to think that some babies just don't sleep well, and that's ok?

[MissBootyBass]

My son is 8 months old. We follow a routine. Bath, story, song, bed. Same every night. He struggles to get to sleep but we usually get there within 30 minutes. He had never, ever slept through the whole night. He wakes at least twice every night, even if it is just to chat.

I talk to all my friends who have had babies and most of them say it's normal for their babies to sleep right through.

What's the norm here?

There is no normal. My now 23 year old has rarely slept a full night! However, my 4 year old grandchild sleeps from 7.30pm till approx 7.30am. I am vv jealous.

In terms of child development 6 consectutive hours between 11pm and 8 am is sleeping through.

It was from 10.5 hours I think.
I'm just reading though it.

I'm absolutely agog.

I haven't got far into it yet but it's a study from the 90's and I'm wondering how a study of that magnitude would fair now.

I know that my parents used to just let us babies cry to sleep.

I know there's the 'cry it out' method but there are also studies to say that is damaging.
I wonder if less parents let their babies CIO.
I wonder if it's the same amount still?
I wonder if the advice of them being in the same room or the use of next2me cribs and the popularity of co-sleeping would make a difference now?
Or none at all?

Basically because it's a dated study, do we parent differently now, giving different results?

It would be very interesting to see.

Especially since, by 18 months only 50% were sleeping through...

(I realise the paper is date 2012 but the study was conducted in 1991-1992)

Yep.
I’ve had two babies of the non-sleeping variety.
DC1 didn’t sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time until she was about a year old, and then started sleeping through somewhere around her 2nd birthday.
DC2 is 2 and a half and has only ever slept for more than 5 hours at a time twice in his whole life.
They are both happy, content children, they just have never been heavy sleepers!
I never tried to implement any kind of sleep training schedule either. They’ve had a proper bedtime since they were about 7/8 months old, but other than bath/milk/story/bed routine that’s the same every night, there’s never been any strict sleep training routine to try and stop the night waking. I figure that they wake up for a reason and can’t remedy the situation for themselves.
9 times out of 10, if DC2 has woken in the night it’s either because he’s thirsty, he’s lost his dinosaur teddy, or he just needs a cuddle. And I don’t see any of those things as a problem - he will be able to sort those problems for himself as he gets older, but at the moment he needs help with those things

I had two good sleepers and one terrible sleeper. I found it much easier once I just accepted he wasn’t a great sleeper and stopped stressing about it.

I did learn to leave mine for 5 mins (unless howling) when they woke at night - actually dh lack of ability to get out of bed we discovered this. That babies would have a moan and a groan and then settle themselves.

I agree, OP. DS1 always slept very well, DS2 was a nightmare sleeper as a baby/toddler. He still wakes easily and takes forever to fall asleep some nights and he's almost seven. Some people just sleep less deeply or take longer to fall asleep than others. And that's okay (we'll, it doesn't feel okay when you're the sleep deprived parent, but it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong!).

Of my 3 kids the one who only woke once or twice a night at that age is the one I describe as "an amazing sleeper"

Ten hours?! Not sure DS2 has ever slept through (almost 7yo)by that definition!

They are either lying or lucky. You are not doing anything wrong.

Yes the data was collected in the 90's. As far as I am aware (last time I went to a "sleep study day" was 2018) this is the best data about "normal" sleep we have. One thing that has definately changed is weaning advice....

And breastfeeding rates, I wonder if those have changed. Probably not by much I should imagine.
But yes, weaning at 4 months was totally normal in the 90's (my brother born in 1992 was given risks at 10 weeks 😮).

My first born didn't sleep through the night at all until she was weaned at just after 2 years old. My second was 2 in April and still hasn't slept through the night. She still feeds anywhere between 2 and 5 times a night. Friends who had a different experience are often horrified for me and sure I find it tiring at times, but it's normal for young children and it's my new normal. They will sleep through when they are developmentally ready to do so.

Some babies are shit at sleeping.

It does not make you shit at parenting.

I think it's totally normal developmentally.

The number of women in England still breastfeeding six to eight weeks after the birth of a child has declined, according to Public Health England (PHE).

Just over four in 10 mothers (42.7%) breastfeed their babies when they are six weeks old, according to 2017-18 data. The rate was 43.1% in 2015-16 and 43.8% for 2014-15.

So I think any study done in the 90's or now on infants of six months would be looking at predominantly formula fed infants (shocking statistics).

Sorry only posted half this is from unicef's website

Breastfeeding rates in the UK
In the UK we have some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world, with eight out of ten women stopping breastfeeding before they want to.

The last UK-wide Infant Feeding Survey was conducted in 2010, and we are calling on UK governments to reinstate this. Key findings were:

Breastfeeding initiation: 81% (up from 76% in 2005).
Exclusive breastfeeding at six weeks was 24% in England compared to 17% in Wales and 13% in Northern Ireland – see below for more recent survey results from Scotland.
Exclusive breastfeeding at three months: 17% (up from 13% in 2005).
Exclusive breastfeeding at four months: 12% (up from 7% in 2005).
Exclusive breastfeeding at six months (as recommended by the World Health Organization) remained at around 1%.
The rate of any breastfeeding at six weeks was 55% (rising from 48% in 2005), while at six months it was 34% (rising from 25% in 2005). These improvements coincided with a marked increase in engagement with the Baby Friendly Initiative.

Mines has slept well since immunizations at 8 weeks (messed her up a bit) but does awaken at points now to either babble and talk to her dummy or just wakens in the early hours.

I think just follow your baby and do what you know best. Every baby is different!

yes yes yes. my son is 2 yrs old and never slept through. i have spoken .to so many professionals and all said he is just a child who needs less sleep

@hopefulhalf I saw those stats when I did a search this morning.

I wonder what they were like 10 years before that. I failed to get any decent information but it was a relatively quick search.

Either way, I would love to see a large study on infant sleep as it is now.
I've got a dissertation to write and a topic to decide on and this one is interesting from my own personal sleep deprived position. (😭)

I remember being told in either the early 00's or the late 90's that there was a massive gap on breast feeding reasearch as there was (obviously) no drug companies to pay for it.

My ds never slept through until he was 18 months old. He was diagnosed ASD when he was 9 & I went through all the not sleeping all over again. He is now 15 & I have the opposite problem, keeping him awake, some nights he comes home from school, does his homework, has tea & is in bed asleep by 7.00pm.

Well that's fucking depressing.

What's your profession hopefulhalf?