Starting to think if it ain't (totally) broke don't fix it... Should I just live with DD's bad sleep?

[emeraldgirl1]

When I read this board I start to wonder if DD's sleep isn't as terrible as everyone keeps saying to me in RL.

Of course in RL virtually everyone I know has babies who sleep fine.

DD is 9 months. Her pattern changes, either she wakes v v briefly 4 times a night, not including a longer wake for a feed OR she wakes twice, once for a feed when she then takes 1.5ish hours to go back to sleep and then again briefly at around 4 or 5.

A bad night (and there have been many) is her waking me 5 or 6 times even if she only truly wakes twice herself, then waking for good at 5am and not going back to sleep no matter what I do.

A good night is her waking only twice, once just for a feed then straight back to sleep, then again briefly at 4.30ish. Needless to say there have not been many of these nights.

However these days, since she was about 7m old, I am coping with the chronic sleep deprivation by taking her back into bed with me at some point every night, either during one of her multiple brief wake-ups (to stop her waking properly) or when I first hear her stir at around 4am, to try to stave off early waking.

So I cobble together a manageable night of sleep most of the time. A bad night is a maximum of two hours unbroken sleep for me, totalling 5ish hours altogether. An average night sees me getting maybe one period of 4 hours and then a couple of 2 hour or 90min stints, totalling 7ish hours.

The positives are that she goes to sleep v easily at the same time each evening, she naps well and she will go to sleep in her cot as long as I am nearby, sometimes she can even drop off with me just sitting beside her with no physical contact (not often but sometimes)

I am constantly being told that I am coping with a nightmare scenario and that I must start some form of sleep training, even just something like NCSS (which I have bought but can't really make much sense of!!)

I was even thinking recently about hiring a sleep trainer (one who does not advocate any CC)

BUT I am really wondering now if actually this is not too dire a situation. For example the positives I listed above. That's something to hang onto, right?

I can't help but think that things may get better as teething gradually draws to an end (she is a horrific teether)

She s a dummy addict and that is part of the problem but I am having a bit of success weaning her off it.

So does anyone agree, if it ain't totally broke don't fix it?

DD is a pretty high-needs, strong willed, resistant baby and I worry that any form of sleep training may just make a manageable situation worse...?

To me it sounds normal for a baby who isn't co sleeping.

Have you considered co sleeping properly?

The nights you describe are a bit like mine BUT the crucial difference is the baby is in my bed so I don't have to get up, or try and persuade him to sleep in his cot.

It makes all the difference to the amount and quality of sleep I get.

I've not sleep trained any of my three - this is my youngest and last and I don't intend to start now, because as you say, it's normal. And you can get plenty of sleep most of the time, even with disruptions, if you're in the same bed

Go for it

and don't listen to anyone except me

Actually re reading this I am not sure that an 'average' night sees me getting a period of 4 hours... On a normal night I probably get a maximum stretch of 3 hours unbroken and that's cos I go to bed at 8.30pm!! A stretch of 4 hours would be a good night, not a normal one!

She has v occasionally slept 7pm til 2am herself... Which is a good sign, perhaps?

What I mean is, your bringing her into bed with you solves it and that can work even better if you do it consistently.

Mine all settle(d) so much better when I was next to them...they sense your smell and warmth and just drift off happily, then you can get up and do stuff if you want till you're tired enough to join them.

Night wakings are much shorter and calmer when they know you are right there.

IMHO (and experience) what others say or think doesn't matter.

Do you and your DD get enough sleep to function? That's really all that matters, right?

FWIW, I tried sleep training with both my DCs but they found it distressing and so I stopped. I rarely get a solid night of sleep, but I get enough sleep to function, with the odd bad day here and there, and the odd lie-in and early night needed.

IHeardMummy, thank you!!

Have considered it but keep getting the fear (thanks to people insisting...) that I will be building the proverbial rod for my own back etc etc... And that I will have her in my bed til she is 18 etc...

Though tbh have probably already build the rod by hoiking her out of her cot in the small hours when I just can't face leaning over the rail fr 2 hours... My mum certainly thinks so, she tells me DD has formed a habit now nd expects it. I'm not sure, as surely if it was a habit she would wake at roughly the same times each night? And it does vary a lot.

