Marc Weissbluth and his crappy book can bite me

[erbear]

I'll take the bigger rnp, too, please. The pnp sucks.

[Deleted]

Lol at adult rock n play. I'll take one. Maybe I can actual get some sleep in one of those. Hell my dogs will take one each too.

[billyhorrible]

It's so funny you immediately go to nursing until college. With LBB (who you know was a crappy sleeper) when I talked to the women in my family about sleep training they all thought the entire idea was crazy. They didn't understand why you wouldn't rock your child to sleep. My mother flat out said "you won't still be nursing him to sleep in college."

I went to college with like 40,000 people. Not one of them had their mothers with them to help them get to sleep. I promise you that your child will eventually fall asleep AND stay asleep all night. Even if you nurse him for months and months. Even if you do nothing to "train" him to sleep.

You already know my stance on this, but let me reassure that you are not a failure! I think all these books on sleep training do a real disservice to moms. They make you feel like if you don't sleep train you're doing your child a disservice. That they will never sleep and it will be your fault. Which is totally untrue. I did so much research on this back when we were rocking LBB to sleep every night, and DH's coworkers were insisting that if we didn't sleep train our baby, we'd be doing it with a toddler and it would be that much harder. They were completely wrong. There are absolutely no negative effects on children who aren't sleep trained, and if it makes you feel better I can send you the studies on how babies that use sleep aids to get to sleep end up sleeping just as well as their sleep trained counterparts. And from personal experience I have a waaaaaaayyyy better sleeper than any of my friends who sleep trained.

For some reason everyone is so quick to point out babies develop on their own timeline, except when it comes to sleep. Which is ridiculous. Sleep is just as developmental as walking or talking. Some babies develop the ability to fall asleep and stay asleep sooner than others, and sleep training has nothing to do with that.

[Deleted]

billyhorrible agree 100%

[kemdupuis]

billyhorrible I think you just hit the nail on head. We haveNot done any sleep training whatsoever, and B is naturally starting to sleep for longer stretches at night. We provide him with a bedtime routine and consistency in his sleeping space to help him out, but I take my cues from him. My mom keeps telling me I need to try CIO, but it just feels wrong. To me, if B is crying, he needs me. He is too little to 'manipulate' me, and I'm going to respond to him. He sleeps in his PnP, and usually wakes once at night- which I think is pretty good for 4 months. I nurse him before bed, but not to sleep- usually I rock/pat him to sleep, but he does nurse to sleep during his one nighttime wakeup. I feel like we're doing well and he will sleep longer when he is developmentally ready

[erbear]

I agree with billyhorrible and kemdupuis. My mom keeps saying it's okay to let her cry, but I can't do it. She's too little to know anything except she needs me and I'm not responding to her. So we nurse to sleep and we rock and sway to sleep. I've said it before and I'll say it again: she may be my only baby, so I'm going to enjoy every moment of it.

So, she goes back in the rock and play after crying in the pack and play. She'll figure it out. And I'm only half joking that she'll need a big rnp for college.

[carolyngrace]

I totally agree that there is way too much conflicting information out there, as well as pressure on parents to do it a certain way!

I've seen close friends nurse to sleep, co-sleep, etc until their babies are much older than ours (1 year or more) because it worked best for them (ie got them and baby the most sleep). And I've seen people sleep-train pretty much from birth. I know one person who did CIO at one-month. She said it was torture but then she had a perfect sleeper ever since. And that now 6 year-old kid is totally loving and sweet and perfect.

I usually comment about how doing a modified CIO works so well for me. And part of me thinks it would work well for some of you, too, if you tried it. But on the other hand I realize that our babies are SO DIFFERENT.

We do bedtime the way we do because it works best for both us and DB. You have to do the same thing. Doing CIO because you "shouldn't nurse to sleep" is terribly silly. Doing it because it helps you and baby sleep better makes sense.

Giving in and nursing to sleep and then trying again tomorrow night also makes sense. Or trying something different tomorrow. You didn't ruin anything by giving in!

[billyhorrible]

budders, I wish I could give you a giant hug. It is so hard. I think with sleep more than anything else. So much self-questioning about whether you're doing it right, and of course everything is exponentially more difficult when you're tired. You also have a very mentally demanding job, which complicates things.

Trust your mama insticts and do whatever feels right to you. Teething and sickness were always hell in this house, but like everything else, this to shall pass.

[seannemairi]

I ❤ this thread. I've posted about sleep things a couple times and got some excellent advice that was only reiterated here. Since I stopped trying to figure out why my baby wouldn't sleep here or fall asleep on her own or whatever, sleep has gotten much better at our house. She currently has a cold and can't mouth breathe very well in her rnp so we've had more wake ups than usual but her regression is over and she's become less clingy so I can put her down again. Once this cold is gone I'm going to enjoy our non structured sleeping while it works. Hooray for you mamas!

[wegrowsheep]

We tried CIO with DD, and it was awful. We gave up, and she somehow managed to learn to sleep all night anyways. And then, out of desperation, we tried it on DS1 when he was one. And it worked awesome. Every kid is different. I have no plans for trying anything with T til he's one(ish). Right now, I nurse him to sleep, and hold him for most of his naps, and he manages to sleep in the pnp at night.

[erbear]

And let me say what my pediatrician told me yesterday - don't worry about naps. She'll figure it out. My pedi said she's still young and she's very alert and curious, so we should consider 15 minute naps a win.

Of course grandma got her to take an hour long nap today!

