So babies sleeping through the night isn't a myth!

[onedayimightforget]

I've just met someone at a baby group whose baby has slept through the night since two months and can settle himself to sleep without someone in the room. I thought these people didn't really exist.

^

[Doje]

Afraid so. I has two that slept through from 8 and 10 weeks. I feel like I can only admit it under a cover of anonymity here though! It's luck of the draw though I think. Sorry!

[Anatidae]

This is why I avoid baby groups like the plague. No good comes of them

[Strokethefurrywall]

Yep, I had two of those babies. DS1 at 10 days old, swaddled up in his miracle blanket, he would have his last feed at 10.30pm and wake up at 6am.

Slept pretty well until he was about 2 1/2 - 3 years and then went through a fear stage that lasted about a year!

Thinking back, I think I would have preferred the nightmare of lack of sleep in the early days when I was on maternity leave, rather than when I was back at work.

It was absolutely nothing that I did, was totally down to them and definitely luck of the draw I think.

[lightcola]

It won't be forever, there will come a time when they're perfect sleepers will become sleep theives, but they won't be used to it and it will be hell.

[tinymeteor]

Lucky them. I bet everyone else at baby group is secretly wishing them a really crappy teenager in 13 years though!

[onedayimightforget]

It was the "I'm soooo glad he sleeps through the night now, I couldn't cope in the early days" that made me die inside. I co-"sleep" and by "sleep" I mean "get kicked in the ribs from 5am while I pretend to be asleep" but I didn't admit that, instead I smiled sweetly and hoped I wasn't sobbing outwardly.

[Butterpuff]

Ours slept through from around 3 months....until 6 months when it all went to shit. Now she will sleep through at nearly 2. But it takes an hour of rubbing her back to get her to sleep in the first place and she's not usually asleep until 9pm. It can ALL change.

[Absy]

I know someone like this - DH's best friend': son. Their DS slept through the night, from 7-7 from about 6 weeks, sometimes waking when his dummy fell out. Our DS wakes up all the friggin' time and eats all night so was super jealous and DH was always going "but blah can do it, why can't DS?". But then - we found out that he doesn't nap. He might sleep for half an hour in the mornknf but refuses the rest of the time, while DS is pretty good at napping. I would totally swap naps for a full night's sleep

[Oblomov16]

Of course it's a myth.
Ds1 sleep well immediately, and then very quickly dropped the 2am feed.

I got my comeuppance with ds2, who screamed on and off, ALL night, yes seriously, for approx 4 hours screaming, every night, for many many months.

Why are you bothered?

[dangerrabbit]

We have the opposite. DD2 wakes about 3 times in the night only to wake up permanently at 5.30am, and DD1 still wakes up in the night and she's 5! 😱😡

[orangebird69]

My 13mo has never slept through. I'm envious of those that do, being honest and I think they're very lucky but don't begrudge them. What does get on my wick is the smugness that comes with it, like theyre fucking brilliant parents and you're doing something wrong. Er no. It's fuck all to do with your parenting. Babies are just different.

[AppleMagic]

How old was the baby now? My DD was sleeping 7-7 by about 12 weeks. She self-settled and fed every three hours during the day. At 4-5 months it all completely went to shit and she still wakes up about once every other night and she's nearly 5 YEARS old.

[Hopelass]

[onedayimightforget]

He's around 3.5/4months. I don't begrudge her, I'm just fucking jealous! It does feel like you're doing something wrong but the only way I'd get mine to sleep through the night now is CIO and switching to formula and I don't want to do either. I can live on no sleep...just!

[Oblomov16]

Loads of babies sleep through really early.
Loads don't.

[LifeLong13]

Just to throw out there that your child sleeping through the night or not isn't a measurement of what a good parent you are

[DowntonDiva]

DD slept through from about 13 weeks. Now 7.5 months she's up all night, every night, DP and I are hanging!

This has coincided with lots of babies from our antenatal group now beginning to sleep through the night. We've no idea what's gone wrong.

[Strokethefurrywall]

Seriously, it's nothing to do with the parenting at all, I promise. They haven't found some secret spell for getting their baby to sleep and stay asleep.

I'll be honest, I find the toddler years far harder than the tiny baby months - DS2 is 2 1/2 and wakes maybe once a night now, or comes into bed with us, which is absolutely fine, but it's the bedtime battles trying to GET him to sleep that wear me down.

Although last night, I was lying down with him, Ds1 was already sound asleep and I could hear DS2's breathing getting slower and more "snorey" and I thought "thank fuck, my beer is downstairs and is getting warmer by the second..." and just as I'm about to get up, he takes a deep breath and I hear "tinkle tinkle little tarrrrr, ow I wanna wah ooo aarrrhhh...mama SING!"

So although the lack of sleep is exceptionally frustrating and I frequently refer to my 2 boys as dickbags a lot of the time (not to their faces obviously), they're fucking cute when they know you're about to jump off a cliff and they need to reel you back in.

[Cherylene]

I had one who was definitely on the way to sleeping through the night when I had her on her own in the SCBU flat. She had a twin who was smaller though so waking more. And an older brother who did not sleep through until 4 1/2.

It is worth setting everything up efficiently to make things as easy for yourself as possible. (nappies, feeding - my DHs cousin laughed at our system for keeping lights dim etc but understood what we were doing when she got a non-sleeping one!)

Sleeping through is definitely not a measure of parenting skills.

[mrsmugoo]

DS woke up hourly and required rocking, feeding, juggling, endless pushing of the pushchair. Got my first 3 hour sleep at 5 months.

DD self settled from birth and sleeps through from 5 months.

They are all different!

[Corabell]

The last person I met that had a baby who slept through the night had put them in a room on their own at 5 weeks then had done controlled crying at 8 weeks. 8 weeks!!! Even people who advocate controlled crying generally say to wait until 6 months.

For what it's worth DS slept through from week 6-16 and then hit the 4 month sleep regression which is still ongoing at 6 months!

[onedayimightforget]

To be honest, nights aren't completely awful but mainly because we're co-sleeping and breastfeeding so when she wakes I just latch her on and we both go back to sleep. It's the getting to sleep - only ever feeds to sleep for me - and getting her to sleep in a cot that are the problem. She'll fall asleep, seem completely settled and the second I lay her down she's wide awake and smiling at me! It's cute but sleep is also cute! DD1 is almost 3 and she still wakes a few times in the night and the battle to get her to sleep some nights is ridiculous! Neither of them have ever self soothed, other than when they were tiny and in NICU. To actually hear that some babies do it sounds miraculous!

[TyneTeas]

My dd slept through from three and a half weeks. Proper sleeping through too, in city at about 8pm, waking up at about 7am

No idea how, didn't do anything special or differently to other parents, just incredibly lucky.

My own mother was most pissed off, I apparently didn't sleep through until I was five

[TyneTeas]

cot not city. That would be weird!

[onedayimightforget]

I was about to send my daughter in to London every night!