ChristmasJumper... I guess I do function ok. I worry as I am starting proper work again (am self employed so don't need to work set hours BUT its a creative job and I do need to be fairly alert)
But yeah, I guess I function ok. Coffee helps. Early nights/no real socialising too, but that doesn't bother me temporarily. Would love the occasional weekend lie in and DH keeps offering so I should take that more.

Plus I did find when I was trying to impose my pattern onto ds1 - years ago, he is 10 now - that I was far more knackered just from having had to rouse myself to the necessary cognitive level to make it to his room, without falling over.

It was the worst week or two of my life in terms of sleep.

If you don't have to wake fully, and you can respond to and hear their little noises immediately, you don't get so tired...you kind of stay in a sleep state, in a way, well awake but not in the same way, because your sleep is slightly lighter. If you go into a deep sleep away from your child, rousing from that leaves you 'sleep drunk' and that's an awful feeling.

You do sleep lighter when you co sleep but that's the whole point, itls actually less difficult I think, physically, to cope with than the contrast between deep sleep and being woken by a distant child you then have to navigate to.

The rod/back thing is nonsense really...I think people approach it from a sort of 'well look what the baby is doing, must be something you've done' sort of viewpoint which is understandable but it isn't necessarily the truth of it.

Babies do sleep like that, and yes they want to be near you but not because you've led them to believe that's the done thing - it's because it's theit instinct. People go to all sorts of lengths to try and teach their babies that it isn't the done thing, and what good does that do.

If babies didn't initiate the wanting to be close to us, sleep training would never be necessary in the first place to convince them that it was undesirable.

And if we find it desirable too - and actually easier on us - then that's brilliant.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to be honest, I have 2 very different experiences. Dd1 slept from 8 weeks all the way through 7-7 perfect baby (apart from near death hernia experience)

Dd2, well...she is 1 next month and sleep is still pretty shite. In the last few weeks I have decided I've had enough of the waking as she doesn't need anything from me she wants a cuddle but we all need sleep more than anything so if she wakes aslong as she isn't hysterical crying I leave her and don't go in. She cries I go in quick comfort but thats all there is.

A good night would be 4/5 hours of sleep, a bad night would be maybe an hour or two at a push.

It depends on how fed up you are, and more importantly how tired your dd is. I now have sorted naps and daytime food so she has a big nap early in the day a small cat nap in the afternoon, we have recently put bedtime a bit later as I am again fed up with starting myday at 4.30am.

I have never and don't agree with co sleeping, totally my own opinion there would never tell anyone not to do it.

I agree I think IHeardMummy... Also I have had those awful nights where DD goes back to sleep, or barely wakes, and I then lie awake for 2 hours because my sleep pattern is so wrecked...

I guess really my problems come down to two things 1) I hate the cold, rather lonely and sometimes long nights awake with a wakeful baby, knowing you have no control over when they will sleep and 2) I feel a bit of a pariah in RL because everyone keeps saying they can't believe I put up with it/I will get ill/they feel so sorry for me etc etc

Fwiw my instinct is that DD would find any kind of sleep training quite distressing... As I say she is one of 'those' babies: an utter joy and the light of my life but very very strong willed and quite sensitive.

'I hate the cold, rather lonely and sometimes long nights awake with a wakeful baby, knowing you have no control over when they will sleep'

I hate that feeling too but have only ever had it when I wasn't co sleeping.

Co sleeping solved everything for me - well it was only those couple of weeks when ds1 was a lot older, probably around 1 and a half, and I was under pressure from my Mum to get him out of my bed - when I didn't co sleep. It was awful. Knackering.

I found very quickly that as soon as any of my babies was in my bed, warm, in my arms and felt I was there with them, they just went to sleep immediately unless they were struggling for some other reason - teething or poorly or hungry etc. They just slept when I was with them.

So indeed - why fix it if it ain't broke!

Good luck. Hope it works out Ok. And cot next to your bed is pretty much as good, esp if you take off the side so you can have close contact/put your arm under them till the drop off etc.

