I'm sick of getting 'the look' whenever I tell someone DS doesn't sleep... ggggrrrrr

[Sufi]

Anyone else with a sleepless babe fed up of the looks people give them when they fess up to the fact that their LO doesn't sleep very well?

I've had it up to here with it - not only am I 6 months in and DYING for a full night's sleep (or even 4 hours, or 3, or, um, 2) but I have yet to meet another new mum whose baby doesn't sleep. And then there are the nurses, midwives, HV, GP, even the bloody chemist.

I was in the newsagents yesterday when the guy told me of his 4 mo DD:

'She only sleeps 7pm til 5am and the early starts are killing my wife. Does yours sleep through?'

[through gritted teeth]. 'No.'

'Oh, but isn't he older than my DD?'

'Yes.'

Oh.'[gives me The Look]

Either everyone in the world except me has a baby who sleeps, or they're all liars. But either way I'm sick of people looking at me with a mixture of pity and get-a-grip-love-it-must-be-your-fault.

Rargh. Rant over. Bedtime begins!

Bloody hell donbean, I posted that before I saw yours. Don't hunt me down, please.

Sorry I haven't read the whole thread in detail, but I so wish I had found a thread like this when my DD was small. I SO EMPATHISE WITH YOU! DD didn't sleep for more than 1hr 20 mins at a stretch until she was about six months, and then slept through once - blissfully - the night before I went back to work. Also my DH is disabled, which meant I did the nights myself.

I ended up at the Health Clinic in tears through exhaustion and despair, but even their 'sleep specialist' over a period of months couldn't help.

FWIW I breastfed too - but I knew so many women who did and had sleepy babies that I'm sure that wasn't the reason. But if I had a penny for every person (including my Mum)who kept telling me to switch to formula... (she even turned up with bottles and powder one day when she'd come down to visit! ) No - what would have been helpful, Mum, is volunteering to take the baby for a night so I could sleep!

This thread brings it all back so clearly to me.

Can I just say that DD eventually got her sleep sorted and now sleeps beautifully. Life became much much more manageable thereafter!

(By the way, I have to say I had a bit of a chuckle when an antenatal friend of mine, who had been very sniffy about my DD not sleeping "well, of course you should try Harvey Karp..." or "you should be shushing and patting" or "you should wean her" etc etc had a second baby WHO DIDN'T SLEEP . Sorry - I'm a bad person, I know - but it just showed she didn't have some miraculous gift with her first baby - it's just random!)

P.S. donbean I could have written your post (apart from the birth weight - DD was 9lb6oz)... colic - tick, teething - tick, croup - tick, back to work - tick, PND - tick, antidepressants - tick.

DD is now three though and it is, as you say, as though it all happened to someone else.

God,
This is making me want to cry with gratitude. Someone else understands! My DD is one next week and has never slept through the night yet. I'm back at work, struggling to cope and thought I might fall asleep at the wheel this morning on my way in. (We were up three times and then up from 3am til 4.40am.) HV is worse than useless and it's just comforting to know there are other women out there pacing the floor and applying liberal amounts of Clinique every morning.

Hello ladies - just come back to this thread and it's so lovely to find I'm not the only one (though less lovely for all of us suffering sleep deprivation... )

I really do think people fib about the whole sleep thing, and if they DO have babies who sleep, then I wish people could try and be a bit more sympathetic. It's not like they don't know how it feels - all they need to do is cast their minds back to those early newborn weeks, times that by six months and then think about how sodding awful it is!!

Caz - have been working on and off since DS was born (I'm a freelance writer, and am now back 2 days a week). Believe me, if you're tired, you're tired - working doesn't make it any easier or, strangely, any harder. Getting up is a killer but once I'm up, I'm fine. And, as I love my work, it's one of the things that has kept me sane in my darkest days. Oh, and a single cup of coffee to kick-start my morning doesn't seem to bother my bf DS (really - I've tested it out!!).

Donbean - when I make up the 'sleep deprived and proud' tees, you'll be first on the list to get one! Well done, you are amazing. I do know what you mean about thinking 'never again' - I really don't know yet if I could do this again... and not surprising you ended up with PND - I felt myself going that way a few times (suffered from depression for 15+ years, so I know what it looks like) but then DS would give me a night or two where he was OK-ish and I'd be able to get back on track.

