baby center babies vs some of our babies? - Page 3

[loving-my-babies]

just today I was involved in a "debate" about co-sleeping, crib sleeping and SIDS in this other mainstream forum. I admit I have a hard time understanding CIO moms and FF by choice moms, but the one thing I honestly cannot tolerate is people that opinionate without facts, that just go ahead and say whatever they feel like saying, disguising it as a "fact" when really, it's not. It drives me *bananas* to say the least, I told this particular person that said "co-sleeping is dangerous, nobody does it in the world and all studies show you will smother him" that it's ok to disagree, but some people are just so ignorant that don't even bother looking up the facts.
oh... and this other mom said "don't cosleep your baby will be spoiled"
you ladies have known me for a while... I am not a calm person when I hear something like that... I mean PLEASE... the one thing I like about mothering, is that mothers here are much more educated, we know what we are talking about, we don't go with the flow, we do what we feel is best, who cares about the rest of the world (well, the rest of the world is on our side anyway, most of the world does NFL and AP) but people that say such things... urggg, what makes my head boil, is mostly the fact that first time moms may be seeing those posts and believing these uneducated moms that make up these lies... and because of it some innocent baby may end up paying...

[sleet76]

Piglet,

I totally agree that co-sleeping longer would have been easier in some ways. I loved co-sleeping while we did it, and I am in no way against co-sleeping or suggesting that others do what we did. I do think that that we did was best for all of us, though. Here's why:

All three of us are extremely light sleepers. When Nora would wake, I'd also be wide awake, and so would DH. My DH is a medical resident, and already sleep-deprived, so his sleep is very important--not that sleep isn't important to all of us, but he is already on the short end of the stick in that department. All of us being awakened by his pager and a baby was getting to be a bit much.

We also didn't feel that very long-term co-sleeping was what we wanted to set up. Again, I feel that is great for many people, and nothing wrong with it, but not for us. (see previous sleep reason above ) Another reason is that with him being gone so much, we really needed that little bit of alone couple time for ourselves for the health of our relationship. I am sure that we could have worked through this time issue in a different way if we had both wanted to continue to co-sleep, but this seemed the best option for us. Plus, I am a SAHM with my first child, so I had lots of time to nurse, snuggle, and catch naps if necessary...

[librarymom]

Very interesting replies. Cool.

My .02: a lot of parents lie. They say their kids sleep through the night and they don't. Or they consider a 4 hour stretch through. And you are thinking 8 or 10 hours and wondering how. Different definitions. A lot of parents also lie about cosleeping. I have been at this parenting thing for 11 years and cannot tell you how many people I have come across who don't cosleep...except they do. KWIM?? For some people, it's a dirty little secret. Here at MDC, people are open and honest and seeking info, help, comraderie and support.

If you decide you are looking for that kind of help, this is the place. I suggest taking BabyCenter sleep talk with a grain of salt. I think growing an adult is the accomplishment, not sleeping through the night.

[stafl]

Well, both of mine cosleep and sleep through the night, always have! Really, they do, not every single night, but it is very rare that either of them wakes up before daylight. DD1 started sleeping 7hrs at night at around five weeks, when doc and LC and everyone told me I had to wake her up to nurse because of weight issues and feeding problems. DD2 started sleeping at least that much within her very first week of life, except I didn't bother trying to wake her up.
I am a very light sleeper, I wake up if baby so much as moves a toe. It isn't like I'm just sleeping through my baby's awake stages or anything.

honestly, I don't think I've done something right, I don't have some secret that nobody else knows. It's just the way my kids are. I have never made either of them CIO, not ever! Both of them cluster-feed right before bedtime, so that might be a big factor, I dunno.
My first is a very high-maintenance, spirited child, my second is the total opposite, the calmest, most zen-like child you'd ever want to meet. So I'm not sure it's temperament either.

I totally agree that my first child determined my parenting style - I never even heard of AP before she was born, and never had any intention of nursing so long or cosleeping or any of the other things I do.
But as soon as they finally brought my baby to me in that wretched hospital, she slept in the bed with me, to some of the nurses' horror!

[Piglet68]

Well, I should have figured I'd end up a cosleeping mama...

