Crap sleep advice people have given you

[CyrilSneers]

I constantly get generously given crap, unsolicited I may add, advice on how to get my 6mo ds to 'sleep through the night'. My mum insists Farley's Rusks are the key to a good night's sleep as "all babies eat rusks". She also says I should give him formula as breast milk "isn't enough for some babies" and that he should have no naps and stay up until we go to bed so he's "nice and tired". That's just a few nuggets of wisdom from my mother; don't even get me started on health visitors. I'm beginning to understand why people falsely clain their LOs are sleeping through: my heart drops when I hear the phrase "Have you tried...?" Or am I just an ungrateful cow?

Also, like another poster said, my DMIL has forgotten all the problems she had with getting her kids to sleep and just simperingly says at me "I never had this problem with my children...". DFIL tells me otherwise, though!

He'll sleep if you ff. Nope. He'll sleep if you give solids. Nope. He'll sleep when he's crawling. Nope. He'll sleep when he's walking. Nope. He'll sleep if you give water not milk in the night. Nope. He'll sleep if DH goes to him not you. Nope. He's not tired enough. He's overtired. More naps. Less naps. Get out, fresh air. Keep him in, less stimulus. We hardly ever told people we coslept as the sleep judginess was magnified 20 fold. Arrrrgh.

DS woke every 2 hours until he was almost 3. DD1 woke every two hours until about 2 1/2. DD2 has just turned 2 and guess what she. does. not. sleep. I am now able to confidently say "We tried almost everything and I am under no illusion that the last thing we tried 'worked' my kids just grew out of it now off you fuck with your advice".

I do luff my second health visitor who said: Clever babies don't sleep. I don't believe her but could hug her for the total lack of judgement and lack of advice.

strikeout fail

Dd is, of course , very clever. This must be the reason why she doesn't sleep. Well done sneaky! From now on I shall simply say 'well, she's terribly advanced you know'

Nearly woke the baby laughing at these. He's just dropped off on my lap but I know he won't stay asleep.

My mum emailed me the other day to helpfully inform me the reason DS is mardy and fractious is because he's overtired. NO SHIT!

"Can you put him down when he's tired?" Ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I just did the floppy arm test and he smiled. Nearly pissed myself.

sneakybiscuiteater I could have written your first paragraph!

However we only have one DS (2.3) and he will remain an only child unless he starts sleeping properly. Soon.

My favourite comment is from my stepfather (who has no children of his own), who always says 'well he's been running around all afternoon so he'll sleep well tonight' erm... actually no, he probably won't, he runs around all day every day and still doesn't sleep, but you would know that if you ever listened to me (sorry, another thread altogether!).

Oh yes yes yes! To the ff, routine, putting down awake, not feeding, water at night comments.

I always admit its a total disaster here, though tbh I'm being driven to the edge by my non sleeping 9 month old dts (& I have DD 2.3) .

Co sleeping isn't/doesn't work for me though as mine are both light sleepers.

Can I add the really piss annoying twin ones?

-'they don't disturb each other' Mine do, they really do, please do come and help witness this if you don't believe me

-they must sleep better in the same place as its what they were used to in the womb' no, no they don't, eye gauging and general mauling each other doesn't help them sleep

-oh goodness, I'm glad I.don't have twins, ones bad enough . Why thank you, most helpful and lovely comment fuck off, fuck off, fuck off!

'I has twins and they were easier than my singleton' well mine aren't and now I feel like a twin mummy failure too, cheers...

When my mother does the 'i never had a baby who cried, woke, left any dinner etc' speech my dad does occasionally mutter 'well maybe the first one....'

Aside from the blatant lying rose tinting effects of time. I do think that we may have slept better as babies as we were swaddled up in blankets in an ungodly heat, placed on our fronts etc. you are also not likely to recall babies gaving 20 min naps if you parked them 20ft down the garden. Products like infacol used to have alcohol in them too. So maybe thirty years ago babies did have less sleep problems - doesn't mean thing were better though.

Munchkinmaster- you are so right about what our parents say, both about the rose tinted effects and the things they did 30 odd years ago.

My mum is always telling me DS must not be warm enough, even though its over 20 degrees in here and he's well wrapped up.

And as for sleep fighting/ high needs babies being clever, I liked that until I realised I was the opposite, a very easy, sleepy baby.

By the non sleeping = clever reasoning I've got mini fecking Sheldon Cooper next door checking her watch for her next scheduled wake up.

munchkin

'have you tried this singing seahorse?'
Ok, now he's awake and playing with the singing seahorse.

talking of sleep.
you know how you know they're asleep when they've fallen off your nipple? well, DD had just done this - except a tiny weeny bit of her mouth was still touching the nipple. (ow) so I pulled that last bit out of her mouth.
now she's fully awake and screaming. bad mummy.

Oh yes. I had the "is he good?" one.
Replied with "we'll he's not quite ready for pinching cars and mugging old ladies yet, so yeah I suppose he is rather good"