Looking for solidarity from parents of low sleep needs children

[Mielbee]

My 2.5yo DD sleeps 9.5hrs per 24 hours (10.30-7.30 + 30 min nap). This makes her low sleep needs and she has always been like this - as I was as a baby and child.

We have tried everything to move her sleep earlier and get her more sleep but if we get one earlier bedtime she will be up until 11.30pm at least for the next 3 nights. She then actually gets less sleep overall and we have extremely frustrating bedtimes and less sleep ourselves. It has been much better since we worked out what her sleep needs are and stick to them. We tried dropping the nap totally but she wasn't ready and was miserable at nursery all afternoon.

Everyone has their own challenges but sometimes I have to admit I feel quite jealous of parents of children with higher sleep needs. Some literally have 4 hours more child-free time every day than us!

I would just really like to hear from other parents of low sleep needs children to know we are not alone! For those further ahead, do you ever get an evening again? Any tips on how you make the best of the situation?

Please no advice or comments unless you genuinely have a low sleep needs child yourself. Pic attached for reference (anything lower than the bright orange range).

I read that and thought, "wow! That's a lot of sleep!"
My DS slept from about 11-midnight to 6-7 am at that age.
Now aged 12, about 10 pm to 5.30 am.

Apparently, I was worse and my mum had hallucinations from sleep deprivation by the time I was 3! Now I need lots of sleep, though.

I don't know what might help, but hopefully there are ways!

my niece is exactly like this and it's relentless but can stay up until all hours when there is something special on always the last one standing!!!
at 6 and a half she will colour draw etc in a room for a while in the mornings.
She has never right from a baby needed much sleep she can easily stay up until 10 and beyond wake up at half five six sometimes wakes in the night as well do a full school day including pe running club gymnastics after school and still not show signs of tiredness!!
She is however very bright not sure if this is to do with it. When she isn't at school and herbrain is not as active hetsleeping is even worse than above!!!

Yes it's tough, and he also is very intense when awake. Having a 2nd child with more normal/average sleep needs had been a revelation! I wouldn't change my first for the world but goodness it was tough! Such a different experience now with a baby that sleeps!

My 3.5yo DD is on the lower side of average and I suspect we're trying for too much sleep but DH won't countenance her going to bed any later. She currently goes up to bed at 8 to be asleep by half past then wakes for the day at around 7, in theory this sounds great but she comes into our bed by 2 latest and at that point she's often awake for up to 2 hours meaning she's actually only sleeping for 9 hours. We also have a 6mo who is much better but feeding multiple times in the night so I'm broken at the moment.

Both mine are fairly low sleep needs (probably not as low as yours). Just turned 3 year old sleeps much better overnight now he doesn’t nap (stopped around 2.5). The 15 month old slept much better after dropping to one nap around 10 months old. He now only has 1-1.5 hours. I’d say try dropping the nap, keep bedtime around the same and see what happens. They now sleep around 11 hours overnight.

I've never heard the term low sleep needs child, but I have two of them! My eldest is now ten and we haven't had evenings to ourselves since he was born. Neither of them napped much after the first year, and in the first year they had to be rocked and held to nap so no child free time then. As he's gotten older we can now get him into his room for 9pm and he'll read or listen to audio books until he gets tired which lets us watch some grown up TV. Our little one goes to sleep a bit earlier than 9pm, but is up long before the crack of dawn. I think they take after my husband who gets by on quite little sleep, whereas I really need at least 8 hours a night or I become an absolute wreck after a couple of nights. Once we worked that out and starting prioritising my sleep things became much easier.

My eldest slept very little for age, was a bit of a nightmare to be honest because she was active too. (Her sister was the complete opposite, bliss). Every sympathy to those currently struggling

By the way, I'm the same, 5 hours is a long night

I really sympathise op. It’s tough when it feels like everyone else’s child goes to bed like clockwork at 7pm and you start to feel like you’re doing something wrong! I’m not sure if I’d class my dd as low sleep needs, or just a night owl, but she won’t sleep before 8.30pm if I’m lucky and often it can be 9.30/10pm -7/30am with at least one wake up. I’d take this over a super early riser though. Just means evenings are not long enough and I definitely sacrifice sleep for binging Netflix, just because I don’t get much to myself otherwise.

That's really reassuring that it gets easier as they get older, thank you.

You're so right that everyone has different struggles and there are some that I feel very grateful not to have. I do think DD is bright too. Before about 18 months I didn't think she was but since then I think it's really shine through.

Mine are both on the lower end, oldest dropped nap before 2 and youngest at just turned 2 is still hanging on to half an hour on nursery days (but then never in bed before 8.30). It’s tiring. My top tip is getting them into solo quiet time ASAP, oldest lies in bed listening to yoto player after we leave her now so we get a good stretch of time while she’s happy to drift off alone.

Oh no, not two that aren't in sync! That is brutal.

Interesting that your DD2 started off as high sleep needs! I wonder how common that is?

Thank you for giving me hope!

Glad to have helped you feel less alone too! So hard when you are surrounded by people who don't get it. I can totally relate to just wanting half an hour of TV in an evening!

Thank you for the solidarity! I have heard that about gifted children too so that is some consolation.

I look at photos of myself from when they were little and I look so exhausted! Do you have a partner that you can tag team with?

I never knew this lack of sleep was associated with being bright, but my nearly teen has always been working above her age, and my niece who is the same for sleeping is extremely bright too 🤔

Eeek that's an early wake up! So interesting that your older DD sleeps so much more and so hard when you look around at all the other babies sleeping so much more...

Oh wow that sounds so tough! Super super low sleep needs. I do suspect ADHD in myself and DD - I know sleep issues are common with ND and there's lots in our families.

I can see that! As a PP said, you have to choose between sleep and chill time - you can't have both...

Sympathy and solidarity OP - it is exhausting. DS1 had never read the books about how much sleep a baby / toddler of his age was supposed to have, so he ignored them. He dropped his second nap of the day aged 6 months, and went entirely nap-free aged about 15 months, and still (nap-free) only slept about 9 hours (waking 1-2 times during that 9 hours, too). He was absolutely fine with this. I really, really needed him to nap. DS1 wasn't an early riser, but he just didn't want to go to sleep or bed, and wasn't tired because of it.

It does get easier, as they get older they can (for example) read for a while in bed in the evening, or have other calm, more alone time. And now he's 19 and at uni, although he still doesn't need as much sleep as most people, it's a him problem.

DS2 did have more normal sleep needs, but also did the early rising thing, which was the one blessing of DS1's sleep patterns. So we did / do get evenings, but also get the early morning bouncing out of bed, full of the joy of living.....

I never realised it was a thing that had a name attached. It will occasionally catch up with him and he will fall asleep wherever he is. (Like now)

At some point they reach an age that the bouncing around till 11pm becomes more socially acceptable, and I viewed it that he may fall asleep late but at least he then sleeps all night. It was the younger one that finished me off as she was a poor sleeper all round.

He is 17 now and was diagnosed with autism at age 5.

Solidarity! My mum always says I didn't sleep through til I was 5 either. Hopefully your little one will sync up his wake time more with your older one in time...

Partly, I think, they have more time to do / learn things! DS1 is in his first year at university, reading history. He's also doing extra conversation French at uni, and learning an entirely new language (Mandarin) for the lolz in his "spare" time. And doing martial arts, debating and archery. He still only sleeps about 6 hours a day, quite happily, so he packs his waking hours.

That's a good tip and a good point about quiet time by themselves. I don't think she's ready yet but that's definitely something to work towards. I learnt to read quickly so that was how my mum got by but a yoto player effectively gets you there earlier.