To expect dd to sleep the night through now?

[Peppery123]

She is 24 weeks...nearly 6 calendar months. Iv been told that now is when they start slweping through....shes not...yet. but AIBU to expect it?
I know I will most likely get loads of responses with 3 and 4 year olds still not sleeping the night through. I get it, Im not trying to say that she SHOULD be sleeping through..its actually my health visitor who saw me last week and my huge, unmissable eye bags, and commented well shes nearly 6 months so she will be sleeping longer now and maybe through the night.
Just hanging onto to those words with immense hope. She said most mothers she sees it all starts to get better come after 6 months.
Some nice postives anecdotes would be good to hear. Anyone?

Oh love it is so hard to deal with isn't it. Unfortunately societal expectations are not in line with typical infant behaviour.

With my non sleepers I found a lot of comfort from looking at the info and stats on basis online which made me feel like I was not alone. They have some lovely resources there too.

Sorry I think YABU to expect that. My baby is 9 months and is a really good sleeper compared to most of my friends babies, but she still wakes up a few times a night. I think it's pretty rare to have one that sleeps right through.

Mine slept through occasionally at 10 months and consistently at 1. Some are much younger and others much older. Babies are individuals and I disagree with the idea that by x months old they should be doing y. Having said that I hope u get some rest soon, sleep deprivation is tough

Oh god. I came in to get tips for my non-sleeping 2 year old

On a positive note, I do know a fair amount of 6month+ babies let alone toddlers that sleep 8-6.

Posting your DC sleeping pattern may help for responses more useful than mine.

DD didn’t start sleeping through (less that 3 wake ups) until she was 3 years old. However at around 6 months she started having 3 hour afternoon naps so that was ace as I could either nap myself or have some chill time and it was an ok trade off to stay sane lol.

I believe sleeping 'through' the night is defined as 5 straight hours of sleep. I'm afraid yabu - my 14 month old still wakes. Don't listen to the 'shoulds' - it will just make you feel inadequate.

Yabu sorry. Unrealistic expectations lead to resentment. Just go with it.

How often does she wake up?

I sometimes think that ‘sleeping through’ misses the point a bit. My 3 month old does sleep through sometimes (but wakes at 5 ) but usually wakes up once.

I can quite see repeated night wakings are exhausting.

As an aside, you're HV saying she "should" be sleeping longer is really not helpful and in fact not at all evidence based. The "should" comes from old and not particularly good studies. Current evidence does not necessarily support them.

Actually there is a very good and very accessible talk on you tube by Helen Ball from the Durham infant sleep lab which you should be able to find, it discuses infant sleep really well. I find that understanding how and why your baby sleeps the way they do can be very helpful in helping you to work out how to cope and maximise your sleep.

I think your HV was giving you false hope, sorry! Also, how do you define "night "? Some six month olds will sleep 12 hours but not many! How many hours does she sleep?

Mine became a good sleeper at 7 months because we sleep trained (from waking twice a night). Friends who didn't broadly waited til 18 months or longer until sleep settled down naturally. There probably are children who start sleeping through on their own much younger, but I haven't met them.

Oh crumbs your

I'm now dying of shame.

I’ve got 4 and they all reliably started sleeping through the night at 9/10 months old, still get the odd wake up when they’re poorly but generally pretty good!

Yeah sorry, YABU to expect it. You’d be lucky if this happens so just go with the flow. If it does happen then great, but expecting it will just make you annoyed it isn’t happening and make things worse.

6 months?? I was expecting you to ask about a year old!

Sorry - by sleeping through the night I mean a 12 hour stretch with no wake ups!

And I’m going to be one of the people you didn’t want to hear from - DD didn’t sleep through until 2.5 :(

Oh dear. Sorry but no, it could be ages yet. My two year old sleeps through now

Mine sleep but they have their moments. Currently 15 month old teething and is waking up a lot, I am very very tired.

Not unreasonable to expect it but be prepared to be disappointed.

DC2 is approaching 18 months and sleeps through maybe 50% of the time. But with better nights we’ve got 5am starts. You can’t have it all.

The thing that started to make a difference for both of mine was putting them in their own room (which I did at 7 and 11 months for logistical reasons, would have done at 6 months if I could).

I don’t think you mentioned if you’re BF. Just wanted to add that if you are and you’re tempted to switch to formula thinking it will make a difference it’s unlikely to in my experience (massive sample size of two!). DC1 switched to formula at 7 months, used to guzzle two bottles a night. DC2 I still BF before bed but they self weaned overnight a couple of months ago.

At 6 months its developmentally unusual to sleep through. I'm not sure why your HV said that. I think by 6 or 7 months if they are eating and drinking enough milk in the day then they no longer need to wake up for milk in the night. But that doesn't mean that they don't wake up because they like milk in the night, or because they have got in to the habit and are taking less in the day to compensate, or they wake up for a million other reasons that are nothing to do with milk.

Sleeping through at 6 months would probably look something like bed at 8 - dream feed at 11 - up at 5, maybe? How often is baby waking now?

sleep deprivation is a killer.
Not going to answer your question piece of string/length etc etc) but I am going to ask how you are.
Is anyone letting you get a full night's rest once or twice a week?
Which is really a pointed look at your partner and how much they are pulling their weight. Don't care if they have a ft job they should manage 1 night at the very least.
Are you getting equal amounts of relaxation time as your partner?
Do you have enough dosh for a night nanny if at all possible?
Look after yourself, don't let yourself sink too low with sleep deprivation.

I’d be wary of tales like EssentialHummus. I don’t think it’s that simple. Some babies sleep, others don’t. A friend had a great sleeper with DC1, assumed it’d be the same for DC2. Did all the same things - nope! Didn’t sleep through til much, much later. It’s best to accept you have little control!

With one of mine I could do an 11pm dream feed and then be reasonably sure they'd sleep until 7am from about 6 or 7 months. It was much later with my other one