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Not doubting anyone's personal experience, but to add another anecdotal data point: Kids weren't as disruptive to sleep as I expected after reading horror stor

Not doubting anyone's personal experience, but to add another anecdotal data point: Kids weren't as disruptive to sleep as I expected after reading horror stories online. The way the internet talks about child raising sometimes makes it feel like martyrdom, but the internet tends to focus on worst-case stories and people venting about uniquely bad situations. It's almost taboo to share positive stories when other parents are sharing their struggles, so most conversations veer toward discussions from parents who are struggling the most while other parents keep quiet. I've found it helpful to identify parents who are doing well and specifically ask them what they're doing, because most parents are too polite to tell others how to raise their kids. There are always edge cases and every child is different, so of course we should all be considerate of other parents and cut them slack and/or provide assistance when they are struggling. However, I and most of my friends have had good results with combinations of sleep training and adjusting our own sleep schedules for additional buffer. The key for me was to go to bed an hour earlier than normal. If I get interrupted in the middle of the night, I use that extra hour to sleep in. If I don't get interrupted (most common case) I simply wake up an hour earlier than normal. It doesn't cover every night and every situation, but it fits most nights.

bredren 6y ago
I’m expecting my first child in June and have sort of been preparing for misery when it comes to sleep. I appreciate you sharing this.
- cpach 6y ago
  It can be rough. But it isn’t rough for all parents all the time. And keep this in mind: A period of bad sleep could be followed by a period of good sleep. Kids aren’t static, their behavior can vary a lot during different development stages. Best of luck!
  - bredren 6y ago
    Thank you.
- barbazoo 6y ago
  Whatever happens, know that it's ultimately not only up to you. There's quite a bit of luck involved how they are able to cope with the environment and what sleep pattern they prefer. And OT but relevant for every new parent, sorry for giving unsolicited advice. But always remember, whenever it gets tough: "They're not giving you a hard time, they're having a hard time!". That helped me better understand that it's our job to help them through whatever crazy thing they're going through at any given time.
  - bredren 6y ago
    Thanks for this, it is the first time I’ve shared this here. This perspective is useful. We have a cat that sometimes does stuff we wish he wouldn’t and now when unexpected stuff happens I’ve come to realize it means something is bothering him, rather than be frustrated by him. Hopefully that translates.
- david422 6y ago
  Good luck bud. Better to be prepared for misery just in case.
  - bredren 6y ago
    I’m trying to treat it like Burning Man. Where if it’s your first time going, you go in with no expectations and as much preparedness as possible.
- werdnapk 6y ago
  3 kids in, aged 6, 4 and 2... 12 hours a night for all of them. I guess I did the "sleep training" thing, although all I did was what I thought was common sense stuff. Some things I did off the top of my head: - 15 min cry buffer. More than that and check diaper, or give a bottle/feeding. Never turn on the lights during these check-in times... always use a dim (soft colored light) night light that's already on to keep things "dark". Changing diapers with little light gets easier the more you do it. - Burping a newborn/baby is an essential technique. Don't leave the feeding until you get a good burp out of them. More often than not if the diaper is clean and they're fed, and they keep crying, it's trapped air that needs to be burped out. - I use a sound machine with white noise which drowns out almost all external noises. - No soothers. I let me kids figure out where their thumbs are and they use that. Too many times with my first kid I was going in to pick up the soother that dropped out of their mouth which made them cry. - Keep their room "cool". Nobody likes sweating in their sleep. A newborn will be waking up every 2-3 hours likely, but so far for me, by 3-5 months, the kids get to 12 hours. Side note, I'm the father of the kids. Breastfeeding was not done by me, so I'd bottle feed from pumped milk. Good luck!
