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From: kaiser@jaws.DEC (Pete Kaiser  225-5441  HLO2-1/N10)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: sleeping through the night
Message-ID: <339@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 26-Jan-85 16:39:39 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.339
Posted: Sat Jan 26 16:39:39 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 28-Jan-85 07:18:21 EST
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> I have a six 1/2 month old baby who still wakes up at night wanting
> to eat.  She's breastfed and getting cereal and fruit or vegetables
> around 7 in the evening.
>
> I am tired.  Most of the people I've asked haven't had the problem,
> others have said to let her cry a few nights & break the habit.
> Has anyone else out there solved this one?
>
> Thanks,
> Susan Finkelman

There are several things here: (a) an infant's sleeping pattern; (b) changing
an infant's sleeping pattern; and (c) mother is tired.

How I sympathize!  At 3 years old, Mimi still doesn't always sleep through
the night.  Susan, I hope it may be some comfort to you to know that infants
differ vastly from each other in how and when they sleep, and it's not just a
matter of "habit".

We have some friends whose first child, Allie,  is a few months older than
Mimi.  Allie not only slept through the night, but napped several hours a day
as well, whereas Mimi not only didn't nap until she was around 2, but was
awake from about 8 A.M. often until past 11 P.M., and would wake up several
times during the night to nurse.  Our friends saw how ragged we were in Mimi's
first couple of years -- during that time Mimi may possibly have slept through
the night 2 or 3 times -- and had plenty of advice for us, including the one
we've all heard: "close the kid's door, turn up the radio/TV, and don't go in
for any reason". (This is supposed to "teach" the kid not to cry itself to
sleep, and to work in -- folklore has it -- 5 days.)  We were simply unwilling
to do that; more below.  Anyhow, we just stayed tired a lot of the time, since
even though Luce was the one doing the nursing at night, I usually woke up
too.  But we felt good to know that Mimi was getting the loving attention she
deserved (not that it wasn't sometimes difficult).  Anyhow, our friends had
another kid.  This one wasn't a sleeper like her sister, and somehow all the
good advice we had gotten didn't seem to work for the advisors.  One day Luce
found herself being asked "What can I do?  This baby just won't sleep!  How on
earth do you take it?"

We chose simply not to try to train Mimi to sleep through the night (a position
I had to arrive at, since I didn't start there).  Why?  I'm deeply convinced
that you can't "teach" an infant to sleep through the night, not in any adult
sense of the word "teach".  Luce and I felt that the procedure described above
("close the door ...") is *CONDITIONING*: that we could *CONDITION* Mimi not to
expect attention to her needs, but that she wouldn't be learning anything from
that.  This was the opposite of what we wanted for her, and still want.  I hope
she feels her needs *WILL* be met, and that as she grows, she'll discover what
are "wants" and what are "needs".  And although it has been difficult at times,
we've found we have the emotional and physical resilience to handle it.  One
factor in this is that Luce wasn't working at the time, and has worked only
part-time since Mimi was born.  Another is the undeniable primality of Mimi in
our lives.  And who knows what else ... I certainly don't.  I repeat: it's
sometimes hard, and the most difficult times have been between Luce and me
over some dumb issue or other because we're stretched to the limit.  Most such
"issues" from these moments, if not all, have turned out to be unimportant.

This has rambled, I realize.  What I meant to convey is that your child isn't
displaying any abnormality in needing little sleep; that it's a legitimate
decision not to try to change that; and that you may find yourself pursuing
that direction even if it's difficult.  Although I can't, of course, say what
our lives would have been like if we had conditioned Mimi to sleep through the
night, I'm satisfied with what we've done.  So far!

---Pete

Kaiser%JAWS.DEC@decwrl.arpa, Kaiser%BELKER.DEC@decwrl.arpa
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