to say that actually some babies do sleep through quite early

[PrivetDancer]

It winds me up when people say that other mums are basically lying if they say their baby slept through from an early age.

You often see on here something like 'Don't believe them - people class sleeping through as 12 - 4' etc etc.

I know sometimes it's because someone is despairing and needs to know they're not doing something wrong. But some babies do sleep through early, is it wrong to give new mums hope that they might get a full night's sleep sometime soon?

I can categorically state that as a one off my DD slept from 9.30pm to 7am at 8 weeks old (I wrote it on my calendar!) - and it was a regular sleeping pattern by about a month after that. Anybody want to call me a liar or say that's not really sleeping through?

For the record - this isn't intended as a boast - I don't think I did anything 'right' for it to happen, we were just very lucky, and I fully expect a nightmare non-sleeper if we have another baby.

eldest who is now 18 slept from 10pm until 6am at 3 weeks was made to wake her up in hospital as they didn't like them sleeping to long, middle one whos 15 has never slept a full night in his life unless seriously ill and youngest slept through from 6 weeks

ds didnt sleep through the night untill he was 10 months old.... i was about 6/7 months pregnant at the time and was worried how i would cope with a new born and a child tht wouldnt sleep....

dd slept from 6 weeks old and has been a pretty good sleeper ever since..... ds still has issues with sleep now and he is nearly 2 1/2

just the way of the world really... i havent done anything different with dd but she is really easy.... goes down for naps and bed well most of the time and wakes up at about 7...... ds on the other hand is a nightmare!

Well, my DD is 3.5 and rarely sleeps through still. I used to put it down to my obvious failings as a mother, but now I realise that each child is an individual and whilst I have had lots of trouble with sleeping and potty training gave me a real headache, she was a dream to wean and a fantastic eater and she doesn't do tantrums. In that vein, I'm sure some babies do sleep through from very early on, but it tends to be luck rather than judgement, much as I didn't have any magic parenting tricks when I weaned, she just eats everything offered to her and always has.

I have this little theory... that if you're smug about your first baby because he/she is a good sleeper, then your second one will be a complete nightmare.

It's what happened to me.

I personally hate people who tell me their dcs are sleeping through, as it's not at all helpful

You're absolutely right - I learnt to keep quiet early on about DS 'sleeping through' from 7.30-7.30 from about 10 weeks with just a feed at 11pm because either a) no-one believed me or b) it made everyone hate me. In fact he frequently went 7.30-8/8/30/9 from fairly early on.

It particularly wound me up when all the threads on sleeping included comments like "well, if you're exclusively bfing then of course you will get less sleep"...and I thought "no, I'm exclusively bfing and ds is sleeping just fine, thanks".

DD came along and did pretty much the same thing - I think it took until about 12 weeks for her to go properly 7.30-7.30 (yes, with the 11pm feed, which we dropped around 5 months), but that was it. I still tried not to tell anyone (and yes, she was also exclusively bf!).

D?3 is due in June. I truly hope it behaves like its siblings but am entirely open to the possibility we've just been damn lucky until now and that this one will be different. Nonetheless, I know it is true that bf babies can properly sleep through from 10/11 weeks and will be hoping for the same result

DS has slept through 7 til 7 roughly from about 5 or 6 months old. He is like his mummy and likes his sleep too much!lol

It is fair to say though that if you get one good sleeper the chances are second time round it won't be like that..will worry next year when the time comes!

I remember when DS was 7 weeks old, exclusively breastfeed and sleeping for 10 hour stretches at night. I asked one of the helpers at the breastfeeding clinic whether that was OK and she said "for god's sake, don't tell anyone else!". She thought the rest of the group would be jealous. She also said to make the most of it as it wouldn't last.

Which it didn't. I never fed him in the night after about 10 weeks but there have been lots of night wakings due to teething/lost dummies/illness and it's only recently (he's just 2) that we can really rely on a full night's sleep.

And I do wonder now whether that advice to let him sleep was a good thing as the breastfeeding went downhill shortly after he started sleeping through...

Fantastic anecdote from my mother: "The night I brought you back from the hospital (3 days old) I put you down in the evening....and woke up in the morning in a panic, thinking you were DEAD because you hadn't stirred all night. Your brother was the same...."

I am now 33 weeks pregnant with my first.

PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE let it be in the genes!

