Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Dec
13
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“I’m Going To Prescribe You A Sleeping Pill.”
“I’m going to prescribe you a sleeping pill.” – OB to mother who stated that her newborn wouldn’t sleep.
There are 42 comments to this post.
When my oldest sister was born, my mom had to share a hospital room with another mother–who was there with her 5th baby. This woman bragged to my mother that all her babies slept through the night from the beginning.
My mother reports that her baby screamed all night and this woman slept through it.
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GAMZu Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 6:29 am (Quote)
Oh, that’s excellent! Absolutely brilliant! 
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Vanessa Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:05 am (Quote)
I’m pregnant with my first, and this is seriously one of my biggest fears about becoming a new mom – sleeping through my baby’s cries.
And now that I know that it can happen, I’m seriously thinking about setting my alarm to go off every 2 hours just in case.
Those poor babies. :/ And your poor mom for being put in that situation.
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Chara Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:47 am (Quote)
Don’t worry about it. I was afraid of the same thing, but we were awake at the tiniest noise.
Also, setting the alarm for every two hours? I did that too, and my pediatrician told me to stop torturing myself and to only wake him if he slept more than four hours.
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xanthina Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 1:04 pm (Quote)
Last night, my husband was playing video games, and I was listening to music on a headset. I stopped… something. Took off the headset, had husband pause the game, and ask him if he would check on our daughter. He gives me this quizzical look and asks if she’s fussing. I inform him that she’s sobbing, and he moves.
She’s 5, lol, far from newborn. But the mommy brain.. it hears things. (We ended up taking her into urgent care, she has an ear infection, poor thing).
It’s very rare for a mom to sleep through a baby without something interfering.
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Kate, Ren's mama Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 1:53 pm (Quote)
Vanessa – if you are concerned about hearing your baby, you may want to consider co-sleeping: either bed-sharing OR room-sharing. Studies show that co-sleeping mama/baby pairs are VERY attuned to one another. If you choose to bed-share, just make sure you read up on and follow safe practices and make sure you don’t have any risk factors.
That being said, it is truly amazing how attuned you are to your baby. When DD was 6 months old, she had an episode where she stopped breathing in the middle of the night. She was in a crib in the same room as me and DH, and even though she literally did not make a sound, we both woke up immediately. So don’t worry too much about hearing your baby.
Congrats on your pregnancy and good luck!
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Louisa Reply:
December 16th, 2011 at 11:58 pm (Quote)
There are studies that show co-sleeping mummy’s and baby’s share sleep cycles and bodies become in tune with each other.
My DD slept on my chest for the first 2 weeks she was here (recovering c/s so I wasn’t getting up if I didn’t need too) She woke up nuzzling so I shifted her to a nipple and went back to sleep. Now she has her own cot, a foot and a half to my left and I wake up and put her in with me for a feed and go back to sleep. I even find myself waking up “protecting” her from her father when he rolls over in his sleep. From when she was just a couple of weeks old I have averaged 6 hours of sleep (unless her big brother wakes up) but doing it this way.
Stop stressing mumma, you will be fine.
Also, as soon as bub is born, both of you go to a chiro and get adjusted, that can help with feeding, sleeping, wind and all go towards you both getting a good nights sleep.
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Knitted in the Womb Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 2:44 pm (Quote)
It’s amazing how our minds filter what is “important” and “not important” while sleeping. I sleep through my husband’s snores (as long as I fall asleep before he starts!), but a tiny wimper from our baby wakes me. We have an agreement that I deal with nursing baby at night, he deals with older kids. When we had just two we moved into a house we needed to remodel, so all 4 of us were in one room. I would only hear our younger daughter, and he would only hear our older daughter.
Saddly I’ve heard and witnessed multiple examples of parents not hearing the cries…and the over-riding common feature seemed to be parents who used “sleep training” *and* didn’t view long periods of crying as something that needed a response.
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Allie had this to say,
Dec 13, 2011 @ 4:47 am (Quote)
Awww infant Ambien…….ya no thanks! So either you’re suggesting I drug my child, which is unlikely, or you’re suggesting I drug myself so I can’t attend to my newborns basic needs such as nourishment and the feeling of security and love. *off to scour yellow pages for new doc*
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When my youngest was a baby he had a lot of trouble sleeping and I was a single mum with a toddler to look after too. I remember saying to a friend that I’d only had 7 hours sleep in 3 days and he said I should take a sleeping tablet.
But that was a childless man in his early 20s who had never realy been around babies. Seriously OB? Way to frustrate mama more!!
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Jespren had this to say,
Dec 13, 2011 @ 7:18 am (Quote)
This is in reply to Suzanne…I think a lot of women whose children ‘all slept through the night’ at a very young age probably just slept through baby crying. I have a mother in law who insists all 3 of her kids slept 12 hours through the night from very early on, but I’ve lived with my mother in law, it takes a freight train carrying a brass band to wake her up.
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Laura Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 7:38 am (Quote)
Some babies DO just sleep through the night at a young age. They are a rare breed! lol. My first two children were up every 1-3 hours to nurse until they were about 9 months old. They slept in a co-sleeper until they woke up the first time, then remained in bed with me the remainder of the night. We moved them out of our room around a year old.
My third child is now 8 months old. Her first night she slept 6 hours (not unusual, my oldest two did that also). But she never changed. By two weeks she was sleeping 8 hours. By 2 months, she was sleeping 12 hours or more. Same sleeping arrangements as her brothers, and when she did wake up, she nursed and came into bed with me. I have never slept through my babies crying… and I usually wake up before they do. She continued her great sleep schedule until about 2 months ago, now she is more “normal” and wakes up around 2 times a night for nursing and cuddles. 
