The BIG sleep issue....why do we taunt ourselves over it??

OK, so sorry if I open a huge can of worms here.......but............what is with the constant questions when you have a baby, (usually new baby) about SLEEPING.

Is it just me who hates hearing people ask, "how does he sleep", or "oh he wakes every 3hrs!" :hide:

I'm sorry but I just don't get it and it is seriously starting to annoy me. My first DS1 I thought didn't sleep that great, but he was our first...along came DS2 and he takes the cake :o but you know what - I'm over it!!! they are our babies and we love them to pieces, we chose to have them and there is no rule/instruction book that comes with them telling you us they are meant to sleep or what we can do.

Don't get me wrong I understand that some people 'need their sleep' and YES it is tiring getting up to a baby all night long (I get up every hour or so, perhaps every 3 on a good night). But I push through, I have grumpy days and I've tried all sorts of things but I also don't complain about it or am willing to accept it - they are small for only the tiniest part of their lives.

I have a close friend recently have thier first baby (this is probably where it's getting on my nerves).......they talk about his sleep every time we see him. Oh "he was good last night" - sorry I don't care because I was up all night & keep it to myself
or we hear "don't know what his problem is he's was up every 3hrs" - again boo hoo you are not the first and then the best one "I just can't get up at 6, how do we make him sleep longer". :wall:

I guess I have just learnt to accept all of these things, and I love my kids sooo much I would do anything. Yeah some days I am super tired, but I chose to have them and I wouldn't change it for the world. I choose to have a coffee, perhaps stay in my PJ's and just move on and keep it to myself. I understand first time around it is a huge adjustment....but it's not that bad, is it??? :) and everywhere we go people ask or comment on how does your baby sleep, leaving us wondering, unsure or again just talking about a topic that I guess just is how it is.....ahhhh I don't know - perhaps I havn't had enough sleep :lol:

It's very annoying isn't it? Like the whole point of being a parent is to get your child to sleep - and this message is reinforced through all those expert parenting books that focus on sleep and the parenting helplines that hand out advice on how to fix the problem of no sleep.
Like your child and their behaviour - totally normal and healthy - is a problem to be solved.
I like to take a long-term view. What's important to me is the adult my child will one day be and I try to make decisions with that in mind. Whether or when they sleep through the night is pretty irrelevent in that context.
i know howhard it is having no sleep for a long time - parents need help and support to get through that, not to be constantly told that there's something wrong with them or their babies if they're not behaving a certain way.

I always said he sleeps like a baby - which was perfectly true seeing he is a baby & wakes multiple times a night like babies are supposed to.

Yep it gets to me too. I have one woman who keeps asking "is she sleeping through the night yet?" I don't like lying so say "No, but we are doing ok" but every time she starts telling me how my bub should be and that i should leave her in a cot until she learns to ... blah blah blah. i didn't ask for advice, i'm ok with how we are going, why should she care about our sleeping arrangements?

THere are much cooler things that my kid does that we can talk about.

Yes I agree. I suppose cause all they do is eat, sleep and poop, there aint much more to brag about. Sleep and weight gain are sooo overly emphased, a baby isn't doing well unless the sleep through the night and put on huge weight gains, pfttttt, oh and how fast can are they dropping feeds is another one.

I've never made it a topic of conversation with anyone I know, if it comes up I say yeah, DD1 slept 8-12hours a night from 4 months, DD2 still wakes ever 4-5 at 10. Sometimes I get the usual tuttut, you should be weaning her off those feeds, fat chance of that lol, she needs them. I doubt its any reflection on my parenting skills, both my children are just very different and they require different things.

What does annoy me is I have some friends who are constantly complaining about how crap their babies are at sleeping, and how they have to get up every 2 hours to rock them back to sleep. I just say, well don't complain to me unless you are going to do something about it, and if you aren't going to do something about it, then stop complaining.

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I always said he sleeps like a baby - which was perfectly true seeing he is a baby & wakes multiple times a night like babies are supposed to.

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lol, my quote on facebook a while back was "The person who made up the saying 'slept like a baby' obviously never had children".

