musings on sleep

[kiskidee]

in my quest to control my child rather than the other way around, i read a few childcare books (bw, clbb, ferber) which advocate various forms of cc in the first few months of motherhood.

by 8 months old however, i knew that i could not be safe on the road nevermind function at work if something did not change. that being, have my daughter sleep on her own in her cot while i slept in my bed.

it was an evolution of thinking that brought me to this point and a big dose of desperation that made me actually see that co-sleeping was better than separate sleeping.

boiled to its essence:

why should my dd be happier sleeping on her won when i sleep cuddled up next to my dh, her dear dad?

why, when i have been separated from her for 9 hrs a day, 5 days a week, should i then put her in another room by her self for another 12 hrs?

why, when i want to keep my dd close to me for the rest of my life, do i start off by pushing her away from me?

why, when a child has no life experience, we overlay our life experiences as their 'intentions' when really the only thing they can do is use the only thing they can to let us know that they want to be near us? the message doesn't change, night after night when they cry for us.

the thing with cc is this: 'no evidence of harm' is not the same as 'evidence of no harm'.

you see, no parent yet, no matter how pro-cc, has been persuaded by any scientist to let their child cry themselves to sleep under laboratory observations.

so ferber, et, al. are promoting this method when they have no scientific evidence to tell how safe (or unsafe) it is.

there may be money to be made in that there hill.

I did the same as you - read all the wrong books when I was pregnant, and believed there was a 'right' way of doing things. Then it clicked by the time that ds was 6mths, that yes, I needed my sleep and couldn't keep getting up to him, but that the perfectly natural solution to that, without upsetting anybody, was co-sleeping. Wish I'd realised sooner that I was 'allowed' to do it.

me too tatties, me too. and dh and i have a ball every morning when we romp in bed for 15 - 30 mins every morning. dh was also a committed 'oh, it takes ages to get back to sleep if i am woke up' now he just rolls over and keeps snoring in 10 secs or less.

today her first word to us was a loud bzzzzzt! [raspberry noise]

dh and i and dd

lol

We get "read, read" first thing in the morning when it's still too dark to get up, let alone read!

Brilliant post Kiskidee, I think you're absolutely spot on. I've also asked myself the question, why is it 'OK' to let your baby cry themselves to sleep when we wouldn't consider it acceptable for an adult to do the same. I hate the fact that CC/CIO is considered an acceptable method of getting a child to sleep and I'm sick of people telling me to 'just let (DD) her cry'

kiskidee can I pick your brains please. I've been reading the cc thread and your posting has persuaded me I definately don't want to go down that route. Using words of one syllable (suitable for my sleep deprived state) can you suggest what else I can try. Ideallly I would love to do co-sleeping but that just isn't possible at the moment.

dd (10 months) goes to sleep brilliantly but wakes throughout the night. At the mment I'm b/f back to sleep but I am back at work so am finding it exhausting. Have tried offering her daytime cup but its definately comfort she wants not food so she screams.

Dummy and a cuddle?

here are a bit more thoughts for you wiggles.

i have noticed that if i get 4 or 5 hours of good sleep between say 10 and 5 am (pick which 4 or 5 between those hours) it doesn't matter if the early or late parts of my sleep is disturbed.

co sleepign wasn't my thing either but as i said, out of desperation, i would go to bed with dd (in the spare room) at her normal sleeping time, get an hour or two with her. then get up and do things till she woke up again when i would feed her and go to bed. over time, it moved to sleeping with her in the spare room a couple hrs at night, during the night. over a few months, i 'learnt' how to co-sleep and soon enough found it easy to do and everyone, especially me was sleeping longer and better.

i find too going to bed an hour earlier than prebaby days helps immensely. i am sure i have heard that the general population would feel a lot better if we all went to bed an hour earlier so, hey ho.

since your baby goes down well, decide to feed say at when they wake up closest to your normal bedtime. then work on cutting out the only one waking at first. lets say the one around one/2 am. i always found it too much like hard work to fight with it for even 2 minutes, so, if dd got more upset rather than grumbling and accepting, then feed, but listen to the breathing pattern and pop off before they go off fully. if it works great, if it don't, don't sweat, just try again. (an stolen and refurbished idea from pantley, you may recognise)

then take it from there. reflect how it went and try again with the next waking or the next night.

i could probably explain my ideas better but i am in a bit of a hurry tonight.

feel free to ask again.