And for all those whose LOs' sleep went bonkers at around 3-4 month, I think it's quite common. DS1 slept 11-4am until about 10wks and after that (and a cold, vaccinations, and a growth spurt) it all went tits up and I stopped being smug and started trawling the sleep boards, bleary-eyed, looking for solutions.

Now, whisper it, DS1 woke ONCE last night. Oh. My. God. Of course, he'll never do it again, but for one glorious night I actually stayed in my own bed (as DH did the 3am feed). At least I have that memory to keep me going through the next 16 years...

All I need to find now is a riposte to The Look (a snarl? A grimace? A steely-eyed stare?)...

Hope you all get some sleep soooon
xx

Ignore what I said about that "dream feed", it worked that one night ... 1!

She woke at midnight, 1am, 330am and refused to go back to sleep after 430am this morning .. !

I think that it seriously becomes dangerous to drive the car the following day, I feel like I cant function but the car is the only thing that will sometimes calm her down and give me some "me" space with the radio on etc etc, its quite nice!

She is 3.5 months - maybe its teething?

Also, I switched in last week from b/feeding to mainly formula (EVERYONE promised me that I would get more sleep) doesnt happen, its sad really.

x

No, the whole 'ff babies sleep longer' thing is nonsense - I tried, it didn't work. And we tried the dream feed too, and that didn't work either!

sufi, like i said, the best, tried and tested, response to 'the look' is to be smug! like 'i love my dc so much that i couldn't care less if she woke up a hundred times a night' kind of look, and 'wow look at me, i've been up all night and i'm still positive and smiling'. some comments i've had and some responses have been:

• she's only wrapping you round her little finger you know, she's perfectly capable of sleeping through without you:

me: oh but i LOVE those midnight cuddles, aren;t they just the best?

• she's using you as a dummy at night, she doesnt need to feed at night, its just for comfort

me: but comfort is just as important as anything else- hey maybe do you think THATS why she's the most smiley , sociable baby - because i don't hesitate to comfort her round the clock?

you get the picture.
just act like you're cool about it, and people actually get rather envious (because i bet their own lo's are giving them a hard time too!, but they wiuldn;t dare be honest about it)

like i said, i never used to tell poeple that he didnt sleep, i would just kind of gently nod.....People are always ALWAYS dying to tell you their story so are not interested in your answer any way.

Saves "that look" and damned useless suggestions/opinions that every body has because they are all expert at how to get a kid to sleep because they had problems with little Jonny for a few nights when he was 4 weeks old.....blah blah blah blah blah.....

Resist the urge to punch on nose donbean...resist.....

My lo didn't sleep either. Woke 1/2 hourly to hourly for the first 6 months. About 2 hourly after that....

In the end I stopped telling people that I was having no sleep. One of my frends who is lovely really but very much a control freak - her lo slept through from the moment he was born. She though I was doing something wrong and kept making suggestions such as early weaning and ff. I didn't though and BF exc for 6 months when I introduced food and then stopped BF at 14 months.

However, she has had another baby recently and she is exactly the same readful sleeper as my lo was. She has taken her own advice though. Introduced ff, puree at 13 weeks and tried cc. However, it has not made one iota of difference.

My poor mate is exhausted - her youngest is now 9 months old and waking about 4-5 times a night. I really don;t think that weaning or ff makes a difference if your baby is 'wired' to be a waker!!!!

I must admit though - I did start co-sleeping and that made loads of difference for me. Instead of the 20 min nap in the day - if I slept with her she would have 2 hour stretches. Also, in the night- if she started waking - I would just give her a little 'shhhh' and a few taps and it would be enough to get her back to sleep. Initially for the first couple of weeks I couldn't sleep well with her next to me but I soon settled into it and now sleep like a log when she's in the bed.

I hated that look though - in the end I kept schtum - and just said she slept well as I didn't feel I would be responsible for any violence I caused if I had any more well-meaning 'advice'.

Just to say - that sleep started to get better on it's own and now at 16 months she generally sleeps all night from 8 - 6.30 (sometimes 7.30 - hooray!) with a 2 hour nap in the day.

I read the Sears sleep book - I wasn't into attachment parenting but I though it was fab and really made me relax about the whole sleep issue.

Great thread! My dd, now 4, didn't sleep through until 13 months, and I got so fed up with people who had angel babies that slept. Fast forward to the toddler years, and all those angel babies were flinging themselves to the floor in screaming tantrums while dd sat quietly colouring wondering what the fuss was about.

