have YOU ever lied about your baby sleeping through?

[ratfly]

Interestingly, someone pointed out that most people who say their babies sleep through at mother and baby groups lie.

I am putting so much pressure on myself to get ds to sleep through, as it appears everyone else is getting a good night's sleep (as well as the fact I feel like a zombie most days..) by 3 - 4 months.

So, did you lie about your baby's sleep habits at mother baby / NCT / post natal groups?

Never. The conversation usually starts with me saying Tom didn't wake up till 10am/11am and thay seem quite envious at first, until I say that he didn't goto bed till 11pm/midnight! Last night it was 11:30 as I gave him a very late bath and he's still asleep now. Was up for some boob about 3:30 and I put him back at 4:15.

It's a cycle I want to break asap, but I work 3 nights a week and have to pick him up from the Grandparents on the way home, so we don't get home till 10pm. Annoyingly, before Tom was born, DF and I had agreed that he would goto his parents and get his dad to bring him and Tom home. Now he says if Tom was in bed earlier, he wouldn't see him the other nights when he's been at work all day.

Was far too knackered to lie....and I wanted some sympathy!! (Not that I got much....just others mums telling me how ther little one slept throught from 6 weeks){envy]

My ds is nearly 4 and still does not sleep through

Cant see any point lying about it, any idiot can see I am a sleep deprived zombie

The more interesting question is...why do parents feel the need to lie about it? Very odd.

I never lie. They don't sleep through now. Well actually they both did on wednesday night. And so did I. No wee trips or anything. No calling out and screaming like he's being attacked from ds and no milk stops for dd. I felt like I'd been hit by a bus in the morning. I was so not used to getting 8 whole hours of unbroken sleep. I looked puffy and odd too.

My friend lies alot though and gets caught out when her dh tells it like it is.

I was pleased and proud when my first two sorted themselves out, and want all the sympathy I can get with no3!

Only to the HV, as she was like a terrier with a rat - wouldn't let it go, kept giving me unwanted 'advice4' that would make my 12 week old sleep through, whereas I thought his waking was entirely age appropriate.

Everyone else knows ds2 woke twice a night until 10 months old!

I think it depends on what you mean by "sleeping through".

I can honestly say that DS1 slept from 7-7 at about 12 weeks - that's what I mean by sleeping through.

DS2 managed it at about 18 months.....

no.

but i know friends who do, well sort of. they think their baby sleeps through. this might mean a couple of dream feeds, might mean co sleeping where baby latches himself on and goes straight back to sleep, also people seem to discount 'quick feeds' and top ups. i dunno, doesn't matter really does it? just annoying for those of us who waited or are waiting for the 7 til 7 thing. dd did it at 8 months...thank christ cos that's when i went back to work.

also i think it's interesting how many talk about babies who sleep through after cc, who then have to re do the cc after a cold, or a holiday etc. dd slept through thanks to the 'no cry sleep solution'. when she is ill (eg she had chicken pox least week) she then puts herself right again, no intervention required.

My ds slept 6-7.30 from 6months, hahaha im so lucky ! Bet ill pay for it in his teeenage years!

I have lied, but in the opposite way. DS has slept through from about 12 weeks (when I went from bf to ff), except for the od night when he has been unwell. But I felt really guilty saying it to other mothers who were having really difficult nights, so I down played it. [He was an absolute nightmare for the first 10 weeks though - didn't sleep at all at night]

Mind you, I haven't slept through properly since he was born. I've turned into a really light sleeper and wake up a few times each night.

He's never been good at daytime naps though. I've been very of those people who put LOs down for 2 hours at lunchtime.

My postnatal group was very competitive. I used to dread going along to the coffee mornings.

I guess it got me out of the house but boy did it make me realise that having a baby does not make you a nice person nor an honest one. I swear someone claimed to have had her child sleep through at two months old! When questioned further sleep through meant 1 till 5 am!?!!

I have found it intriguing that parents lie about the weirdest things, not just sleep. This includes when their baby laughs, crawls, eats exotic food, you name it. Can anyone explain why?

Haven't read the whole thread, but I occasionally lied 'the other way'. DD was a great sleeper, but I thought other sleep-deprived mums might batter me if I let on. So I used to join in a bit with the tales of sleep-related woe. No elaborate stories, just a bit of sympathetic eye-rolling and a few 'yeah, me too's.

DS (8mo) is still waking once a night and I wouldn't lie about it. Relish any sympathy tbh.

