Does being a SAHM help?

[Liz]

PLEASE - working mums - don't take any of this the wrong way. It's a thought that popped into my head, and I thought I'd ask

DS has recently changed his sleeping pattern/routine AGAIN. He actually sleeps really well at night now. He's still full time in our bed.. coz I'm too lazy to put him in his own bed LOL. When I was putting him in his own bed, he'd wake and come in to us anyway. But when with us from the outset, he seems to sleep straight through, altho I do have a suspicion that he wakes, checks that I'm there and goes back to sleep.

Anyway - he's changed back to waking up early in the morning, and having 2 day sleeps again. And I said to mum yesterday, I can see how people who thrive on structure/routine could get upset & frustrated at their baby's sleeping habits.. coz they just seem to change all the time! And the thought occurred to me that being a SAHM allows me the flexibility to work around him. If he's tired, I put him to bed, and put off running any errands until he wakes up etc. So I'm wondering if those that work, and need good sleep at night, and more routine, have (for want of a better word) a lower threshold for when they may attempt less gentle methods for sleep?

Would love to hear peoples thoughts on it. Coz I'm not sure if I was working a 9-5 job if I'd cope with half of DS's sleeping habits!

[krisp]

Hi Liz, I'm a SAHM and have a little monkey who doesn't sleep very well. He has a 2 hour sleep in the middle of the day and then wakes at least once overnight. We'd been giving him a bottle to get him back to sleep but for the last 7 nights we've been able to get him back to sleep without it and he's slept through 5 nights in a row this week, so fingers crossed he's almost there! I know I could not cope with a fulltime job and having such disturbed sleep so I have no idea how working mums do it. I'm even more weary now that I'm pregnant again so it's a mystery to me how I could work, look after the house, make dinner, do the washing, give enough time to Ewan etc and hold down a 9-5 job. We are lucky that I can choose to stay at home because I just can't let Ewan cry himself back to sleep in the night, we did try but it broke our heart so we ditched it! Hats off to all those working mums who manage - you must be Superwomen!

[Trillian]

I don't know, but it's certainly an intersting thought Liz. I suppose that even if you did work, wherever your child was being cared for at would still be able to let them have day sleeps if they needed them. I know SAHM's who follow routines though and will not let the kids sleep outside of their 'scheduled' sleep time so it's not just a matter of working mums having routines etc either I guess.

[Astrid]

Well I work part time. I have noticed on the days that I work that I am forced into a routine. There is a set time to get up, a set time when we get home which does not leave us a lot of time, so it is straight into dinner, bath bed etc. There is not a lot of room to be flexible, say that though I do not put her to bed till she is showing that she is ready, despite my desire for her to sleep. I do find working does make me less able to cope with bad sleep nights.

Childcare will do what you ask them to for naps, but I have found it easier to let them use the standard one for Maggie, one big nap after lunch. Younger bubs tend to nap when they need to.

[paradise lost]

I'm a SAHM and i have fairly rigid day schedules (nap at 11am-ish for 60+ minutes) and very rigid night schedules (bath at 7, bed immediately thereafter) and DD *headbutts table* sleeps really well, and has done for months. That said she does have the occasional week (when ill/teething etc.) when she wakes a lot and i am getting up to go to her 5 and 6 times (we don't co-sleep as she just gets up and rakes about in my room if i bring her in with me) a night - i COULD NOT hold down a job while that was happening. I'd be too exhausted as i'm on my own, there's no-one to take turns with or anything.

Bx

[Tobily]

I have day time routines for my kids and even though I'm a SAHM I like having them, and my kids like them as well.
We went through a period though where DS's sleep was absolutely shocking - waking hourly all night long - this went on a for a few months and I can say with 100% certainty that I wouldn't have coped if I'd been working at the time as well. I barely coped as it was. I definitely think that being in full time work would make gentle methods a bit harder to persevere with - since they often take a while to work. When you're seriously sleep deprived the thought of waiting a week or two for something to work might as well be a decade lol.

