The Great Sleep Dilemma

[Thirteen]

http://sarahockwell-smith.com/2013/0...mitive-infant/

It's okay if your infant doesn't sleep!



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[SoonerTexan]

I think it helps to remember what "sleeping through the night" is defined as for an infant too! (5ish hours, correct?)

[HouseofWool]

http://sarahockwell-smith.com/2013/0...mitive-infant/

It's okay if your infant doesn't sleep!



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The dichotomy between my kids is amazing. C slept 8-12 hours a night starting at 10 weeks. Three evenings of CIO with each session lasting less than 10 minutes. He was textbook. Sadly, now he suffers from insomnia. It really blows.

S? She was a HOT MESS. CIO didn't work, it left her more agitated and stressed. She was over 4 before she actually went a full 8 hours. I was a very sleep deprived mom because there was no one else to help with her. If she had been my first, she would have been the last...

I tried all sorts of sleep training crap and finally just resigned myself to not sleeping... Changing my attitude was the only thing that made it bearable.

[ladymoreta]

It really is a profitable industry. I don't know how much I spent on books, props, sounds, etc. I don't like that the author's solution is that women should just become more maternal and their families should help. I think we need to focus on more realistic solutions like requiring paid (and possibly longer) maternity leave and increasing funding for baby sleep research. (It still baffles me that there's no good research out there on CIO effects, just a lot of extrapolation and speculations about extreme studies.)

I was disappointed in the amount of information my pediatrician gave me when DS had so many problems. Part of me thinks paying pediatricians more to help with infant sleep could help, but they have as many opinions as moms do. So that goes back to my thoughts on funding definitive research.

It's fine to say that moms should just accept that wakings are normal, but I assure you I was a danger to myself and others when DS was waking every 45 minutes and his long stretch was 1.5 hours. Sometimes you just have to do something about it.

[Thirteen]

It really is a profitable industry. I don't know how much I spent on books, props, sounds, etc. I don't like that the author's solution is that women should just become more maternal and their families should help. I think we need to focus on more realistic solutions like requiring paid (and possibly longer) maternity leave and increasing funding for baby sleep research. (It still baffles me that there's no good research out there on CIO effects, just a lot of extrapolation and speculations about extreme studies.)

I was disappointed in the amount of information my pediatrician gave me when DS had so many problems. Part of me thinks paying pediatricians more to help with infant sleep could help, but they have as many opinions as moms do. So that goes back to my thoughts on funding definitive research.

It's fine to say that moms should just accept that wakings are normal, but I assure you I was a danger to myself and others when DS was waking every 45 minutes and his long stretch was 1.5 hours. Sometimes you just have to do something about it.

I agree!
For me, the take home was "infants do this, new parents really need support and help (however that may look), and people need to be real with each other regarding how hard sleeping with small children is".

I guess I see myself in this article. I wish someone had told me that my son would not sleep, that he wasn't an exception to the rule, and that I wasn't a bad mother because I couldn't get him to/would not try things that were counterintuitive to my parenting.





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[Auspicious]

It's fine to say that moms should just accept that wakings are normal, but I assure you I was a danger to myself and others when DS was waking every 45 minutes and his long stretch was 1.5 hours. Sometimes you just have to do something about it.

ITA.

And there's an industry and money to be made for both sides in this debate. Inflammatory language like "a myth perpetuated to make parents feel better about ignoring their baby’s needs" is as unsupportive as the whole idea that you have to sleep train. Bah to both. Don't let them yank your chains, mamas!

ETA: cross-posted.

[ladymoreta]

I guess I see myself in this article. I wish someone had told me that my son would not sleep, that he wasn't an exception to the rule, and that I wasn't a bad mother because I couldn't get him to/would not try things that were counterintuitive to my parenting.

Yes, this. I felt like such a failure because "all the books" sold copies by starting out listing all the dangers related to kids not getting enough sleep. I felt like I was harming DS by not figuring out the right system to get him to sleep, so I kept reading and buying stuff. In the end, I'm so glad we found a combination of Zantac and a (yes, paid) sleep consultant. After having DD, I can more clearly see that her lack of sleeping was normal and DS's wasn't, but there's a lot of misinformation out there.

[MrsC]

My take home from this article was that if you try to coax your baby/toddler into sleeping any way other than how they want to sleep, you're a bad parent. Never mind the slew of issues that come with being a severely sleep-deprived mother.
It annoys me that she calls herself a "parenting expert", yet has no credentials. She complains about the money making industry surrounding babies and sleep, yet is shilling books on the same subject. And repeatedly mentions "the science" without listing her sources. I don't know anyone who expects an infant to sleep 12 hours st night. Just annoying.