[missk0411]

I"m such an infrequent poster, but I'm butting in anyway:

My major piece of advice for people when they're pregnant is "Do what works." I mean, we all have plans for how and what we're going to feed them, where they're going to sleep, discipline, etc. That's awesome, but if those don't work for your family, toss them. You have to raise the baby you have, not the baby you imagined you'd have. Do what works.

Anyhoo. LO nurses to sleep, and between the sleep regression and a cold, she's up a lot. Nursing her back to sleep works for us right now. So that's what we're going to do. She's not ready for sleep training yet--I mean, she is only now starting to recognize her own hands. I don't think she can self soothe yet. So we won't sleep train. We'll get there. I remind myself every night that her older sister is sleeping one room over, and we had to do very little training with her. They'll all get there. Don't be afraid to do what you need to do now.

[tiffbot]

I'm just going to ditto the STMs here, you know I have the same mindset too. Just waiting doing what works for now until it changes on its own.

Believe me, my confidence as a mom and the decisions I make now was very much learned confidence. Being a FTM is so hard and I always say it was a tougher adjustment than becoming a mom the second time. It's hard to see that what you are doing is right until the day it changes and you can physically see the changes in your baby, in every milestone. Anything I could say has already been said, so I just wanted to extend the big internet hugs out and let you know you've got this, even if a lot of tears and doubt end up getting you there, you will!

[jessila]

H and I talked about this briefly last night. When I went back to work when O was 12 weeks we hit a sleep regression. Ours came in the form of refusing to sleep in the crib. He does almost all of his sleeping in the swing. And you know what, we're all getting sleep!! So I will take that victory and worry about him sleeping in the crib later.
I try to put him in the crib at least once a night. Every other night we can get a few hour stretch.
But last night he slept for SEVEN HOURS in a row. In the swing but who cares?
I'm team do what you have to to get sleep. Something will work today and may not work tomorrow. Figure it out and sleep.

[gilder40]

I read an interesting article regarding CIO. It's very much against CIO, so if you're for it, tread lightly lol. I personally don't like it....it just goes against my nature and my personality. I'm a super nurturing person, so to have my baby cry and not respond is the worst form of torture.

www.phillyvoice.com/screaming-sleep/

[gilder40]

Oct 18, 2015 9:38:35 GMT -5 budders said:

Oct 18, 2015 9:08:05 GMT -5 gilder40 said:

I read an interesting article regarding CIO. It's very much against CIO, so if you're for it, tread lightly lol. I personally don't like it....it just goes against my nature and my personality. I'm a super nurturing person, so to have my baby cry and not respond is the worst form of torture.

www.phillyvoice.com/screaming-sleep/

Just reading the opening description of the baby's cries makes me want to cry and go pick him up.

I know, right? It was a tough read, but I'm glad I did. Just thinking of things from the baby's point of view gives perspective. We are grown, we can meet our own needs. Babies can't.

[gilder40]

Oct 18, 2015 9:45:10 GMT -5 budders said:

Oct 18, 2015 9:41:11 GMT -5 gilder40 said:

I know, right? It was a tough read, but I'm glad I did. Just thinking of things from the baby's point of view gives perspective. We are grown, we can meet our own needs. Babies can't.

I know. I particularly like the article because it highlights how work driven our society is and the lack of support for parents in terms of maternity and paternity leave. That's really my biggest issue at this point. If I didn't have to get up to go to work every day, I don't think that our sleep issues would bother me nearly as much as they do. But because society is expecting me to be back at work before my baby and I are ready for me to be there, it's hard to balance the two.

This. A million times this. And we as teachers actually had a little extra time with our LOs because of the summer. T was three months old when I went back to work. Now, I did have her early, so if she was on time it wouldn't have been as much. As it is, I had to use my sick days and extended sick leave to cover my absence....the extended leave cut my pay by 35%. Thankfully, short term disability helped cover the difference, but the majority of that went to our hospital bills!! Ack!

My cousin posted some maps that highlight different things. One of them was paid maternity and paternity leave for new parents. There's only EIGHT countries that don't do it. U.S. being one of them. So crazy.

twistedsifter.com/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world/

[gilder40]

Lol budders

[erbear]

Teachers do have it awful. I'm "lucky" to not have a permanent job so I can take this time off...but you know, is it a total win?

[Deleted]

My doctor was really pushing us to do CIO now and she said she did it with her second child and it saved her sanity. But she had to be 100% at work as a pediatrician making calls that can save a child's life so I completely understand her point of view.

[gilder40]

@jemomma I know, I was hesitant to post it because I didn't want to step on any toes. I totally understand that everyone has to do what works for them, and every child and situation is different. It's just not the method for me. I ended up posting it just so it was out there so people had the opportunity to read it should they choose.

[carolyngrace]

Ugh. I just had the WORST night getting DB down. He napped from about 6-6:30, and I laid him down for bed at 7:30. I knew that seemed a bit early, but he was giving all the tired cues and sometimes does nap like that before bedtime. It took an HOUR of cry, rock, nurse, cry, repeat before he was down... But also he had his shots today, so that didn't help.

ETA: Highjacking this for general sleep posts, obviously! Hope that's ok. 

[gilder40]

Oct 19, 2015 19:59:35 GMT -5 carolyngrace said:

Ugh. I just had the WORST night getting DB down. He napped from about 6-6:30, and I laid him down for bed at 7:30. I knew that seemed a bit early, but he was giving all the tired cues and sometimes does nap like that before bedtime. It took an HOUR of cry, rock, nurse, cry, repeat before he was down... But also he had his shots today, so that didn't help.

ETA: Highjacking this for general sleep posts, obviously! Hope that's ok. 

Girl, I'm sorry! We are having a tough night over here too. T just fell a asleep about 15 min ago. She's usually zonked out by 8:30 or so.