  - bredren 6y ago
    Thank you for these specific points of advice.
  - _carbyau_ 6y ago
    To further with some views on feeding: 1. breast pumping provided us appreciated flexibility. After a crappy one, we got a good breast pump that did both at once. Wife appreciated being untethered from child for her relief. I appreciated being able to feed child. 2. We weren't too worried when we switched to formula exclusively after a while. Sooo many people get hung up on "breast is best" dialogue. Best comment I heard was a Maternal Child Health nurse pointing at a school yard of kids saying "Can you tell me which was breast fed and which was formula?" Ultimately though, you do you.
    - werdnapk 6y ago
      I think my kids were breast fed for 2-3 months and then another 1-2 months from frozen milk and finally a gradual move to formula by mixing the breast milk and formula so that there's no sudden transition if the child isn't used to the taste, etc. No qualms at all about using formula within the first 4-6 months.
barbazoo 6y ago
Same experience here. We were lucky and with just a few adjustments are being able to cope quite well. It does require for me and my partner to go to bed earlier to have more of our sleep overlap with baby's, otherwise it'd be hell. But at the same time we get up earlier, too.
intergalplan 6y ago
> However, I and most of my friends have had good results with combinations of sleep training and adjusting our own sleep schedules for additional buffer. Bingo. Also don't insist on both being awake for every nighttime wake period and use a shift system, plus offset your go-to-bed times, and then, unless you're very unlucky or your newborn has some kind of illness, you're looking at 6ish hours of sleep a night with at least one night a week of 8+ hours (when you can each give the other a "sleep make-up night" to sleep in basically indefinitely, probably on a weekend). Sleep train right, and you're gonna be doing this for 3 months, tops. They should be down to one feeding a night around IIRC 1 month, so it gets way better then. 3 for 3 on having our kids sleeping through the night (as in, we only have to wake up and do something if there's an unusual situation, and aren't woken up at all at least 6 weeks a night) by no later than 10 weeks. I believe some people do get unlucky and their kids just won't sleep through the night that early, but it's quite rare (again, unless your kid's sick, that changes everything). Everyone we see having trouble with it is one or more of: 1) keeping their kid in the same room or same bed (no judgement on co-sleeping for other reasons, but continuing it past the first couple weeks seems, anecdotally, strongly correlated with kids who still won't sleep through the night at 6 months and beyond, and have trouble going to sleep in the first place), 2) pouncing on their baby the second they make a sound at night, even past the first couple weeks, at which point you should stop that and gradually increase your response times to waking/crying unless you want to train your kid to wake up a lot (by rewarding waking with attention, and not letting them learn how to transition between sleep cycles), 3) unable to handle "cry it out" for the 2-3 nights it'll probably take to finish the process, if you've followed the steps you should have to correctly reduce how often they wake by ~8 weeks or so (if you haven't, it might take a lot longer, but... just don't do that)
everfraid 6y ago
I'd love to go to sleep an hour earlier, but my 3year old is not asleep at that time :) And he wakes up at 5, so that's great. Maybe when he start skipping his midday nap, we'll start to get some more sleep. Until then, it's dementia I guess.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  The kid still sleeps more than you need over the whole day; so you "just" need to take midday naps as well.