I used to *always* get in trouble for letting the dog up on my bed. If I had my way, she'd have slept with me every night, but mother thought that was gross.

When I got my own dog when I lived on my own, she slept with me, as does my cat. I couldn't imagine banishing them to the floor, and I love snuggling with my pets.

Why would I be any different with my baby?

[carrietorgc]

I think it depends on each baby. My dd started sleeping in 6-8 hr stretches at 8 wks when we started swaddling her we do a combo of crib/co sleeping that works for us.

She is 12 mo now and goes down around 7:30 in her crib (i nurse/rock her to sleep), wakes once or twice, normally only hungry once, the other time just needs a back rub. some nights she is content in her crib, others she isn't and sleeps with us Never done CIO and never will.

she was waking more, but i made a conscious effort to resettle her in her crib using the suggestions from the no cry sleep solution and it made a difference.

[Sleepymama]

Those babies *are* waking up, or at least semi waking up and rolling over or whatever. They just are forced to self-soothe earlier on and so they don't need parents to help them back to sleep. Many cosleeping babies will do the same thing--rouse a little, roll next to mom, take a boob or not, and go back to sleep. If you are the easy waking type, you'll notice this. (Mine finally does this too somewhat, instead of needing to be carried around all night, thanks be to goddesses)

I just can't imagine sleeping with a baby monitor in my room. I'd never be able to sleep--I'd just be sitting up every 5 minutes and going "did you hear him??" to my DH, then running in to check.

I've said this before but I do believe that some babies have real sleep problems/disorders, and you can tell this by their waking behavior, not how they sleep. Mine did, and became happier once he was sleeping longer stretches (longer than 20 minutes, that is...long story involving surgeries and major high needs)

[Quillian]

Originally Posted by Sleepymama

Mine did, and became happier once he was sleeping longer stretches (longer than 20 minutes, that is...long story involving surgeries and major high needs)

I would love to hear your story if have time to share

[Sleepymama]

Certainly. Warning--this is long!!!

DS had a severe congenital heart defect called tetralogy of fallot which was dx hours after birth, spent 2.5 weeks in NICU, had one surgery, came home at about 3 weeks old. About a week after he came home he decided he would not be put down, would not sleep in the cosleeper, would only sleep on our chests (or perhaps next to me in bed). He had a heart shunt that could close if he got dehydrated, so we had to wake him up to eat at least every three hours (combo of BF and formula, my milk supply was minimal). I think he might have started sleeping longer stretches around 2-3 months but we had to keep waking him up. Then he had another surgery at 3 months, an emergency, and it was rough. He was in the hospital for a week, and you know they poke them and take blood pressure every 20 minutes so that added to the trauma of surgery just messed him up. I held him most of the time he was in recovery, including all night long in the little chair they gave me next to his bed b/c he just screamed if I put him in the crib. The stupid nurse kept telling me to put him down because he "needed his rest" but he wasn't exactly "resting" when I did put him down since he had never slept in a crib!

When we got home he wouldn't sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time, even during the day. He'd sleep for 20 minutes, be awake and cranky for 20 minutes, then I'd spend the next hour trying to get him back to sleep. He woke up screaming (I held him almost 24 hours a day during his first 6 months or so) and sometimes had night terrors (where he didn't really wake up but got rigid and screamed for half an hour). He woke up regularly every half hour or so for months. Until he was about 6 or 7 months old he would just latch on and go back to sleep. But after that he needed to be carried around to get back to sleep. It was killing me. I went back to work part time when he was about 9 months and daycare was horrible for him, he wouldn't be put down and wouldn't sleep there. So I quit my job at about 11 months. After he learned to sit up around 6 months the separation anxiety got a little better, I could sit with him on the floor while he played for a few minutes, and then when he crawled it got even better, he would play in the same room for a few minutes. But naps were awful--he took 3-4 20-30 minute naps a day, and nothing I did to extend them worked. Sometimes he would sleep a whole hour, and he was so much happier on those days. He was so cranky and miserable all the time, and I had no idea how much this was due to his sleep.

