Karleen Gribble wrote: > > The conclusion is > "Giving new mothers advice about how to help their children sleep through the night clearly helps a lot, so let's do more of it," I agree that sleep is important. But I don't think it is impossible to get enough sleep without having the baby 'sleep through the night'. My second child woke twice a night every night for the first two years of her life. For the first year I was constantly sleep deprived, it was awful, I had strong feelings of resentment towards my daughter and I hated the way I hated her. When she was a year old I decided that I would take the bull by the horns and try Dr Ferber's technique. That night remains one of the worst night of my life. I decided that waking up twice a night for her was better than this. I changed my lifestyle a bit, I no longer tried to maintain the illusion that I had no children after sunset and I went to bed a little earlier. I knew she would wake but instead of laying there dreading it and resenting her for it, I just slept knowing that she would wake and accepting the inevitability of it. Oddly, I found that I slept better and had less trouble resettling her once I had accepted the situation. I also napped with my children in their room (for the hour or so they were both asleep) in the afternoon and stopped using that time for housework. Housework got done once a week when my husband pitched in on Saturday morning. My expectations changed to fit her needs and my needs were better met too. I believe that parents create their own frustrations and deprivations by not accepting their own family situation and by trying to fit it in to a socially prescribed model ie, house work must always be done, social activities must not change, adults to get 8 hours sleep and must be in one solid block, children to sleep 12 hours a night also in one solid block, children must sleep in their own room. My third and fourth babies slept with us from the start and I have not experienced any serious sleep deprivation. In fact when either of them cry in bed at night I wake in a panic because it is so rare. My daughter (6) and my eldest son (9) still wake at night but now they are old enough to get their own drink of water. My personal opinion is that having babies does mean having less sleep, but the degree of sleep deprivation can be minimised a lot by adjusting the parents' sleep habits and expectations a bit too, and not necessarily forcing the baby to make all the adjustments. Gitte -- BN Carney <[log in to unmask]> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Politicians are like nappies, they must be changed often and for the same reason. - Bumper Sticker ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html