To expect my baby to continue sleeping well at night?

[aureliacecilia]

I had DC#2 seven weeks ago. For the past week she has gone to sleep by 11, woken around 4:30 for milk, and then gone back to sleep until the morning. Last night she went to sleep at 11 and didn't wake until 5:45 this morning. She's sleeping now but obviously I'm not. I can't believe she actually sleeps in long chunks. I am not exaggerating at all when I say DC#1 did not sleep like this until he was 3.5. We waited until he was nearly 4 before trying for another baby as the lack of sleep, broken sleep, disturbed sleep broke me. This time around I seem to have a wonderful unicorn of a baby who sleeps well at night and will also happily drift off back to sleep if I put her in her crib awake. I read so many articles when DC#1 was a baby about putting him in his crib drowsy but awake and I laughed at all of them because I didn't believe there were babies who were capable of going to sleep like that. But here I am, seven weeks in, and my baby seems to do it. It's just a phase, isn't it? Is it too early for her to be sleeping like this? She's EBF and gaining weight well - she's just shy of the 91st centile.

I guess I'm wondering whether anyone had a baby who slept well at this stage and if so how soon it soured and you were up all night trying to console him or her.

Am I being unreasonable to expect the good sleep to continue? I know about the four month sleep regression, etc. If you had a good sleeper, did it last?

(I just want to add that my dad died the day before DC#2 was born, just four weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. It's been a tough few months and having experienced what I now recognise as undiagnosed PND after DC#1 I've found having good sleep restorative and good for my mental wellbeing. I'm coping so well at the moment and enjoying second time motherhood a lot but I'm quite afraid of things changing and my mood plummeting.)

My 1st slept straight through from about 5 weeks, but from about 3 she got that she would fight going to sleep and night and now at 6 we have a really hard time getting her to go to sleep, to the point that school have said to me she needs an early night tonight and I'm like we put her to bed at 7pm but is still awake at 10pm what can I do short of hitting her over the head with a mallet. With my second he was more like your second, would wake up once in the night for food and then go back to sleep, now at 3 he settles himself almost straight away at night and sleeps to morning.

I’m so sorry about your dad.
I had a very similar experience, my eldest didn’t sleep at all until she was two, I was prepared for the worst with dd2... who slept just like yours. It was a dream! It didn’t last forever, she was a bit of a nightmare around two actually, but it gave me a real chance to recover from birth which I didn’t have the first time.

All kids are different! Mine slept through from 8 weeks to 4 months. Then went back to waking for a few feeds overnight until 10 months when I stopped co sleeping and she went into her own room, within a week she was sleeping through. On the other hand my 10 year old SD wakes us up around a third of the nights we have her. And my nearly 3 year old nephew has barely given his parents a single full nights sleep.

My Mum had three babies who all continued to sleep through from an early age. She actually thought I was a difficult baby because I didn’t start sleeping through until 8 weeks! And then continued to do so. My younger brothers both slept through continuously from even younger.

Christ, I could've written that post, down to losing your dad - mine was diagnosed the week DD2 was born and died six months later. I'm sorry for your loss.

My brilliant sleeper has had a few hiccups along the way and now at nearly 10 months is a worse sleeper than DD1 was at this age - DD1 was truly awful at sleep for the first seven months and then improved rapidly. I have faih DD2 will get there though, and even when she's awake it's for a party rather than the crying DD1 would've done.

All parenting has taught me is that I am not in charge in any way shape or form!

I have a unicorn baby, slept 12 hours through the night from 10 weeks. No 4 month sleep regression here and has cut 2 teeth without me noticing until she bit me! She naps well in the day too, fast asleep in her cot 30 seconds after I put her down. She's 5 months now and I'm praying it continues as I also really like my sleep 😂 some babies just like sleep I guess and aren't in any discomfort so just don't cry? My first was great too, though not as easy as this one so I don't actually know what I'd do if I had a baby that doesn't sleep!

It's absolutely fabulous and I'm very careful not to tell people too much in real life as it tends to make them angry, especially those that have a baby too 🙈

We had this- an amazing sleeper. We were so contented. Then 8 months hit and it was like someone had swapped our baby for a different one. Awaking every 30 minutes.... 6 weeks later and it's still happening....

Sorry my post sounded really negative OP! What I meant to summarise with was... enjoy every minute of this while you have it in case it changes!

Sorry to hear about your dad.

My DS is 6-months old and he has slept from around 11pm until 8am since he was 2-weeks old and we stopped having to wake him up for a night feed (otherwise I think he would have done it from the beginning).

He didn't go through a 4-month sleep regression, although he can find and put his dummy in himself so he might wake up during the night and put himself back to sleep and I wouldn't necessarily notice.

I know I am extremely lucky, but it obviously does happen this way sometimes.