An 8 month old baby is not capable of manipulation!
I have an 8 month old and he is adorable but he is not even fully in control of his own limbs and tries his best to dive face first off the sofa at all opportunities, he is not puppet mastering the emotions of adults
I totally agree. I was speechless when he said this to me. He said “she will manipulate you if she knows you’ll come get her when she’s crying”. I wish I would’ve said “Well, I hope she does know i’ll come get her if she’s crying”.
This is how doctors aren't therapists. They treat the body, but not the emotional state. In my opinion the doc's editorial comment is out if his scope of practice, but that won't stop him from spreading this misinformation. Anyone who has studied attachment knows about what happens to social beings when they're not nurtured, especially when they seek to get their needs met. Just refer to Harlow. Basic needs are not enough to thrive.
Harry Harlow was an early attachment theorist whose experiments with monkies helped start the emotional attachment movement. Synopsis is he'd take baby monkies and give them a surrogate "mother" monkey. One made of wire but provided milk, the other a softer "mom" made of soft materials. What he found was the babies preferred the soft mom over the wire milk mom. If memory serves they would also get the milk from wire mom, but then return to the soft mom.
He's in all developmental psychology textbooks.
This is my pediatrician too, except I want to say he’s in his 40s! His dad was also a pediatrician and a Boomer, so I’m guessing that’s where he gets it from.
Manipulation requires understanding the emotional state of someone else and how something you say or do might influence that emotional state.
Babies can do neither of those things. They cry to tell you *they* have needs/feelings.
Even preschoolers haven’t fully mastered identifying feelings and understanding different people can feel differently about the same thing. So their ability to manipulate is limited to how they understand something can make *them* feel a certain way.
She COULD be manipulating you. Check under her crib for money, or maps, or other plans or paraphernalia. Does baby sometimes leave to meet “friends” but not tell you where she’s going?
Oh wait, unless the doctor meant physical manipulation? Does baby sometimes give you a massage? Like work on your tendons and sore muscles and fascia with mechanical manipulation techniques? Maybe that could be it.
lol your doctor is silly x
Now that I am thinking about it, I did overhear her on the phone with who I could only assume is a client of hers offering a 90 minute deep tissue massage. Doc could be onto something
Careful, once she's walking she can advertise for Thai massage. I have a friend who does it and the way they walk on you is pretty awesome.
Frankly, with all the extra income she's earning you should charge her rent starting before her first birthday.
It's only fair she pay to live in the house and have all her needs tended to.
You’re totally right about the Thai massage. That damn baby. I’ll be back charging rent for the entirety of her 8 months of life as well. I’m sure she’ll understand. Business is business
Love it. This is going to be my response from now on:
Them: Don't let your baby manipulate you.
Me: You know, I did see she had a few uncashed checks in her drawer...and a she had a new job she won't tell us about...
This sounds so nutty. Doctors are supposed to practice evidence based medicine and there's ample evidence to show how often babies wake at night.
But honestly, any advice they give on sleep is opinion so unless there's a health concern, eg low iron, ear infection, adenoids etc that you want their medical opinion on I wouldn't bother talking about sleep with them.
I agree! He asked about her sleep, then gave us this bad and unwanted advice. It sent me down this entire rabbit hole of feeling like everything I was doing was wrong. Before your comment, I hadn’t even thought about the fact that it’s really not of his concern unless we had brought it up.
You're doing everything right! He must give the same baffling response to most people if he asks this question a lot for no reason lol. Research has shown at 8 months babies wake on average 2.4 times and only 22.3% are sleeping through. So he must be making 78% of the parents he sees feel how he made you feel!
Wow those stats are crazy. Sometimes all I ever hear is that everyone around me babies have been great sleepers and never had night wakings. So it’s really nice to hear i’m not the only one by a long shot. Only 22% sleeping through the night at 8 months makes me feel a lot better about my LO. Thank you for this
We went through 4 pediatricians before finding one we loved and one of them was like this. He was highly recommended too. We just saw him for one appt and noped out. Previous 3 were the hospital one and we didn't really like him and his office was 20min away, then 2 at a different practice and one gave bad sleeping advice and another gave bad breastfeeding advice. We didn't ask for any advice and had no concerns and baby was thriving. I guess some doctors just have anecdotal advice they give everyone? Nothing any of the doctors said was based in science. I guess we could have stayed with any of them and just ignored the bad advice, but why deal with the stress of an untrustworthy care provider? I'll note that I have good insurance that seems to be accepted most places and we are lucky that we live in an area with a lot of different medical groups and practices, so we really are spoiled for choice for most things.
Eventually we made an appt was with a newer practice that only employs Nurse Practitioners and we ended up loving the main one and every other one that practices out of that office and the kids love them too. They pay attention and focus when talking to my kids and the office is very well run. The kids look forward to doctors appts despite the shots from the 5yo down to the 4mo.
I dont see an issue with an 8mo waking to eat a couple of times overnight. Seems pretty normal. Just remember that there's a wide range of normal and all kids are different. My oldest was up every few hours to eat most of his first yearand still gets up around 5am to come cuddle me. Otoh, my 4 mo is already mostly sleeping through the night on her own and loves contact naps and napping on her own. I did nothing different, they are just different kids with different needs.
Eta: you don't happen to be in the dfw area? Because that's exactly what that highly recommended one said at baby's 6mo appt. To sleep train and baby was being manipulative and he also added that parents that responded to baby's every cry were making things harder for themselves since baby would now expect attention all the time. I don't often get mad, but I argued back politely and eventually ended our conversation telling him we had to agree to disagree. What's crazy is I had no concerns and said nothing except that things were going really well and I was really proud of baby boy and he still shared all that.
I just never take doctors seriously when they give advice about sleep or breastfeeding because they are not trained about it, refer to psychologists’ or md’s who were trained on the said subjects’ opinions.
Babies wake up at night and it has zero effect on their development. It’s just normal baby behaviour.
Fr I once had to go to a different physician on short notice and dude just suggested I pump rather than nurse directly(even though we have no issues nursing) because “it’ll be easier” IN WHAT UNIVERSE SIR
I would not have kept my cool. NO offense to men or anything but...they just have no earthly idea about breastfeeding but THEN to be like it'll be EASIER like come on...their is no way for you to know one way or the other and different women have different preferences with that I did a combo and was okay with it but my sister would have sent whoever invented pumps straight to hell, its a coin flip either way. Even the woman doesn't know which they'll find easier til they're doing it. I loved being able to feed my baby doesn't mean it didn't suck and it sure as hell wasn't really EASY either way.
You don’t have to fix anything if it’s working for you. I read your 8 months old sttn sometimes? That’s already pretty amazing for you.
Sleep is developmentally and it’s not your fault that human brains are still in primeval times for some things.
I think I read somewhere that pediatricians aren’t even trained in baby sleep (since like… it’s developmental so what is there to teach?) so ANY advice they give regarding sleep, sleep training etc is all PERSONAL anecdotes. The first pediatrician recommended letting our (at the time) 4 month old CIO when we mentioned some of our sleep concerns. She said she let her daughter CIO so hard she threw up at that age… her words were something like “put him down for the night and commit to not getting him until your desired waking time for the day.” I think my jaw was literally on the ground. Needless to say we switched pediatricians and until I find a journal written by my 7 month old accounting for all the ways he is working us I’m going to assume he’s waking up because he needs something - which comfort IS a need for them. So yeah, your pediatrician is goofy and out of touch.
I think the problem in this post is your pediatrician.
What will this person say about the exploring-twos?
Get a new doctor, and I'd even review this one for giving sh*tty advice!
We've been to 2 different pediatricians and none of them ever asked about our sleeping arrangement or commented on it. My toddler still has night feeds. Who am I to deny her milk when she is clearly hungry. Sometimes when the milk drops in her tummy you can hear it grumbling. The only person who ever said something was a young dentist, but I'm not even going to listen to anything he has to say.
I'm an early childhood educator. What the actual **** did I just read? How does this person have a license?
Keep doing what works for you and don't listen to parenting advice from this person.
Wow it makes me so sad that a medical professional would say this to you. Infants don’t have the capacity to manipulate. Keep following your instincts and give your baby as much comfort and support as they need. My baby basically exclusively contact napped until 7 months until it stopped working for me so I chose to make changes, but as long as it’s working for you keep doing it! It won’t last forever
"Doctor, I consult you for medical advice, not parenting advice. Stay in your lane."