bredren 6y ago

I’m expecting my first child in June and have sort of been preparing for misery when it comes to sleep. I appreciate you sharing this.

cpach 6y ago
It can be rough. But it isn’t rough for all parents all the time. And keep this in mind: A period of bad sleep could be followed by a period of good sleep. Kids aren’t static, their behavior can vary a lot during different development stages. Best of luck!
- bredren 6y ago
  Thank you.
barbazoo 6y ago
Whatever happens, know that it's ultimately not only up to you. There's quite a bit of luck involved how they are able to cope with the environment and what sleep pattern they prefer. And OT but relevant for every new parent, sorry for giving unsolicited advice. But always remember, whenever it gets tough: "They're not giving you a hard time, they're having a hard time!". That helped me better understand that it's our job to help them through whatever crazy thing they're going through at any given time.
- bredren 6y ago
  Thanks for this, it is the first time I’ve shared this here. This perspective is useful. We have a cat that sometimes does stuff we wish he wouldn’t and now when unexpected stuff happens I’ve come to realize it means something is bothering him, rather than be frustrated by him. Hopefully that translates.
david422 6y ago
Good luck bud. Better to be prepared for misery just in case.
- bredren 6y ago
  I’m trying to treat it like Burning Man. Where if it’s your first time going, you go in with no expectations and as much preparedness as possible.
werdnapk 6y ago
3 kids in, aged 6, 4 and 2... 12 hours a night for all of them. I guess I did the "sleep training" thing, although all I did was what I thought was common sense stuff. Some things I did off the top of my head: - 15 min cry buffer. More than that and check diaper, or give a bottle/feeding. Never turn on the lights during these check-in times... always use a dim (soft colored light) night light that's already on to keep things "dark". Changing diapers with little light gets easier the more you do it. - Burping a newborn/baby is an essential technique. Don't leave the feeding until you get a good burp out of them. More often than not if the diaper is clean and they're fed, and they keep crying, it's trapped air that needs to be burped out. - I use a sound machine with white noise which drowns out almost all external noises. - No soothers. I let me kids figure out where their thumbs are and they use that. Too many times with my first kid I was going in to pick up the soother that dropped out of their mouth which made them cry. - Keep their room "cool". Nobody likes sweating in their sleep. A newborn will be waking up every 2-3 hours likely, but so far for me, by 3-5 months, the kids get to 12 hours. Side note, I'm the father of the kids. Breastfeeding was not done by me, so I'd bottle feed from pumped milk. Good luck!
- bredren 6y ago
  Thank you for these specific points of advice.
- _carbyau_ 6y ago
  To further with some views on feeding: 1. breast pumping provided us appreciated flexibility. After a crappy one, we got a good breast pump that did both at once. Wife appreciated being untethered from child for her relief. I appreciated being able to feed child. 2. We weren't too worried when we switched to formula exclusively after a while. Sooo many people get hung up on "breast is best" dialogue. Best comment I heard was a Maternal Child Health nurse pointing at a school yard of kids saying "Can you tell me which was breast fed and which was formula?" Ultimately though, you do you.
  - werdnapk 6y ago
    I think my kids were breast fed for 2-3 months and then another 1-2 months from frozen milk and finally a gradual move to formula by mixing the breast milk and formula so that there's no sudden transition if the child isn't used to the taste, etc. No qualms at all about using formula within the first 4-6 months.

barbazoo 6y ago

Same experience here. We were lucky and with just a few adjustments are being able to cope quite well. It does require for me and my partner to go to bed earlier to have more of our sleep overlap with baby's, otherwise it'd be hell. But at the same time we get up earlier, too.

intergalplan 6y ago

> However, I and most of my friends have had good results with combinations of sleep training and adjusting our own sleep schedules for additional buffer. Bingo. Also don't insist on both being awake for every nighttime wake period and use a shift system, plus offset your go-to-bed times, and then, unless you're very unlucky or your newborn has some kind of illness, you're looking at 6ish hours of sleep a night with at least one night a week of 8+ hours (when you can each give the other a "sleep make-up night" to sleep in basically indefinitely, probably on a weekend). Sleep train right, and you're gonna be doing this for 3 months, tops. They should be down to one feeding a night around IIRC 1 month, so it gets way better then. 3 for 3 on having our kids sleeping through the night (as in, we only have to wake up and do something if there's an unusual situation, and aren't woken up at all at least 6 weeks a night) by no later than 10 weeks. I believe some people do get unlucky and their kids just won't sleep through the night that early, but it's quite rare (again, unless your kid's sick, that changes everything). Everyone we see having trouble with it is one or more of: 1) keeping their kid in the same room or same bed (no judgement on co-sleeping for other reasons, but continuing it past the first couple weeks seems, anecdotally, strongly correlated with kids who still won't sleep through the night at 6 months and beyond, and have trouble going to sleep in the first place), 2) pouncing on their baby the second they make a sound at night, even past the first couple weeks, at which point you should stop that and gradually increase your response times to waking/crying unless you want to train your kid to wake up a lot (by rewarding waking with attention, and not letting them learn how to transition between sleep cycles), 3) unable to handle "cry it out" for the 2-3 nights it'll probably take to finish the process, if you've followed the steps you should have to correctly reduce how often they wake by ~8 weeks or so (if you haven't, it might take a lot longer, but... just don't do that)

everfraid 6y ago

I'd love to go to sleep an hour earlier, but my 3year old is not asleep at that time :) And he wakes up at 5, so that's great. Maybe when he start skipping his midday nap, we'll start to get some more sleep. Until then, it's dementia I guess.

PeterisP 6y ago
The kid still sleeps more than you need over the whole day; so you "just" need to take midday naps as well.