If you had a truly terrible, and I mean earth shatteringly awful, sleeper, did it ever improve? WHEN for goodness sake?

[TheSnickeringFox]

Ds (7.5mo) is definitively The Worst Sleeper In The World, Ever. Needs to be slung or fed to sleep for naps. I then cannot move or he wakes instantly. Doesn't sleep in pram or car seat. Zero self settling skills. Takes ages to settle at night and then wakes multiple times through the evening. We cosleep to preserve the shreds of sanity I have left. Please, for the love of god, tell me it gets better.

[sharbie]

you really don't want to know

[TheSnickeringFox]

No I don't :(

[Parietal]

18 months. When I got mean and instituted routine & rules.

[DooinMeCleanin]

dd2 is a bad sleeper. Always has been. Like Sharbie said, you really do not want to know how old she is.

However my nephew was a nightmare. He would howl all night long, literally all night long, but stopped almost instantly the day he turned 1. You jsut never know.

Expect the worst and anything less than that is a bonus.

[Chrysanthemum5]

Ds wouldnt nap in his cot only slept on me or in the pram. He slept ok at night but woke up anytime after 4am. Dd did nap in her cot but woke up lots in the night and was an early riser. Both gave up naps altogether at 18 months.
I didn't mind their sleep, and DH did most of the night waking. But it was really tiring. For both I would say really good sleep (eg 7pm until 7/8 am) happened by the time they were three. Sorry I know that seems a long time away from 7.5 months

I would suggest the baby whisperer or the no cry sleep solution books they both helped.

[TheSnickeringFox]

It's a good job he's so darn cute!

[MrsDistinctlyMintyMonetarism]

I'm not telling as I suspect it would tip you over the edge.

I do understand what it's like though, and the brain numbing effect of no sleep. Routine and rules are something I tried and then gave up on as I actually found it made me feel worse - a bit like when I tried controlled crying.

[Rosebud05]

it's definitely better at 2 years than 7.5 months, if that's a small glimmer of hope

[shabbapinkfrog]

DS4 (now nearly 14 years old) was a nightmare!!!

I tried everything.....my HV, when DS4 was about 1 year old, said 'I do a sleep programme clinic. Fill out this form every night like a diary and then I will make a sleeping plan for you. I have never had a baby that I couldn't 'fix!!'

After about 3 months of filling in forms she came to see me. Her actual words were 'If he was mine I would throw him through the bloody window!! LOL. Incidentally she was a very good friend. Had been my midwife with my older sons. She could not 'fix' him!!

We just kind of lived through it - he started to sleep through the night when he was in year 1 at Primary school. Things improved when I stopped worrying about it. He had a night light in his bedroom and some books. I would hear him wake up in the early hours but he would stay quiet and read.

Now, he is a spotty teenager I still struggle to get him to go to sleep but dont stand a chance getting him up in the morning!!!

This stage will pass.....as all stages do.

I do recall the feeling of being mentally unstable because of sleep depravation though LOL!!

[trixymalixy]

18 months for DS with no intervention from us. DD got to 21 months and wasn't showing any signs of getting better, so we did some CC and she improved vastly. She mostly sleeps through, but having a bad week this week unfortunately.

[TrinityIsAShreddingFatRhino]

all my kids finally understood what THEIR OWN bed was for at about 4

sorry

[BellaBearisWideAwake]

Suddenly at 23 months

[TheProvincialLady]

2.5 years when we worked out that he is lactose intolerant and learned how to manage that. Ever since that he has been a very good sleeper and sleeps 13 solid hours most nights (he's nearly 5). Hang in there.

[pregnantpause]

My eldest still wakes once at 3yo. I found that gradually it improved. Once I put her in her own room, she started sleeping for longer than 2hours. That was at 18 months. But I also found it easier to cope after age 1- because random strangers stop asking 'is she sleeping through yet?', which drove me mad.

[jumpyjack]

2 years. Suddenly after 2 years of sleep hell. And he's now a brilliant sleeper. But omg were those two years horrendous. You poor thing. Hang in there.

[Wormshuffler]

Ours was a year, and it was the day we moved house, I think She actually felt more secure in a smaller room, rather than the huge one She had been in at our old house. Was like a switch had been flicked!

[TheSnickeringFox]

Uh, guys, the correct answer was 8 months.

[TheGashlycrumbTinies]

5 1/2 years, seriously.

Perfectly rational little girl, but at bed time whoa!

In the Spring this year told us she wanted to stay in her own room all night, and has done

Have now got used to sleeping with someone who is 6'2" and snores again:)

[sedgiebaby]

OP, poor you some depressing responses here, I'm going to try to offer a bit of hope?!

I had a similar situation and worked on stopping with the feeding to sleep, it took quite a while but it made a massive difference getting dd to self settle around 20 wks. We have bad periods now when teething/illness but from 5 months til now (8.5months) she regularly does 9 hour stretches despite being unsettled in the evenings once we go to bed I dont need to go to her normally. I get to feel very low when I dont sleep so couldn't really wait for it to get better on its own. I used NCSS and Baby Whisperer to give me inspiration, then I consistently stuck with my plan even when it didn't seem to work to start with...until it did. It took about a month of consistent effort to get her self settling, napping well and then reducing the night wakings which were hourly even every 20 mins at one point!! I think it is worth putting some effort in to encourage some better sleep habits (self settling etc) because once they can pull up/stand up I imagine it can be harder to do any kind of sleep training. I only limited experience but believe babies can get very reliant on sucking/full belly to induce sleep so something to think about (I still do a 10pm dreamfeed myself though!)

[allhailtheaubergine]

Oh hooray! I often win these threads!

Ds slept for a 4 hour stretch for the first time aged 2 years and 5 months.

Could you perhaps comfort yourself that it probably won't be that bad?

Now aged 3 yrs and 2 months he generally sleeps from about 9pm to 5am and only wakes 2 or 3 times a night. And the wakings aren't very arduous any more he only cries a couple of times a week. He starts the night in his own bed and joins us somewhere between 2 and 3.

In the foggy mists of time I think my daughter was a terrible sleeper too (everything has been somewhat eclipsed by ds) and now aged 5 she is an AWESOME sleeper. She even volunteers to go to bed, and we can leave her AWAKE and she goes to sleep BY HERSELF and sleeps from 8ish to 5am and only wakes once.

[hopenglory]

When she started school - and I'm no pushover

[TheSnickeringFox]

Can I change my question to:

To all those whose dc who began miraculously sleeping well at around eight months, can you please come and tell me how ridiculously easy it all was?

Then I'd get the reponses I'm looking for!

[ImeldaM]

My DS is 6 and is still a problem sleeper. He has slept through about 5 nights of his life

We never got him to self-settle & how I wish we did when he was younger, try try try very hard to get them to self settle as young as possible, I totally believe thats what we have done so wrong.

[Caz10]

Oh well, I'm on the wrong thread then so will post elsewhere re my 3.5 year old who only recently sleeps 8-6 with one wakening, this being a massive improvement...