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Original poster

Phrases that make you weep

142 replies

KatieLily12 · 02/05/2013 10:22

So I have a difficult sleeper. I've been on here at various points desperate for advice. However, thought I'd start a giggle lighthearted thread for a change.

What phrases make you want to just face palm whenever someone says them?

My recent one, when I was explaining why a time wouldn't work for us, was 'why not come anyway and they can sleep in the other room while we carry on?'

I think I did well to laugh rather than openly weep.

OP posts:
detoxlatte · 07/05/2013 03:27

Am probably going to risk your wrath here, as the mother to a great sleeper.

I 100% subscribe to the view that it's mainly the luck of the draw whether you get a good sleeper (or eater, imo), but do believe that certain parental intervention can make a bad situation better, with both eating and sleeping.

I cannot imagine having a non-sleeper for months or years on end, it'd probably just about kill my marriage. It must be really, really hard, especially when you work and/or have other children.

As such, I just cannot get my head around why things like a bottle of formula, or baby rice in milk, or whatever else people suggest as possible solutions (CC, CIO etc) are such no go's (this is assuming they work, of course).

If you are so crippled by broken nights, what is the harm in these things?

Is the conclusion that either the sleep issues are not so bad, or that formula or baby rice or CC or CIO are so bad that endless broken nights are worth it?

I guess I can't understand the logic of "this sleep issue is killing me" in the same breath as "oh but we don't want to try x, y or z", when x, y and z have no side effects that would seem to be as bad as the apparent side effects of continual broken sleep.

Please help put me right, maybe I'm missing a link in the chain of reasoning somewhere!

piprabbit · 07/05/2013 04:04

detox - because for many parents the things you suggest have been tried and don't work or carry huge potential long term risks that the parents think are unacceptable.

So bumping in to someone like you who suggests the same old, tired ideas really does wear very, very thin.

BTW baby rice in a bottle of milk is a choking hazard, I hope you don't go around suggesting it to people in RL.

TwentyTinyToes · 07/05/2013 04:07

Was going to type out a reasoned and detailed reply to the above but i am up with my non sleeper and i can't be bothered!

Instead i will add, "you would think he would sleep, he has not stopped all day" hmm thanks dad, he still says it sometimes, 2.4 years later! Often followed up with "well, he must sleep tonight".

Judyandherdreamofhorses · 07/05/2013 04:38

Brilliant summary of everything this thread is about detoxlatte! If only you were joking with your 'parental interventions' making the situation worse...

ElphabaTheGreen · 07/05/2013 04:45

Oh, detox. I'm sure you're well-intentioned, but you nearly just earned my first ODFOD. Oh, I think you just did.

DS eats solids all day like he has five or six hollow legs. What do you suggest baby rice or formula is going to do? And how am I supposed to get formula into a bottle refuser who will only take mouth-wetting sips from a sippy-cup at random intervals?

I have tried every intervention from No Cry Sleep Solution to (God help me for even mentioning it) CC which deteriorated into CIO. It didn't work. He screamed for two hours then slept for thirty or forty minutes on a continuous cycle for SIX NIGHTS. I wish I'd never done it to him, and I was devastated at having got so low as to go to it as an absolute last resort, only to not have it work in spectacular fashion. It is NOT the panacea to all sleep problems that you lot with your sleeping babies seem to think it is. As nextphase said some babies are just wired not to sleep.

If DS doesn't wake me up for the...eighth?...ninth?...time, I might now be able to get in over an hour of sleep before the alarm goes off at six and I have to struggle through another day of work. Ugh.

NotSoNervous · 07/05/2013 06:35

I've had "well both of mine slept through from 6 weeks", well she's not fucking yours is she!

GingerPCatt · 07/05/2013 06:37

Yeah, DS is nearly two so rice in a bottle ain't gonna cut it. I can't do cc or CIO (no judgement on those who do). DS was in scbu for 3 wks after he was born and the idea of him crying for me and me not going to him bring up memories if him being in the hospital and me not being able to be there 24/7 for him. I can't do it.
When I'm complaining my mom always tells me that no sleeping is a sign of intelligence. Then she tells me that I was a poor sleeper. I think she's secretly enjoying the karma.

IsThatTrue · 07/05/2013 06:42

I had a wonderful sleeper in dd. then DS1 came along and I stopped being smug when I realised it had nothing to do with me. He didn't sleep for years!

I feel for all those with non-sleeping kids. But why do people not realise that just like adults the amount of sleep children need is entirely individual?

BalloonSlayer · 07/05/2013 06:59

Can I ask, do babies that hardly sleep when they are tiny grow up to be energetic Margaret Thatcher types who can survive on a couple of hours a night, or does the sleep thing suddenly normalise just when it's most inconvenient (ie as soon as they have to be up for school at 7.30 they start sleeping in till 8 sort of thing) ?

It's just that I have always wondered what bad sleepers are like when they are adults/teens.

