Here is one of those aforementioned unfinished posts that I thought I ought to tidy up, finish and get out there…..
My dear friend from Sweden phoned the other day. She has a 10-month-old baby who was sleeping for 10 hours a night from the age of a few weeks but has now started waking up regularly at about 1am. For 2 hours. Cheerful, but awake. She was wondering if I, as a mother of 4 children, had any tips on how to stop this.
Oh how I laughed.
I don’t actually know what the secret to a good night’s sleep is. My first 2 woke regularly in the night until the age of 3 1/2. It never really bothered me that much but then I am a stay-at-home mum so I suppose I didn’t really have to be that well rested, as I could always have a lazy day if things got too tough. Then came #3 who slept through the night from 6 weeks. In fact, before that she barely woke up even during the day. She was the sleepiest child I’ve ever known. I say was, because of course when she started teething it all flew out the window anyway. And now I have #4 who has slept through the night for about a week, but not all in a row. So she’s a bit inbetweeny I suppose, but as I am still mostly a stay-at-home mum I can, once in a while, have a bit of a sit down if I am totally exhausted. Lazy days are now thin on the ground because with 4 children there is nearly always something to do.
So I really don’t know any great secrets other than “rest whenever you can”. However, I know a great many people and experts advocate “controlled crying”. This is where you put baby in the cot, and simply leave it there. When baby starts crying, you give it a few minutes, then go back and offer faint comfort – tuck him back in, etc – but make no eye contact and don’t talk. Then you go off again, for slightly longer. And so on, until baby finally drops off to sleep. Which is all very well, but some babies won’t. I did try this with my first 2, and just ended up with completely hysterical baies who screamed and screamed for hours. They would drop off for a couple of minutes out of exhaustion, then wake up for another round of screaming. And I do mean only a couple of minutes; they were in that much of a state.
So I wasn’t able to keep it up. I didn’t think it was really very good for my children to be left to get into that state. But all the literature about this makes you feel like a failure if you don’t succeed this way. Many books imply that this technique will work for any child, and the only reason it can ever possibly fail is because the parent (mother) is not applying the technique correctly, and is molly-coddling their child. Some things I have read even actually say this. How good does that make you feel, eh? You are a failure because you couldn’t bear to leave your baby screaming its head off all night? You what?
So I am not a big advocate of this method myself, not because it doesn’t work. I know people for whom this has worked. Not because it’s cruel, either. It works for some babies, and they don’t grow up with terrible emotional problems. No, I don’t like it because of the way it makes you feel bad for not looking after your child properly when in fact the technique goes right against the in-built, natural desire to comfort your baby when it’s crying.
My own method is to sleep with the baby. When it’s a small baby you can bring it into bed with you. When the baby starts kicking your husband out of the bed, it’s time to move into the baby’s bed, as I have now done with my 14-month-old. I put her down, and go to my own bed. But when she wakes up I just get into bed with her. Hopefully this will get later as she gets older and sleeps for longer. If not then when she is a bit older I will spend a week or so settling her down and then trundling back to my own bed again. I will do this in the school holidays so I don’t have to get up in the morning with the other children.
Of course, sleeping with the baby is now very much frowned upon by the experts. Stuff them. Many of them don’t even have children. How the hell do they know what’s a good idea until they have their own. Preferably several of their own so that they can see first hand how very different children can be from each other, and that sometimes there is just not a lot you can do about a problem except grin and bear it until it is either grown out of or you have a brilliant inspiration that solves it once and for all.
There is no right or wrong with sleeping, as with so much else. There is just what suits you best. And lets face it, if you have to work 9 hours a day, plus commute and things, then you are going to want as much sleep as you can get. Perhaps you will have a firmer hand for this controlled crying, perhaps not. But do it when you’re on holiday, as you will be a zombie for a week or so while trying it out.
ps, I do think sleeping with your baby is a great thing to do, but have never done it when drunk or if I have taken sleeping tablets or any drowsy-making medication. Illegal drugs would make you less aware of things too, so best avoid them as well. Same goes for you husband/partner.