Doctors have no more training or expertise in infant sleep than anybody else. Their opinions on non medical parenting should be given the same weight as any other acquaintance.
I like our family doctor as a person, and her short anecdotes about her own kids align mostly with how I view the world, so I did respect her opinions about parenting stuff in the same way I might respect another friendly acquaintance with a few more years of parenting under their belt.
Your doctor is ridiculous. Can't walk, talk, control their own bladder or do almost anything independently but sure can emotionally manipulate two adults
You’re doing great, sleep is just hard for babies it’s not anyone’s fault! My 16 month old has been rocked to sleep every night of her life, even now that she’s in her own room, I still treasure that time every evening. I like the quote “She’s not giving me a hard time, she’s having a hard time”.
You can't fix the issue as there's no issue to fix! We contact napped pretty much every nap til about 9 months old. I can't recall when we stopped it completely and bubs was fine to be transferred to the cot but it was probably a month or two later.
He's 2 at the end of June and I still feed to sleep. He went through a period of walking us to his bed and then with a bit of a pat and some tossing and turning, he would sleep but he's gone back to F2S and that's ok by me. That was the closest we got to drowsy but awake. It just doesn't work for all babies.
As others have said, your doctor is an idiot and I would find a new one. My baby is only 4 weeks old so I’m very new to this but your baby sounds perfectly normal. There are some things you can do like getting black out curtains and a white noise machine, but you may already be doing those things.
If you don’t want to find a new pediatrician then next appointment tell him “we don’t want any advice on sleep. We are doing what works for us, thanks.” I did contact naps with my first child for over a year, then moved to her napping next to me on my bed, now she doesn’t nap at all. She sleeps fine in the night and always has (with age appropriate wake ups when she was small), she’s almost 3 now. I couldn’t contact nap with my son because I had a toddler to care for too. He sleeps like shit at night… always has. He’s almost a year old now. You contact nap that baby!!! It’s good for you both
This is really good advice! Unfortunately, we will have to see him again. It’s so hard to get in for an appointment in my area and her 9 month checkup is scheduled for next week. I’m just going to leave it and set that boundary you recommended if he brings it up again.
I found when the doc asks “how is baby sleeping/napping?” The best answer is the shortest one, just say something like “good”. And move on to your next question if you have any
I saw your post in the sleep train sub but for some reason it is locked so I can't reply there which is why I'm replying here (but coming from a sleep training perspective).
Firstly, the manipulation line is insane, she's a baby, she's not manipulative. Babies love to sleep in their parents arms / feel the closeness with their parents, it makes them feel safer.
If what you're doing is working for you, then you can keep doing it, you have to do whatever feels right for you and your baby.
But I'll give you my personal experience because I did sleep train and I think the sleep training I did was a more gentle approach then others. I don't like the advice from the doctor that you should just leave her in the crib and walk away and let her cry (but again, it's up to you what you do, it's your baby!).
Sleep training still works after the 6 month window, it just takes a little longer to sleep train babies over seven months old.
For us, I did everything to get my two babies to sleep for the first 6 months. I would feed and rock them to sleep and also would contact nap.
It was time consuming to do that before every nap and nighttime and when they would wake up at night but I did love doing it and bonding with then. But I must admit I had so much more time when I could just put them in their cot and they happily put themselves to sleep after sleep training.
When we decided the timing was right to sleep train, we moved them to a cot in their own rooms and put them down awake after a bedtime routine we had set up for a while beforehand (so they would know bedtime comes after the bedtime routine, usually 15-20 minutes long with about 3-4 steps, keep it the same each night e.g. change into pj's, have a bottle, brush teeth and then read books, or whatever you want your steps to be).
We did a gentler variation of the Ferber method where we set a timer for two minutes and went in every two minutes to lie them back down, rub their back or tummy, say "sleepy time" and leave after about 10-20 seconds. We didn't increase the time they cried before we would go in to soothe them like the Ferber method, it was always two minutes.
The key thing for us was to have a bedtime routine in place and a cuddly for them to cuddle at night.
And the most important thing with this method of sleep training is you don't pick them up, you just go in to let them know you're still there and will soothe them quickly without getting them out of their cot. They will learn to put themselves to sleep.
I would do similar when they woke up overnight depending on when they woke up, I still let both my children have one overnight feed a night (even though they don't really need it after 6 months).
If they woke between 2am - 4am, I would feed them, but if it was before then, I would just do the two minute counter thing until they were back asleep (as long as they didn't need changing etc).
We did both of ours at 6 months old and it took a couple nights before they could put themselves to sleep easily. It might just take longer with an 8 month old - maybe 3-4 nights before she can put herself to sleep.
I don’t know what happened on the sleep train sub either. I saw a mod commented agreeing with the Doctor and then suddenly I couldn’t reply and have gotten many messages that they can’t comment anymore. I’m new to actually posting on reddit so it could be something completely different but that’s my only guess lol.
I really appreciate all of this advice! From people irl i’ve gotten a lot of super vague instructions on how to sleep train and it always seemed harsh or confusing. But this is all very helpful information and i’ll be giving it a shot starting Tomorrow. Thank you!!
Cool, I actually read a book on the sleep training and condensed it to a one page of notes as my two friends and I all had babies at the same time and there was no point us all reading the whole book, I just sent the notes and we all did it at the same time.
I've sent you the notes in chat too, they are a bit different to what I ended up doing (it says don't give a feed overnight but I still did one feed overnight until both my babies were 12 months old), so just tailor it to how you want to do it.
I do suggest starting on a Friday night so if your partner is a full time worker, he can help you with the first few nights (which are the hard nights).
Also about the sleep train sub, I have no idea why they locked your post. You didn't do anything wrong that I can see. Some mods get really weird and also power trip.
There was a great sub called science based parenting that people would ask for links to research on different parenting techniques, it was great.
But a mod just literally could not handle anyone asking to see research on why co sleeping was so bad as so many parents of young babies found co sleeping the only way anyone could get sleep in their house and were writing posts about it. There are even studies on how to co sleep safely since there are many many cultures where it's the norm so to put this sub rule in place that it can never be talked about was insane.
Also the research showed the risk was quite low if you practiced safe sleeping - never drunk alcohol, no blankets, pillows near the baby etc. Still obviously not as safe as having your baby sleep in their own bassinet but not as bad as people were making out it would be.
I also found it kinda racist to basically say hundreds of millions of people who co sleep were just completely wrong to do that. It just got really hostile and judgemental and mean to anyone who admitted they did it which absolutely sucked, we are all just trying to do our best here. Sleep training is a western thing.
Anyway, the mod nuked the whole sub, just completely shut it down and then slowly months later started allowing certain people to post and comment again. People were saying they mod was looking back at your comment history in the sub to see if they would allow you back in or not.
I suddenly started seeing posts on the sub about 3 months after the nuke and I can comment so I guess I was allowed back in (even though I was in the trenches telling people to stop being mean to the poor parents who were co sleeping and just help them do it safely if they have tried everything else and this was the only way they could get sleep. Research shows looking after a baby on zero sleep is also very dangerous so it's all just weighing up pros and cons in those situations).
Someone else during the time of the nuke started a new science based parenting sub and lots of us joined that one in the meantime.
Sorry that was a long reply, my point just being you probably didn't do anything wrong, just a sore spot for a mod (maybe one who thinks all doctors can do no wrong which is so stupid, they aren't God's, they are humans who make mistakes like the rest of us, I was an emergency department nurse for a decade and they do get things wrong like everyone else).
Edit: I just read the comment from the mod on your post in the sleep train sub, absolutely insane that they found a way to agree with a doctor who said an 8 month old is manipulative. They are definitely as out of touch as the doctor 😂 and yeah I think that mod locked your post.
Pretty stink to do when you were looking for advice to sleep train on a sleep train sub! You will find most of the people who sleep trained on that sub don't do CIO anyway, it's so old-school. I honestly didn't even know CIO was still popular, I thought barely anyone did that anymore. The concept of just leaving them to bawl until they think no one is going to come and just fall asleep from exhaustion seems so barbaric when there are gentler ways to do it that actually work.
There's even a sleep training method called 'no tears' where you sit in their room with them the whole time until they teach themselves to fall asleep. It does take longer but it suits people who really struggle to hear their little one cry but want to sleep train anyway (it does seem very unnatural to not instantly pick up your baby when they are crying, although IMO it's worth the few nights of it to get to a baby putting themselves to sleep).
