Read this article about sleep...

[Fuschia]

http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/a-helping-hand-my-baby-wont/

I might have posted it before...

[apenn]

Thanks for this. Good article!

[siobhanleighhunt]

wow - "the days are long but the years are short". that felt bang on!

[Fuschia]

siobhanleighhunt Wrote:

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> wow - "the days are long but the years are short".

> that felt bang on!

I know, I try to remember that when I'm having a hard time!!

[ludoscotts]

while the topic of sleep is running I wanted to ask about the phrase sleeping through.

What does that mean to everyone else?

my 2 yr old was a fantastic sleeper form the word go and very soon got herself into a routine of feed before bed, feed at around midnight then she would wake at around 6.30-7am for a feed and go back to sleep until 8.30am.

I asked the health visitor when she was around 1 when would she sleep through? and the hv replied that she was sleeping through.

She said if she was sleeping for a stretch of 5 hours or more in a go then that was sleeping through-is that what you guys think?

she now at just over 2 goes to sleep at 8.30 and then still does wake at times(not every night maybe 2 times a week) for a bottle or juice at around 12am-1am(which is fine as I work from home until about 1am so she is not disturbing my sleep)

and then she stirs at anytime from 5am-7am for more juice or milk then back down till 8.20-9am.

Should she have grown out of this my now?

should I refuse feeds presuming she is just in a habit of waking or is she hungry/thirsty?

I know she does wake at other times in the night as we hear her talking to teddy sometimes and then she goes back to sleep so its not a settling issue as she def settles herself.

Im not too worried as Its not a bad routine but just wondered if it was normal.

thanks for reading leanne

[canadianlisa]

I read this last time you posted it Fuschia and it really resontated with me- 'the days are long but the years are short' has been my mantra in the middle of night when I am up for the 3rd time.

My little girl is not a bad sleeper but also not great and has a one or two shocking nights a week- usually if she is ill or something changes. She needs a lot of help to get to sleep and sometimes I do wonder if I am making her dependent on rocking / nursing etc but overall I am happy with the routine. She is usually in bed by 7, sometimes has a little whinge if she loses the dummy, asleep by 7:30 and then up once between 2 - 4 a.m. for milk and then back to sleep until 7 or even 8 a.m. She does occasionally sleep through but when she does she wakes at 5:30 ready to start the day. I would rather get up in the night and feed her than be waking up at that hour.

Not an answer to your question Leanne but I just to add that I was told the same by the health visitor and I think that it says the same advice in the no cry sleep solution book- 5 hours counts as a night. When I spoke to the Health Visitor after a particularly bad night she said that many, many children under the age of 1 do not sleep through and that when people speak about when their children did sleep through (retrospectively) they often exagerrate- in that sometimes they woke, sometimes they were teething etc, etc. She also said that many older children do not sleep through all of the time.

If it's not bothering you and it is working for your family I would say that it is normal for her and that is what's important. I think that there is going to be variations in days for children- one day they may need more comfort / food etc than the next and what is normal now will change again in a few months.

[Moos]

For me I'd say the key is canadianlisa's comment 'if it's not bothering you and it is working for your family'.

First of all, it's really important to know what you're going through is normal and healthy (for your baby at least), so you can stop worrying, and perhaps also stop thinking that you're unlucky, and your baby is the Worst Sleeper In The World, and Why Did It Have To Happen To You.

But I do believe there comes a point when the misery of real long-term sleep deprivation is just too much and you have to find a way to make it stop. The years are short, but the memories I have of my son's early months are of a lot of unhappiness and exhaustion, and of not liking the somewhat unhinged, tearful, helpless person they turned me into. I wish I had enjoyed his early months, but I didn't and I feel sad about it. I don't know what the solution is, but I tried the grin and bear it, and it wasn't great.

