I just need to vent

Julz, refresh my memory, what did we have a hiccup about? I have a very busy mind and often need to clear out space in it for new things so I have long forgotten what might have been the topic of discussion!

I will tell you this however, when B was 8 weeks old we went for a sleepover at my inlaws (our first one) and B screamed from 6:30pm till about 10pm or later. Tears and snot everywhere. I was sitting in the dark room crying with her and wanting to go home. It got so bad (the crying) that she lost her voice and struggled to breath. So I gave her panado. 0.4ml pead drops.

I posted on pampers about it wanting to know if anyone had advice or had it happen to them too and what to do. Got little or no reply. So I went international with the same question and the first reply I got was "Please tell me you didn't drug your child because YOU couldn't handle your own child."

I felt like crap, until that point I have bearly used any medicine on her (just buscopan for 3 days) and she was a difficult baby. I actually cried because of that comment. But it did make me realize that I need to step up my game as a mother.

Later (don't know how old she was at the time) we had a mommy get together and my child screamed through it. Everyone thought I was silly for not wanting to try their miracle bennits colics mixture that the dummies get soaked in the minute the baby goes "eh" (easy babies in my opinion!)

I learned to cope on my own. If the going gets tough I take 10 drops of rescue remedy, because more often than not I am in fact causing the problem and my baby was just feeding off my insecurities.

In terms sleep and routines, you know, I just think everyone has different personalities and different ideals, needs, wants, etc.

I agree that whatever you do, you must be prepared to continue with it and see it through for many, many, many months!

Do what works for you and for your family and do what makes you all happier!

I feel like I am batting in here,but here goes!

I also have a problem with sleep training and letting baby scream but I believe most of us have a humain side, and do it the gentle way if we were to decide on sleep training. And as you made yourself clear in the first post Julz, you do it the "gentle" way, and there is nothing wrong with that!

I DO have a proble with medicating your baby to sleep so that you have a good nights rest, but there is some merit in this discusion. Your mother instinc will tell you if your baby have pain and needs it.

I als rock my baby to sleep, and do not see it as spoiling her. I see it as loving her. I am a working mom, and dont see her at all during the day, and for me it is spending time with her.Some may disagree, but thats your right.

I have found a very helpful site if anyone is interested, touching all sides of sleeping problems and the "gentle" side of sleep training. Hope this will be helpfull to someone out there!

www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T070100.asp

Especially Point 5 in the 31 ways to let your baby sleep and keep a sleep made me stop feeling guilty in rocking her to sleep:

"Get baby used to a variety of sleep associations. The way an infant goes to sleep at night is the way she expects to go back to sleep when she awakens. So, if your infant is always rocked or nursed to sleep, she will expect to be rocked or nursed back to sleep. Sometimes nurse her off to sleep, sometimes rock her off to sleep, sometimes sing her off to sleep, and sometimes use tape recordings; and switch off with your spouse on putting her to bed. There are two schools of thought on the best way to put babies to sleep: the parent-soothing method and the self-soothing method. Both have advantages and possible disadvantages.

Parent-soothing method. When baby is ready to sleep, a parent or other caregiver helps baby make a comfortable transition from being awake to falling asleep, usually by nursing, rocking, singing, or whatever comforting techniques work.
Advantages:

Baby learns a healthy sleep attitude – that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a secure state to remain in.
Creates fond memories about being parented to sleep.
Builds parent-infant trust
So-called "Disadvantages": Because of the concept of sleep associations, baby learns to rely on an outside prop to get to sleep, so—as the theory goes—when baby awakens he will expect help to get back to sleep. This may exhaust the parents.


Self-soothing method: Baby is put down awake and goes to sleep by himself. Parents offer intermittent comforting, but are not there when baby drifts off to sleep.
So-called "Advantages": If baby learns to go to sleep by himself, he may be better able to put himself back to sleep without parental help, because he doesn't associate going to sleep with parents comforting. May be tough on baby, but eventually less exhausting for parents.

Disadvantages:

Involves a few nights of let-baby-cry-it-out
Risks baby losing trust
Seldom works for high-need babies with persistent personalities
Overlooks medical reasons for nightwaking
Risks parents becoming less sensitive to baby's cries
Remember, in working out your own parenting-to-sleep techniques and rituals, be sensitive to the nighttime needs of your individual baby and remember your ultimate goal: to create a healthy sleep attitude in your baby and to get all family members a restful night's sleep."

Kristin.

I have been doing this for a long time now. The same arguments over and over. I have broad shoulders and thick skin by now so no hassles.

julzdylan wrote:

There are days when I think this is just not worth it, but I am passionate about what I believe in so I just can't let some things go.

Julz please don't let one bad day overshadow all the good days. Your input is so valued here and you have helped so many moms over the last couple of years. If you start feeling like it's too much just take a bit of a holiday. But never leave completely.

Lisa, Marijke and Julz I am so impressed by how respectful this disagreement has become. Well done ladies! You're setting a good example for everyone.

I feel that we do tend to read things in our own tone and when the comment is against our opinion we tend to assume that the the comment is perhaps nasty. Just one problem when chatting online. This happens to me often which is why I think before I type.

Opinions are judgemental at times. How can they not be. My comment judged mothers who medicate their kids each night so that they can sleep. I am sorry I just don't think it is right though. You judged me by saying that I let my baby cry himself to sleep and then continued to say that it would have a negative impact on him later on without backing it up with more info which would have helped us all. ( I have now done research and still feel that teaching independence is important).

Do you know how many methods there are of sleep training? Very few actually call for letting the baby scream himself to sleep on his own.

I have gotten to know Marijke over the past months. We too have had our hiccups over medication actually, but we are more alike and have much in common and I have no hassle with her opposing me when she signs on as herself. Chatting as admin seems wrong. It feel like you are being bullied by the admin???

What you should have maybe done lisa is placed a warning. Now you have deleted the post which chould have given moms valuble info which I also don't agree with. While I may have judged, I do feel that my infomation was informative. Some of your members are quite nasty.

I like you too Lisa and think you are doing a great job, but there are controversial topics and if you want to do each topic justice and help your mom's allow the topic to run its course and warn when things become nasty.

There are days when I think this is just not worth it, but I am passionate about what I believe in so I just can't let some things go.

haha! If that happens I'll scream for your sake too. Sjoe, went all hot there for a moment