When he was 11 months old we changed some things. I was dying, I screamed at him all the time, I ran red lights in the car. DH had been sleeping on the spare futon most nights, and taking DS in the chair on the nights when I just couldn't do any more. So we put our spare queen sized futon on the floor in DS's room and started taking turns sleeping with him there. My milk had pretty much dried up by this point (another long story) so the partial night weaning wasn't a big deal. It was tough for DH to get DS to sleep with him lying down, as he wanted to be held. It took several weeks I think of walking around then lying down, sleeping on DH's arm, etc. But it was magnificent. I got a full night's sleep every other night. DS still woke up just as often with his dad but we were more capable of dealing with him.

After he turned 1 a lot of things changed. He started eating solid food finally. He got a little more mellow, more able to handle things. And he started sleeping better. I think it was the partial night weaning, maturity, and, finally, I stopped nursing him to sleep on the nights I put him to bed. I did this cold turkey--but we had developed a bedtime routine before this. We moved his bedtime from 8:00 to 6:30 (slowly). We realized that he spent the time between dinner and bedtime getting completely maniacal and what was the point of that? It was winter, and the sun set early, so this wasn't as big of a change as I thought it might be. We had dinner, bath, story, tooth brushing, then into his room with a bottle. Pitch black room, I mean, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. I would hold him on my lap while he had his bottle (formula until 14 months, then milk) and then we would lie down together. For the first couple weeks, he would cry when I wouldn't let him nurse. I would hold him, and carry him around. Then lie down again. After a while, he would just fuss a little like he was annoyed with me and then he'd roll around for a while, crawl around the bed, babble nonstop, bang on the dresser, open and close the closet door, you get the idea. After about half an hour he'd come and lie beside me and get quiet, and finally just go to sleep.

He started sleeping longer stretches after we did this. He'd sleep 2 hours, then 3, and now he usually goes 4-5 unless he's having a bad night. Also, he will sleep alone for a couple hours after he goes to bed. Heaven!!! DH and I hadn't had 5 minutes alone since he came home from the hospital.

Anyway, I have no idea if something we did really helped him, or he just needed time to mature, but I think it was a combination of both. I think he would have been super high needs anyway, but his medical traumas just added extra to it and made it unbearable. BTW he's almost 18 months now, getting more independent and is generally happy, if intense and full of energy He usually takes one 2-3 hour nap per day now, half in his bed and half on my chest in the sling. I never would have thought it possible, after a year of 20 minute naps!!

I have written a lot about DS's surgeries etc. on his website if anyone is interested http://schnoogly.com/pages/iainspage.htm

[normajean]

I haven't read all the replies, so I hope I'm not duplicating what others have said.

I do not "sleep through the night" myself! A normal person doesn't, we go through various cycles of sleep/waking throughout the night, even if we aren't conscious of it. Every once in a while, I happen to be awake in the night right when DH is, and we have a mini-conversation before going back to sleep.

Babies are no different.

We did not cosleep when my DS was a baby, and he was "sleeping through" at 6 weeks old. Meaning I would put him down, he would play in his crib for 20 minutes or so, and fall asleep on his own. He would sleep for about 7 hours and then wake up hungry. During the day, he would eat every 2 hours, so he made up for the 7 hour stretch. However, I doubt he was sleeping the entire time. One time DH had to get something out of DS's closet very early in the am and found the baby laying there playing with his toes quietly. Greeted dad with a smile, didn't cry when daddy left the room, just kept playing. (We have never used CIO, even before I heard about AP I have always thought it was mean.)

This whole event was a couple hours before I woke up at the time DS was used to a feeding. I doubt he was awake the whole time.

I have always had a very easy going baby...many other babies would cry out of lonliness or boredom as soon as they start to stir, so I could say my son was sleeping through--meaning my sleep wasn't interrupted--when another parent might have to go to get baby after every lapse in his sleep cycle.

My mom considers "sleeping through the night" being 5 hours at a stretch. If thatst the case my son was "sleeping through" at birth. I never considered it that, because if I'm only getting 5 hour stretch of rest I am ill. 7-8 hours is what I consider sleeping through. I only hope I am so lucky with the next baby!

[Quillian]

Sleepymama,
Thanks so much for your reply. Wow you guys have been through a lot. I checked out your pics and what a sweetie he is. I'm looking forward to going back to your site and reading some more. Take care.

