Am I just making it all worse?

[sproutpudding]

Hello, I've already posted before about problems I'm having with my DC's sleep and the boringly long background is here.

So, since I last posted we had seriously wonderful sleep every night - until a couple of night's ago. Now DC wakes for a couple of hours in the middle of the night.

Last night I tried my alternative to my DH's preference for leaving her to cry. When she started yelling, I would get up and lay my hand on her to soothe her; when she calmed down I would remove it and sit beside her, then withdraw to my bed which I sat on where she could see me, and then got into bed and lay down.

How long I got to lie down varied between 30 seconds and about 30 minutes. Eventually after 2 hours of repeating this she went to sleep.

But my DH says this is in fact teaching her bad habits, that if she doesn't immediately go to sleep she can rely on having my attention and that's what he wants. He says that I'm saving up problems so that she will suffer more in the long run.

Is he right? I know all babies are different. I know it's only been the first night and I thought things didn't go THAT badly, I was expecting it to be hard. I want to give this at least a couple more nights to see what happens but on the other hand, I don't want to be being inadvertently cruel to my baby because I am weak and can't bear her yelling.

Any advice gratefully received, especially if you've tried something similar.

Thanks!

I did controlled crying with DD2 and it was hideous and didn't really work for her, as we had another child so her screaming for 1 hour + was not really going to work.
I feel that responding to your baby and reassuring her, whilst letting her know that you are there, but, not talking to her so she knows it's different from daytime attention, is good for her and you.
All this talk about bad habits comes from a place of fear, not from a nurturing place, if you woke up in the night and were frightened after a bad dream, you might hug your partner and feel reassured and then go back to sleep. Why should it be any different for a child?
This is what I did for my DS1 (who is my DC3), and it worked, as long as night time reassurance is different to daytime attention. Surely being unresponsive to your child is a much worse habit?? Just IMO and experience.

bump

Hello Ealingkate and thank you so much for your advice, you're making me feel much better and less of a weak-willed failure! You've given me something to think about.

I believe the root of the trouble is the nine-month sleep regression (which nobody else in my real life believes in!). She wakes up and cannot go back to sleep again.

My mother's suggested moving her cot out of our bedroom into her own room, and then getting up and attending to her if she wakes. She thinks our being so close to her is exacerbating the problem.

So I think I might try that tonight and see if it's more successful...

My DC all went into their own room after a few months as we always seemed to wake them up or they woke us up.
I would definitely try moving her, also does she wear a grobag??

Thanks for replying again Ealingkate! Yes she does wear a grobag.

Weirdly, although she can roll over and pulls herself up during the day using anything to hand, at night she lies quite passively on her back no matter how vociferous she is.

I just wondered whether she was warm enough, as it's been so cold recently, but she should be OK if she's in a grobag. It's worth checking how warm her back is when she wakes up, I used to put a blanket on aswell when it got really cold. How was last night??

That is a worry; we live in a house without central heating and it has been very cold here. At the moment she sleeps in a padded grobag and under a duvet and three blankets. She also has a thermostatically controlled heater by her bed. Her hands get rather cold but the rest of her seems pretty warm; I do keep checking.

So, last night, well I think it went a bit better. DH refused to move the cot out and said it would make things worse; he moved out though and slept in the spare room. DD went to bed early as she hadn't napped properly all day and I went to bed early too. She woke up at nine and went a bit mad, I've never seen anything like it, screaming like a wildcat, writhing, throwing things about. I sat beside her with my hand on her, shushing her, it didn't seem to make any difference. After perhaps ten minutes she calmed down a bit and I gave her back her dummy - earlier spat furiously across the room - and when she was quiet, after another few minutes, I got back into bed. She gave a grumpy yell or two, but I decided that I would wait 1 minute as I was in the room near her before I got up and went to her. And before that minute was anything like up, she had stopped and lay quietly before falling asleep.

