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 DN is 3 months and sleeps 11 to 6, mine were all great sleepers, I think Mnet is full of gloom and doom about non-sleeping babies. I'd never heard of the 4 month sleep regression until I came on here.

Thanks for everyone's replies. Shows to me that it does happen... eventually
Heres the thing my dd goes into bed every evening between 6.30-7pm with NO problem whatsoever. No rocking, or feeding or having to hold hand etc
She nicely goes in awake and I go out. Hey presto dont hear a peep out of her until hours later (maximum has been 4 hours, minimum 2) so shows to me she can go to sleep herself?
She is bottle/formula fed. She was breast fed for the first 2 months exclusively and wasnt putting on weight (the same thing happened to my other two children with never any explanation or further investigation)
So I just dont know...I paid £50 for the justchill mama sleep course. I follow all the steps, shes had a bedtime routine since 3 months and still doesn't so I guess shes just a standard baby like everyone keeps saying

Someone told me the first year is a write off when it comes to sleep and they were absolutely right! I’d say even first 18 months ...however things usually get better by about 8- 10 months onwards if u can do a dream feed

My son slept through the night from 6 weeks sorry. I would wake up with a start and go and check him because I was scared he had died in the night but he's 40 now and happy and healthy. Its just the luck of the draw.

Can someone explain the Gina Ford sleep thing to me? Ive bought the Justchill mama 6-9 sleep course and tbh it was a bit rubbish. Id already been doing the whole nighttime routine since 3 months

@Peppery123 but do you feed her when she wakes? Is she hungry? The fact she’s settling herself is brilliant...!

I always counted sleeping through as 7-6am or whatever. Pretty sure health visitors say 5 hours. Errrr no.

Mine slept through 7-6am from 10 weeks and I thought I NAILED it then she literally broke from 4 to 10 months.

The HV is talking crap.

@user1493494961

That is a great point! I always think I'm being told off on here when in reality I' m just a very struggling, sleep deprived mum with a teen, toddler and newborn going back to work in June in a very high stress job. so just reaching out for any hope as I for one does not function well on 4-5 hours sleep

@Jangle33
Yes the only way she will go back to sleep is feeding her but it confuses me as she is waking up every 3 hours at times..however, never takes that much milk in the day. Actually, in the daytime I have to force a bottle on her as she doesnt cry for milk? And only feeds lay down. Refuses milk if sat up? I jjst dont get it..im worried she has associated night times with feeds.

God mine didn’t reliably sleep through the night until about 3.5 and then they were still up at 6am. At 6 months it was still pretty awful, particularly dc1. I do feel for you, it’s dreadful when you’re in it, but IME most babies are definitely not sleeping 7-7 at 6 months old, please don’t think they are.

Sounds like you are feeding her back to sleep at night and want to try night weaning? And that it's a bottle? Try diluting it a tiny bit more every night until it's just water, then reduce the amount of water in the bottle every night.

That said, I don't think her waking at 6m for milk is unreasonable at all. And don't worry about the brigade who always pop up to tell you their DC was like this and didn't sleep through til they left home! It's so unhelpful, I don't know why they do that! Both of mine woke frequently at 6m but slept PROPERLY through the night most nights around 9-10m and reliably by one.

I really want to recommend Precious Little Sleep again. She has a blog you can check out but the book is well worth the money for being well organised and easy to understand. Lots of options for lots of problems, based on reality.

6 months old! No most of them aren't sleeping through at that stage. Also depends what is meant by sleeping through, to me it means sleeping about 12 hrs without waking.

My first was a little sleep angel that slept 12-14hrs a night from 6/7 weeks. She sometimes woke up for her dummy but straight bk to sleep. Aw she was sooo easy!

My second is 16 months and she had me up for 3hrs in the night last night, think more teeth coming in. She's never been a great sleeper but def not the worst. She started sleeping through to 6/7am at 4 months old but still had a few nights a week where she wldnt. It actually got worse when we started weaning her at 6/7 months and she settled down a bit again at 8/9 months when she probably started eating a decent amount of food.

She has not slept through regularly even now at 16 months. I'd say maybe once a week she sleeps through, once a week she has a really bad night and up for a few hours at worst. The other nights she's up usually once or twice and I have to bring her into bed and cuddle her back to sleep then put her back in her cot once she's settled a bit. She goes to bed about 7.30 and wakes between 7.30 and 8.30, so cld def be worse but I also wish she was like my first!

Sometimes it gets better, sometimes it doesn't.

Here's my anecdote: When DS1 was about 6 months, I had a community commitment to complete and had to get a babysitter for the afternoon. Turns out, her day job was a nanny. She was amazing (I still ask her to babysit from time to time!). She took DS1 who was around 6 or 7 months out to the park. I'm sure I was meant to be preparing food or something but I felt so comfortable that he was in good care, I took a 30 minute nap. Such a deep restful sleep! I still think about that nap. I hope you find someone who can help relieve you in this way at some point!

