To be slightly irritated by parents whose babies sleep through the night

[InMemoryOfSleep]

I should start by saying this is meant to be lighthearted, and of course I am delighted for all the parents getting all the sleep...

However... my DS, at 11 months, is showing no sign of sleeping through the night, and its starting to feel like he never will. I've spoken to two mums at playgroup this morning who breezily chatted about how their 10-week-olds slept 8pm-6am, and I was doing the smile and nod whilst internally screaming/sobbing. We've struggled with a dairy allergy and eczema, which are both much better now, but he wakes every 1-2 hours at the minute, wanting a feed, or his dummy back in, or a cuddle, or to just get comfy. Me and DH are starting to take on the look of zombies. Now before it's mentioned, I've no intention of sleep training, but I was hoping for some solidarity moaning from other similarly sleep deprived parents! How often does your baby wake? How are you coping? Are you planning to try to do something about it, or just ride it out and hope it gets better?!

Mine didn't sleep more than a couple of hours in a row until I stopped breastfeeding. And I didn't stop breastfeeding until he was 2.5 due to his milk allergy. Couldn't have done sleep training even if I wanted to due to his eczema - he would have been lying in a pool of blood in minutes if I hadn't been there to comfort him. Poor little mite. Co-sleeping is what saved me and though I do remember the tiredness a little, I mostly remember the cuddles. Maybe that is because he is 15 now and I don't get so many (I also can't get him out of bed!). Hang in there OP - you are doing great. But it is OK to ask for help/employ childcare for a bit if you need to catch up on sleep.

@ohohoops you say you didn't stop breastfeeding because of your DS's milk allergy - was this due to not being able to give him cow's milk instead of breastmilk?

Yes but he had a lot of other allergies as well as cow's milk and was quite small for his age. It seemed silly to stop bf when his diet was so limited. He was prescribed a synthetic formula that he could tolerate (he was allergic to the hydrolysed ones) and a calcium supplement so looking back I did have a choice but it didn't really feel like it at the time and the bf was very soothing when he was uncomfortable with the eczema.

I did choose extended bf (and co-sleeping) for my younger children though based on that experience as I liked the flexibility (and have a very low tolerance for babies crying).

Breastfed babies rarely tend to sleep through the night until a lot older, to anyone bf and wondering why theirs don't yet. You milk is it at it's best at night, it's supposed to be their prime feeding time.

My first DC was a nightmare. Slept in 30 minute cycles and it was awful. I used to want to scream "liar" at anyone who said their DC slept through. Then suddenly, 18 months ish and he started sleeping. He's never disturbed my sleep since and he's 18 now. My second one slept for 9 hours a night from being 6 weeks old and I was the smug mummy then. Of course, she started waking up when she got to be about 18 months and has woken me up many times since in her 15 years. They are all pita in some way or another!

And sorry you didn't ask this but my kids are older now and all their friends are lovely and you really can't tell who was breastfed, who was sleep-trained etc. So if you need to make changes, that is OK too.

But allergies/eczema are tough and can add a lot of limitations and anxiety and I remember feeling quite different to lots of parents. Hope your little one is not too uncomfortable and you get some good sleep soon

Same here op. I had three other kiddies who slept like a dream from early on and number 4 is a nightmare! I haven't done anything differently (although he is 7 years younger then my last baby so maybe I have and can't remember). DS is like your baby, ok initially in the first part of the night and then up every 2-3 hours until morning. He is now nearly 9 months and I would pay good money for one good nights sleep. I have tried everything btw. Possibly not consistent sleep training but everything else. I thought I knew everything after having three babies. What a breeze, I thought, done this before. Easy peasy.

I will eat my hat.

kids are older now and all their friends are lovely and you really can't tell who was breastfed, who was sleep-trained
Hear hear. Not said enough to new mums.
My DS who never slept more than two hours as a baby and was still up and down at 9/10 is now 19 and sleeps for England

I feel your pain. My first two slept through by about 5 or 6 months which I thought was bad enough. Dd3 is 19 months, barely sleeps and will not even entertain the idea of going in her cot. I'm knackered and just resigned myself to the fact I shall never sleep again. On the plus side I get loads of time to catch up on tv. In a moment of depression last night Colin firth as Mr Darcy cheered me up no end.

DS is not long off being 7 and still appears to be practising his torture technique of not letting me sleep 50% of the time!! Some kids just don't sleep that well.

It used to make me want to curl up in a ball on the floor and cry when he was around 1 and people used to have newborns and they'd be sleeping through within weeks. It also gave me an irrational amount of rage towards those parents (obviously I didn't make them aware of this) so I feel your pain!