Then she woke up at three and yelled, but not in the scary way like before, just in her usual 'cross' way. So I waited a few cries until she had really got going a bit, and then I went over, laid my hand on her, she calmed down quite quickly, I got back into bed, she complained again a few times and then lay quietly for another 30 minutes at which point we went through everything again. And then she slept until 6:30, which is actually later than usual!

I would be feeling a bit more hopeful but she has just refused utterly to take a morning nap. I've tried rocking her, putting her down and sitting with her, putting her down and leaving to return sporadically - nothing worked. So after about half an hour I took her out again.

DP is not pleased, especially about the nap. He says that as I continue to give into her demands she will demand more and more and keep having temper tantrums. He says that DD is 'too attached' to me and I must change my attitude. However, he has now said that I am 'in charge' of sleeping, albeit in a way that suggests that unless I leave her to cry it out nothing will work and I will encourage her to turn into a monster.

Sorry this is so long! It's so good to be able to discuss this with someone who can see my point of view and what I'm trying to do; I really appreciate your advice Ealingkate as an alternative to leaving her to cry.

It seems like the nights are getting much better, don't worry about the nap in the early days, if she is changing her sleep patterns then things may be different in the day until the nights are more consistent.
Is your DP around in the daytime?? How does he know about the nap? I understand where he is coming from you have both been subjected to sleep deprivation for a long time and we are all fed messages of this sort (i.e. give into her demands and it will just get worse etc.),from older generations but that is not my experience.
I think more research has been done to say that if you reassure your baby when they are really upset, then it makes them less fretful in the long term as they know they can rely on you.
There is lots of lovely reading on attachment parenting on www.naturalchild.org.
I didn't go the whole hog on this but, I did relax and listen to what I thought was good for my baby rather than thinking of her/him as creature who needed to know that I was in charge. You are not weak for wanting to meet the needs or your gorgeous LO.

Hello Ealingkate and thank you for sticking with me!

My DP is around during the day - we share the child care and work from home. He had put DD down for her naps so knew exactly how long she had (not) been asleep.

What annoys me about this is that we have NOT been subjected to sleep deprivation for a long time. That was true two months ago, but DD turned into a lovely sleeper when DP got up for her in the nights instead of me (she'd become so addicted to breastfeeds she was waking for them every hour and then feeding for 30 minutes of that hour and I couldn't go on like that!). It's only been a few days, and at the tail end of a cold and with a tooth possibly coming through, so it's not as if we were at the end of our tether.

HOWEVER I shall stop grumping about DP because he has apologised. Furthermore, DD went to sleep yesterday afternoon for 3 hours, which did her the world of good. She then went to bed at 7. Just after 3 I woke up and she was lying there quietly awake; she started to complain a bit so I got up for her and she calmed down immediately. She did lie awake until nearly 5, poor thing, but she was completely calm and quiet. Her morning nap was only 30 minutes but she did wake an hour later than usual and often does skimp a bit with naps so that's OK.

Of course, it's just one night, but it proves to DP that DD is not turning into a demanding monster but that this suits her just fine. Instead I think it reassures her that if she needs one of us we will come, and as you say, that must be a good thing.

DP is from an older generation than me (I'm SO young heh heh!) and also has worked with troubled children which I think is colouring his viewpoint. In addition, having had children before he finds it difficult when I have different ideas from him which I've just 'got out of books', it's as if I'm saying he doesn't know what he's doing, which I'm not! He now admits that he was wrong. I think I'll try and talk more with him in the next few days when he's a bit less emotional.

Thanks again Ealingkate, it's been so useful and supportive to have a place where I can come and vent. I'm going to go and read that website you recommended now!

(Oh I do go on don't I!) :)

Glad to hear you're feeling good about the situation, and no you don't go on. It's lovely to be supportive to someone who's in a situation similar to one that I've been in.
I didn't know about mumsnet at that time, but, I would have been on it all the time!!