So now I've got a ds who doesn't sleep. And when I meet someone whose baby sleeps through and gives me "the look" a little voice in my head says "but I bet they'll be horrid toddlers". Keeps me amused. (Although it is entirely possible that ds will be a monster too....)

Great thread, just wish I could somehow get my MIL to read it without sending it to her! She truly believes that my dd 12months is the only babe that doesn't sleep through the night. Of course all my own fault!!! Ladies.. I wish you all a long and good sleep tonight (me too). nite nite

I got "the look" again last night from some friends over dinner...found myself defending him, saying he'd got a lot better...have been up since 4.30am this morning. [hmm}

Or even . Brain clearly not engaged.12

Or even . Brain clearly not engaged.

You will learn to lie. Lie through your teeth. DS2 is 3 (years not months) and only in the last 2 months has he started doing anything like reasonable sleeping.

He still wakes in the night but it is bareable. Until Christmas, he could wake up to 10 times in the night.

So from a veteran, bare-faced lies is the answer

Hi all

My DD slept through from 11pm from 8 weeks then from about 8pm a few months later. I promise I was never smug about it, but at 9 months she started teething and suddenly up 2-4 times a night. Nearly 2 months later and she still isn't sleeping very well. The problem is it's so unpredictable. She might sleep through for 2 nights, then wake up 4 times. She is bfed but isn't waking up hungry (tried feeding her at first but didn't help so don't bother any more).

What does seemed to have mitigated the problem is putting her down awake rather than feeding her to sleep.

Anyway, can I just ask what sort of reaction would you appreciate to your sleep problems?

Me, I tell everyone when I'm not getting any sleep and reap the sympathy . I do appreciate tips from people (everybody has some) though I admit pretty soon it does feel like you have done something wrong. But if one of you spoke to me about your sleep problems what is the best response to give?

correct response?
tricky one.

'It will get better' and 'Poor you' although well meaning, makes me feel pitied which I hate.
Commenets about breasfeeding did my head in.
COmments about having to be tough made me want to punch someone (usually my MIL)

TBh it is tricky. That is why I pretty much stopped offering information and people pretty much stopped asking!

Can sympathise completley as someone whose 4yr old only slept through the week before he was 4 [although is now very consistent] and am still waiting for both DDs [2.4yrs and 1.4yrs] to sleep through!!

What about "well you wouldn't know it from looking at you?"

thanksfully my ds now usually (but not always) sleeps through. he's just turned 2 but has only just started sleeping through.

i used to get so fed up with smug mums saying something along the lines of "well yes my ds/dd sleeps from 7 til 7 and they're only 2 days old" (obviously exagerating there a bit). some babies/children sleep well some don't, and i think some parents lie because they think it'll make them look better if they say their dcs sleep well.

according to my own mum ds not sleeping is retribution for when i was little and didn't sleep through until i was about 3.

Haven't read whole thread BUT thought I would tell you that my DS didn't sleep through until 6 months. EVERYONE around me appeared to have sleeping babies BUT....on closer questioning:

'Does yours sleep through?' (me)
'Yes, has done since she was 3 weeks old' (her)
'God, I am still getting up twice in the night for feeds'(me)
'Oh, I have to get up and put the dummy back in/change bum/shush back to sleep but don't have to feed her' (her)

Since when did that constitute sleeping through?!?!?!?!!!!!!!

Bollocks to the lot of them.

ds is nearly 4 and never sleeps all night, he's up at least once or twice, wanting in our bed and drinks of milk. We just go with it, and hope it will get better as he gets older. dd, 5 sleeps brilliantly which makes it easier to fend off the criticism I think - she's evidence that it is ds and not our crap parenting

lol @ debating. I had an antenatal 'friend' who insisted smugly that her DD had never been any 'trouble' and slept through from about four weeks, while I was busy struggling on odd snatches of 45 mins sleep here and there. A couple of months back she was telling me about her DS (who is four months) and blithely said, "of course he's quickly settled into the same pattern as DD - asleep by 7pm then THREE FEEDS DURING THE NIGHT".

As if I wouldn't remember?! The lies! The lies! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I am proud that mine doesnt sleep through, would not want to lie about it. Am proud that I can function as a mum on the little sleep that we do get ... ? Makes us "better" ... !!
x