[ILuvMyBaby]

I guess I am one of the lucky ones...and I don't CIO Parker is awesome and started sleeping through the night at 4 months. Just one night...he did it If he does wake up at night, he does not cry or move around, just goes back to sleep. He sleeps from 5:30 pm to 6:30 am. Honestly, I think it is just because he likes to sleep...not any other reason.

I wish I could offer some advise...I do sleep with earplugs. I can still hear the baby, it is more for my hubby's snoring. I am one of those people who take an hour to fall asleep and if I wake up in the middle of the night, it takes me forever to go back to bed.

[Squinkymom]

Interesting story:

I was in the lactation room at the quasi governmental organization where I work part time, when I struck up a conversation with a young woman from India who was also pumping. We got into a discussion about sleep deprivation, and I asked her, out of curiosity, if she coslept, as I know from all of my reading that it's the norm in so many other countries.

She said yes, (without the quasi-shame that so many of us here in the states feel when asked the same question). Then I started asking what she does when her son awakens during the night, and she said, "Well of course, I take care of him." So I asked how it would be perceived in India if she just...well...oh...let the baby cry for a little while. And she looked at me in horror! Her eyes got big and round, and she said that the elder women would criticize a mother for doing such a thing and would accuse her of not being able to handle her baby! So...delighted by such a response!...I attempted to describe to her the concept of CIO that is often used here, and she honestly could not believe it!!! She was having a real problem grasping the "philosophy" shall we say of the method. She hadn't heard of such a thing.

Oh gosh, it made me feel sooooooooo good to hear her question CIO and be appalled by it. I think she's still shaking her head!

So just remember in those times of exhaustion (and I live in an almost permanent state of exhaustion!) there are entire societies that believe in co-sleeping! We're not crazy...we're not crazy...we're not crazy...

[Piglet68]

That story reminds me of a recent experience I had...

We have a Japanese doctor, young, here doing research with us. He and his wife are newly expecting. One day I was sitting in the computer room with him and another doctor doing research, who hails from India originally. They have a DD almost the same age as mine.

So my boss is in the room chatting us up, and I told him I was having a boy. He asked if we would need a crib, saying they have a spare one. I said no thanks. He kept offereing, and finally I said "well, DD has never ever slept in a crib and we don't plan on one for this baby either". So boss looks totally shocked, and made some joke about it (not mean, just typical of someone who thinks such a thing is way "out there"). Meanwhile, I'd just gotten back my cosleeping issue of Mothering from young Japanese guy, who said he loved it (they had it for weeks).

So I'm thinking "oh boy, Toshi is gonna hear our boss saying this and think I'm weird" and then Indian doc pipes up and says, SO matter-of-factly, "yeah, our DD has never slept in a crib either" then turns to Toshi and says "it's the biggest waste of money you'll ever spend. don't even bother!". So we started going back and forth with jokes about "really expensive laundry hampers" and never having to leave the bed to tend to baby at night, etc...

So my boss ended up feeling like the weird one. Indian doc just made is sound so normal, so "crib sleeping is such a silly idea"...anyways, it was a great moment!!

[tuscany123]

Wow, what great posts! I LOVE sleeping with my Baby, and I don't care who knows it!

[bobica]

different perspective?

Well, i'm on both sides here, so maybe i can put some sense of another perspective in. (and no, i totally don't feel like my toes have been stepped on, i yell at the computer when i go on the babycenter boards, so i won't go anymore!)

Ok, so i bf dd for only 5 weeks & we were both so miserable ( i couldn't eat ANYTHING) that we were crying all the time. even BF, she slept for 3-4 hr intervals. she has a lot of DH in her! when we switched to total ff, she continued the same pattern & gradually increased her stretches. we do not co-sleep- neither of us were comfortable with it- just a preference, no judging (or flaming, please so she slept in her crib.

