Attachment parenting and sleep

[ForumUsername]

We've been following attachment parenting with our DD who is nearly 7 months. She is a brilliant little girl.
Happy, content and so bright! These past months with her have been brilliant.

We co-sleep and nurse to sleep.
She wakes lots in the night to nurse but goes back to sleep really quickly.

It mostly works for us but some nights it's tough. (I think the longest she's gone is 5 hours and that was in March)
There is no pattern to her waking, could be every 30mins to a rare max of 3hours
Tonight seems to be a bad night, I've had to settle her 4 times since she went down at 7.30

I want her to sleep better in her own time with as much support from us as she needs.
I'm happy with our parenting style and don't want to sleep train her.

But I am wondering how long did it take your baby to independently learn to sleep better?
I know it's going to vary with every baby but I'm hoping to hear it might happen soonish or at least find out now that we could be doing this for years so I can steal myself to the path


[Makesmilingyourbesthobby]

I have three dds, all given same start in life & each one was completely different, all co slept, all breast fed, all had me 24/7 for 6 months, dd1 she took to sleeping pretty well after 2/3 months pretty much slept for 6 hours a night 3 months + and by 6 months she was in her big cot in her own room sleeping around 11ish hours by 12 months, dd2 ah my little dreamer (she's always talked in her sleep & laughs its beautiful to watch even as a baby she'd giggle & babble) she would sleep for about 4 hours at a time from about 6+ months but was such a light sleeper i found I was disturbing her & waking her up so she went in her own room at about 5 months in her crib she still a light sleeper now by a year old she was going to bed at half 7 & slept all night until I'd wake her at half 7 apart from a few bad nights when she was teething, dd3 well this little madam took her until she was about 10 months old, every night she would wake every few hours & only thing she want is to make sure I was there & then go straight back to sleep but then one night when she was 10 months she just slept all night around 10 half months old & continue d to every night since, now she's the best sleeper out of all three of them, I have a friend though who has a four year old who doesn't go to bed until they do half tenish doesn't goto sleep until half 12ish 1ish & wakes up at around 5ish & no chance of going back to sleep i have no idea how friend functions

[FortheloveofJames]

I’ve never done any sleep training because personally it’s not for me, I believe sleep is developmental. DS was a Velcro baby. Frequent waker till about 6/7 months. Had a next to me cot however always ended up in the bed and I fed on demand through the night as only the boob would settle him. Sometimes he’d sleep 4 hours, then periods of hourly wakings. At 6/7 months he randomly started doing 10 hour stretches sometimes but this was mixed again with more wakes and being up for hours in the night. At 11 months he started sleeping through by himself. He’s 15 months now an I can count on one hand the amount of times he’s needed us in the night since. I never thought we’d get to this stage and resigned myself to the fact he’d be a poor sleeper forever, but he just randomly did it himself because I feel he was developmentally ready for it.

[silkpyjamasallday]

We followed attachment parenting principles with DD, coslept, bf on demand and nursed to sleep she was with me 24/7 for 18 months. She was up every hour to feed when she was in our bed, and moving her to her own room and Montessori floor bed at 13 months ish helped a little (we were clearly disturbing her sleep or rather DPs snoring was and there was no way she would have gone to sleep in a cot), but after 21 months I physically and mentally couldn’t do it anymore so I stopped breastfeeding. She has slept through the night consistently since then even with molars coming through, and is much more cheerful and full of energy in the day. I had started working occasional nights so she was used to DP putting her to bed some nights, I went away for a few days on my own while my milk dried up and she slept through on the second night. She now takes minutes to get to sleep, either DP or I lie in her bed for stories and then cuddles, she rolls over and sleeps. Bedtime when I bf took well over an hour! I didn’t see what we did as sleep training, as there were no tears, but I know some people frown upon weaning before the child chooses to stop. Just depends how long you can survive on no sleep, I am an infinitely better mother now I can have more than a couple of hours broken sleep per night. We did it in the most gentle way we could think of, sometimes you just have to do what works. We have friends whose DC didn’t sleep well until they were nearly school age, I honestly don’t know how they coped - and they did try sleep training/controlled crying out of desperation.