NB: Sleep

[piapiapiano]

Before River was born I read a lot of books about babies. I rather smugly thought that I would be very clever and wonderful with River. Breastfeeding would go easily. We would put her into a strict routine from the beginning so that sleep would never be an issue. I didn't think at all about nappies or weaning or what to do about prams. I didn'

Comments

[piapiapiano]

Exactly.

[miri_me]

I do rather love that picture, with you out cold, and her with her wide-open eyes, happily thinking about stuff and snuggling! Aaaw!

I didn't know that about leaving them to scream it out!

I don't think there's necessarily one right way of parenting - there's what works for the parents and baby in question, what works really well, and what works some of the time but needs further thought, surely? So making people feel bad because their baby's needs don't exactly match up to a book seems kinda rude... I'm glaf you guys are generally at the "works really well" stage :-D

[piapiapiano]

The problem is that the "baby whisperer" style of advice is the norm in the UK, so new mums are advised by lots of apparently nice people that they'll probably have to leave their baby to cry at night. Our mums and grandmothers would most likely have done it, and health visitors and midwives and doctors have also probably done it. Many people have told me that we should just leave River to cry and, after 3 days, she'll suddenly start sleeping better.

Everyone feels qualified to give parenting advice. :-) I'm only really interested in advice that has some rational explanation behind it, and preferably a couple of scientific studies backing it up. This has annoyed a few people in the last couple of years!

[leenielou]

All of this makes me happy. I've been thinking that a sleep pattern would be great but knowing it probably won't happen...but I shall try.

Also, the leaving to cry thing - I didn't know about all of that but having studied the course I did over the last 2 years I was already against leaving my baby to cry. My parents keep telling me that he'll learn to be very manipulative early on and that I need to just leave him to cry it out and that just leaves me so very very cold. I know I myself didn't cry much as a baby but it makes me wonder how different I'd be now if I had and I'd been left for ages. Obviously we'll never know, but it's an interesting thought.

That photo of the two of you is so, so beautiful! It almost looks like an oil painting :)

[piapiapiano]

And then, last night, she slept through from 10pm to 7am! I mean, she woke me up and I opened my eyes and it was light outside and it wasn't just horrible old 5.30am light but actual proper 7am light! I had to wake Matt up to tell him