All the best

Honestly, I don’t think you are being unreasonable. I think we have been conditioned to think that broken nights are reasonable/expected until children are toddlers!

Lack of sleep/broken sleep for months/years is soul destroying. I found it so, so awful and I had no help from anyone. It nearly broke me.

When she was about 4 months I put her on a very strict routine, and by 6 months she was mostly sleeping 7-7. Was mega strict with naps and feeds and it was hard work, but having sleep was life changing.

With my second I did a routine much earlier. Obviously small babies need to wake and feed, but by 6 months I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope/try to get them to sleep through.

Sometimes you just don't get a 'sleeper' - mine was 4 years old before she was regularly not waking up and waking me up because she couldn't get back to sleep.

She made up for it in other ways - great eater, incredibly flexible with new situations, no separation anxiety etc.

Children are all so different.

My eldest, she slept through from about 12 weeks, and even now loves a lie in.

Youngest would wake up for milk bang on 2am, then just before his second birthday started sleeping through just like that.

My DD slept through for the first time at 15 months. I spent ages worrying about it and researching it. She still wakes once a night normally age 3.5! I now have a 5 month old and I'm so much more relaxed about it - I know the time will come. I don't think I get any more sleep this time round but I feel a lot less exhausted, I guess because I know that things will change. It felt like an eternity with my first daughter
Try not to stress yourself out too much. I think 6 months is too soon to have an expectation of sleeping through. If you are breastfeeding you can try gradually and gently night weaning, as that helps them sleep longer, but perhaps wait a few months, I think it worked for me at around 9/10 months after a few previously failed attempts.

I personally hate the name Gina Ford. There are groups on fb of people going round charity shops finding her books so they can throw them in the bin so parents don’t buy them! I would recommend Sarah ockwell smith the gentle sleep book instead. I was a Gina Ford baby and I’ve had massive attachment problems since I was young. Don’t know if it’s related or not but who knows.

There are groups on fb of people going round charity shops finding her books so they can throw them in the bin so parents don’t buy them!

What a strange thing to do.

@TheKeatingFive

There are groups on fb of people going round charity shops finding her books so they can throw them in the bin so parents don’t buy them!

What a strange thing to do.

There seems to be a lot of people that find her barbaric and inhuman, on top of this she never had any children herself!

There seems to be a lot of people that find her barbaric and inhuman, on top of this she never had any children herself!

Not agreeing with her methods is not justification for trying to ‘cancel’ her.

And the second point definitely isn’t.

@TheLette

My DD slept through for the first time at 15 months. I spent ages worrying about it and researching it. She still wakes once a night normally age 3.5! I now have a 5 month old and I'm so much more relaxed about it - I know the time will come. I don't think I get any more sleep this time round but I feel a lot less exhausted, I guess because I know that things will change. It felt like an eternity with my first daughter Try not to stress yourself out too much. I think 6 months is too soon to have an expectation of sleeping through. If you are breastfeeding you can try gradually and gently night weaning, as that helps them sleep longer, but perhaps wait a few months, I think it worked for me at around 9/10 months after a few previously failed attempts.

Just want to back this up - I have a baby over the age of 1 who has never slept a night through, ever. Until he was about 4-5 months old, I stressed so badly about it, then I just accepted it for what it is. Now I have no expectation, I know I will be up in the night and I just get on with it. Life got easier and kinder on my mental health when I just learned to roll with it rather than try and solve it or fight against it.

Most babies don’t sleep through before 1. It’s all completely normal. Look at the gentle sleep book, it’s research based, talks about human norms, sleep cycles etc so helps to understand why babies don’t sleep through but also gives advice on promoting it (you can’t make a baby who is not developmentally ready sleep through).
It’s really hard work with the sleep deprivation, some babies and children sleep better than others. My 1st always slept 6 hours from 3 weeks old but at 9 years old he still wakes every night and comes into my bed, my 2nd was awake hourly until 16months and had slept through pretty much since then.

The gentle sleep book will help you understand the development of a babies Brain rather than trying to ‘fix a problem’ that isn’t actually a problem.

I dont think most adults "sleep through" so I feel like its unfair to expect a baby to sleep through. As adults we wake to change position, go the toilet, have a drink and its only because developmentally we have the ability to go back to sleep. Sometimes we dont, we lie awake for hours tossing and turning. A baby can do the same but they don't understand they need to be quiet and respectful while other people sleep 😂

Babies go through so many changes and leaps in such a short space of time its no wonder their minds cant switch off.
Ignore your health visitor shes talking rubbish.