tell me about your marriage in the baby + toddler years

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I was one of the last of my friends to have children. I saw what the work level was when you added children, and how the lack of sleep took its toll. I saw how many marriages were on shaky ground because of this.

So I made a commitment to do it differently. First, I started sleep training my child two weeks after I brought him home. People say you can't do this, but in actuality, there's a lot of things you can do to get your child to sleep better, including making sure they're eating enough during the day. By 6 weeks old, in spite of having reflux, my child was sleeping from 11 to about 5 in the morning. I had my husband do the 11 feeding and I went to bed by 10, so actually I was getting good sleep by two months in.

All my friends marveled at how well my child slept. The truth was they just never made it a priority or took the steps to make their children good sleepers.

We also had a date night once a week and a monthly maid service. We kept our relationship a priority. To tell the truth, other than a few weeks at the beginning, we cruised through having children because we didn't make the mistakes of all my friends. (I also married a great guy, which made all the difference.)

Religious know it all whacko. Hard to believe you have any friends left who can stand you.

[Anonymous]

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

Why the arrogance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

Why the arrogance?

Asshole, what else?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

What about the people who take the same steps and the steps don't work? Are you as smug to them?

[Anonymous]

Oh, OP, it was HARD and so much work, and we ciuld not afford to outsource anything beyond daycare (2 FT WOHP). I tend to think that sone was luck, but i will say this:

I made it very clear to DH what needed doing. I left him to do lists every damn day. And he did them. If i hadnt left them, he would not have realized what needed doing, and in stead of getting resentful i just chored him up.

Iwe did have sex, more than i wanted, less than he wanted, but we did. I explained to him early on that it wasnt him, but by the end of the day i was just touched out and needed space. I recognized that he was getting the short end of the stick and tried to becreasonably... Accommodating

We didnt have regular date nights - for ys they felt like more work. We found some restaurants that we liked, that were noisy enough that a squalking baby wasnt a big deal. We cut ourselves major slack in the housecleaning, meal prep, and outside obligations depts.

It got much, much better when LO was sleeping longer stretches, and MUCH better around 1 yr.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

Why the arrogance?

Why the helplessness?

As I said, I spent more than a decade listening to friends complain about their sleepless nights. So after my son was born, and he wasn't sleeping at all at night, I decided I was going to take action right away. VERY few of the people complaining about sleepless nights have actually taken the time to sleep train. Instead they get into the habit of rocking their kids to sleep, running at every peep, lying down with their kids for hours, etc. This was the case with almost all of my friends who had poor sleepers. It may start with the child, but it is enabled by the parents. And you can see it over and over again on these threads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

What about the people who take the same steps and the steps don't work? Are you as smug to them?

With almost all my friends and almost every thread I read, I see people don't take steps to get their child to be a good sleeper. They give in almost immediately. So instead of sleep training in 3 nights, 3 years later they are still miserable.

Of course it won't work for every child. Nothing works for every child. But sleep training probably works for about 80 percent of kids, under the old 80/20 rule.

Someone called me an "asshole." How nice. But while it's great to have commiseration (YES, MARRIAGE WITH KIDS DOES SUCK. WE WERE ON THE BRINK OF DIVORCE!!!!) what is even more helpful is to know that you have the power to make changes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

Why the arrogance?

Why the helplessness?

As I said, I spent more than a decade listening to friends complain about their sleepless nights. So after my son was born, and he wasn't sleeping at all at night, I decided I was going to take action right away. VERY few of the people complaining about sleepless nights have actually taken the time to sleep train. Instead they get into the habit of rocking their kids to sleep, running at every peep, lying down with their kids for hours, etc. This was the case with almost all of my friends who had poor sleepers. It may start with the child, but it is enabled by the parents. And you can see it over and over again on these threads.

Oh stop! Your stupid baby didn't have reflux if you got him to sleep through the night at six weeks so quit lying or deluding yourself. My reflux baby dropped from the 40th percentile to the 19th due to her reflux being so bad and was up every 90 minutes until 6 months due to hunger and pain. If your baby slept all night at six weeks YOU GOT LUCKY and had an easy going baby. You are not a genius, and you did not just happen to want to sleep more or have a better life than the rest of us did. We had kids who actually had issues that weren't "trainable."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

What about the people who take the same steps and the steps don't work? Are you as smug to them?