My friend thinks it's the end of the world if her son cuts his nap short by half an hour or if he wakes in the night. Until DD was 8 weeks old I averaged 3 hours sleep a night. I was a tad giddy from sleep dep but I coped. My friend says every time her son wakes up during the night (once only if ever) "I don't know how you deal with multiple wakings" Well I just do, it's the way DD works, I function because that's what I have to do and I wouldn't swap her for the world!

It does annoy me when people say that she SHOULD be sleeping through the night, hell I've NEVER slept through the night. I wake up thirsty or I need to pee or something random wakes me up and I can't doze off again. It happens.

Erin, I feel your pain!

Ds is only 2 weeks old and im already sick of taking to random people about his sleep... they ask if he is a good baby, does he sleep and i say he acts like a newborn adn leave it at that lol

I hate it when people link sleeping thru to being FF.

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Ds is only 2 weeks old and im already sick of taking to random people about his sleep... they ask if he is a good baby, does he sleep and i say he acts like a newborn adn leave it at that lol

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Ah yes, there is another one that annoys me "is he a good baby" and then "does he sleep well"............why does sleep mean they are good??? I don't get it.

My dear friend who has just had her bubs can't stop talking about it and analysing it...what was wrong last night, great the next...what we must teach him to get him to sleep. It shouldn't be such a chore with your precious little baby.

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I just say, well don't complain to me unless you are going to do something about it, and if you aren't going to do something about it, then stop complaining.

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I dunno, when I was crazy sleep deprived with my first son sleep was ALL I could think & talk about so I complained a fair bit. I just wanted a sympathetic ear though as I had no intention of 'doing something about it'. I know some mums in my mother's group didn't like hearing from me because they felt like you but I think women should be able to talk honestly about hard the lack of sleep can be without being expected to try and 'fix it' and sleep train their child.

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I dunno, when I was crazy sleep deprived with my first son sleep was ALL I could think & talk about so I complained a fair bit. I just wanted a sympathetic ear though as I had no intention of 'doing something about it'. I know some mums in my mother's group didn't like hearing from me because they felt like you but I think women should be able to talk honestly about hard the lack of sleep can be without being expected to try and 'fix it' and sleep train their child.

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Totally agree here lol, DD was a crap sleeper but nowhere near as bad as DS. I whinge and complain about it all the time but once its out of my system im back to normal i just need to whinge and vent to get on with things. I wont do anything to fix it because it would mean even less sleep than im getting now so im happy to just complain and plod along i know one day there sleep gets better :) DD is a great sleeper now!

i hate that it's the first question people asked for a long time after DS was born - is he a good baby? well, yes of course he's a good baby...oh, so he sleeps well then? :wall:

what i also hate that is that i have let some of it get to me & even though i know it's not true, i still feel a bit like a failure as a mum because my son does not sleep 'well'.

Meow, that is exactly what I mean. I would be happy to chat to my friend about how hard it is....gosh I'm up more than I am asleep at night & I have a almost 4yr old who does not nap during the day...so no rest for me. But seems everyone wants to talk about how to 'fix it'.........

I think some people feel if their babies are sleeping through, then they're doing a good job. If they admit their babies are waking at night and they don't know what to do, then somehow everyone will think they're not coping. Not saying everyone thinks like this but this is what I have found in my group of friends.

It is annoying though when that's all people have to say about babies though!

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I hate it when people link sleeping thru to being FF.

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Arghhh omg yes, I don't know how many times I have been told with DD2, to give her a bottle of formula before bed so I will get a goods night sleep.

I agree it's good to talk about how much your baby wakes/feeds etc - that's the reality for many parents but there's so much fiction on the subject many mothers are left feeling they must be doing a really crap job

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I agree it's good to talk about how much your baby wakes/feeds etc - that's the reality for many parents but there's so much fiction on the subject many mothers are left feeling they must be doing a really crap job

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Exactly, that's what I was trying to say.

It really bugs me that babies are judged by how "good" or "bad" they are on how much sleep they get. DH and I seem to be the only ones who don't have an issue with how often DD wakes in the night. She's a hungry bubby for goodness sake, and yeah, like Kate said, she can do soooo many cool things - lets talk about that!

I get where you are coming from, but I have to say I've been guilty of complaining about DS's sleep on many occassions (and still do about his early wakeups even though he sleeps through most nights, and I've got it pretty good on the whole). I hate to say it, but I do think it is kinda human nature to complain about things that we find difficult, and lets face it sleep deprivation is difficult.