i heard EVERY noise she made & was out of bed making a bottle before i was even awake. but, by 11 weeks, she wasn't waking up, just moving around a bit, re-settling. (again, lots of dh in her- i'm up all the time! . she's just a solid, sound sleeper. now, at 14 months, once in a while, she gets up at night. we always go to her, soothe her, rock her, etc. we NEVER tried CIO. felt too cruel. we did a mish-mosh of Dr. Sears, Baby Whisperer, friends, family, what felt right & good for us. we're a bit of a fly-by-the-seat faimily

anyway, i do think all babies are different. i also think that co-sleeping babies do wake more b/c it's nice to see mama (dada, ds, db, etc.) with them and they at least acknowledge that. i also think some babies are natural party timers up all night (my best friend has 3!!!

for the record, i'm making a conscious effort to stay off the babycenter boards b/c i really get aggravated at some of the way off base advice that's out there (especially speech & language wise, since that's what i do when i'm not at home!! but i won't i wish more families figured out what was best for them and didn't worry so much about what "they" say!!!

[CryPixie83]

Originally Posted by loving-my-babies

maybe it's not the same definition as a babycenter mom (I belong to their march'04 board and I think it's safe to say 90% of women ff their babies) they also let their babies CIO, (women ask "when" they can start when their babes ARE 6 WEEKS OLD...) how awful.

In my opinion, and I am going to risk sounding mean and discriminatory, but people at MDC are much more educated and informed. This is why we don't EXPECT our kids to sleep through the night when they are so young. Because they were never supposed to. Most moms at babycenter (the ones that I met, anyway) had their kids, loved being pg, loved the baby showers, the gifts, baby stuff, but when baby was born, they got hom and went "ok baby, time to be independent and stop bothering me. I feel like getting my life back"

Ugh. That's been exactly my experience as well. I belong to the June '04 board and some are already doing CIO!!! Of course, this is the same board where I have been roasted for trying to educate women about pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding... blech, why do I bother sometimes?

[mackinsiesmom]

Please don't stop posting at babycenter

I haven't read all the post either so if mine is repeative I am sorry.

I started out over at babycenter because that was the only site I knew about. I had a hard time at the hospital when my daughter was first born when the nurses kept telling me that I had to make my daughter mad inorder to get her to eat. To me that did not sound like it was a good thing to do. I believe that when she is hungry she will eat and I don't need to get her undressed, pinch her, etc to make her mad to eat.

My daughter was getting close to six months when I looked on the board for some advice. I didn't like hearing that you have to make the child messerable to make them sleep through the night. She was going to bed at 7 and waking up at around 3 to eat and then at 6 to see her daddy off to work. I love getting up with her in the middle of the night and I didn't think that I could just not cuddle her and give her water so she wouldn't want to wake up. To me that was too much to even think about.

While I was reading the post one stuck out. It was a mother who said that she thought about doing the same thing that everyone else suggested but then she thought that they were only going to wake up in the middle of the night for so long. Pretty soon they will be grown up enough to sleep though the night without waking up for you to comfort them. That post reasured me of what I felt was right. The night time feeding were our special time together where I could talk to her and hold her and love her.

To all who post at babycenter, please keep posting. It helped me so much to know that there was someone else who understood what I was going through. I wish I could find that post again and thank that mother who wrote it. You never know how much a post can change just one mothers life.

[Slackermom]

I don't post on Babycentre, but I am (or was, until today, actually) the member of another mainstream board. I finally got fed up with the CIO philosophy, among other things, and just couldn't post there anymore. I understand what the pp said about needing to reach out to the one or two people who might not be so mainstream, but sometimes it's hard and tiring being the only voice of dissent.

Co-sleeping was also something I kept under my hat at that board. People there like to "sleep train" starting at 4 or 5 months. I personally have never slept all the way through the night. I don't expect my baby to. And because she's sleeping with us, none of us really fully wake up anyway. I'm much more rested now than I was when I was pregnant.

My biggest problem right now is that DD has moved to a side-car crib, and the cats have claimed her former space in the middle of the bed. More than once, I've caught myself on the verge of preparing to breastfeed the cat!

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[CryPixie83]

Originally Posted by Jellyfishy

My biggest problem right now is that DD has moved to a side-car crib, and the cats have claimed her former space in the middle of the bed. More than once, I've caught myself on the verge of preparing to breastfeed the cat!

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Lucky cat!
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