it's taking a lot of willpower...

monkey_pants

...to not answer this post on my neighborhood's parenting Yahoo group titled "Seeking Advice: infant sleep training":

"Seeking advice on the best way to get an 8-week-old to sleep for at least 5 hours at night. My son will fall asleep with no problem but then wakes up every three hours to nurse. Any advice on how to get him to skip the night time feeding?"

Sleep training @ 8 weeks?  There's just no way I could reply without sounding super b!tchcakes.  Should I try anyway just in case she's actually going to give it a shot?

sweetteaBV

It might be worth responding just for the sake of that poor baby. Eeesh, stupid people reproducing is a scary thing!!

JJsMom211

Um, did she not get the memo that newborns still need to eat through the night? It baffles me how people don't get this. Shoot, J is 7 months old and still wakes 2 times a night.

JJsMom211

eddy321:

Before y'all burn her at the stake, while it is stupidity, I'm not sure it's flameworthy... yet.  When A was 6 weeks, people started asking me if she was sleeping through the night.  I'd like to think I knew a thing or two about babies before I had one, but I was not prepared for the onslaught of comments from others that would make me doubt parenting.  Even though I knew she needed to eat at night, I honestly had several people telling me ways to get her to sleep through the night.

We were lucky, and on her own, without any help from us, she started sleeping 6-8 hour stretches at 8 weeks, but had she not, I'm sure I would have been bombarded with more advice about what I was doing wrong to make her get up so often.

That woman is either an idiot or a victim of a whole lot of bad advice.  We don't know which.

You're right, Eddy. There are a lot of people who seem to think it's OK to sleep train a baby at such a young age. My SIL sleep trained my nephew at 12wks. I wasn't even thinking about having a baby at the time, so I never even thought twice about it. But after having J, it's not something I think I could have done. He actually STTN from 6-12wks, but when the 3 month growth spurt happened it was all over.

OctGirl80

eddy321:

Before y'all burn her at the stake, while it is stupidity, I'm not sure it's flameworthy... yet.  When A was 6 weeks, people started asking me if she was sleeping through the night.  I'd like to think I knew a thing or two about babies before I had one, but I was not prepared for the onslaught of comments from others that would make me doubt parenting.  Even though I knew she needed to eat at night, I honestly had several people telling me ways to get her to sleep through the night.

We were lucky, and on her own, without any help from us, she started sleeping 6-8 hour stretches at 8 weeks, but had she not, I'm sure I would have been bombarded with more advice about what I was doing wrong to make her get up so often.

That woman is either an idiot or a victim of a whole lot of bad advice.  We don't know which.

 

I was and still am amazed at all the advice flung at me since having K. Luckily, I'm more of a "take it all in and consider" person with parenting but with other things, self-doubt can creep in very easy and everything goes to pot. I would send her a PM vs commenting on her status. That way she doesn't feel attacked in front of everyone.

monkey_pants

I thought about it for a bit and I'm definitely going to email her back privately and try to gently explain that babies can't self-soothe at 8 weeks and need to eat frequently.  Between books, friends and TB, I was well aware of that so I just can't imagine how she made it to this point without knowing that sleep training isn't for babies that young.