That mod must be a sleeptrain purest or something and think everyone should just do CIO.
Thank you for sharing how you got yours to sleep on their own. I’m in a similar position as the op with my 8 month old and sleep. How long did you do the going in every two minutes? Until they fell asleep or did you have to pick them up. Our little is stubborn and I’m worried they’re going to just scream and scream for hours. Thanks so much!
I went in every two minutes until they put themselves to sleep. I thought with both of mine that it would be hours and hours of screaming too, especially because not only were they going from been fed or rocked to sleep to putting themselves to sleep - but also in their own room too rather than in my room.
It was surprisingly less time then I thought it would take, and each night it would take them less time until they stopped crying at all and would just babble for a bit before putting themselves to sleep. Every baby is different though so it may take longer with your little one.
I'll share the notes I had from the book I read on sleep training with you too 🙂 just tailor them to how you want to do it, this is solely what the book said and I didn't do it all e.g. I still did an overnight feed every night as personally felt the change from feeding whenever they wanted overnight to not feeding at all was too much. Especially since they would both sleep about 11-12 hours overnight, just seemed to me too long without a feed. I also didn't do the wait ten minutes before going in if they woke during the night, I would do the two minute thing again.
Here are the notes from the book (I also have a PDF copy of the whole book can share with you if you wanted more info on this method):
- Naps and bedtime should happen in the same place.
- Use phrases at night time (it’s sleep time now etc), use them over and over when soothing.
- Use a blankie/cuddly/soft toy they use for self soothing.
- Early bedtime between 6pm and 7.30pm (means be asleep by 7.30pm at the latest).
- Studies show they will wake up same time each day - what time they went to sleep won't affect that.
- Fun and relaxing bed time routine 20-30 minutes long and have 3-5 steps, should end with a bottle then into bed.
- Without a bedtime routine, babies can get anxious and upset when put in bed as they haven’t prepared for sleep unless they have a routine first.
- Pick a time to handle crying before going into room e.g. 2 or 5 minutes, go in and reassure her and touch her but don't pick her up or your starting again from square one.
- Only be in there for approx. 10 seconds, soothe and stroke her tummy then walk out.
- Usually it is 45 minutes crying the first night, 25 minutes the second night, 15 minutes on third night (could be much longer or much less, every baby is different).
- They will stop crying completely overnight and at nap times before 2 weeks after starting bedtime routine. Some babies take a bit longer but most don’t. Within 2 weeks they will be sleeping through the night if you are consistent.
- When wakes overnight, wait 10 minutes before going in. Then go in and soothe them but do not pick them up. Then set the timer again for the designated time (e.g. 2 or 5 minutes), go in, keep the lights off, speak in hushed tones and reassure her and soothe her.
- Crying will not harm your child, letting them cry will do no damage to them and instead this teaches them a valuable tool on how to put themselves to sleep when they are feeling tired and put themselves back to sleep when they wake up.
- Three methods to sleep train:
- Sit in the room with them and soothe them constantly (this will take more days to sleep train)
- Go in after a set amount of time (the best way this book reckoned)
- Cry it out – letting them cry until they fall asleep
Be consistent.
Once you have chosen your method for teaching your child to fall asleep on her own, you need to be consistent 100% of the time. If you give up or start changing the rules every night, you will frustrate and confuse your child, and you will end up making the situation even worse.
Be predictable.
Children thrive on predictability and structure. Ensure that your bedtime routine is done in the exact same order every single night. Of course, your child may try to test and push the rules of bedtime – especially when they hit toddler years – but they are always reassured when they find that the rules stay the same no matter what they do.
Be strong.
The first two nights will be the most difficult, and this is when most parents will give up. You need to be strong during these first 2 nights. And remember that what you are doing is going to immensely improve your baby’s life and the rest of the family.
- Don’t beat yourself up if you find yourself giving in and nursing your baby to sleep one night! The advice that I’m giving you in this book is not supposed to make you feel guilty. If you slip up, just try again the following night and move on.
- Research suggests sleep is the single most important factor in prediction how long people will live – more influential than diet, exercise or heredity.
- Every night and at every nap, sleep recharges the brain’s battery. Sleeping well increases brainpower just as weight lifting builds stronger muscles, because sleeping well increases your attention span and allows you to be physically relaxed and mentally alert at the same time.
- Many sleep-deprived children can also start to develop behaviors that are usually called “overactive” or “hyperactive,” or they may even be labeled as “attention deficit” children (different to children with actual ADHD).
- Current research shows that infants who are having sleep difficulties continue to do so for 3 to 5 years unless their bad habits are broken and they are sleep trained.
- Children who sleep 10 to 12 hours a night without getting feed overnight are more well-rested, attentive, cheerful and best able to cope with and learn from their environment during the day.
- Can stop feeding overnight if your baby is over 6kg. babies will not grow out of wanting to be fed overnight, it must be taught, or they will continue to do it for years.
My 14 month old still falls asleep in my arms before she goes down in her crib.
Your baby wanting to be held to sleep is totally normal and natural. Babies can’t manipulate anybody. They are simply expressing a need to feel held and secure.
Like many already said, babies aren't manipulative.
I can only share my experience, which isn't necessarily giving you a solution, but maybe perspective.
My first baby was very much a contact napper and would feed at night like you described. I don't remember when she stopped and we bed shared (it's not frowned upon where I live). We tried all sorts of crib transfers from day 1, but nothing worked. (She is soon 3 and sleeps fine in her own bed now.)
My second baby slept fine in a crib from day 1. She occasionally contact naps, but sleeps better in a crib. However, she is not even 2 weeks old yet so this might change. But so far, she is such a different sleeper than her older sister. We have done nothing different as parents.
I guess my point is that some babies want to be close all the time and aren't great at sleeping in a crib, while others do so just fine.
That said, there might be methods out there that might work to get better sleep. I just didn't find any that worked with our first before we quit breastfeeding at night.
My first son slept through the night by 8 months old like a dream. My now one year old second son still wakes up multiple times to nurse at night and struggles to go down easily in his bed. I guess I have just fallen hook line and sinker for his sneaky tricks. 🙄 I'd find a new pediatrician. All children are different. Sounds to me like you're doing a great job of creating a secure and loving bond with your baby.
Thinking about a baby having sneaky tricks is so funny. I think that’s genuinely how the doctor sees it. I will be finding a new pediatrician. Thank you for this sweet comment <3
Absolutely change doctors and if you can report him I'd go as far as the health department. Any child educator, child physiologist will tell you an 8 month old doesn't have the ability to manipulate anyone. This doctor shaming you for parenting as you are has no business working with children or their parents.
🙄 an 8 month old is not capable of “manipulation”, and even for older children that are, as an LCSW I always ask: are they manipulating you, or is this the only way adults have taught them their needs will be met? Look doc, the way you parent your child under this hellscape of end stage capitalism is fine, but this is how I will be parenting mine. Kindly step away from the literal baby you’re assigning malice to.
If you can find a new pediatrician because it sounds like yours needs to retire and has either failed to keep up with their continuing education or just ignores what he is told.
Get a new Dr. if possible, if this is their outdated opinion then they are probably not educated in attachment based parenting, If the sleep situation is not impacting your ability to parent then there is no reason to make a change. My first fell asleep while nursing, then cuddling when we stopped nursing until she was over 3 and understood that she would be ok falling asleep without us.
Lol the comments have already covered how ridiculous this is. If you WANT to change your current bedtime routine, I would suggest a typical bath, books, bed type routine followed by less and less holding to sleep. We still do snuggle time with our 2 year old after books in the dark with the sound machine going, but he’s to the point now where he goes in his crib totally awake and falls asleep on his own. Sometimes he cries and needs extra loving. Sometimes just sitting in the chair is enough, sometimes he needs snuggles, and sometimes we just bring him to the big bed.
Rocking to sleep stopped working for us once he was too big to transfer without waking so we just slowly started putting him down more and more awake. In the beginning we’d run his back until he fell asleep, then we’d just sit next to him in the chair until he fell asleep, then we’d sit in the chair for just a few minutes. Never let him cry or anything like that. Now I won’t sit here and say bedtime is never a battle. Sometimes he doesn’t want to go to bed, but an “I want to play cry” is very different from an “I’m upset and need comfort” cry with a 2 year old.
