The Trouble With Sleep

Is your baby sleeping through?  Has got to be the most common question I was asked since Poppy came into the world.  I hated being asked it because automatically it made me feel like I was doing something wrong because she didn't.  "My baby is such a good baby, because he/she sleeps through" is what I would hear from smug mums lapping up 12 hours of sleep.  Leaving me feeling worried or down and wondering where I was going so wrong, along side trying to cope with motherhood on broken sleep every night.

I remember being told that we must sleep train Poppy around three months, two weeks max and 12 hours sleep every night will be ours and if we don't we will have months or even years of hell.  So there we were at three months old and six weeks later still doing controlled crying then moving onto to cry it out and our little princess still wanted her milk and us feeling like failures.

Funny what a few months does to change your perspective on the world of baby sleep.  Looking back and reflecting on the situation, after the new born phase Poppy used to wake up once or twice which doesn't sound that bad but at the time the broken sleep was unbearable.  Chris is a true legend.  He never complained about lack of sleep and went to work everyday as well as helping me.  Somehow I still managed to slap on the war paint and go out everyday.   What I really needed was someone to say (and for me to believe) that it's OK if your baby wakes up and that it is very normal for this to happen.  Neither Poppy or us were doing anything wrong.  Better still not every method works for your baby and if she's not sleeping through now doesn't actually mean that she won't ever. I don't regret sleep training I just believe that she wasn't ready at the time, sleep training or not.  But I suppose that comes from experience of being a mum.   

So what I have learned?  It's OK if my baby wakes up in the night and next time I won't get so hung up on whether or not my baby sleeps through because I know at some point there is sleep at the end of the tunnel even if it does take more than two weeks!!

I know you are now desperate to ask the famous question.  And the answer is yes.  YES!!!!!!

Poppy the Sleeping Beauty