[RhiChiChi]

I'm a SAHM and I'll still do anything for sleep! DD tends to not go back to sleep when she has had her feed during the night, usually somewhere btw 2.30am - 4am, she babbles and grunts and won't settle. I have tried ignoring her, patting her back etc... but the cheeky monkey won't have a bar of it. By then I have my eyes popping out of my head, and plus DH has to get up for work about 6am, so I feel bad if she won't settle, so I put her in bed with us! She'll sleep really well with us. I'd be a mess if I was working my usual fulltime hrs of 6am - 3pm. During the day I am trying to get her into a 'routine' (for a better word). I think I was missing her queues and then she was overtired and wouldn't sleep for more than 1 hour. I caught her early this morning, she has been asleep since 9am and am hoping she'll stay asleep for another hour or so!

[August]

Hi Liz! I agree that being a SAHM does give you and your baby the flexibility to find out what works. I have been reading about routines and whether Lucas/we need one but as a SAHM we have our own routines, when we need them. I'm not too sure what it would be like if I were working...??

[Liz]

Jooleshere - yeah, we kinda have a routine I guess. Once we pick up on tired signs, then it's nappy change, feed, bed. Or shower, teeth & bed. Whenever it happens to be. We have plenty of bedtime cues here LOL. But it's certainly not by the clock, and I'm not trying to make him sleep when he's not tired! But I also have a pretty compliant little man.. if we're out, and he's tired.. he's still very good, and then falls asleep in the car, or when we get home. He's rarely ratty when he's overtired. Maybe the gentle methods made him this flexible & easygoing? Guess we'll never know. heh.

Would be interesting to see if there's a certain demographic of people that use different methods - gentle or otherwise. Probably not a survey that could be conducted without getting people's backs up tho LOL. It'd be interesting to see if the mum's age and working situation came into play.

[{sarah}]

It drives me mental LOL!! I work on Fridays & Saturdays but otherwise am at home with Zander for the rest of the time. He has always been a *bad* sleeper, in that if we don't get up three times a night it's a good night LOL!! I'm so used to it now that most of the time it's ok. However if we have a bad night, like last Friday I'm a wreck on the Saturday. I went to bed at 10pm then was up for work at 5.15am, in between that I was up 7 times!!! And now add to it pregnancy.... We'll see how I go in a few weeks

[Liz]

I've foudn the best thing with being a SAHM with a 1 yr old, and being pregnant.. is having day sleeps together! If I didnt' get those, I'd be a MESS. If I sleep with him, he has a good long sleep too.. not his usual 45min-1hr.

I'm grateful Tallon's night sleeping has improved dramatically - but he's still in our bed! LOL. I'm trying to decide what to do about it.. since the baby will be in our room too come December! My sleep is too precious to me at the moment to persevere with him in his own bed (he does bring himself in to us if he wakes.. which he normally does when sleeping alone.. but it's still an interruption to my sleep! LOL)

[krysalyss]

I think not only can you be mor flexible but you also know where they are up to so to speak. For example when my husband and I do a half day each with the bub I find it difficult to know where he is up to. Even if my hubby tells me when he last slept etc I still find it a bit difficult. When I am with him from the morning I know what time he had all his feeds, his sleeps and how long for etc. and the day seems much smoother.

[paradise lost]

Krysalyss i totally know what you mean! WHen DD goes to XP's i feel disconnected for the first wee bit when she comes back. I used to get attitude from XP when i asked him when she last ate, when he last changed her, how long she slept as he felt i was checking up on how well he looks after her and i was just trying to catch up!

Bx

[mbear]

I've foudn the best thing with being a SAHM with a 1 yr old, and being pregnant.. is having day sleeps together!

...wait until you have your third Liz......the older one wont have a bar of resting.....too much to do, too much to see.....