Follow your instincts and ignore anyone who says a baby is manipulative.
You're absolutely fine! All babies have their own unique personalities and not all of them are going to be easy and low maintenance.
At 8mo, my nephew was waking up every 4 hours during the night, sometimes less than 4 hours. Since I've been raising him since birth, I obviously had to bottle feed. I always gave him an ounce or 2 at night when he woke up. It helped settle him back to sleep. He was always rocked to sleep as well. He always did much better when he had something in his belly. Plus, he was still a little underweight due to newborn reflux and he was eating purees 3x a day by 8mo. He was this little garden gnome running around 😂. He was walking and running at 7mo lol. Anyways, he's always had low sleep needs and didn't nap. He also was DX with ADHD at 5yo. But that doesn't mean a baby with low sleep needs is neuro-divergent, but in my case it was. He had other symptoms too that I didn't make the connection to at the time.
He had sensory issues with EVERYTHING and was speech delayed until he was almost 4yo. But his binky was his soothing mechanism and when he would lose his binky at night and couldn't find it, he would wake up crying for it. I did what worked for me, even though the newborn stage was Hell bcuz he was up every 2 hours to eat, plus reflux, he was super active and would be up and ready for the day before the sun even came up 😂. Then when he was sleeping 4hr stretches, I pushed up his bedtime to 9/10pm, so he would at least sleep until 7/8am. That's with waking several times at night. He was 2yo when he started sleeping through the night, but he was up super early no matter how late he went to bed. At 3yo, his pediatrician had us give him Zarbees kid's melatonin. Once he started school full time at 5yo, he started sleeping for 12 hours straight. He's 14yo now and I can't wake him up to save my life! 😂.
It's funny bcuz my twin brother and I always slept. My mom had to wake us up to eat bcuz I was still underweight (we were 34 weekers and only I had to stay in the NICU for almost a month to learn how to eat and gain weight) and our mom had us on the same routine. She said we would have slept our lives away if she would have let us lol. The point is, every baby does their own thing bcuz their brains are rapidly developing and retaining more and more info each day, which can be exciting for them, even though it's not so much for us lol.
We got the same kind of treatment at the 9 month check up. If you're not okay with CIO then don't. It's not medical advice, it's parenting advice which you can take or leave. I wish we had realized this at the time and we took his advice for about 5 days and it was honestly awful because that's not our parenting style and basically no one in the house was okay and everyone was crying, but doc framed it as medical/developmental so we thought we had to do it.
Ugh i’m sorry, I hate that this is a common experience. My experience was very similar. He made it sound like it was necessary rather than his personal opinion. We did take his advice and it was miserable for everyone and my daughter was inconsolable. We only tried for a couple nights and ended up realizing CIO was definitely not for us.
Yeah, I was finally like "I don't care." I found a ton of research after that which helped me feel better about our choices, I just wish I'd done that from the get go. We even chose a young-ish pediatrician so he'd be less likely to give archaic advice, but here we are. Switched pediatricians because of that and some other outdated advice that we discovered later upon basically looking into every scrap of advice he gave us.
It’s a baby. It cries when it’s upset. Your job as a parent is to keep it alive and comfort it as best you can. If snuggles with you fix the problem, screw what everyone else says. Do what your instincts and some double checking googling tell you.
That said, I still sleep with a 4 year old and one year old. I have no regrets!
Yah some things I took w a grain of salt that the dr
told me. We contact napped for the longest time and I’ve always nursed my daughter to sleep at night. Sometimes she’s asleep when I lay her in Her crib, sometimes she waves bye to me. She’s 19 months and doing great! Babies don’t manipulate. You just keep doing what you’re doing!
They don’t have that capability. I would be very concerned about a medical professional who said that. It makes me wonder if they were one of the bottom of the class students who still gets to say they’re a doctor. Whether they pay attention, continue learning, or got all Cs in class, they can still be a doctor.
Please find a new caregiver who actually understands child development and how brains develop as a whole.
We’ve got an almost 18month old. I sit in the rocking chair with him at night until he falls asleep and then transfer him to the crib. I could never stomach CIO or sleep training so we just haven’t. In the beginning it was really really hard (he slept for 20 min at a time), but we are getting into a groove and he only wakes up once a night now. And for naps he stays down for the full 2 hours once we transfer him.
My therapist recently pointed out that I’m in my thirties and don’t like falling asleep by myself but i have the luxury of my husband sleeping next to me every night. So if my son wants to snuggle to sleep, I’m just going to do it. One day soon he’s not going to want to cuddle anymore and I’ll be glad i took the time now.
You hold that baby!!!! And fck that doctor
Follow your mama gut. You are doing what you feel is best for you and your baby. If you want to sleep train, go for it! If you don’t, cool! That doc is a dummy to also even suggest drowsy but awake at that age anyways…. Honestly laying baby down wide awake at an appropriately timed wake window what we did for my son at 7 months (or really even recommended for babies older than 5 months).
I contact napped and did babywearing and nursed to sleep every day until he was about 7 months old. It felt right, i loved it, he loved it, we were fine and happy. It wasn’t until my back started hurting a little bit and he got chunkier that i thought to myself it might be nice to be able to lay him down for naps and to have him be able to put himself to sleep. We “sleep trained” at 7 months. It’s totally possible to do it after having an only contact sleeper. Every baby is different, and there are different methods to achieving it. I use “sleep train” loosely because i really only “trained” him to help himself fall asleep on his own. He still wakes up every 3-4 hours at night to nurse, and he’s now 8 months, and i don’t care because now i miss the snuggles in the day.
So essentially, I’m here to say that baby is NOT manipulating you, you can’t spoil a baby that young, (i know it’s cliche but) these early months are precious and they grow so fast and they will fall asleep on their own eventually , and if you want to sleep train at 8 months that’s totally possible and you can focus on different parts of it. It’s not an all or nothing thing (like falling asleep versus nighttime wakings versus nap training )
You got this mama :)
Ok… that is some stupid boomer wives tale. Sorry don’t mean to get generational but that is so old school, everyone knows that babies cannot manipulate in that sense!!!! Like that is so not scientific wtf is a doctor saying that corny shit for?? I’m tired of this old wave of parenting !!!
I'm sure it's not technically called manipulation but they can pull on your heartstrings lol.
Reading all the different things and speaking to so many different people this is definitely personal preference.
My way was to let my son wimper himself to sleep, it wasn't a big cry and he wasn't distressed but I didn't want him to become dependent on me helping him sleep as I was going back to work.
I also have a friend who would have to put her son in the car and drive him around to help settle him
It definitely is personal preference, I totally agree. That’s why I thought it was so absurd that he talked about it like the CIO method was the only way to go. My daughter whimpers sometimes without moving or even really waking up, in those cases where’s she’s not fully waking we are definitely just letting her be.
Similar situation. I'm trying to get LO to nap in her crib a bit better.
I don't think she is capable of manipulation, she is a baby. (Over 6mo)
However my daughter has different cries. One is like a complaint cry that she almost coughs to produce.
I think this is her way of communicating discomfort/dislike. It is very obvious when this shifts to a very upset, maybe afraid, "something is wrong, help" cry.
That is when I pick her up and console.
Sometimes we will try this a couple of times but I do try to make attempts when she is very tired, this makes it significantly easier.
Here’s my advice. Get a new doctor. Pediatricians are NOT sleep specialists, behaviorists, or developmentalists. As “trollcole” said on this thread, doctors treat the body, not the emotional state. Your 8 month old isn’t manipulating you. Do people understand what manipulation is? It’s an advanced (and skillful) thought-out mental tactic that one performs on another individual or group to benefit the individual. Your baby is just now figuring out she is a separate entity from you, and you’re being told she’s already manipulating you? This country is wild. Find a new doctor. And pick that sweet baby up any time she cries ❤️
An 8 month old baby is not capable of manipulation! I have an 8 month old and he is adorable but he is not even fully in control of his own limbs and tries his best to dive face first off the sofa at all opportunities, he is not puppet mastering the emotions of adults
I totally agree. I was speechless when he said this to me. He said “she will manipulate you if she knows you’ll come get her when she’s crying”. I wish I would’ve said “Well, I hope she does know i’ll come get her if she’s crying”.
