To think that no one on here has a baby who sleeps less than mine does?

[32notout]

My daughter is 23 weeks old. She has always been a terrible sleeper but I am starting to think that there is something seriously unusual about her sleeping habits.

She usually sleeps from 8pm - 11pm (although this is a fairly welcome recent development), 12am - 3am, and 5am - 7am, so basically 8 hours at night. She will also, under protest, have one 20 - 30 minute nap in the middle of the day.

I seriously DEFY anyone to have a baby that sleeps less than this. Or, maybe give me some hope, I am on my knees after 5 months of this...

Sounds pretty normal to me........hang on in there, it will get easier :)

This is normal?! DS wasn't like this...and I am constantly being taunted by all the Boots/Bounty/random baby emails which tell me my 23 week old will be sleeping for 11 hours a night and 3 hours during the day!

Both mine were rubbish sleepers 32notout and its very draining so you have my sympathies. Follow sense, sleep when your dd sleeps, rest and accept this is the way it goes for now, but it will get better (I promise).

My youngest is 4, and has only in the last few month slept properly from light's out until dawn, he was always up at midnight, he never napped in the daytime from about 9 months onwards. He just doesn't require a lot of sleep.

If you have a DP/DH you need to get a routine going so that at least YOU get a decent sleep every other night.

Screw the housework, rest. x

Do you get out of the house in the daytime?

Deactivate those emails pronto!

I had a baby who was 3 and a half before he slept. Even now at 9 he needs little sleep. He would sleep about an hour during the day. Then not go to bed until 11pm and he would waken roughly 90mins later and be up until around 3am before sleeping until 5.30am. It was a killer with having his older sister. The night he slept thru he slept for 13 hours. I thought he'd died as he was still asleep when I awoke at 4am and there were no marks on the paper which let us know how often we went into him. One night had 32 marks.

Last night dh came home at 11pm and D's was the only one still up. He got up at 6.15am bright as a button

DS did this. All friends at baby group horrified as their little treasures slept through. However, from 7 months he slept through, and since then has been doing 6.30pm till 7.30 am and theirs are waking at 5 (he's now 18 months, fingers crossed it continues!)

Hang in there, it will get better!

It's all luck of the draw with sleep, I'm currently petrified that soon-to-be-born DC2 will be like DS in sleeping terms and I'll end up at collapsing with exhaustion stage again. It does get better though, in some babies it takes a while so ignore emails, family and especially friends with babies of similar ages who have slept through since they were days old . Ignore any unnecessary housework and sleep as much as you can whenever you can!

I'm afraid there's no hard and fast rule. I guess it must be a shocker if you've had one with no problems, it really is the luck of the draw I'm afraid. Others are right to say ignore the emails. Babies are as different as adults are.

I hate to tell you this but mine was 7 before I started getting a decent night's sleep again.

DS1 was worse. He breastfed every 2 hours in the night at that age and gave up sleeping in the day at 6 months.

I sympathise. That is poo. DS sometimes takes ages to settle but will then sleep all night barring illness/teeth.
I'm guessing your LO is overtired from not napping in the day and it's making them unsettled at night. Mine have always slept better when they have napped well in the day. Are you in the position to go for a long walk/drive with them to try and encourage them to sleep longer?

Also if they are asleep in the pram will they go back to sleep if you rock them when they wake. Apologies if I am not helping I'm sure you've tried pretty much everything.

Hmmmm mine is 3yrs 2months and still wakes once a night prob half the week. The day she was born she didnt sleep and had colic there on in. For the first 6 months she breastfed two hourly. I got told she'd sleep when weaned/on formula, she didnt. She still woke 2hourly. By 9 months she could go down at 9 after much messing around in cot. Woke again from 2til 5am then sleep til 6.30.

That was the worst because she would just be awake. Not playing etc just awake. If we left her she screamed solidly. I tried controlled crying but she never ever relented and i felt shit. We used to take it in turns to sit with her.
Then i got told when she walks she'll sleep through tiredness. She walked at 9 months and still awake all night, rising early and no nap. If she did sleep in the day she'd be awake til 11!

And so we get further through time, still not reliably sleeping through and i do what i swore i wouldnt, let her in my bed. Ive had three years of being tired i dont care about rods for backs. Not anymore.

Im due dc2 in 3 weeks and i put that off until dd slept better, now i realise i was a fool, i could have been up with 2 afterall. The longest my dd ever slept was xmas 2009 until 8am. I think she did it to spite me waiting on xmas morning!!!! She does go down at 7 and sleeps til 5.30-6.30 mostly but often wakes between 2-4 to get in my bed. It has got easier obviously as shes sleeping much longer chunks but its always broken sleep.

Ive had so many comments off family/friends at how they could 'fix' her. Making me feel shit actually but you know what, she's just not a sleeper. A friend asked if i mind her in my bed or my dh? No not at all because its not forever and it enables us to sleep on and it crystallises it for me. Yes i do whats easy but it is getting better and im fine with it now.

I may repost in three weeks when i have a screaming newborn and a 3yr old competing for attention at 2am!!

It will get better, but it may be a gradual process and dont wish away the phases thinking that each will bring a sleep miracle as it may not happen that way. Try to enjoy the spirited little dd that you have and if you do let her in your bed etc, dont let others judginess bother you. You're the one who has to function each day!