[Roryrory]

Liz I work in the office 3 days a week and one day a week from home and DH is home with Flynn on the days I work. On the days I am home DH is doing his masters full time so is still pretty flexible. Flynn has always slept in his own cot but was in our room until 6-7 months. So I guess I am kind of in both camps then ?

Flynn wakes when he wants (anywhere between 6 and 7am) and has a morning and an afternoon sleep. But they can be anywhere from 1-2 hours (sometimes 3!) each and start when he's tired and end when he wakes up IYKWIM. He goes to bed (usually) around 8.30pm, but sometimes crashes earlier. The only thing that is super-routine is meal times. So DH and I pretty well both follow Flynn's lead and we can do that because we have the luxury of being at home with him.

We have ALWAYS done this with naps and he has always been easy to put to sleep - just tell him its bedtime/nap time and off he goes. But I gotta say we did go through a testing time with night waking. We tried patting him, rocking him, etc - all the gentle Pantley methods - but he would just get more worked up and we (I particularly, having to go to work) were getting really sleep deprived. So we tried the hard @rsed "controlled crying" method (for want of a better term) and literally within two nights it worked. He is just not a kid who likes you around when he is tired (I was actually reading his baby diary and I noted this characteristic in him when he was only 11 weeks old - while I never let him cry unattended as a little one he definately did NOT like me in there with him when he was trying to sleep and would actually cry until I left him alone).

So we have used a mix of gentle and hard @rsed approaches - probably because I am both SAHM and working mum

[Bathsheba]

Liz, I have to agree: as much as being a SAHM can be isolating and thankless etc it certanly helps me pace myself the next day if i have lost a lot of sleep the previous night... which is most nights. My DH just can't afford to share the load when it comes to dealing with the boys at night... if he did then his work would suffer. I just couldn't go to work each day and function on the ammount of sleep i get each night... well i guess i could but I would get very run down. Someone has to look after themselves around here! If DH and I were both sleep deprived life would be just awful. And having worked in childcare i know that life isn't as gentle as i can offer at home either... but that's just my personal experience... I'm sure many people would disagree

[ljv]

It's an interesting thought re the SAHM. I think that it depends on the individual. My son is a bad sleeper - always has been since he was born and we have tried everything. When he was 4 months old, I was ready to give him back as I was getting up all through the night and he would only sleep for 20 mins during the day - on the advice of a sleep school, we were letting him cry for hours at night (I wouldn't do it again - it didn't work and has created bad associations with sleep for him) and my life felt totally out of control. So I went back to work two days a week for a break! And it did me the world of good. However, the constant lack of sleep and stress of a fulltime job (DS is 2.5 now) does make me cranky at night especially when he won't go to sleep....so I think that it does mean that your tolerance may be slightly less - but on the other hand, I knew that I had a respite on the days that I went to work so I dealt better with him for the days that I was at home.

[bigbird2girls]

I am fortunate enough to be a stay at home mum and i also run our carpentry business and i am very proud to be a stay at home Mum as well as a at home working mum. I must say to all you women out there who have kids and work full time 9-5pm my hat goes off to you as i no that i would not be able to do it unless it was my own business and working from home, like i do now.

I think there is no difference in being a sahm or working mum the child still knows they are loved unconditionally and lets face it Kids change all the time, there routine, eating habits you name it. I must say it would be easier in routine wise for sahm than full time working mums. But my DD #1 goes to daycare twice a week and i just stick to the same times as daycare for sleeps and eating and it works a treat for me. My 3 mth old i just go with the flow and watch for tired signs etc.

I think the best thing about being a sahm is that you can get kisses and cuddles whenever and you are still spending quality time with them and seeing them grow into a mini you and your husband combined.

Liz - sorry to say but enjoy your sleeps in the arvo now as that will all change soon, mbear i am with you on that one.LOL!

My Dh works long hours and hard so my roll is to keep the business running and maintain the household etc. But my DH helps still and we work as a team and i am very very fortunate to have such a great dh who still helps with the kids.

Jen
xx