[kristymac1]

I like this article and it definitely resonates with me - my little'un is 3 and I can still keep my socks on if I want to count the number of times she's gone through. Sleep deprivation is bloody hard but you do adjust, a friend (who has 2 little ones who struggle to go through) hit the nail on the head when he said 'you just change your expectation of what you can do' - he's soooo right, very quickly I stopped applying any self pressure on what I 'should' be doing (especially in terms of a child-free social life). My daughter is a very happy, confident little girl, but a swine of a sleeper and I accepted very early on that there wasn't much I could do to change the sleeping - she's always had a good routine but if she wakes in the night and needs a cuddle, then me and her Dad want to be able to give her a cuddle - not weird is it?

[Belle]

Oh kristymac1 you sound like a much more patient mum than me! My little boy is v much as CanadianLisa described her little one - not bad, not great*, one or two shocking nights a week. From 3-9ish months he was pretty great on sleeping but it's been up and down since then for various reasons: separation anxiety poss, teething, endless bugs, early waking, nightmares etc etc (or poss all just different labels we try to put on just plain 'bad sleeping' to explain it).I wish I was accepting but even one bad night turns me into an angry, irritable, upset monster and I find it does get in the way of the enjoyment of parenting I see other people experiencing. This might sound awful but I do resent sometimes it just being that he needs a cuddle, I'm just awful when tired I guess. Hmm maybe we all just have different strengths as parents - not quite sure I've discovered mine yet though!

*sleeper that is! ;-)

[intexasatthe moment]

Probably not much help - it is hell I know - but when I had to get up yet again and go to my one I always used to summon a picture of him happy and smiling and hold it in my mind before I opened the door .

It helped me a bit.

[Moos]

All little children (even good sleepers, as mine is now) do go through periods of bad sleep, and absolutely - who wouldn't want to give their child a cuddle in the night when they need it? Even when my other half wasn't working and I was, I always wanted to be the one that got up, it just felt right. The difference for me is that when you yourself are generally reasonably well rested a few weeks of broken sleep is absolutely fine and it's a pleasure to be able to be there for your child. Belle, I'm sure when you yourself have built up a better reserve of sleep and are not so stretched, you'll feel really differently about the night-time disturbances. Don't feel bad, you're only human.

[nunheadmum]

Think there's a big difference though between giving a little cuddle and a baby / toddler who refuses to go back to sleep or won't go off unless you're standing beside them / patting / shushing etc for anything up to an hour or more! Having gone through both, the latter is the real killer. An ongoing run of that, a couple of times a night and anyone who doesn't consider controlled crying (at least!) is a saint in my book!!

[kristymac1]

Hiya,

I'm not saying for one minute that its not hard and I haven't been reduced to tears (on more occasions than I care to remember), but I have kinda accepted that the sleeping is going to be pretty rubbish and to some extent accepting it really does help a lot. Nunheadmum you're dead right there's a big difference between a quick cuddle and an hour long cuddle/conversation/back rub - and my daughter does both (as well as sleep walking....) Last night she was awake for 2 hours (3 'till 5), sort of sleepy/sort of not but affable anyway and then I had to be up for work this morning. Nothing Saintly about it, just resignation I guess and a modification of life's expectation (for the short term anyway)......

[helena handbasket]

I have found that if I am missing two hours of sleep a night I can be philosophical about it.

If I'm LIVING on two hours of sleep a night ........ not so much. I lived on that every night for almost the first year and I promise you that no amount of "modifying life's expectations" could make that feel like anything but torture. I don't believe for a second that we were designed to adapt to that. I may have survived it, but I am not the same person.

I think it was Moos who earlier posted about the effect it had on her enjoyment of the first year and I fully relate to that. It makes me incredibly sad to think about what I missed by being too sleep deprived to really enjoy it. It's heartbreaking to me that I have to watch old videos from that year to see that we weren't just always miserable.

In reading the article, I found the bit stating that babies can't be taught a bit odd.......... really? Are they not being taught every second of the day? I can never understand why a baby learning cause (I scream like a lunatic) and affect (mummy comes running) is made to sound like a negative thing. There's no reason why gradually changing the "affect" needs to be damaging.

[Fuschia]

helena handbasket Wrote:

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, I found the bit stating

> that babies can't be taught a bit odd..........

> really? Are they not being taught every second of

> the day?

I think of it as they learn when they are ready.