I do find it odd when people describe their DC as 'sleeping through' when they mean 11 til 5am though.

My next door neighbour smugly told me that her DD2 (same age as my DS1) was sleeping through at 2 months old, which sent me into a state of gloom about my first-time mother failings.

Then I realised that I could actually hear her baby screaming her head off every night at 11pm, and from then on disregarded everything she said.

I would find that people had different ideas of 'sleeping through'. For some it means whenever they put them down to bed ie 11pm to 6am wake time, or 7pm til 5am.

I was lucky that ds slept from 7pmish to around 6amish from 6 weeks old. For me this really was 'sleeping through'.

I remember a woman from my Mother and Baby group who once said 'oh yes, she sleeps through fine, she only woke once for a feed!?'

I reckon lots of people lie in that they say their DC sleep thru but mean midnight to 5am

Same as people say their DCs are walking when they mean when they hold their hands, or using a baby walker

Not sure why they do it - maybe snother sign of competitive parenting?

My daughter only started sleeping through when she went into her own bed. She disliked the caged nature of her cot, as soon as she was free of the bars she settled.

Never lied about it, looked to much like a zombie to have got away with it anyway

DD slept through at about 8 months. We started sleep training about 6 months as we didn't think a younger baby really had the ability to understand what was happening. All the while, all my baby group mums had blissful angels who slept 12 hours a night from 4 weeks old, all of them using a certain routine guru who cannot be named here to achieve these fabulous results.

Interestingly, my DD is now 21 months and sleeps a solid 11 to 12 hours a night with a 2 hour nap in the day and has done since 8 months unless very sick. The mums with blissful angels have started letting their guard down (probably due to extended sleep deprivation) and letting slip that actually these little angels are either starting to again or still waking in the night. One of them confessed a 12-3pm stint with her toddler and another confessed to being woken up twice nightly!

Why can't we just be honest with each other for goodness sakes? Then we could've been supporting each other through the hard parts instead of playing some kind of fucked up one-upsmanship head game benefitting nobody.

Ds1 started sleeping through at about 2yo when we stopped the dummies - we were up a few times a night 'til then. I told people he was 'capable' of sleeping through...?

DS2 'slept through' from 11 weeks (11pm to 7am) but I lied and said he wasn't to a friend who was having a hard time with her new born, she is a worrier and would have felt pressured.

never, I actually took pleasure in lettig people (who asked), know that both dd's refused utterly to sleep properly during the night for the first year of their lives, things eased up after that but dd2 (2.8) will still sit up in the middle of the night on occassion and throw a hissy fit for no reason......

DS 2 slept 11pm-7am from 2 weeks and
7pm-7am from 6 weeks..........but I feel awkward revealing this when other mums ask. So I lie a bit , I just say he is 'not too bad' but am not any more specific than that

DS1 was also a good sleeper and I was truthful but found some mums preferred not to talk to me!

So I find it is better to be vague. Only last week another mum said she was up 4-6 times a night with her DS and I said DS1 was the same as a baby which is an outright lie

my dd 1 was/is a great sleeper and i lied about that so not to piss off other mums

my dd2 is a shocker at night! i tell everyone to gets lots of sympathy!!

I never lie but i never tell the whole truth.

Just my closest friends- a couple know the inside out of my ds routines and with my NCT fellow mums I am a bit vague.

I think you can spot a lier very easily.

I know one that has a permanent grin in her face, according to her all is goooood but she looks like shit... her baby is clearly not a happy baby, not happy interacting with other kids, always rushing around because he;s gonna miss 5 min of naps!

I lied. Was a first time mum and so desperate to feel like I was doing a good job. Everyone else in my group kept going on about how their babies were sleeping through and I felt like I wasn't a good mum.

Looking back I think I went a bit mad trying to be a perfect mother and lost the plot through lack of sleep! My friends had singletons and I had premature twins so had a much tougher time, I should have cut myself some slack. I wouldn't dream of lying about things now, my girls are happy and tootling along at their own pace.

not sleeping has defined motherhood for me so far, so no, i couldn't lie about it. i have stopped going into details though because 15 months on it jsut bores people.

my mum is convinced that everyone lies about everything, esp sleep/ she said when i was a tiny tiny 12 months old with no interest in solid food whatsover she started telling people i was 8 months just so they stopped saying how tiny and undernourished i looked! (i am now cronically overweight, just go figure...)