With almost all my friends and almost every thread I read, I see people don't take steps to get their child to be a good sleeper. They give in almost immediately. So instead of sleep training in 3 nights, 3 years later they are still miserable.

Of course it won't work for every child. Nothing works for every child. But sleep training probably works for about 80 percent of kids, under the old 80/20 rule.

Someone called me an "asshole." How nice. But while it's great to have commiseration (YES, MARRIAGE WITH KIDS DOES SUCK. WE WERE ON THE BRINK OF DIVORCE!!!!) what is even more helpful is to know that you have the power to make changes.

Wow! Are you really this stupid?

[Anonymous]

Maybe you were just blessed with a kid who was a good sleeper.

OP, don't try to keep up with Ms. Perfect. It ain't worth it. I have to say she has one thing right. Do not run in at every peep. Look at the clock and give 3, 5 or 10 minutes depending on the kids age (helps to have a video monitor for this). It's hard. I had to keep DH from going in. He made my youngest lousy sleeper until I made him wait. She would wake up wailing like she was being attacked, but if we waited, she'd often fall back asleep without intervention. DH had thought he was doing me a favor keeping her quiet so I could sleep, but all he was doing was playing into a learned response

Another bit of advice, don't run in when your infant/toddler wakes up first thing in the morning. Put a couple of books/toys in the crib (we had one of those musical aquarium things for both our kids). Let them figure out how to play while they wait for you.

Hang in there. It gets better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

Why the arrogance?

Why the helplessness?

As I said, I spent more than a decade listening to friends complain about their sleepless nights. So after my son was born, and he wasn't sleeping at all at night, I decided I was going to take action right away. VERY few of the people complaining about sleepless nights have actually taken the time to sleep train. Instead they get into the habit of rocking their kids to sleep, running at every peep, lying down with their kids for hours, etc. This was the case with almost all of my friends who had poor sleepers. It may start with the child, but it is enabled by the parents. And you can see it over and over again on these threads.

You "sleep trained" a six week old. That is awful. Your poor baby. And you have the gall to come here and brag about it too. Awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

Why the arrogance?

Why the helplessness?

As I said, I spent more than a decade listening to friends complain about their sleepless nights. So after my son was born, and he wasn't sleeping at all at night, I decided I was going to take action right away. VERY few of the people complaining about sleepless nights have actually taken the time to sleep train. Instead they get into the habit of rocking their kids to sleep, running at every peep, lying down with their kids for hours, etc. This was the case with almost all of my friends who had poor sleepers. It may start with the child, but it is enabled by the parents. And you can see it over and over again on these threads.

Oh stop! Your stupid baby didn't have reflux if you got him to sleep through the night at six weeks so quit lying or deluding yourself. My reflux baby dropped from the 40th percentile to the 19th due to her reflux being so bad and was up every 90 minutes until 6 months due to hunger and pain. If your baby slept all night at six weeks YOU GOT LUCKY and had an easy going baby. You are not a genius, and you did not just happen to want to sleep more or have a better life than the rest of us did. We had kids who actually had issues that weren't "trainable."

Wow, angry much? Yes, he had reflux. We were luck in the Zantac really helped. He had an included crib, and I kept him upright for 20 minutes after every feeding. We were indeed lucky, and by six weeks his reflux had eased. I'm not a "genius" -- never said I was. What I did say was that I was willing to help my child find the tools to sleep through the night early on.

You can call me all the names you like. It doesn't change the truth of the matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You can hate on me all you want. Instead of bellyaching, I took steps from early days to get my child to be a good sleeper. They were work, but all the steps worked. Child went from screaming all night to sleeping through the night in six weeks. Needlessly to say, the whole household was happier, and my marriage still flourishes because we were on the same page.

I'll take it.

Why the arrogance?

Why the helplessness?

As I said, I spent more than a decade listening to friends complain about their sleepless nights. So after my son was born, and he wasn't sleeping at all at night, I decided I was going to take action right away. VERY few of the people complaining about sleepless nights have actually taken the time to sleep train. Instead they get into the habit of rocking their kids to sleep, running at every peep, lying down with their kids for hours, etc. This was the case with almost all of my friends who had poor sleepers. It may start with the child, but it is enabled by the parents. And you can see it over and over again on these threads.

You must be a joy to deal with.

[Anonymous]

inclined crib ^^^