cry and cry so that the baby will be "taught" to go to sleep when you decide it should be sleeping...there's a wealth of evidence to suggest that this is damaging, despite what several unqualified writers with an eye for a good book deal will tell us.
That's quite different from letting your baby nap in a quiet dark place and accepting that there will be a little cry as they settle, IMO.

Now why didn't i put it like that Pruni
Well sadi!

Well said!

"just dont like the feelng from the co-sleeping brigade that its all natural and lovely and those who dont do it are somehow wicked and unatural."

This sort of post seems to come up now and again. Where is this 'feeling' coming from? From people sharing information and support on threads about co-sleeping? From people telling one another how much they have enjoyed it? I don't see anyone telling anyone else they are wicked and unnatural. I see mothers discussing their experiences. Please let's not have co-sleeping become one of those 'no go' areas like breastfeeding sometimes seems to be, in case we give people a 'feeling' that people who don't do it are in some way bad.

i think there are also plenty of people who generally put babies and toddlers in their own space either in the parent's room or their own room but also sometimes have them in bed with them depending on the situation..it doesn't have to be either /or...there is lots of merit in being flexible too

I for one am delighted that I have been enlightened about the benefits of co-sleeping, and have found a way that works for my family - ds starting off the night in his cot, then coming in to us later on. I don't think there's anything wrong about putting your child in a cot if they are happy there. If swaddling and blackout blinds had worked for my ds I would have been overjoyed! But they didn't so now I am doing what is right for us. We all sleep better with ds in our bed. I need my sleep too, but I'd get much less of it if I had to keep getting up to him. And sex - well it's none of anyone's business but I think if you want to do it, you'll find a way.

Things aren't as black and white as "co-sleeping is good, cots are evil" or vice-versa as some would have you believe. Sometimes you set out having quite fixed ideas about how you should do things but then your baby does not always fit it with that and you have to rethink your whole attitude towards parenting.

I wish someone had told me that I was 'allowed' to co-sleep from day one, rather than being told it was bad for all sorts of reasons.

Personally NotAnOtter I dont think that there is anything wrong with the way that you have taught your babies to sleep. I started swaddling at 6weeks and if I had of know how wonderfully it works I would have started it from earlier. (if i have another child i will) My dd is 2.5 and a very happy and well behaved, well rested child. At eight o'clock (soon to be 7.30) every night she goes to bed and sleeps through till 8.00am when she wakes up as happy as larry and comes into my bed for a cuddle.

I also don't see anything wrong with the controlled crying method, quickly as mothers we know which are the pick me up crys from the hungry or painful crys. I don't think that it is cruel or unnatural.

Why is a 'pick me up' cry less valid than a 'hunger' or 'pain' cry?

because it is

stop press and irrelevant i know - my boy slept 14 hours last night ! today he has never been sweeter!