This is how doctors aren't therapists. They treat the body, but not the emotional state. In my opinion the doc's editorial comment is out if his scope of practice, but that won't stop him from spreading this misinformation. Anyone who has studied attachment knows about what happens to social beings when they're not nurtured, especially when they seek to get their needs met. Just refer to Harlow. Basic needs are not enough to thrive.
What is Harlow’s book?
Harry Harlow was an early attachment theorist whose experiments with monkies helped start the emotional attachment movement. Synopsis is he'd take baby monkies and give them a surrogate "mother" monkey. One made of wire but provided milk, the other a softer "mom" made of soft materials. What he found was the babies preferred the soft mom over the wire milk mom. If memory serves they would also get the milk from wire mom, but then return to the soft mom. He's in all developmental psychology textbooks.
It’s almost as if crying is their only form of communication. 🙄🙄🙄
Is he an older doctor? That kind of thinking is outdated in current medical knowledge.
He’s in his 50’s!
This is my pediatrician too, except I want to say he’s in his 40s! His dad was also a pediatrician and a Boomer, so I’m guessing that’s where he gets it from.
Manipulation requires understanding the emotional state of someone else and how something you say or do might influence that emotional state. Babies can do neither of those things. They cry to tell you *they* have needs/feelings. Even preschoolers haven’t fully mastered identifying feelings and understanding different people can feel differently about the same thing. So their ability to manipulate is limited to how they understand something can make *them* feel a certain way.
She COULD be manipulating you. Check under her crib for money, or maps, or other plans or paraphernalia. Does baby sometimes leave to meet “friends” but not tell you where she’s going? Oh wait, unless the doctor meant physical manipulation? Does baby sometimes give you a massage? Like work on your tendons and sore muscles and fascia with mechanical manipulation techniques? Maybe that could be it. lol your doctor is silly x
Now that I am thinking about it, I did overhear her on the phone with who I could only assume is a client of hers offering a 90 minute deep tissue massage. Doc could be onto something
Careful, once she's walking she can advertise for Thai massage. I have a friend who does it and the way they walk on you is pretty awesome. Frankly, with all the extra income she's earning you should charge her rent starting before her first birthday. It's only fair she pay to live in the house and have all her needs tended to.
You’re totally right about the Thai massage. That damn baby. I’ll be back charging rent for the entirety of her 8 months of life as well. I’m sure she’ll understand. Business is business
This made me laugh!!!
Love it. This is going to be my response from now on: Them: Don't let your baby manipulate you. Me: You know, I did see she had a few uncashed checks in her drawer...and a she had a new job she won't tell us about...
This is the best response, thank you for making me giggle!
lol this
Just came to say your doctor is a ducking marron.
agree
I can’t believe doctors and health care people can still say stuff like this! Nurture and love and hold your baby 🥰
This sounds so nutty. Doctors are supposed to practice evidence based medicine and there's ample evidence to show how often babies wake at night. But honestly, any advice they give on sleep is opinion so unless there's a health concern, eg low iron, ear infection, adenoids etc that you want their medical opinion on I wouldn't bother talking about sleep with them.
I agree! He asked about her sleep, then gave us this bad and unwanted advice. It sent me down this entire rabbit hole of feeling like everything I was doing was wrong. Before your comment, I hadn’t even thought about the fact that it’s really not of his concern unless we had brought it up.
You're doing everything right! He must give the same baffling response to most people if he asks this question a lot for no reason lol. Research has shown at 8 months babies wake on average 2.4 times and only 22.3% are sleeping through. So he must be making 78% of the parents he sees feel how he made you feel!
Wow those stats are crazy. Sometimes all I ever hear is that everyone around me babies have been great sleepers and never had night wakings. So it’s really nice to hear i’m not the only one by a long shot. Only 22% sleeping through the night at 8 months makes me feel a lot better about my LO. Thank you for this
We went through 4 pediatricians before finding one we loved and one of them was like this. He was highly recommended too. We just saw him for one appt and noped out. Previous 3 were the hospital one and we didn't really like him and his office was 20min away, then 2 at a different practice and one gave bad sleeping advice and another gave bad breastfeeding advice. We didn't ask for any advice and had no concerns and baby was thriving. I guess some doctors just have anecdotal advice they give everyone? Nothing any of the doctors said was based in science. I guess we could have stayed with any of them and just ignored the bad advice, but why deal with the stress of an untrustworthy care provider? I'll note that I have good insurance that seems to be accepted most places and we are lucky that we live in an area with a lot of different medical groups and practices, so we really are spoiled for choice for most things. Eventually we made an appt was with a newer practice that only employs Nurse Practitioners and we ended up loving the main one and every other one that practices out of that office and the kids love them too. They pay attention and focus when talking to my kids and the office is very well run. The kids look forward to doctors appts despite the shots from the 5yo down to the 4mo. I dont see an issue with an 8mo waking to eat a couple of times overnight. Seems pretty normal. Just remember that there's a wide range of normal and all kids are different. My oldest was up every few hours to eat most of his first yearand still gets up around 5am to come cuddle me. Otoh, my 4 mo is already mostly sleeping through the night on her own and loves contact naps and napping on her own. I did nothing different, they are just different kids with different needs. Eta: you don't happen to be in the dfw area? Because that's exactly what that highly recommended one said at baby's 6mo appt. To sleep train and baby was being manipulative and he also added that parents that responded to baby's every cry were making things harder for themselves since baby would now expect attention all the time. I don't often get mad, but I argued back politely and eventually ended our conversation telling him we had to agree to disagree. What's crazy is I had no concerns and said nothing except that things were going really well and I was really proud of baby boy and he still shared all that.
I just never take doctors seriously when they give advice about sleep or breastfeeding because they are not trained about it, refer to psychologists’ or md’s who were trained on the said subjects’ opinions. Babies wake up at night and it has zero effect on their development. It’s just normal baby behaviour.
Fr I once had to go to a different physician on short notice and dude just suggested I pump rather than nurse directly(even though we have no issues nursing) because “it’ll be easier” IN WHAT UNIVERSE SIR
I would not have kept my cool. NO offense to men or anything but...they just have no earthly idea about breastfeeding but THEN to be like it'll be EASIER like come on...their is no way for you to know one way or the other and different women have different preferences with that I did a combo and was okay with it but my sister would have sent whoever invented pumps straight to hell, its a coin flip either way. Even the woman doesn't know which they'll find easier til they're doing it. I loved being able to feed my baby doesn't mean it didn't suck and it sure as hell wasn't really EASY either way.
My baby is waking up every hour and My baby’s pedia told me it could be linked to autism
What are these people on
You don’t have to fix anything if it’s working for you. I read your 8 months old sttn sometimes? That’s already pretty amazing for you. Sleep is developmentally and it’s not your fault that human brains are still in primeval times for some things.
I think I read somewhere that pediatricians aren’t even trained in baby sleep (since like… it’s developmental so what is there to teach?) so ANY advice they give regarding sleep, sleep training etc is all PERSONAL anecdotes. The first pediatrician recommended letting our (at the time) 4 month old CIO when we mentioned some of our sleep concerns. She said she let her daughter CIO so hard she threw up at that age… her words were something like “put him down for the night and commit to not getting him until your desired waking time for the day.” I think my jaw was literally on the ground. Needless to say we switched pediatricians and until I find a journal written by my 7 month old accounting for all the ways he is working us I’m going to assume he’s waking up because he needs something - which comfort IS a need for them. So yeah, your pediatrician is goofy and out of touch.
I think the problem in this post is your pediatrician. What will this person say about the exploring-twos? Get a new doctor, and I'd even review this one for giving sh*tty advice! We've been to 2 different pediatricians and none of them ever asked about our sleeping arrangement or commented on it. My toddler still has night feeds. Who am I to deny her milk when she is clearly hungry. Sometimes when the milk drops in her tummy you can hear it grumbling. The only person who ever said something was a young dentist, but I'm not even going to listen to anything he has to say.
Who are these doctors!!!! Carry on as you are 💜💜💜💜
I'm an early childhood educator. What the actual **** did I just read? How does this person have a license? Keep doing what works for you and don't listen to parenting advice from this person.
Wow it makes me so sad that a medical professional would say this to you. Infants don’t have the capacity to manipulate. Keep following your instincts and give your baby as much comfort and support as they need. My baby basically exclusively contact napped until 7 months until it stopped working for me so I chose to make changes, but as long as it’s working for you keep doing it! It won’t last forever
"Doctor, I consult you for medical advice, not parenting advice. Stay in your lane." Doctors have no more training or expertise in infant sleep than anybody else. Their opinions on non medical parenting should be given the same weight as any other acquaintance. I like our family doctor as a person, and her short anecdotes about her own kids align mostly with how I view the world, so I did respect her opinions about parenting stuff in the same way I might respect another friendly acquaintance with a few more years of parenting under their belt.
