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?

My youngest Ds who is 6, still doesn’t sleep through the night in his own bed. He wakes up and always runs into my bed in the middle of the night!

@FlashesOfRage - LOVE Sarah!!

The data suggests 80% of infants are not waking at night by 6 months.

Over 90% by 17m.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3274336/#!po=44.1176

My baby started sleeping better at around 6/7 months but still woke overnight sometimes when I went back to work when she was 10months old. It was so much easier to deal with as she only woke for milk or comfort & was back asleep within 15mins! So although people are saying they dont sleep through it's not the same is them being awake, crying, needing fed, changed, ushered back to sleep. It's a quick wake up - sort whatever they need & back to sleep (in my experience anyway) and by that age she was going down to bed at 7pm & up at 6am so it felt like she slept loads as I could get everything done at night and relax, therefore if she did wake overnight, it wasn't a huge issue as I knew she would go back to sleep. I think it's the not knowing how long they'll be awake for, when they might sleep next etc that drains you. Also, may be controversial on here but I didn't lift her out of bed to comfort her at night once I was back at work, not sure if that's counted as 'sleep training' but she would settle down with a quick pat and knowing I was there. (I also lived alone so i think that helped, everything on my own terms and no partner getting in the way or being woken etc)

OP, she’s still tiny. This is really helpful, including on the origin of “sleeping through” ( based on some London babies in the 1950s, 70% of whom slept midnight to 5am, or at least weren’t heard crying by parents - that’s hardly sleeping through!). She’ll get there.

www.bbc.com/future/article/20210222-the-unusual-ways-western-parents-raise-children

I'm 32 and still struggle to sleep through the night

I genuinely don't remember the last time I wasn't awake for an hour or so around 2-3am.

Babyyoda that article states that half of parents of children between 18 and 42 months report night waking at least once a night.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 24 weeks???

My DD is 5 and only just starting sleeping through the night more often than not last week

DC1 slept through 7-7ish from around 7months. I thought it coincided with going to a 2 nap routine, but who knows?!

DC2 was about 2.5. As far as I could tell we did nothing different. I think once her final molars came in then she didn’t wake up

Honestly? I think from 6m, I would expect a baby to only really wake for a feed once or sometimes twice between 10pm & 6am and for them to settle quite fast after a feed. Like I would expect to get a couple of 3-4 hour chunks of sleep myself.

By 8-9m I would expect only one feed, and by 10m I would expect them to sleep a long stretch without waking.

But that's based on having really put in the groundwork over the months. Gradually wound down from feeding to sleep via rocking or patting until they were being put down awake & calm most bedtimes. You have to start gradually and it takes months.

Oh and DS was sleeping 7-7 by 6m. DD took longer, more like 10m. But by and 7-8m definitely only 1 night feed. Both breastfed.

I thought I was going to die of sleep deprivation between month 4 and 6 I decided at 6 month to gently sleep train it was 3 hardddd nights but ever since she sleeps 8-7.30 just wish I had done it sooner
Yes they can sleep through at that age Burt it takes a little bit of hard work x

I think when they are 6 months and you are through the 4 month sleep regression you can generally expect a decent block of sleep e.g. 5 or 6 hours but if you think sleeping through means 6pm to 6am you will be disappointed.

*The data suggests 80% of infants are not waking at night by 6 months.

Over 90% by 17m.*

Something is a bit awry with their data I think. At least, I'm not buying it. The 'no wake ups' at 6m is not reached again until a child is 69m - thats nearly 6 years old. I can't honestly believe the same proportion of nearly 6 year olds wake at night as 6m olds, but that at 18m, there is suddenly a steep drop in sleep, which remains for years. Do twice as many 18m olds really wake at least once a night compared with 6m olds?

The data is also nearly 30 years old, so from a time when more people sleep trained, and less availability perhaps of baby monitors.

It also contradicts other studies done in babies sleep, which show a more pesimistic view.

For anyone that hasn't checked out the link, this was their findings on night wakings.

It is an old study but what most of the sleep research is based on . It was published in 2010. I think the children were born in 1995 ?

Mine started sleeping through at about 3 months honestly. I thought I'd won the lottery. Also because I had/ have postnatal anxiety I worried myself sick that she was doing it because there was something wrong with her.

It didn't last but we had a good run! These days (8 months) she will only sleep if in physical contact with me, were back to co sleeping and most nights she'll do a decent stretch say 7.30 till 1ish then she wakes on and off from then really, how often can vary.

@qualitygirl

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

100% agree with this. With my first I bought all the books, was trying to get in to sleep through and he just wouldn't. I struggled until I thought, balls to this, and went with it. My third was an angel baby, sleeping through from 6 weeks, the past few months she's been up, playing, dancing in her cot at 2am, babbling, we just go with it! This too shall pass! But I agree....it's hard when you're running on no sleep!

My first was 9 months old before he slept through the night, the other two were earlier. They'll do it at their own time , one day you'll wake up and panic because you haven't women up and they'll be fast asleep when you check😄.

Don't HV classify "sleeping through" is midnight to 5am or some such nonsense?? But FWIW OP my 3 yo does not even do that. Sorry for you. It's hard.

I hate autocorrect, it should have said been woken up not women up

Ds1 slept through the first night he ate some food. Two weeks before he turned 6months

Ds2 he slept through the night for dh and dm when he was two years old. It took him further months with him knowing I was home to sleep through the night.

Ds3 has so far had one night where he slept through it. He turns one at the end of the month. He has however, had almost fully slept through few times where he only woke up for a quick feed before going back to sleep.

Let babies be babies, for goodness sake.

My dd didn't sleep through the night till she was 2!

She was breastfed and it was a nightmare. I was an absolute croc for two years!

The big question is are you breast feeding or bottle feeding? Most of my friends who have breastfed have struggled to get their babies to sleep through and for us, it only happened once we weaned off night feeds at 13 months as it just wasn’t happening naturally. At six months he was still waking every two hours expecting milk! Those that bottle fed had greater success.