Throughgrittedteeth · 07/05/2013 07:01

Yeah I can't imagine having a magic bottle of rice and milk at bed time, after a whole day of eating like a horse, will make any difference. tried it anyway so FTFO

WaitingForMe · 07/05/2013 07:29

I'm pretty lucky. After a month of 7pm-5.30pm DSs 6mth sleep regression is this with an hour awake between 3am and 4am. It's hard but could be a lot worse. He'll also go down awake (when it suits him).

However, he will not have naps in his cot. He will nap in our arms or in his buggy. Which is fine. But MIL cannot handle it, absolutely cannot tolerate this idea. Personally I like his warm snugly body and buggy naps mean I go out and about as I please.

Same conversation over and over with her saying I must not allow it, me asking why and her looking pained. But why why why?

EMS23 · 07/05/2013 08:45

Detoxlatte - I am absolutely, fundamentally opposed to CC/ CIO. Even if I wasn't, I have 2 older DC's who would wake up with the crying. The eldest, at 9yo would be ok probably but my 2.6 yo would then be screaming too and need resettling. It's just not an option.
And the long term effects of that level of stress on a baby are documented. It's simply not an option for me.

Thumbwitch · 07/05/2013 11:58

The one phrase that really used to piss me off was "he'll sleep well tonight!"
No he fucking won't. Because he never does after he's been exhausted during the day - he sleeps in the afternoon/early evening and consequently is AWAKE most of the fucking night. But thanks for your input.

Original poster
KatieLily12 · 07/05/2013 13:55

'She doesn't want to miss anything does she? Oh love her, she's a clever girl'

O.o

She's clearly missed mummy face planting trying to stay awake and if she was that clever she'd have worked out bed time eh?

Signed

Mother of future nuclear physicist

OP posts:
TheSurgeonsMate · 07/05/2013 14:09

balloon I can offer myself as an example. I was a b-a-d sleeper. I slept so little that my own personal opinion at the age of three or four was that I did not actually sleep at all. I can remember the first time I had the sensation of "waking up" and realising I had been asleep! Nowadays I like my sleep as much as the next person.

McKayz · 07/05/2013 14:11

Detox, I am unsure what a bottle of formula and baby rice is going to do. Except maybe the rice could make the baby choke.

I will not do CC or CIO as I find it cruel and unhuman. If other people do it and it works then I am pleased for them. But it is not for me.

dribbledon · 07/05/2013 16:53

From a health visitor no less: 'gosh he's a little chatter box isn't he? Wants to stay up and chat all night! Don't worry if he doesn't sleep during the day. That way, he'll fill up on milk and sleep through the night.' FFS. Scarily, I actually briefly believed her in my sleepless brain fog.

BerthaTheBogCleaner · 07/05/2013 17:05

"Oh I don't miss the baby days. It's so nice now we get to sleep through, and have lie-ins, isn't it?"

Well it would be, if I was. I did have 3 lovely years of it, between youngest child starting to sleep through, and him developing a medical condition that requires attention in the night. 7 years down, 10 or so to go ...

And by then I'll probably have turned into one of those old people who gets up at 4am for a nice cup of tea.

PoppyAmex · 07/05/2013 17:05

dribble the few times I saw our HVs I always lied said that DD was sleeping very well, thank you.

I had such rubbish advice from them when she was born that I lost all faith in whatever they say, so I really don't want their input.

"Mine love sleeping - they take after me and DH!"
Youdon'twin this made me smile as I used to be a sleep monster and feel like killing people who say this.

Nicknamefail · 07/05/2013 22:20

Gosh detox you are missing something, that this is a light hearted thread. Thank you for the unsolicited advice.

ThinkAboutItTomorrow · 08/05/2013 14:40

MIL - 'Don't try and force it, she'll go to sleep when she is tired, DS just fell asleep on the playmat once!'
ha ha ha.

Well DD keeps going like the Duracell fucking bunny. Then the screaming starts. And keeps going and going and going. Like the Duracell bunny's evil twin.

Titsalinabumsquash · 08/05/2013 14:46

My DS3 is 6 months and we've had a few months weeks of nightmare 'sleeping' so far the helpful advice I've had is..

"You just need to bite the bullet and make him sleep, get tough"

See why didn't I realise it was this simple all along?! I have to make him! Duh..

Nacknick · 08/05/2013 14:47

SettlersofKezan that made me laugh.A friend of mine once said about my non-sleeping DS "he's still at the age where he'll fall asleep in his dinner isn't he?"

Not in this universe no....

Nacknick · 08/05/2013 14:49

oh, and I've rememberer another one...

a friend once said when my DS was 18 months and still waking every 2 hours "why don't you take a week off work and sort it out?"

To this day I have no idea what she meant...

ThinkAboutItTomorrow · 08/05/2013 15:12

Any of the 'oh we had a bad night....' brigade when they go on to describe a night I would walk over hot coals for.

The older DD gets the more of this kind i have

Or almost as bad

"It's the uncertainty I hate, most nights she sleeps through fine but then every once in a while we have a bad one and she wakes up"

Yes, uncertainty is a killer isn't it? I much prefer my certain knowledge that she will wake up at least once, sometimes four or five times. Far worse to get a few through the nights thrown in than have the security of her waking up. Every. Single. Night. For 12 months.