A newborn can't feed itself, use the toilet or get itself off to sleep but as they grow and develop the time comes when we help them learn to eat solids, self-feed, toilet train and get themselves to sleep without much help from us...

[helena handbasket]

Maybe, but what's the point of bothering with "sleep cues" such as bath, story, etc. if they can't learn that it means bedtime? Obviously they exist in mostly states of impulse and id and all that fun Freudian stuff, and they won't learn things like spatial awareness or muscle control until they are developmentally ready, but they certainly do learn that action leads to reaction. When my son was just a few weeks old he could be screaming bloody murder and then the theme to Coronation Street would play (I know, lame) and he would stop dead in his tracks because he knew that meant feeding time........ it was the most basic form of classical conditioning, like Pavlov and his dogs. That is evidence of learning.

Babies are so much smarter than we give them credit for.

[Smiler]

My daughter has just turned two and I always post on these threads as the sleep deprivation has been hideous! Urgh.

At the start of the year we had a good patch and for the first time since she was born I began to feel OK, but are now being woken up twice a night (1am-ish - when our noisy downstairs neighbour comes in each night and makes lots of noise, when she sometimes settles herself or just has a quick cuddle, 4am-ish, when she is harder to settle) and up for the day at 6ish. Urgh.

It has made a big difference to me to share the night work with Mr Smiler in the last six months or so: he is now suffering and feels hungover all day too (without the fun of the boozing the night before), it feels fairer! Our daughter settles much better for him than for me in the night now, perhaps because she knows there is no chance of him giving up and bringing her into bed whereas I occasionally crack! Mr Smiler also taught her to go to sleep by herself when settling for the night, which has really helped, at least now we just plonk her in her cot while awake and get a bit of an evening.

Fully sympathise with and recognise comments about lack of sleep affecting enjoyment of parenting, have felt like this in the darkest moments. Exhaustion just seems to make it harder to cope with everything, kids, relationships, domestics, work, general life! I don't want to wish time away, but is sometimes hard not to look forward to a lovely time of full nights of sleep!

[snowboarder]

Kirstymac1 - I do think accepting your current situation does help deal with sleep deprivation to some extent, and in many ways there is something snuggly and lovely about the nighttime cuddles and feeds, and comforting and being there for your little one. However I also think you can only keep dealing with continuous broken really bad sleep because the alternative (ie facing it, deciding it cannot continue and actively trying to change it) is much, much harder to face than the status quo... Also - as I've posted before - the decider for me to try and 'teach' my baby how to get to sleep and sleep reasonably at night came when I realised actually the 4 plus wakings were making him grumpy and sleep deprived too......but it is a long slow process with some of these little ones as I am finding out! (babysb update - nighttimes pretty good now, naps still wonky...)

[Smiler]

My one has always been bright and breezy and full of beans even after the worst nights, which is lovely but odd, wish I had some of that energy!

[kristymac1]

snowboarder Wrote:

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However I also think you can only

> keep dealing with continuous broken really bad

> sleep because the alternative (ie facing it,

> deciding it cannot continue and actively trying to

> change it) is much, much harder to face than the

> status quo...

I find myself resenting this comment a bit - maybe being over sensitive (sleep deprivation - 3 years served) but it implies I'm not up to the challenge of addressing it - seriously, 3 years down the line we have tried all manner of things, numerous 'guide' book techniques to no avail which is why the article resonanted so much, I honestly believe some children are good sleepers, some not - and there's not much (however 'up to the challenge' you are) you can do to change that. I would say that the challenge of staying sane and managing to have a healthy loving relationship with a child that doesn't sleep particulary well is much harder than turning the telly up loud and waiting 40 minutes till your wee one has exhausted themselves to sleep......

[snowboarder]

No, I'm simply saying most ways of trying to improve sleep (ie crying for 40 mins) are so hard to deal with/impossible to consider most of us decide to cope with the wake ups.

I've 'only' had a year of it - not three - and as others have posted it's been a pretty major part of really not enjoying the first year of my babys life....

[liberty]

I read a good post on sleeping on www.dulwichmumsanddads.co.uk

I found it useful anyhow.