Thanks, trying to cut down the actual feeding time sounds as if its worth a try. Last night it was only 10 minute feeds, so they could end up very short! I might also try distraction when she initially wakes rather than straight in with the feed. If I can get her out of the habit of needing me then I can encourage dh to share some of the wakings

Wiggles, here is a link i found helpful. i know you are not co-sleeping but it is where i borrowed the idea of cutting out just one feed during the core of my night so that i could have one longer stretch of sleep.

it would work differently since you are not co-sleeping but lots of cuddles and soothing from you or dp for just for one longer stretch during the night will build you some respite. then, if successful, bide your time and go for a second one whenever it feels right for you.

i notice that once dd falls off to sleep, she comes into a light sleep and may even whitter on then fall off for a min or so then whitter again, then fall off for slightly longer. it can happen 4 or 5 times before she is completely gone so if dp or you are going to cut out one feed, at first, stay in the room right there to keep reassuring her till she is completely asleep.

a reason i refuse to completely nightwean is that my dd does not get any bm during the day at nursery, that petri dish of illness. In 18 months of full time nursery and 22 mos of life, she is yet to have d&v, or any other infection where that needed antibiotics. All her colds are minor and has never even had a rattly chest or a cough taht lingers. It was only last week that she got the worst bout of flu in her life which we had together. But she wasn't poorly enough for me to consider taking her to the docs. She was off her food but wanted bf. I knew bf was feeding and healing her as well as providing comfort to her. And comfort to me since i wasn't worried if she was getting enough food/liquids.

if I was separated form my kids when babies 9 hours a day 5 days a week I'd definately sleep with them, TBH it sounds like sleeping time is the majority of the time you spend together, in a normal day.

my theory exactly ssd. there is so much to be understood yet about how the brain works during sleep and scientists are constantly being amazed of how much communication goes on during sleep. so, if that is how i get the majority of my communication and bonding with my baby then i will take it.

I always co slept

think CC is cruel!!

I couldn't leave a stranger crying in the night never mind my babies.......

thats just me and I'm very soft!

i found having DS in my room kept us all awake more, because everytime he moved, i was awake.

co sleeping was snuggly, but again, we were all awake more (DS included)when one of us moved.

NCSS was lovely in theory, but i saw very little change.

I was always very anti CC ('But babies cry because they're cold / afraid / in pain etc...you can't leave them cry!!') but i've realised that DS has learned that if he wakes up, he gets a bottle and a cuddle, and that's how he gets back to sleep, he isn't cold / wet etc. I haven't tried CC (yet, which isn't to say i will) I've thought about it, then put it off (perhaps because i'm not convinced 100% that it's right) so it's 'scheduled' for a couple of weeks if DS is still not sleeping through.

But, DS seems to be finding his own way- he slept from 7pm-5.30am last night, which was fantastic. Fingers crossed for tonight eh?

I know we're all different, I just couldn't do the cc thing although I fully acknowledge it can work and may have worked for us if I'd been stronger!

do what suits you as a family I always say!

Thanks for the link, it sounds like a good compromise. I'm going to leave it till middle of next week then give it a go. I suspect it might have to go more slowly than the 3/4 nights at a time

sleep article here :

it discusses the cultural aspects of sleep as well as the physiological aspects of sleep for babies.

one of the problems we have with sleep is that we are all mixed up about what to do about it.

we want to do the 'right thing' which means following the guidelines set out by medical associations about things taht are important, like food, and play and sleep. then there are the cultural expectations and peer pressures which can be such a mixed kettle of fish. then there is what our heart, our instincts, our guts and our babies tell us to do.

do you know what? a lot of the guidelines and alot of the cultural expectations have got it all screwed up .... about sleep anyways.

if anyone wants to listen anymore, here are a couple of articles to read that were 'eureka' moments for me.

it won't answer your questions but maybe they will ask you to re-evaluate your own value judgements on sleep and expectations from our babies.

rethinking healthy infant sleep this one is a sort of a summary of the longer one which follows.

dr james mckenna