What I hate is people who offer advice or solutions or go as far as to tell you 'you have to do this'. And yes, trying to label a baby as 'good' or 'bad' based on how they sleep is ridiculous! How can a baby be 'bad'? They're helpless little beings who need their parents, not mischevious, naughty little things who set out to make their parents lives difficult.

Yeah I don't get the 'good baby' thing if they sleep through. I must of had a very naughty or 'bad' baby!

In the start I was worried about the sleep thing and then I though - why worry! So I didnt and I didnt worry that DD woke every 3hrs for a feed. I just did it. Thats what you do. And you know what? Once I accepted that this is how much DD needed to feed and thats the way it was going to be - DD settled and started sleeping through for 12 hrs after 3 months, and I beleive it was because I was at peace with that and not up tight all the time. Im a big believer that bubs picks up on our vibes!

I would just tell ppl that yep she wakes every 3 hrs and thats cool. People dont really know what to say when its obvious that it cool with you!

Peopel have know started telling me - oh get ready for no sleep again when number 2 arrives... and I just say Bring It On!! They also just give me a confused look like im crazy!! :)

I wish Jakabella! :lol: I was very accepting of my son's sleep, I didn't find waking every 2 hurs easy but I didn't stress over it. I accepted that was him. Didn't change it though! :lol: I think his sleep had a lot more to do with him than me. I never wore any guilt, shame or ownership over it.

I think it's perfectly fine to have a whinge about lack of sleep - it's bloody awful! Let's not pretend it's anything out of the ordinary though - the babies that sleep through from 3 months are very much in the minority (you lucky ducks!).

Same Meow. DS would sleep if all the stars were in alignment with Jupiter (or something), but otherwise... certainly wasn't anything to do with me. In fact I think he must have inherited his crappy sleep from his father

Both my children don't sleep through the night, which I actually think is probably more the norm than the exception. But IMO talking about the problem may help a person come up with a solution. After a horror night last night - up from 1am till 5:20am this morning with DS then up at 7:00am with DD (this was after them both being up and down earlier in the evening). I am tired, cranky and wanting to change the situation. I have found in the past that talking about it, sometimes gives you a chance to think about possibly why your child is waking. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture. Yes, I choose not to close the door on my kids and let them scream so they don't disturb me, but it still p!!!! me off being so tired I can barley function the next day.

So I guess what i am trying to say is that when we talk about a problem, especially with other people who have gone/ are going through it, a solution or another option may present itself. And hey, why can't we all vent once in a while to those we consider may understand. I certainly I have to listen to many people who work office jobs complain about the same office politics happenings, its human nature.

It's really quite a big problem that we have in our society. Instead of villages working together to support families in raising kids we have relatives, friends, bosses etc who expect us to have the babies fitting in to our lives as quickly as possible. Instead of understanding that babies needs lots of time - frequent wakings and feeding etc - we are expected to change their natural behaviour and get on with life. Where is the realisation that raising kids is the most important thing that anyone can ever do and that parents need to be supported in this? And that raising truly healthy and happy kids means meeting their needs, not trying to change their behaviour? You have to wonder whether we would have such a high rate of depression, anxiety etc in adults today if kids were seen as less of an inconvenience when our generation was born.

Well put MantaRay! you are so very right.

Don't get me wrong I have no problem talking about it, or listening or giving advice when asked....No problem at all!! It is great to talk things through.

But I'm "tired" :) of people always talking about it like babies should sleep when they want & wake when they want etc...and they must have a problem if they don't and lets change them and torture ourselve's!!!! at some point we need to accept things the way they are and work with it or around it...if you know what I mean. errrr I don't know I'm not as good with my words as some.

I'm sorry, but i do whinge alot about sleep :( i work full time and getting up 5 times a night kills me....

Talking a lot about my sleep deprivation with DD2 (up at least 4 - 6 times a night for months and months) actually helped me as someone offered me some advice which i took on board and really changed how i felt about the situation. If i hadn't winged so much, she may not have felt compelled to say 'you seem to have tried everything, perhaps accept this for now and it'll improve in time'. The next day, i felt a million times better as i made peace with the situation and took on board what she said.