Mine was exacty the same OP, an every 3 hour baby, I could set my watch by him. Hate to say this, it continued till he was two as well

DS slept from 9pm - 12.45 then awake until 3am. Slept from 3am - 6am.

Pretty much the same the night before.

he's 15-years-old and disabled. Maybe he's a 3 hour teenager!

I had one that didn't sleep (he was a feed every two hours on the dot 24/7 baby as well). Oddly, at 10mos when I thought I was going to die from sleep deprivation and turned off the breast milk supply, he couldn't be bothered to wake up and started sleeping through... Dd1 didn't sleep during the day at all even as a newborn. Dd2? She'd sleep, but she couldn't coordinate the suck/ swallow necessary for feeding (she has cerebral palsy due to a birth injury), as her muscle tone was too high during the day, so after about 6mos we had to feed her solely at night when her muscle tone was lower and she could swallow. So to get all her feeds in we had to set the alarm clock all night and wake and feed her whilst she was still dopey. It was either that or she'd have to be tube fed, which she'd been for the first while. And because she couldn't feed and was starving, she would scream all day. All day. All fecking day.

Babies are fecking hard work. And a lot of them don't sleep. It always feels like you are the only one going through it, but there are zillions of mothers in the same position.

Just get out of the house as much as possible. And hand the child over to whoever wants it/ will take it for an hour or two so you can zonk. Anyone.

This too shall pass.

Honest.

Until you have the next one.

Mine never slept, last daytime nap was before 18 months. now a teenager still doesn't sleep seems to get by and do well at school on 6.5 h ours a night with mega catchup at weekends. no tantrums no grumpiness (except from me) she just didn't need the sleep.

My eldest woke up every 2 hours every single night from the day he was born until he was 15 months old.

when my second son was born.

Then they decided to work together to make sure we didn't sleep at all. One of them would sleep early while the other would not settle until midnight. Then the one who had slept early would wake at about 2am for a couple of hours. Then the one that had gone down at midnight would wake up at 5 and be bright eyed and ready to play.

I think I win.

I'll collect my trophy in a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

32notout - you have my utmost sympathy and empathy.

Ds was a dreadful sleeper, and DH and I were at the end of our respective tethers. It was bad for our marriage and for our health.

DS wouldn't sleep for more than half an hour during the day, and he would never sleep in his bed - only ever in the pram or in the car seat, and would scream the place down if I ever traied to transfer him from there to his bed.

He would need me to hold his hand/pat him/make soothing noises to actually drop off to sleep in the evening. And he would wake three times a night at least, and be awake for up to 2 hours at a time. All he wanted to do was be awake, occupied, and have our full attention in a lit room. If he didn't have all three of those things, he would scream and scream.

To try and do something positive about it, and feel that I was gaining just a little control, I spoke to the HV about being referred to a sleep clinic, which we were. Sleep clinic gave me loads of suggestions to sleep train him, all of which I tried, and very few of which worked. But at least I felt like I was doing something. I wanted to have the type of reassurance that it would get better, but I soon realised that my baby was not a textbook baby.

I went back to work when he was just over a year old. With huge relctance and distress, we did CC (and I don't want to turn this into a CC thread, I am just saying what we did) and things were immediately better, as he slept through the night. he still woke up for the day at about 5:30 though.

It has got better. He has slept through the night more or less (going to bed at 7/7:30) since he was 2, and lately, he has been getting about 11.5 hours sleep a night. For some odd reason, DH and I have decided to have another baby (I am 6 months pg), and so will have to adjust to having little sleep again. I must be mad.

Thanks for the messages, you are all lovely.

Next one hahahahaha [hollow laugh]

I do get out every day, as I have a very lively toddler who gets cabin fever otherwise. We go to groups or just to the shops.

I also try to sleep when she does, although it's quite tough as she doesn't sleep in the day, and evening routine involves bathing two kids at 7pm, putting DS to bed at 7.30pm, then bfing DD after that. So by the time I have had something to eat, and got into bed, it's 9pm, and that's without having any time to wind down or have any semblance of a life.

DH is v helpful when around, but isn't often around, as he works long hours in a high pressure job.

Thing is, it's actually making me ill now - I was almost hospitalised over the weekend with a serious infection, and am still really ill now, and I'm convinced it's because I am so tired and run down that my immune system has packed up. DD is also super-whingy and high needs, because she must be tired.

At 5 months, my dd used to wake up 15 to 20 times a night and I used to have to get up every time. My mind was wrecked - couldn't hold a conversation, couldn't remember stuff, walking zombie etc. At 6 months she began only waking up once a night. There is hope! Good luck. Lack of sleep is grim (but it is only a stage, I promise).

It will make you ill, you poor bugger. Chronic lack of sleep over a long period of time makes you really ill. You need some help. Is there anyone who can help you? Or even pay someone to come and sit with the children while you sleep.

I would say those hours were brilliant... DS never slept for more than an hour or so at any one time... even the nurses when he was in hospital at 4 months dumped him back beside my bed after 20 mins as he was still grizzling

DS as a baby slept for only 20-45 mins at a time and screamed for 2 hours plus in between. At the time I just dragged myself through it but now I have no idea how I coped.