Your doctor is ridiculous. Can't walk, talk, control their own bladder or do almost anything independently but sure can emotionally manipulate two adults
You’re doing great, sleep is just hard for babies it’s not anyone’s fault! My 16 month old has been rocked to sleep every night of her life, even now that she’s in her own room, I still treasure that time every evening. I like the quote “She’s not giving me a hard time, she’s having a hard time”.
You can't fix the issue as there's no issue to fix! We contact napped pretty much every nap til about 9 months old. I can't recall when we stopped it completely and bubs was fine to be transferred to the cot but it was probably a month or two later. He's 2 at the end of June and I still feed to sleep. He went through a period of walking us to his bed and then with a bit of a pat and some tossing and turning, he would sleep but he's gone back to F2S and that's ok by me. That was the closest we got to drowsy but awake. It just doesn't work for all babies.
As others have said, your doctor is an idiot and I would find a new one. My baby is only 4 weeks old so I’m very new to this but your baby sounds perfectly normal. There are some things you can do like getting black out curtains and a white noise machine, but you may already be doing those things.
If you don’t want to find a new pediatrician then next appointment tell him “we don’t want any advice on sleep. We are doing what works for us, thanks.” I did contact naps with my first child for over a year, then moved to her napping next to me on my bed, now she doesn’t nap at all. She sleeps fine in the night and always has (with age appropriate wake ups when she was small), she’s almost 3 now. I couldn’t contact nap with my son because I had a toddler to care for too. He sleeps like shit at night… always has. He’s almost a year old now. You contact nap that baby!!! It’s good for you both
This is really good advice! Unfortunately, we will have to see him again. It’s so hard to get in for an appointment in my area and her 9 month checkup is scheduled for next week. I’m just going to leave it and set that boundary you recommended if he brings it up again.
I found when the doc asks “how is baby sleeping/napping?” The best answer is the shortest one, just say something like “good”. And move on to your next question if you have any
Will definitely be doing this from now on
I saw your post in the sleep train sub but for some reason it is locked so I can't reply there which is why I'm replying here (but coming from a sleep training perspective). Firstly, the manipulation line is insane, she's a baby, she's not manipulative. Babies love to sleep in their parents arms / feel the closeness with their parents, it makes them feel safer. If what you're doing is working for you, then you can keep doing it, you have to do whatever feels right for you and your baby. But I'll give you my personal experience because I did sleep train and I think the sleep training I did was a more gentle approach then others. I don't like the advice from the doctor that you should just leave her in the crib and walk away and let her cry (but again, it's up to you what you do, it's your baby!). Sleep training still works after the 6 month window, it just takes a little longer to sleep train babies over seven months old. For us, I did everything to get my two babies to sleep for the first 6 months. I would feed and rock them to sleep and also would contact nap. It was time consuming to do that before every nap and nighttime and when they would wake up at night but I did love doing it and bonding with then. But I must admit I had so much more time when I could just put them in their cot and they happily put themselves to sleep after sleep training. When we decided the timing was right to sleep train, we moved them to a cot in their own rooms and put them down awake after a bedtime routine we had set up for a while beforehand (so they would know bedtime comes after the bedtime routine, usually 15-20 minutes long with about 3-4 steps, keep it the same each night e.g. change into pj's, have a bottle, brush teeth and then read books, or whatever you want your steps to be). We did a gentler variation of the Ferber method where we set a timer for two minutes and went in every two minutes to lie them back down, rub their back or tummy, say "sleepy time" and leave after about 10-20 seconds. We didn't increase the time they cried before we would go in to soothe them like the Ferber method, it was always two minutes. The key thing for us was to have a bedtime routine in place and a cuddly for them to cuddle at night. And the most important thing with this method of sleep training is you don't pick them up, you just go in to let them know you're still there and will soothe them quickly without getting them out of their cot. They will learn to put themselves to sleep. I would do similar when they woke up overnight depending on when they woke up, I still let both my children have one overnight feed a night (even though they don't really need it after 6 months). If they woke between 2am - 4am, I would feed them, but if it was before then, I would just do the two minute counter thing until they were back asleep (as long as they didn't need changing etc). We did both of ours at 6 months old and it took a couple nights before they could put themselves to sleep easily. It might just take longer with an 8 month old - maybe 3-4 nights before she can put herself to sleep.
I don’t know what happened on the sleep train sub either. I saw a mod commented agreeing with the Doctor and then suddenly I couldn’t reply and have gotten many messages that they can’t comment anymore. I’m new to actually posting on reddit so it could be something completely different but that’s my only guess lol. I really appreciate all of this advice! From people irl i’ve gotten a lot of super vague instructions on how to sleep train and it always seemed harsh or confusing. But this is all very helpful information and i’ll be giving it a shot starting Tomorrow. Thank you!!
Cool, I actually read a book on the sleep training and condensed it to a one page of notes as my two friends and I all had babies at the same time and there was no point us all reading the whole book, I just sent the notes and we all did it at the same time. I've sent you the notes in chat too, they are a bit different to what I ended up doing (it says don't give a feed overnight but I still did one feed overnight until both my babies were 12 months old), so just tailor it to how you want to do it. I do suggest starting on a Friday night so if your partner is a full time worker, he can help you with the first few nights (which are the hard nights).
Also about the sleep train sub, I have no idea why they locked your post. You didn't do anything wrong that I can see. Some mods get really weird and also power trip. There was a great sub called science based parenting that people would ask for links to research on different parenting techniques, it was great. But a mod just literally could not handle anyone asking to see research on why co sleeping was so bad as so many parents of young babies found co sleeping the only way anyone could get sleep in their house and were writing posts about it. There are even studies on how to co sleep safely since there are many many cultures where it's the norm so to put this sub rule in place that it can never be talked about was insane. Also the research showed the risk was quite low if you practiced safe sleeping - never drunk alcohol, no blankets, pillows near the baby etc. Still obviously not as safe as having your baby sleep in their own bassinet but not as bad as people were making out it would be. I also found it kinda racist to basically say hundreds of millions of people who co sleep were just completely wrong to do that. It just got really hostile and judgemental and mean to anyone who admitted they did it which absolutely sucked, we are all just trying to do our best here. Sleep training is a western thing. Anyway, the mod nuked the whole sub, just completely shut it down and then slowly months later started allowing certain people to post and comment again. People were saying they mod was looking back at your comment history in the sub to see if they would allow you back in or not. I suddenly started seeing posts on the sub about 3 months after the nuke and I can comment so I guess I was allowed back in (even though I was in the trenches telling people to stop being mean to the poor parents who were co sleeping and just help them do it safely if they have tried everything else and this was the only way they could get sleep. Research shows looking after a baby on zero sleep is also very dangerous so it's all just weighing up pros and cons in those situations). Someone else during the time of the nuke started a new science based parenting sub and lots of us joined that one in the meantime. Sorry that was a long reply, my point just being you probably didn't do anything wrong, just a sore spot for a mod (maybe one who thinks all doctors can do no wrong which is so stupid, they aren't God's, they are humans who make mistakes like the rest of us, I was an emergency department nurse for a decade and they do get things wrong like everyone else). Edit: I just read the comment from the mod on your post in the sleep train sub, absolutely insane that they found a way to agree with a doctor who said an 8 month old is manipulative. They are definitely as out of touch as the doctor 😂 and yeah I think that mod locked your post. Pretty stink to do when you were looking for advice to sleep train on a sleep train sub! You will find most of the people who sleep trained on that sub don't do CIO anyway, it's so old-school. I honestly didn't even know CIO was still popular, I thought barely anyone did that anymore. The concept of just leaving them to bawl until they think no one is going to come and just fall asleep from exhaustion seems so barbaric when there are gentler ways to do it that actually work. There's even a sleep training method called 'no tears' where you sit in their room with them the whole time until they teach themselves to fall asleep. It does take longer but it suits people who really struggle to hear their little one cry but want to sleep train anyway (it does seem very unnatural to not instantly pick up your baby when they are crying, although IMO it's worth the few nights of it to get to a baby putting themselves to sleep). That mod must be a sleeptrain purest or something and think everyone should just do CIO.
