Yep I agree. Sleep is important for everyone and some ppl can function on broken sleep and others can't.
Isn't that the point of this thread tho? What's the big deal with self settling? Why is it up there as one of the main things a baby 'should' be doing? Especially when the training required causes a lot of stress and broken sleep in itself when bub hasn't read the fact sheets. We should all just be assessing our own situations and doing what works at the time so everyone gets some sleep. There's no rod created when you meet the babies needs.
We've had dreadful periods of 'bad sleep' and not settling, but I've still not considered 'training' them.. I've only ever thought aaaargh somebody help me get thru this.. And chanted 'this too shall pass' over and over lol.
To be honest I never quite figured it out either and I was blessed with DD who was reasonably easy to get to sleep most of the time. If you're both happy and getting enough sleep, who cares if you rock/feed/pat/whatever to sleep? Do whatever works for you both.
Mind you, I did figure out early on that if I went running in at the slightest grizzle DD had a harder time getting back to sleep because she'd decide it was up time. She was the sort of kid that would stir, grizzle a bit, have a bit of a fart or a fidget then go back to sleep. So I'd stand just outside her door and listen for a minute or two before going in, if the tone of her grumbling changed from muttering to hey woman where are you I'd go get her. If not, I'd go about my business and leave her to it.
DS didn't self-settle until 3.5-4 in age. Just one of those things. We figured he'd either get there eventually or his wife would have the task of getting him off to sleep. Either way, it wouldn't be a problem for me forever.
Self-settling in the middle of the night, however, between sleep cycles, he picked up before 3 years!
I don't quite get it either. I don't see a lot of difference between frantically patting him in his cot, lying awake listening to him whimper for a long time (I do understand the ''I'm going back to sleep" grizzles) or picking him up and feeding him back to sleep in 5 minutes. Except that feeding him is much nicer and quicker It seems strange that there's all this pressure to have a baby that self settles and sleeps through the night when realistically it's completely foreign to most of them! I'd rather be sleep deprived than go through the stress of trying to teach him to self settle (my DS really really doesn't self settle! so it would be VERY stressful for me!)
I really don't like that it's usually one of the first questions I get asked about DS. There's a lot more to him that how he sleeps.
I guess for me it wasn't that I wanted them to self settle all the time, however I had to do something to get them out of the waking 1-2 hourly for a b'feed routine. After doing 1-2 hourly for 4 mths something had to give for me. I know some people deal better with sleep deprivation and we all have our limits for what we can deal with but for me I was at the point of losing the plot completely. (Both slept through the night from 6 weeks and then regressed!) After doing some sleep training after going to a sleep school, (settling without feeding) we were lucky that both our kids responded to this within 1 night. We literally had 1 difficult night and then a longer stretch the following night that got progressively longer. We have awesome sleepers now, both run to bed at nap time and night time and we haven't had any issues since then really.
I guess my story is a bit different in that our focus was on self settling sometimes so that we would at least get a 4 hour block without being woken up. I think because sleep deprivation is quite horrific for some people and can affect them in ways some of us don't understand that that is the reason why there is that focus.
I personally know people who spent a year in a fog of no sleep, which led to depression after they literally tried everything and yes the focus was on self settling because this mama was at her wits end and it was affecting all her relationships and her relationship and enjoyment with her children. I totally understand the "I'd rather be sleep deprived than go through the stress of trying to teach him to self settle" which I swore by until they hit around 9 mths and I physically couldn't do it anymore. We all do what we have to do to get through - for some that might mean a focus on sleep training earlier than others, doesn't make it wrong or right, makes it RIGHT for us and our children and circumstances.
I agree that a focus from others of - "Is he/she a good baby and sleep through" Is nonsense and just puts more pressure on us as mamas.
Well my son has 'self settled' since he was born (always hated hands on settling - rocking, patting etc) and he still wakes atleast 3 times a night! He obviously hasn't read the baby books lol
Don't fix what isn't broken, if it works then it works.
My DD is still fed to sleep (2years 8months) although she can settle on her own and does so at my parents or her Dad's as well as overnight. I know I could change things but don't really see much point in stopping feeding to sleep when I'm not planning to stop feeding altogether... use it while I can right? At my parent's and her Dad's, she just naturally transitioned from being rocked, to being layed with to having them sit with her (the rocking lasted till she was 18months or so though). She seems to prefer her own space when falling asleep now and likes my parents/her Dad to be distracted with something else so they will be in the room with her but on the laptop or reading a book, not even sure if that even counts as self settling? Ah well haha.
My DD has only just sleeping through more often than not in the last couple of months. The first year of her life she was up feeding 2hrly at least (and taking 40minutes+ to feed as a newborn eek) and was still waking ~4 times a night at 2 for feeds but it never really bothered me. Always said I'm glad I had her young when I was already used to sleeping very little haha so I just went with it.
I did start trying to settle her differently overnight recently (about a month ago) as we are about to welcome another little lady and figured logistically, trying to accomidate two overnight would be beyond me (DD was waking once or twice still most nights and feeding back to sleep). She was ready though and didn't really fight it, we had one resettle where it took 40minutes and that was the only time there were a few tears... it almost killed me but I knew it would be worse if I left it till the baby was here and had to say 'no' for that reason, if that makes sense. I don't feel like I taught her to resettle, she figured out how to do that on her own way before then, I was more letting her know it was time for her to use it when Mummy was around too. I still actually feel a bit weird about it as if it wasn't for this baby, I would never have encouraged things to change but she seems okay and considering it was just that one time, I'm sure she was probably ready. That being said when she woke, I was still there rubbing her back or patting her bottom or laying with her so not self-settling anyway, it was just that after a few nights of doing that she stopped calling out for us and falling back asleep herself more often than not.
Sleep does seem like a big issue in the baby world, it is unfortunate that some parent's probably feel pressured because of these expectations. Oh and don't even mention the fact DD still shares our room although in her own bed but often ends up in with us just without us noticing till morning lol. Actually, the thing I told my parents I want to invest in for the new baby when they ask what we need is just a bigger bed!
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It seems strange that there's all this pressure to have a baby that self settles and sleeps through the night when realistically it's completely foreign to most of them! I'd rather be sleep deprived than go through the stress of trying to teach him to self settle (my DS really really doesn't self settle! so it would be VERY stressful for me!)
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