I'm just dropping by to tell you that even a non-sleep lover gets better and it gets way way easier. DS messes me around fairly often at bedtime but I know how to deal with it, similarly when he goes through phases of waking at night I know how to get him back to sleep within minutes and although he is ALWAYS awake at 5/6am no matter what time he goes to bed or how much he might have been up in the night he has been well trained learnt to play quietly until 7:30 at the earliest.

Routines and all the methods help to an extent but there are some kids who just don't need that much sleep (which is soul destroying when you're a person who does). On the plus side, eventually they start school and then you can nap if you get any days off

I feel your pain. 14 months and still doing a night feed and having to help her settle occasionally! When I hear of babies going through the night at just a few weeks old I could cry!

We had a sleeper. She slept for England. From 2 weeks. It was insane. We didn't really tell anyone though as we were keen not to be smug. Then at age 2.5 or so when we transitioned her to a bed out of the cot, we have been interrupted pretty much 5/7 days of the week. For over 3 years after having had great sleep in the early days. Go figure. We are exhausted.

Yeah my sister has had 2 early sleepers and puts it down to her bedtime routine. I've had 1 non-sleeper, although once he could walk (13mo) we were ok.

Mind you has also suggested several times that I just need to relax to get pg (I've had 6 mc)

I don't think they sold the over the shoulder sleeping bags up to her age at that time, or perhaps they were very expensive.

I tried things like putting her to bed in a fleecy onesy but there was some reason why that was no good.

She was a bit if a fussy sleeper at the time. Would be hot when she went to bed so upset about any of those things and then cold later on.

She does wear fleece pyjamas now funnily enough. Now it's no longer a problem.

I did try an actual sleeping bag. A camping one. But it didnt help.

Other weird thing about my kids -

Ds sleeps alot when he's ill. So he gets better really quickly and also is easier to look after.

With Dd illness affects her by making her unable to sleep, or not as well. So every illness seems much worse.

It's normal for babies to wake lots and want their mum. My kids didn't sleep through until after 18months. They just gradually slept longer periods and eventually slept through. I didn't do sleep training although I did do things like cut out feeding at night, no talking, no lights etc. which all helped. Both sleep through every night now 2 and 5.

My dSis won't actually tell me how long her DD sleeps for in case I stop talking to her 😑

It's ok. My theory is that all children have a nightmare period, and DS has got his out of the way early with his nocturnal ways, just like me. I was a very easygoing teenager (based on other people's judgements, not my own!), while DSis was a sleeping angel of a baby but a horrible teenager. I am already warming up my schadenfreude muscles

Sounds like hard work. My little one was similar to this at 11 months. By 14 months he slept through. No sleep training used although we did try and shh, pat, leave him in the cot rather than co sleeping which is what I did previously. Dropping night feeds was the best thing to help him to sleep. I stopped breast feeding at 11 months and improvements in sleep were quick to follow. Good luck.

Think the worst one for it is my bil. His ds is 6 months younger than my dd. He has slept 13 hours straight since 4 weeks. He also sleeps at least a couple of nights a week at his in laws.

Our dd still only sleeps through 50% of the time and wakes usually at 6am (she's 2)

Bil rings and tells me he's tired constantly.

I think it's mostly formula fed babies that sleep through.... (obviously it fills them up/ harder to digest/ not ravenous again after 20 mins) whereas bf babies need frequent feeding add it's easily digested and wake again every 20 mins/30 mins/2 hrs (if you're )lucky for more.
Dd finally slept better around 6 months once we'd started weaning and her tummy was fuller for longer.

I never sleep trained and DS eventually slept through from 7/8ish until morning when he was about 2.5.

However his sleep became manageable well before then. It's not like he woke every hour and then one day just slept through. The gaps got slowly bigger and after a while even fitted in quite well with my own sleep patterns (one wake up at 10/11ish, then in for a cuddle from 5/6am to breakfast)

You need to find some hippy types IME they are so against the idea of sleep training that they tend to have lower expectations of baby sleep and will happily commiserate with you without suggesting it every 5 minutes. I think that most people have an opinion on sleep training ranging from "it's important to build good habits from birth" to "it's a last resort but I'd definitely be doing it by now", not many people are so completely against it.

Have you tried eliminating soya from his diet? My DD2 is both dairy and soya intolerant and actually the soya intolerance is worse than the dairy.

I can't even recall now what we did but sure it was the return/pat cuddle/shush put back down routine.
Is that sleep training????