Is my baby defective? It's a sleep one.

[BluPeony]

13 month old is having a bad time.

He was a poor sleeper until 10/11 months (waking up 2-5 times per night) then we had a lovely period of easy bed times and good sleep, he was sleeping through the night and waking up at 6am for a big drink of milk then waking up for the day at 9am.

Then I had to go back to work, he started nursery, got all sorts of bugs, and got new teeth coming in, and it's been a shit show ever since. He's clingy, crying and screaming all the time, has a bad tummy, won't go to sleep but is clearly over tired and waking up in the night again, 1-2 times typically. He's just not himself and it feels like a massive regression.

Anyway, his dad's colleagues are all apparently very surprised that a one year old is sleeping so poorly and apparently all of their babies were sleeping through without issues at that age and much younger. These comments are really getting under my skin because I'm trying my best and my baby is clearly having a bad time. Admonishing my partner for being tired at work and making mistakes because we don't have a perfect baby is really upsetting me and it's kind of causing arguments between us. DP is trying to push us to "do something" but I don't know what to do, if he's waking then he's waking up. I don't think it's abnormal at this age but I do yearn for those sweet few weeks we had.

They are probably in nearly all cases misremembering, because what you describe is the norm. Or at least, a norm. Mine started to sheep better once he was more mobile, he was less frustrated and more physically tired, but when I went back to work when he was 11 months we were still doing 2-4 wake ups a night. Mostly he wanted milk, (he was bottle fed) which I just gave to him because he’d go back to sleep, which is what we all needed. Eventually this tailed off and he might weaned himself naturally so I’m glad I didn’t ‘do something’ at the time as I imagine we’d have had even worse nights while he cried for it! It’s a phase and it will right itself but it is exhausting.

First of all, if your DH's colleagues making these comments are mostly men, it is almost certainly bullshit. Your DH should ask them to telephone their wives on speakerphone in front of him so he can ask them to confirm. Odds are that the sort of men who would say something so stunningly unhelpful to a colleague are the sort of me who sleep through all their kids' night wakings and leave it to their wives because it's soooo important that they get a proper nights sleep because of their soooo Important Jobs.

Unfortunately it's totally normal for kids to catch a lot of bugs in their first six months at nursery (unless they have already been exposed via an older sibling) and that just will unsettle sleep. It will settle down again, I promise!

In terms of what you are your DH can "do", all I can suggest is go to bed earlier and see if you can arrange things so that you are t both disturbed each time your DC wakes up. Eg take turns night on / night off sleeping in a spare room wearing ear plugs so at least you each get an unbroken night every second night? And if one of you has something at work the next day where you really need to be on your game, that person gets the "good" nights sleep the night before (only if this policy is used by you both equally though).

They are either misremembering, OR they slept through the whole thing and their partners were up in the night.

Your baby sounds like a perfectly normal one contending with teething, developing, and processing the nursery day.

Yes, strangely my husband thinks our son slept through a number of nights at that age too. In reality he just wasn’t disturbed, because I was dealing with it. Technically we were supposed to take turns getting up but it was 85% me, I suspect your colleague’s partners and wives would have a similar story.

The 2-5 wake ups was normal, the 1-2 wake ups now are normal. My son isn't sleep through consistently until he was 2. No problem to be fixed here.

There's not much worse than being chronically sleep deprived, well unless its being sleep deprived and having to explain to judgmental arseholes that babies are on their own little missions and that there's nothing you can do about it over and over again.

I do think that mis-remembering it all plays a massive part. Our oldest child was a terrible sleeper, like absolutely awful, and the number of people that would tell us how theirs was a wonderful sleeper, but then months later would drop a comment about how they dont really remember that stage as they were so tired, or that 'yes XXX napped really well, we used to park the pram at the far bottom of the garden and leave them for hours' poor baby was probably crying their wee heart out.

I almost ended a friendship over how much of a tosser the husband was about how great their baby's sleep was, it was all down to their parenting style apparently, and how great they were as parents. The implication that we were shit parents because ours wouldn't sleep.

No practical advice, other than that this will pass. Illness and teeth disturbed our 2 kids quite a bit, but it did settle back down. There is also a sleep regression around then too I think. Solidarity, you've got this!!!

Well they’re your husbands colleagues so you’re presumably not hearing this directly, it’s your husband that is banging on about it because the lack of sleep is bothering him, he wants to justify sleep training but just tell him to stop talking about his colleagues babies and decide what, if anything you want to do about the sleep, between yourselves.

FWIW though 13 months has loads going on! Not just nursery and the separation, change of routine and inevitable bugs. It’s also classic timing for a 2->1 nap transition, learning to walk and they need lots of chance to practice during the day so they don’t try at 3am, teething (first molars?) and for that do nurofen not calpol as it lasts 8 hours vs. 4, a growth spurt so maybe add a filling snack before bed. It’s really normal for things to go a bit pear shaped, whatever the colleagues say!

Yep - my DH is always surprised to hear that I didn't get any length of sleep longer than 3 hours for the first year.
At 14 months I bought some ear plugs and they slept a lot better after this - although bugs and colds then buggered things up until they were about 3 yrs...

Your husband's colleagues have amnesia.
It is totally normal for toddlers to wake up through the night. The colds and bugs are the worst. Every 1-2 hours, sitting up with them until the snot settles or calpol hits in. Then they improve for a bit. Then the routine changes again. It's exhausting. It will get better.

My 14 month old does between 2-4 wakes a night and currently does 5am starts too. So I would say it’s normal - unfortunatrly that doesn’t make it any easier.

My son woke every two hours for four years. I'm really sorry that people are being awful about it. I had everybody and their dog telling me that I was doing it wrong too. People can be so unhelpful.

Awful humans saying that. Mine at 14 months is sleeping well...mostly. talking to a colleague yesterday who was getting wake ups my response was "god how difficult, it's so hard when sleep isn't going well, well done you for doing this (the meeting) so well and I hope it gets better soon."
I don't see how any other response was appropriate.

Your husbands colleagues are pricks who probably slept through every wake up that their wives managed.
None of my babies slept through the night until between 18 months/2 yrs old. No matter what I did. Kids sleep through when they are ready to. Its not your fault.

It's perfectly normal and your DH's colleagues are either misremembering or have partners who did the night work.

We did find that Secrets of the Baby Whisperer helped but it took till around 15 months before we got much better.

Agreeing with PP that they are misremembering with rose tinted specs. Mine is generally a good sleeper but there are some horrible stretches I remember - throughout his first winter, when he started nursery, also his second winter, when illness just disrupted everything.

DH says 'he can count on one hand the number of broken nights we had' and I know he's simplifying but I'm also like...uhhh I slept on a chair for weeks in DS' room because he was so unsettled around 19 months. So yeah, take any and all anecdotes from other parents with a pinch of salt. Wishing you the best of luck that it all settles down again soon!