Complaining & wingeing really helped me (as someone offered me useful advice as a result). must have bored the people around me though ;-)

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But I'm "tired" :) of people always talking about it like babies should sleep when they want & wake when they want etc...and they must have a problem if they don't and lets change them and torture ourselve's!!!! at some point we need to accept things the way they are and work with it or around it...if you know what I mean. errrr I don't know I'm not as good with my words as some.

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I get that you are trying to say that babies are not robots and run to their own beat, and that we should respect that. However, in every relationship there has to be compromise on both sides. Sometimes it can be 'torture' to deal with a current situation. The times when I have tried to function on next to no sleep for days on end and still look after my two children have been really hard. Letting people know that I am not coping with having no sleep (have been through days with my DS where I got 1 hour sleep PER NIGHT for 3 to 4 days in a row!!) means that perhaps they could offer to help in some way as well as be a shoulder to cry on.

This thread has come at a good time for me - DD has gone from sleeping 6-8 hrs straight at night to doing 3-4 hrs - yep, I know that is still GREAT but I was starting to struggle (I am one of those people who prior to having a baby did not function on less than 9 hours straight sleep - ha ha), to wonder what I was doing 'wrong', how could I change her back etc etc.

Now I realise that she is just a hungry little bubba and she needs a feed more often, and that is perfectly ok. She is the most amazing thing in the world to me and we are so lucky to have even been blessed with her in the first place - this is what I will be focussing on during those tough night feeds.

But yes, it does annoy me that sleep is the major talking point for people about your baby! And as I have been complaining a bit about being tired lately, DH keeps saying "Well you know how to fix it, put her on formula" - like that would be some 'magical sleep potion'. Ugh.

Formula helping them sleep is a load of bull, DD was FF from 2 weeks old and didn't sleep thru til 17 months.
I think it helps alot of mums to talk about sleep (or lack of) some mums find it gives them a sense of self worth telling someone else that their baby sleeps thru (like a PP said, that that means they're doing a good job) and whingeing gives you some sympathy from someone else if just for a moment.
Sleep deprivation was the main cause I was put in the MBU.

i havent even had my baby yet, and already im stressed out about what "sleeping technique" to use.

it seems like half of everyone that asks me is against baby sleeping in cot, and the other half are against co-sleeping. and then there are the occasional people that are in the middle somewhere.

now before i delved into the huuugge issue and the masses of information that is "sleeping techniques", i thought it was normal for a baby to be put in their cot under the watchful eye of the mother throughout the night. Is this wrong??

now i have no clue what the best thing to do is. :wall:

Do whatever works for you and your baby. There are many co-sleepers who thought they would never co-sleep (but they have found that it works best for them). And many babies who have let their parents know they love sleeping in their cot alone. You have to do what works for you and your family.

SIDS & KIds recomend that babies sleep in the same room as their parents for the first 6 - 12 months in their own sleeping space. Some parents can't sleep in the same room and others can't sleep unless bub is in the same bed. You will work out your own way. Check out the SIDS guidelines and other safety precautions but these can be woven into most sleeping arrangements.

I don't "complain" about my lack of sleep, but if someone asks, I am honest and say I am always tired. Wish I wasn't, but I am. I've always needed more sleep than most people - when I was working full-time, there'd be days I'd still be tired after sleeping for 10 hours straight!
So waking up 3 times a night and BFing my DD to sleep for anything from 20 mins to 1 hour is very hard for me.
I wish it didn't bother me, but it's the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in my entire life. I feel heaps of guilt about this, since so many other mums just get on and do it. I do think I'm a bad mum for feeling this way - which is a main reason why DD will be an only child. (And then more guilt about that too, just for good measure!)
But I've dealt with it for 14 months now, so I'm sure I'll survive another 14 months, if need be! Maybe it will stop by the time she's 3 years old :)

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I always said he sleeps like a baby - which was perfectly true seeing he is a baby & wakes multiple times a night like babies are supposed to.

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Hehe brilliant Snowy Love! I'm going to use this when I start back at work in a couple of weeks - because I just know that that's all people are going to ask me.

It's weird isn't it that somehow 'sleeping through the night' has become the gauge as to whether you are a good parent or not. i.e. if your littun' isn't sleeping through the night then you must be doing something wrong. Personally i love the opportunity to love and nurture my baby girl a couple/few times a night every night :)