I take my arm out when they are fast asleep and then roll over and get some kip myself.

Tiny turtle thank you!

It's funny really as like you I was v against co sleeping for ages, just couldn't get my head around why anyone would do it etc... Fast forward to 7m and I just felt so miserable one night I got her into bed with me, packed off DH to the spare room (I still do, he's v heavy, rolls a lot in his sleep and a v heavy sleeper...) and somehow found it worked and I felt happy with it...

I have to admit I now really really enjoy the closeness; after the tough days I have with a high maintenance baby it feels like my reward.

Interesting to hear you had two totally different experiences, that does make me feel a bit better as I do wonder if babies just are as they are and not much that we can do about it!!

'I have to admit I now really really enjoy the closeness; after the tough days I have with a high maintenance baby it feels like my reward.'

Ha - you just reminded me of the bit in the MN guide to babies, there's a quote from someone called flightattendant and she says pretty much that...however absent or busy you are in the day, you know you're there for your child in the night.

that wasn't me, Oh no

IHeardMummy thank you!!

As I say, even the realisation that DD would go back to sleep quickly (mostly) in bed with me made things much more bearable! I'd really be a wreck now if I hadn't done that for the last two months.

Can I ask, as you've obviously had plenty of experience and are well past the baby stage (?) how your DCs eventually handled going into their own beds when they were ready?

Oh of course!

Well, ds1 was a bit of a stressy one and stayed in my bed till ds2 arrived, and then got fed up with the baby being so wriggly and stomped off to his own room...he was just four.

Bit different for us as I was a single parent. Things weren't so easy. Also we have a different dynamic perhaps due to that...but anyway...he didn't need to sleep alone, so I never made him.

Ds2 slept in my bed again till ds3 arrived. But he is now confident to sleep in his own bed. I am sure it would have happened earlier if it had been necessary.

I think you'll be Ok. The thing is, when they are babies they really need to be near you. As they grow up, you can initiate routines and reasoning and so on if you so wish. I can't tell how it will be for you but if you are responsive to their needs now then you will be later, and that is all you have to do. The rest will follow.

Thank you IHeardMummy...

I do have a good friend who did Gina ford, controlled crying etc etc and who now literally cannot get her 5 year old out of her bed, he just started refusing to sleep in his own bed at 4 years old and there is nothing she can do! So I guess maybe there really is v little any if us cn do to predict these things!

I hate, cannot and won't co-sleep. (we have 3dc under 5) I struggle to sleep with DH! I have had three uninterrupted nights sleep in the last 12 months and am dreading going back to work because I don't get enough sleep.

Trying to 'fix' the kids sleep by whichever means hasn't really worked. The only thing that has helped me is trying to help me go back to sleep when I am woken up. So making sure I am relaxed through relaxation/ meditation type stuff, early nights, and, while I am doing night feeds my DH doing nearly all of the early starts. These things mean I just about get enough rest to not become a lunatic. that wasn't me slamming doors and effing and jeffing at one this morning, oh no

I'm so sorry but haven't read all of this but decided to reply regardless. DD2 is 13 months and an equally crap sleeper. I'm feeding her back to sleep right now (she's got a cold so worse than normal) 2nd waking since going down.

I Co sleep part of the night, so I don't have to keep staggering across the landing and I get "some" sleep doing it this way.

The rod shit is that. ..shit. DD1 was even worse than DD2 and woke every 90 mins roughly till she was 18 months. She's now 3 and occasionally climbs in our bed in the middle of the night but mostly sleeps 10 or 11 hours by herself.

Don't listen to anyone else. Mum's on my local circuit joke about my offspring's sleep in a "sleeping any better" way and I just laugh and say No. I know I'm actually a local legend for my sleep deprivation or should be

I used to tell myself it was because my kids are so bright he he.

Your child will not stay in your bed forever and their sleep and yours will get better. In the meantime do what you have to to get sleep and laugh about it with other people.

By sharing my experience, what I meant was- you will just need to find your own solutions/ way to grin and bear it/ which of your friends can console you/ way to remind yourself one day they will leave home... Your way is probably the best way.