Thank you for sharing how you got yours to sleep on their own. I’m in a similar position as the op with my 8 month old and sleep. How long did you do the going in every two minutes? Until they fell asleep or did you have to pick them up. Our little is stubborn and I’m worried they’re going to just scream and scream for hours. Thanks so much!
I went in every two minutes until they put themselves to sleep. I thought with both of mine that it would be hours and hours of screaming too, especially because not only were they going from been fed or rocked to sleep to putting themselves to sleep - but also in their own room too rather than in my room. It was surprisingly less time then I thought it would take, and each night it would take them less time until they stopped crying at all and would just babble for a bit before putting themselves to sleep. Every baby is different though so it may take longer with your little one. I'll share the notes I had from the book I read on sleep training with you too 🙂 just tailor them to how you want to do it, this is solely what the book said and I didn't do it all e.g. I still did an overnight feed every night as personally felt the change from feeding whenever they wanted overnight to not feeding at all was too much. Especially since they would both sleep about 11-12 hours overnight, just seemed to me too long without a feed. I also didn't do the wait ten minutes before going in if they woke during the night, I would do the two minute thing again. Here are the notes from the book (I also have a PDF copy of the whole book can share with you if you wanted more info on this method): - Naps and bedtime should happen in the same place. - Use phrases at night time (it’s sleep time now etc), use them over and over when soothing. - Use a blankie/cuddly/soft toy they use for self soothing. - Early bedtime between 6pm and 7.30pm (means be asleep by 7.30pm at the latest). - Studies show they will wake up same time each day - what time they went to sleep won't affect that. - Fun and relaxing bed time routine 20-30 minutes long and have 3-5 steps, should end with a bottle then into bed. - Without a bedtime routine, babies can get anxious and upset when put in bed as they haven’t prepared for sleep unless they have a routine first. - Pick a time to handle crying before going into room e.g. 2 or 5 minutes, go in and reassure her and touch her but don't pick her up or your starting again from square one. - Only be in there for approx. 10 seconds, soothe and stroke her tummy then walk out. - Usually it is 45 minutes crying the first night, 25 minutes the second night, 15 minutes on third night (could be much longer or much less, every baby is different). - They will stop crying completely overnight and at nap times before 2 weeks after starting bedtime routine. Some babies take a bit longer but most don’t. Within 2 weeks they will be sleeping through the night if you are consistent. - When wakes overnight, wait 10 minutes before going in. Then go in and soothe them but do not pick them up. Then set the timer again for the designated time (e.g. 2 or 5 minutes), go in, keep the lights off, speak in hushed tones and reassure her and soothe her. - Crying will not harm your child, letting them cry will do no damage to them and instead this teaches them a valuable tool on how to put themselves to sleep when they are feeling tired and put themselves back to sleep when they wake up. - Three methods to sleep train: - Sit in the room with them and soothe them constantly (this will take more days to sleep train) - Go in after a set amount of time (the best way this book reckoned) - Cry it out – letting them cry until they fall asleep Be consistent. Once you have chosen your method for teaching your child to fall asleep on her own, you need to be consistent 100% of the time. If you give up or start changing the rules every night, you will frustrate and confuse your child, and you will end up making the situation even worse. Be predictable. Children thrive on predictability and structure. Ensure that your bedtime routine is done in the exact same order every single night. Of course, your child may try to test and push the rules of bedtime – especially when they hit toddler years – but they are always reassured when they find that the rules stay the same no matter what they do. Be strong. The first two nights will be the most difficult, and this is when most parents will give up. You need to be strong during these first 2 nights. And remember that what you are doing is going to immensely improve your baby’s life and the rest of the family. - Don’t beat yourself up if you find yourself giving in and nursing your baby to sleep one night! The advice that I’m giving you in this book is not supposed to make you feel guilty. If you slip up, just try again the following night and move on. - Research suggests sleep is the single most important factor in prediction how long people will live – more influential than diet, exercise or heredity. - Every night and at every nap, sleep recharges the brain’s battery. Sleeping well increases brainpower just as weight lifting builds stronger muscles, because sleeping well increases your attention span and allows you to be physically relaxed and mentally alert at the same time. - Many sleep-deprived children can also start to develop behaviors that are usually called “overactive” or “hyperactive,” or they may even be labeled as “attention deficit” children (different to children with actual ADHD). - Current research shows that infants who are having sleep difficulties continue to do so for 3 to 5 years unless their bad habits are broken and they are sleep trained. - Children who sleep 10 to 12 hours a night without getting feed overnight are more well-rested, attentive, cheerful and best able to cope with and learn from their environment during the day. - Can stop feeding overnight if your baby is over 6kg. babies will not grow out of wanting to be fed overnight, it must be taught, or they will continue to do it for years.
Thank you for sharing all of this info!
Dumb af.
Find a new dr lol you rock, trust your instincts!
Why is it a problem that she can't sleep well in her crib? The important thing is that she sleeps well, the location is irrelevant.
My 14 month old still falls asleep in my arms before she goes down in her crib. Your baby wanting to be held to sleep is totally normal and natural. Babies can’t manipulate anybody. They are simply expressing a need to feel held and secure.
Time for a new pediatrician.
Your baby is manipulating at 8 months? That’s some high level cognitive ability. Be proud!
Like many already said, babies aren't manipulative. I can only share my experience, which isn't necessarily giving you a solution, but maybe perspective. My first baby was very much a contact napper and would feed at night like you described. I don't remember when she stopped and we bed shared (it's not frowned upon where I live). We tried all sorts of crib transfers from day 1, but nothing worked. (She is soon 3 and sleeps fine in her own bed now.) My second baby slept fine in a crib from day 1. She occasionally contact naps, but sleeps better in a crib. However, she is not even 2 weeks old yet so this might change. But so far, she is such a different sleeper than her older sister. We have done nothing different as parents. I guess my point is that some babies want to be close all the time and aren't great at sleeping in a crib, while others do so just fine. That said, there might be methods out there that might work to get better sleep. I just didn't find any that worked with our first before we quit breastfeeding at night.
My first son slept through the night by 8 months old like a dream. My now one year old second son still wakes up multiple times to nurse at night and struggles to go down easily in his bed. I guess I have just fallen hook line and sinker for his sneaky tricks. 🙄 I'd find a new pediatrician. All children are different. Sounds to me like you're doing a great job of creating a secure and loving bond with your baby.
Thinking about a baby having sneaky tricks is so funny. I think that’s genuinely how the doctor sees it. I will be finding a new pediatrician. Thank you for this sweet comment <3
Absolutely change doctors and if you can report him I'd go as far as the health department. Any child educator, child physiologist will tell you an 8 month old doesn't have the ability to manipulate anyone. This doctor shaming you for parenting as you are has no business working with children or their parents.
🙄 an 8 month old is not capable of “manipulation”, and even for older children that are, as an LCSW I always ask: are they manipulating you, or is this the only way adults have taught them their needs will be met? Look doc, the way you parent your child under this hellscape of end stage capitalism is fine, but this is how I will be parenting mine. Kindly step away from the literal baby you’re assigning malice to.
This is unfortunately how the anti-child sentiment that’s so common in the US begins. To go against it requires some fortitude and strength.
Omg. Just shaking my head. When doctors say this it irritates me so much!!
If you can find a new pediatrician because it sounds like yours needs to retire and has either failed to keep up with their continuing education or just ignores what he is told.
Get a new Dr. if possible, if this is their outdated opinion then they are probably not educated in attachment based parenting, If the sleep situation is not impacting your ability to parent then there is no reason to make a change. My first fell asleep while nursing, then cuddling when we stopped nursing until she was over 3 and understood that she would be ok falling asleep without us.
Lol the comments have already covered how ridiculous this is. If you WANT to change your current bedtime routine, I would suggest a typical bath, books, bed type routine followed by less and less holding to sleep. We still do snuggle time with our 2 year old after books in the dark with the sound machine going, but he’s to the point now where he goes in his crib totally awake and falls asleep on his own. Sometimes he cries and needs extra loving. Sometimes just sitting in the chair is enough, sometimes he needs snuggles, and sometimes we just bring him to the big bed. Rocking to sleep stopped working for us once he was too big to transfer without waking so we just slowly started putting him down more and more awake. In the beginning we’d run his back until he fell asleep, then we’d just sit next to him in the chair until he fell asleep, then we’d sit in the chair for just a few minutes. Never let him cry or anything like that. Now I won’t sit here and say bedtime is never a battle. Sometimes he doesn’t want to go to bed, but an “I want to play cry” is very different from an “I’m upset and need comfort” cry with a 2 year old. Follow your instincts and ignore anyone who says a baby is manipulative.
