A nice article about sleeping through the night

[bluesuperted]

Hey Ruth, yes definitely different strokes! And as in all things mummy, there is a need to live and let live, especially if you are said unrelated man on train, MIL or friend without baby!?

I consider us really lucky with baby E, he wakes usually 2x a night sometimes 3 but it's usually all very quick and I'd say on a normal night I could get nine hours (broken) sleep if I was physically capable of getting off my iPhone before 11pm! As it is we either all go to bed at 8ish and I read/email til 11 or he sleeps on us downstairs til same time and transfer him upstairs without waking him then get a few wake ups before the day starts around 730/8am. All quite?civilised to us at least and everyone is getting decent enough rest (although know this would be awful for some people!!) so therefore in no rush to change things. It's a far cry from 3.5hrs a night and I think I'd be demented with 10 months of that! It really does vary by baby and by family - that's what makes me mad when people butt in on YOUR particular and very individual situation with negativity. Being at the end of your rope and asking for advice is one thing but unsolicited lecturing (or unhelpful comments when you're following your own plan after much thought) is so annoying and can really dent your confidence.?

Likewise we've never had one hourly wakings, I love night feeds rather than dread them and certainly the idea of a sleep clinic has never been a topic of conversation for us (going back to the Pantley thing, we're clearly not finding our lot a problem) so I really feel for those of you in that situation, it must be really hard.

Ruth just saw your last post, wishing you a chilled out, sleep loving little one this time round! Surely it's your turn for some sleep luck now??

xx

[Ruth_Baldock]

:) This fills me with optimism. Subsequent babbies are meant to be more chilled when there is a toddler hanging about, right?!?!?!?!

Anyway, I liked the article even though I am no longer bedsharing/cosleeping/breastfeeding (I don't count latching on, saying 'Noms!' then biting me as breastfeeding by any stretch of the imagination...)

[bluesuperted]

And mine fulfils the middle criteria too (no crying when waking, quiet feeds). He randomly also slept through (up to 9 hours!!!) when he was pre-12 weeks!! After that it changed but now we do sometimes get some 6 hr blocks at night again here and there. There is always hope!

[supergolden88]

"I don't even know how you'd sleep train a baby in a 2bdr flat, when they're sharing with their older sibling?!"

Last night the fire alarm went off (hubby was making dinner) and kept going for what seemed like hours - around 5-10 minutes. Incredibly loud. Both daughter (nearly 5) and, more amazingly, baby slept through us doing a comedy routine of opening doors, waving cloths around and finally having to get a ladder and unscrew the alarm off the ceiling. Babies/children can sleep through a lot provided they are already asleep.

And I have also called in the experts - a night nanny - after seeing her recommended on the forum. She did not tell me me anything I did not already know but it was good to have someone put a plan down for us to follow and actually stay the night to help with the training (and observe baby's sleep habits). Actually she stayed 24h in total. Expensive but worth it in the long run. Naturally my son is now ill with some kind of bug so all progress will probably be undone overnight.

[Moos]

bluesuperted Wrote:

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> And mine fulfils the middle criteria too (no

> crying when waking ...

Actually, Twosling does too! So nice. Moosling until he was about 2 or something always woke and immediately howled the place down, cue (once he was weaned) comedy scrambling/tumbling down stairs to get his bottle of milk, warm it up, sprint back up and stick bottle in baby to STOP THAT NOISE!

Twosling quite often wakes and sings to himself. So sweet.

[Ruth_Baldock]

We usually get crying if he wakes in the middle of the night (normally from a bad dream, so can't blame him...). In the morning we hear him having a little sing/chat, then he sounds like he's lecturing someone, then we get 'Mama, dadaaaa! ab ab ab! (seb seb seb!) MAMAS!!!! DAAAAADAAA!!!!!!!' until he gets really p-d off, and then the shrill shrieking of death begins. Lord help us all. If we get in early enough, we can usually give him his dummy and he snoozes for a bit, but my husband can never find the dummy. It's at this point that the Benny Hill theme starts playing in my head...

[bluesuperted]

Moos, yes I count my lucky stars with the no nighttime howling card!

Also, I like this little blog post for days when the naysayers (in ANY direction) get you down. It's a variation on the 'it's just a phase' maxim but I like it a lot as it goes against the grain a little.

http://sleepisfortheweak.wordpress.com/2007/09/14/things-i-will-not-be-doing-again/

[Moos]

Ah.. co-sleeping. I really liked it, little head under my arm, little feet on my tummy.. I don't think it would ever have been a long-term strategy for us, but it was a pity it led so quickly to sleep difficulties for me and Twosling.

[KatsuQueen]

I'm always intrigued by references to "non-western societies" in studies about sleep and babies waking up in the night. Particularly when talking about "co-sleeping", "baby wearing" and so on. I was brought up in a "non-western" society and my personal opinion is that sleeping in the same bed with your parents is not about cultural baby-bonding but actually space and money for beds is at a premium - for example, for children to have their own bedroom is seen as pretty indulgent and it is not uncommon for whole families to share a bedroom, for example. So in that context, sharing a bed is just a matter of necessity.

Also, I don;t think that mothers in "non-western" societies are more open to the idea of babies more waking and feeding in the night and so on. In more traditional societies; unless you have a maid or other helper, the mother has to cook, prepare meals from scratch, keep the house clean and so on...it would be very likely that you (as wife and mother) would have your elderly in-laws living with you. And you would have to look after their needs too. In my grandmother's day (and for some of my mother's cousins RIGHT NOW) you would have to work in the fields during the day.

I'm not saying that these studies are inaccurate (I'm sure they are all academically flawless etc etc) but I would take them with a pinch of salt. A lot is made about extended families and support etc, but the flipside is that there are other pressures - how many women on this forum would like to live with their mother and sister's families sharing living space and kitchen, let alone mother-in-law and sister-in-law? I'm more inclined to believe that women were a bit more "practical" (for want of a better word) eg my mother said that if we woke in the night after 6 weeks she would just give us cool boiled water ::o something I wouldn't dream of doing with MiniKatsu. (She said it worked though, after a few nights, we stopped waking up in the night!)

[Fuschia]

I am sure there are huge vAriations in different societies and across time

A friend from Fiji says it's usual for the dad to sleep onto the floor beside the bed for eg while it's usual in jPan for a whole family to sleep in the same room, still, according to my Japanese SIL though not sure what views are on bf

There are societies where the colOstrum is seen as bad and is thrown away while babies are fed on sugar water Till the milk comes in

Interesting book called our babies ourselves by Meredith small on different societies and attitudes to child rearing

Bit of a digression from original topic of acceptance of non conventional approach in our society today but interesting as is the change in practices pre and post the industrial revolution as women left the home to work