Before kids, I was a person who “freight trains carrying brass bands” wouldn’t wake me up. (Great word picture too!! lol) After kids, movement from my babies wakes me immediately!
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Alyssa Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 8:07 am (Quote)
My daughter slept through the night from day one because we used The Miracle Blanket- once 4 months rolled around and she had grown out of it she’s had her nights when she’s up several times, but all in all very securely swaddling her helped her get her nights and days in line with mine. Every child is different though
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Bonita Reply:
December 13th, 2011 at 2:03 pm (Quote)
My first was a horrible sleeper. My 2nd and 3rd children (the youngest is 10 weeks old right now) both have slept 5 hour stretches since they were about two weeks old. They were the babies that I coslept with, so I woke up if they farted! lol I wish I had coslept with my firstborn instead of being really scared of “spoiling” a newborn. Everyone would have slept MUCH better!
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Jenny Islander had this to say,
Dec 13, 2011 @ 9:36 am (Quote)
Reminds me of the new neighbor upstairs who just HAD to watch Dragnet at top volume directly over my bed at 10 p.m. every weeknight “for her mental health.” When I told her that it was hard for me to get enough sleep to function at work, she gave me industrial earplugs. And I was supposed to hear my alarm clock how, exactly?
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Well, it’s so important for a new Mom to get all the rest she can! But I’m thinking this isn’t the best way to go about it. I mean, if the baby is bottle fed and there is Dad or another caregiver there, a night or two of a sleeping pill might be okay. I know some Moms that are so tired that they don’t sleep even when baby does and in that kind of situation, I could see it. But odds are that is not the situation and this doctor was just being an idiot.
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Ally had this to say,
Dec 13, 2011 @ 6:49 pm (Quote)
I was born with a condition where I would periodically stop breathing… my mom claimed she’d hear me stop and wake up before the sensor pad alarm went off. Mom’s have supernatural hearing!
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himom Reply:
December 14th, 2011 at 6:41 am (Quote)
I have severe hearing loss, and can’t follow a conversation in the same room without amplification or reading lips. BUT – I could always hear my kids grunting and squirming around as they were about to wake up for a middle of the night nursing. How weird is that?
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Maggie had this to say,
Dec 13, 2011 @ 7:43 pm (Quote)
Our daughter was such a stellar sleeper ( 9 days old 5 hours, 5 weeks old 9 hours, 9 weeks old 13 hours) that I actually would wake up during the night to pump to keep as much flow as I could manage ( had major supply issues). Our doctor said that as long as her diaper count growth etc was good not to disturb her natural patterns. I know I didn’t sleep through her cries ever because while she slept in her bassinet in our room, each time she turned her head I woke up!
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Katherine had this to say,
Dec 13, 2011 @ 10:36 pm (Quote)
I thought for a while my 1 mos old had begun sleeping through the night, but my husband informed me she would find my breast herself and eat while I slept peacefuly. I would wake if she got upset but usually she found comfort from my body and would just drift back off.
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Bekah Reply:
December 14th, 2011 at 10:50 am (Quote)
That’s really cute! I’m not an avid co sleeper, but I love having my babies in the bassinet next to the bed and we do end up co sleeping quite a bit in the first few weeks. I think that seriously helped my daughter become a great sleeper.
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Katherine Reply:
December 14th, 2011 at 11:12 pm (Quote)
pst. that is co sleeping ; ) what I do is Bed Sharing. I normally wouldn’t point that out but there is a lot of stuff going on surrounding this issue atm so I wanted to clarify. Bed Sharing isn’t for everyone, I stumbled upon it kinda on accident as I explain below. Co sleeping is wonderful for most parents though and really has a lot of benefits for baby also. It is closer to the way we would care for babies in nature. I just didn’t want you to get wind of the negativity going around about Co Sleeping when they are really targeting Bed Sharing and are not calling it by the proper term without some defense.
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Michelle Potter Reply:
December 19th, 2011 at 1:44 pm (Quote)
This is how I was with all of my babies. Five babies and I never once had to wake up for a middle of the night feeding. It was a relief, considering that during the first and third trimesters of pregnancy I woke up every hour or so to throw up.
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Bed sharing? *gasp* Who would do such a dangerous thing? (total sarcasm there)
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Katherine Reply:
December 14th, 2011 at 11:03 pm (Quote)
HAHA Yeah not something I readily admit to everyone for fear of the fire storm that will ensue. In pregnancy, I swore up and down that I would NEVER. Not because i looked down on it, I was actually very excepting, but I though me, the one who could sleep through a nuclear bomb AND kicks the hubs out of the bed BED SHARE. I did however want to co sleep, I had researched it and learned it’s benefits. Well one night not long after coming home I took LO out of her little side bed thingy and not so coincidentally (after learning what prolactin does) fell asleep nursing. I didn’t move an inch and discovered that I *sensed* her because when hubs moved her in the am I perked right up. After a few more intense of this I realized hey I am not the day zombie I thought all moms were so from then on….I did keep her in a nest most of the time for more security. I don’t readily recommend it because it isn’t for every parent and isn’t 100% safe for every parent either, but I do not discourage it and will be the first to counsel on safe sleeping because if your family begins to travel in that direction it can be an asset and should not be condemned.
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“Doc? I think you’re missing the memo on a very important aspect of newborn care.”
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