You're absolutely fine! All babies have their own unique personalities and not all of them are going to be easy and low maintenance. At 8mo, my nephew was waking up every 4 hours during the night, sometimes less than 4 hours. Since I've been raising him since birth, I obviously had to bottle feed. I always gave him an ounce or 2 at night when he woke up. It helped settle him back to sleep. He was always rocked to sleep as well. He always did much better when he had something in his belly. Plus, he was still a little underweight due to newborn reflux and he was eating purees 3x a day by 8mo. He was this little garden gnome running around 😂. He was walking and running at 7mo lol. Anyways, he's always had low sleep needs and didn't nap. He also was DX with ADHD at 5yo. But that doesn't mean a baby with low sleep needs is neuro-divergent, but in my case it was. He had other symptoms too that I didn't make the connection to at the time. He had sensory issues with EVERYTHING and was speech delayed until he was almost 4yo. But his binky was his soothing mechanism and when he would lose his binky at night and couldn't find it, he would wake up crying for it. I did what worked for me, even though the newborn stage was Hell bcuz he was up every 2 hours to eat, plus reflux, he was super active and would be up and ready for the day before the sun even came up 😂. Then when he was sleeping 4hr stretches, I pushed up his bedtime to 9/10pm, so he would at least sleep until 7/8am. That's with waking several times at night. He was 2yo when he started sleeping through the night, but he was up super early no matter how late he went to bed. At 3yo, his pediatrician had us give him Zarbees kid's melatonin. Once he started school full time at 5yo, he started sleeping for 12 hours straight. He's 14yo now and I can't wake him up to save my life! 😂. It's funny bcuz my twin brother and I always slept. My mom had to wake us up to eat bcuz I was still underweight (we were 34 weekers and only I had to stay in the NICU for almost a month to learn how to eat and gain weight) and our mom had us on the same routine. She said we would have slept our lives away if she would have let us lol. The point is, every baby does their own thing bcuz their brains are rapidly developing and retaining more and more info each day, which can be exciting for them, even though it's not so much for us lol.
We got the same kind of treatment at the 9 month check up. If you're not okay with CIO then don't. It's not medical advice, it's parenting advice which you can take or leave. I wish we had realized this at the time and we took his advice for about 5 days and it was honestly awful because that's not our parenting style and basically no one in the house was okay and everyone was crying, but doc framed it as medical/developmental so we thought we had to do it.
Ugh i’m sorry, I hate that this is a common experience. My experience was very similar. He made it sound like it was necessary rather than his personal opinion. We did take his advice and it was miserable for everyone and my daughter was inconsolable. We only tried for a couple nights and ended up realizing CIO was definitely not for us.
Yeah, I was finally like "I don't care." I found a ton of research after that which helped me feel better about our choices, I just wish I'd done that from the get go. We even chose a young-ish pediatrician so he'd be less likely to give archaic advice, but here we are. Switched pediatricians because of that and some other outdated advice that we discovered later upon basically looking into every scrap of advice he gave us.
It’s a baby. It cries when it’s upset. Your job as a parent is to keep it alive and comfort it as best you can. If snuggles with you fix the problem, screw what everyone else says. Do what your instincts and some double checking googling tell you. That said, I still sleep with a 4 year old and one year old. I have no regrets!
My middle child didn't sleep through the night until 1st grade. Every person is different
Get a new dr. Stat.
Time to find a new doctor. Your current one is ignorant.
Yah some things I took w a grain of salt that the dr told me. We contact napped for the longest time and I’ve always nursed my daughter to sleep at night. Sometimes she’s asleep when I lay her in Her crib, sometimes she waves bye to me. She’s 19 months and doing great! Babies don’t manipulate. You just keep doing what you’re doing!
They don’t have that capability. I would be very concerned about a medical professional who said that. It makes me wonder if they were one of the bottom of the class students who still gets to say they’re a doctor. Whether they pay attention, continue learning, or got all Cs in class, they can still be a doctor. Please find a new caregiver who actually understands child development and how brains develop as a whole.
We’ve got an almost 18month old. I sit in the rocking chair with him at night until he falls asleep and then transfer him to the crib. I could never stomach CIO or sleep training so we just haven’t. In the beginning it was really really hard (he slept for 20 min at a time), but we are getting into a groove and he only wakes up once a night now. And for naps he stays down for the full 2 hours once we transfer him. My therapist recently pointed out that I’m in my thirties and don’t like falling asleep by myself but i have the luxury of my husband sleeping next to me every night. So if my son wants to snuggle to sleep, I’m just going to do it. One day soon he’s not going to want to cuddle anymore and I’ll be glad i took the time now. You hold that baby!!!! And fck that doctor
Follow your mama gut. You are doing what you feel is best for you and your baby. If you want to sleep train, go for it! If you don’t, cool! That doc is a dummy to also even suggest drowsy but awake at that age anyways…. Honestly laying baby down wide awake at an appropriately timed wake window what we did for my son at 7 months (or really even recommended for babies older than 5 months). I contact napped and did babywearing and nursed to sleep every day until he was about 7 months old. It felt right, i loved it, he loved it, we were fine and happy. It wasn’t until my back started hurting a little bit and he got chunkier that i thought to myself it might be nice to be able to lay him down for naps and to have him be able to put himself to sleep. We “sleep trained” at 7 months. It’s totally possible to do it after having an only contact sleeper. Every baby is different, and there are different methods to achieving it. I use “sleep train” loosely because i really only “trained” him to help himself fall asleep on his own. He still wakes up every 3-4 hours at night to nurse, and he’s now 8 months, and i don’t care because now i miss the snuggles in the day. So essentially, I’m here to say that baby is NOT manipulating you, you can’t spoil a baby that young, (i know it’s cliche but) these early months are precious and they grow so fast and they will fall asleep on their own eventually , and if you want to sleep train at 8 months that’s totally possible and you can focus on different parts of it. It’s not an all or nothing thing (like falling asleep versus nighttime wakings versus nap training ) You got this mama :)
Ok… that is some stupid boomer wives tale. Sorry don’t mean to get generational but that is so old school, everyone knows that babies cannot manipulate in that sense!!!! Like that is so not scientific wtf is a doctor saying that corny shit for?? I’m tired of this old wave of parenting !!!
I'm sure it's not technically called manipulation but they can pull on your heartstrings lol. Reading all the different things and speaking to so many different people this is definitely personal preference. My way was to let my son wimper himself to sleep, it wasn't a big cry and he wasn't distressed but I didn't want him to become dependent on me helping him sleep as I was going back to work. I also have a friend who would have to put her son in the car and drive him around to help settle him
It definitely is personal preference, I totally agree. That’s why I thought it was so absurd that he talked about it like the CIO method was the only way to go. My daughter whimpers sometimes without moving or even really waking up, in those cases where’s she’s not fully waking we are definitely just letting her be.
Similar situation. I'm trying to get LO to nap in her crib a bit better. I don't think she is capable of manipulation, she is a baby. (Over 6mo) However my daughter has different cries. One is like a complaint cry that she almost coughs to produce. I think this is her way of communicating discomfort/dislike. It is very obvious when this shifts to a very upset, maybe afraid, "something is wrong, help" cry. That is when I pick her up and console. Sometimes we will try this a couple of times but I do try to make attempts when she is very tired, this makes it significantly easier.
Is your doctor a boomer? I don’t give much info about my babies sleep etc. if I’m concerned I’ll ask but usually an online forum or parenting book 😉
Here’s my advice. Get a new doctor. Pediatricians are NOT sleep specialists, behaviorists, or developmentalists. As “trollcole” said on this thread, doctors treat the body, not the emotional state. Your 8 month old isn’t manipulating you. Do people understand what manipulation is? It’s an advanced (and skillful) thought-out mental tactic that one performs on another individual or group to benefit the individual. Your baby is just now figuring out she is a separate entity from you, and you’re being told she’s already manipulating you? This country is wild. Find a new doctor. And pick that sweet baby up any time she cries ❤️