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When did your baby / toddler sleep through with no sleep training?

56 replies

Jas9090 · 04/05/2021 20:21

My daughter is 16 months and very, very occasionally has 1 wake up but 9 times out of 10 she’s up 3-5 times a night! I cosleep still which I’m totally fine with but still feel like sleep is very broken, she wakes up and cries out for me even though I’m right there then flops back down. It was all fine till I got pregnant but feel exhausted at the moment!

Just wondering what the norm is without any sleep training?

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SuperCaliFragalistic · 04/05/2021 20:29

My DD was about 4.5 years old when she first started occasionally sleeping through the night. My DS was about 6 months when he started doing it reliably. But he went through a couple of regressions after that. I'm sorry but comparing your child to others wont change anything. Co-sleeping helped, which it sounds like you're already doing, and getting your partner to do their share as a minimum too.

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Fallowfields · 04/05/2021 20:45

Ours did at 18 months. has been reasonably consistent since then. hang in there!

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BumpLoading · 04/05/2021 20:48

Mine was 15 months, I think it was getting my husband to do night wake ups instead of me just breastfeeding DS back to sleep that broke the habit of waking up in the night so much, are you breastfeeding at all or does she literally just like to check you're still there?

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ColinTheCat · 04/05/2021 20:51

12 months roughly. I co- slept till 9 months. Her night wakings dropped very quickly after she went into her own room. Within a few weeks she was mostly sleeping through.

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HerRoyalRisesAgain · 04/05/2021 20:51

DS1 was 4 years.
DD slept through from birth apart from when she was unwell.
DS2 was 16 months.

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Chicchicchicchiclana · 04/05/2021 20:57

Dd was 6 months. Unfortunately it went wrong when she was 9 months and had a cold which understandably kept waking her up in the night. But after she got over the cold she didn't go back to her sleeping all night pattern, so we did some gentle (Ferber) sleep training then which worked just fine.

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Minnie888 · 04/05/2021 21:08

DS is 4.5 and still doesn't sleep through, 3 ish wakings for the loo Sad

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user7891011 · 04/05/2021 21:09

Some 'gentle' parents won't agree but I think that surely and logically the co sleeping doesn't help with wake ups? Even adults sleeping together in a bed disturb eachother and if an infant wakes each sleep cycle to see his mum there he's going to naturally want to engage. You don't have to sleep train but sleeping in their own bed at this age would do you the world of good I think, of course the adjustment may take time and effort but surely you will have to do it at some point

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AyyX · 04/05/2021 21:13

My daughter is 17m and sleeps through the night, she has for a while now, I can’t remember since when. Probably for a good couple months now.. I co-sleep with her still.

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BertieBotts · 04/05/2021 21:14

2.5 years old for both of my kids.

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BertieBotts · 04/05/2021 21:26

@user7891011 this is a bit of a fallacy, everyone wakes briefly during the night, you just don't remember it because you don't fully wake up unless something is wrong (need a wee/too hot/cold/partner has stolen all the duvet etc). What happens with young children is they either wake up and then realise they're alone and cry out for reassurance, or they wake up but are perfectly fine and happy alone so they just go back to sleep silently, some will cry a little bit then go back to sleep without any input. "Sleeping through" doesn't actually mean a solid 12 hours of sleep, it just means they don't need any input to go back to sleep any more.

The same thing happens when co-sleeping. They'll have a brief wake up and either cry out because they want more body contact/breastfeeding/whatever or they will wake up and be reassured by your presence (or just not really register you being there at all) and just go back to sleep by themselves. So some children do actually sleep better when co-sleeping. Some might be disturbed by it, DS2 is now, which is why we try to keep him in his cot if he does wake up.

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Jas9090 · 04/05/2021 21:26

Definitely a mix of ages there! Solidarity of nothing else! ..I was quite relaxed about it but I’m in the middle of first trimester so it’s bothering me more but just got to get through these next few weeks.

@BumpLoading I stopped breastfeeding around 12 months but didn’t make a difference to the wakings, she just likes to (loudly) check im still there! Grin

I’ve tried putting her in own room and she starts the night like that but doesn’t seem to make the wakings any better or worse so just went with the path of least resistance. I love the cuddles just not the very broken sleep at the mo! Also got my mind on how it’s going to work with a newborn into the mix...