Tell everyone in RL to bugger off with their opinions 'oh, I'm sure it's just a phase - I'll get my own back when she's a teenager!'

I had a son who slept through (7-7) from about 10 weeks and then a daughter who has slept from 7-7 for the first time this week aged 20 months. At one point we did controlled crying because I felt it was the best thing, and although I would recommend it, in don't think that it is right for all parents or babies by any means - as with so much in parenting it is not one-size-fits all - so don't feel pressured into doing anything you don't want to.

There is an ebook called BabyTrust Sleep Techniques, which I have heard is very good. Might be worth taking a look at that - they are all types of sleep training which don't involve crying.

And don't feel bad about any of the choices you are making - everything is a phase in the end!

Oh wow, emerald, I have an almost 9 month old DS whose sleep pattern is almost identical to your DDs with the exception that he doesn't ever feed at night. I don't have any advice for you as I have no idea what to do myself, I am also just at the stage of considering sleep training, but thanks for starting this thread, it's really useful to read all the responses, and I just wanted you to know you're not alone!

Oh wow, emerald, I have an almost 9 month old DS whose sleep pattern is almost identical to your DDs with the exception that he doesn't ever feed at night. I don't have any advice for you as I have no idea what to do myself, I am also just at the stage of considering sleep training, but thanks for starting this thread, it's really useful to read all the responses, and I just wanted you to know you're not alone!

I am another with a 9 month old that wakes frequently. I started co-sleeping and feel human again. Reading an interesting book on the topic called 3 in a bed .... co-sleeping was not in the plan (he was in his own room from 6 months) but he is sleeping more in with me. Slight downside is the frequent feeding but he is fairly fast most of the time and it sure beats hours next to his cot.

The thing is when you break it down, it's really that they just sleep better when they know you are holding them or near to them or whatever.

So you can choose - put them in a cot where you can't fit, so you have to sit upright with them till they drop off if they ever do or put them in a bed you can fit onto - either next to them on your bed, or on theirs, or have a bedside cot next to your bed, etc etc.

That way you're doing the same thing but you get to do it lying down yourself! And sleep between the wakes.

I know a guy who got his two kids to sleep by just lying down beside them on their bed, even at the age of 5 or 6 - and then when they were asleep he got up to do his own stuff.

It's the same principle and it works - that's all really. Cots are good in the daytime, for messing about, naps if your baby will sleep lying down without an arm round them...(I had a middle baby who didn't really cry and slept in a cot very easily - some babies just do) but at night when you're all knackered, I'd abandon the cot forthwith and just get onto the same level as the baby.

It gives you so much more rest, so much more flexibility. Cots just put a wall between the parent and the child, literally, that makes everyone's life harder. I think they were only invented to stop a child escaping when it wakes up but you can do that in a bed anyway if you lie on the outside...and you'll wake up when they do in any case.

Cots should be banned

NutBiscuit sorry you're suffering too!! It's hard, isn't it? But I really have just been starting to wonder if part of the problem is me constantly worrying that it will never get better and not focussing on the fact that there are some positives.

Itsaruddygame, like you co-sleeping even for part of the night was never ever my plan. I just didn't think I would do it. And evn though I am now, a d even though I actually really enjoy it, part of me still feels like I have failed IYSWIM? That I should have managed to get DD sleeping in her cot all night, or that I should just tough out those hideous early mornings leaning into a cot with a wide awake baby and knackering my back...

Thing is when I think about it, and in general I think I am a fairly rational and reasonably intelligent person, it just is illogical to constantly strive and suffer trying and failing to get a baby to sleep for hour in a chilly dark room, hurting your back, losing sleep and being miserable in the process, when ten feet away is a nice warm bed where you will both get bck o slep in ten minutes...

It was the same for me with breastfeeding, I tried and tried and kept not managing it and in the end I took the sensible decision that for my mental health and therefore for DD's benefit I had to stop flogging a dead horse. I took that decision more easily and quickly than this sleeping thing. I think by now I would be classed as plain masochsitic if I carried on trying to convince a string willed wakeful baby to sleep where she one snt want to.