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SaturdayMood · 04/05/2021 21:28

5 weeks! Pure fluke, and fingers crossed it lasts which I'm sure it won't...

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Heyha · 04/05/2021 21:29

We delayed DD going in her own room til nearly 12 months (ill, started nursery so unsettled, ill from starting nursery) and she almost immediately went to one, maybe two wake-ups. She kept this up til close to 18 months and now only wakes if something's wrong.

The bit of space by going in her own room, and then dropping her morning BF made all the difference, with no sleep training. She still BF before bed but comes off and just cuddles to sleep. Next step is to drop that last BF and then will work on her not needing the cuddle but neither is a massive hardship when it means she sleeps through!

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20viona · 04/05/2021 21:30

3 months bar the odd illness teething etc. Cosleeping will not be helping sadly.

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HenryHooverIII · 04/05/2021 21:35

Sorry OP, 3 months for both DC.

I feel your pain at the tiredness though. I was pregnant again when DS1 was 18 months old and I was exhausted even with a.decent sleep. It's probably a good idea if you do want to make changes, to make them now before you're bigger and more knackered, but also before the baby arrives. Putting her into her own room after the baby arrives is probably going to be much harder for you all. Especially if you plan on cosleeping with the newborn.

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Hollywhiskey · 04/05/2021 21:36

My youngest is 20 months, breastfed, not night weaned, cosleeps - she goes to bed about 7, has a feed when I go up about half ten or 11 and usually sleeps until half five or six. She might have another feed in the night if she's unwell or teething but I would call that sleeping through? I get my evening, don't get out of bed and never sleep trained.
My eldest is 3.5 and night toilet training right now. I just taught her to yell daddy into the baby monitor if she needs help with a wee in the night, so that's basically the same thing I think? She went in her own room at just before 3 with no sleep training or anything ever. Cosleeping can work just fine if that's your preference for your family.

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Indoctro · 04/05/2021 21:37

5 years and 3 months old

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twinkletoesfairynose · 04/05/2021 21:40

2.5 years in, up multiple times a night still. Sorry

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RubertRoo · 04/05/2021 21:42

DD is 3.5 and still doesn't sleep through the night. She either wakes between 1am-3am for an hour or two or up from 4.30am-5am for the day. Quite reassuring to know I'm not alone with this actually.
Tried co sleeping but she just gets excited in my bed and sleeps even worse

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NameChange30 · 04/05/2021 21:43

What do you want us to say, that your first child is miraculously going to start sleeping through without you having to bother making any changes before your second child is born?! How are you going to cope if you're still cosleeping with your oldest when you have a newborn to look after?! You should make the changes now, so she doesn't associate them with the arrival of a baby sibling - it's not fair on her otherwise.

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rattlemehearties · 04/05/2021 21:50

There isn't a norm really. DC1 8 weeks(!). DC2 14 months. DN 3 years and counting...

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MySocalledLoaf · 04/05/2021 21:54

22 months with no training, second child.
(11 months with gentle training with first, but as they shared a room, couldn’t train the second at all.)
Funnily enough it was the same age I first slept through as a child, to the day.

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Jas9090 · 04/05/2021 22:04

@NameChange30 I’ve heard of others cosleeping with a newborn and toddler, my daughter already spends the first part of the night on her own so I’m hoping as she’s closer to 2 by the time the new baby arrives she’ll be sleeping longer stretches at least. I definitely wouldn’t suddenly kick her out alongside baby 2s arrival..I would have newborn in a side car cot though so kept away from toddler for safety

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BertieBotts · 04/05/2021 22:06

Does she sleep in your bed for the whole night or in a cot/her own bed for part of it? That helped with DS2 I think. I just got a bit stricter with myself in persevering to try and make sure he went back down in his own bed rather than bringing him into ours at the slightest provocation and it seemed to help with him sleeping through. Could have just been a fluke, though.

With DS1 I did it differently, once I moved him to his own bed and got fed up at being summoned several times a night someone on here suggested I just let him come in to me if he wanted to, and he started out doing this and then it obviously became too much effort to bother after a while :o

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