When I hear that a baby has started sleeping through 'early', I always think to myself 'Yes, but wait until they start teething/having colds/being able to call your name/get out of bed...'

Nothing lasts forever!

Well i havnt slept properly in 3 and a half years... Fairplay to ya your very lucky and i wouldnt call you a liar so no yanbu

I was VERY lucky as DS1 was an absolute angel of a child and slept through from 3 months. Also, you would never have noticed he was teething. In fact, my friends called him robo-baby because he was equally amazing during the day and hardly ever cried. He's still v. even tempered. DS2 slept through from @ 10 weeks but was a total nightmare before and quite often screamed for the whole day. He's now teething (13 months) and that's quite painful too, so you never can tell!

yanbu.

Ds only woke once a night for the first nine weeks and then slept through from then.

I certainly didn't offer the info if I wasn't asked, but I hate this idea that you can't mention that you have a baby that sleeps because of all those who have babies who don't. Perhaps it's also insensitive to mention if you have a baby that breastfeeds because it's insensitive to those parents who were unlucky enough not to be able to bf?

DD slept from 10 til 7 at 8 weeks and that became 6.30 til 7 from 4 months. She also slept for about 4 hours a day too.

TheMightyToosh I didn't get up to her through the night from 8 weeks until she was night training at 3.5 years. When she was teething she actually slept longer and slept herself better when she was ill. Since 3.5 I must have been up with her no more than 10 times with bad dreams, toilet trips and sickness.

DS is also a good sleeper but not as good as DD. He slept through at 4 months 6.30 til 8.00. He also has 2-3 hours during the day. He does wake though through the night when he is ill or teething sometimes.

I only told people if they asked and never boasted. However I agree with wannabe. Why should those that don't have babies that sleep through be able to talk about it all the time but I can't join in the discussion and talk about my baby because people might not like it.

I am thinking about going for number 3. I do so hope that it runs in the family but I am kinda thinking that my luck has run out.

DS2 slept through from 4 months without intervention.

Then at 6mo he started teething, then got chicken pox, then bronchiolitis. Now at 7mo he is up (and wants bf) at least twice a night. So it never pays to be too smug!

Dd1- 12-6ish from about week 1 then it just got longer. At nearly 10 (years)she is finally dropping sleep and is now only sleeping about 12 hours a night

Dd2- Not sure that she has slept through once yet at 8 [deranged mother]

I've seen the, 'selective' memory comments on MN more than once and it is annoying. DS slept from 11pm to 6am from 8 days old .
Stupid bloody HV didn't believe I was exclusively BFing! I never fed him in the night.
DD was a shock as she only wanted to feed at night at first, she nearly killed me but she got into the same pattern, late bath at 10:30ish followed by feed then sleep until 6ish from 6 weeks old.
I stopped at that!

it's just that you really can't say it out loud, because the poor sleep-deprived recipient might just strangle you.

dd1 slept through at 6 weeks and was a dream.

dd2 slept through at 4.5 weeks but was a monster from 5 months. only just settling down now.

both bf.

the other day we got a lie in til 9. bloody lucky some days, we are. on others tis a nightmare!

don't be too smug - things have a habit of changing.

Nobody ever believed me, but we actually had the opposite problem with DD!

All she wanted to do was sleep for the first couple of weeks & she lost loads of weight which was reallt worrying for us.

However, once we started waking her for feeds she started putting weight back on. We were then very happy to keep waking her at 11 & 6 until the Gina Ford book told us not to.

She still sleeps more than the average for her age & gets tired at school at age 7!

DD2 has very very poor sleeping habits. In terms of my life. In her life, her sleeping habits are great. She secures herself plenty of human contact and regular feeds.

I have lots of people tell me they were very lucky with their babies, which I took to mean they felt sympathy for me and were glad their baby slept. Which felt nice. I have never doubted them.

I've had a couple who have said 'oh mine were amazing and slept through and were just perect from 6 weeks' and then I have felt awful, like I was shit. I have also thought there was an element of the lady doth protest too much, but that was probably a safety mechanism to keep me from sobbing in the street.

A bit like me saying 'I'm on a diet' and them saying 'Oh I've never had a problem with my arse'

I also know of 1 who has lied right out. About sleep patterns, feeding and weaning. Perhaps she has something like PND though so I don't judge her and it' snone of my business anyway.

Ds2 slept 12 hours 2-3 times a week until he was 6 weeks old and it then became a regular thing.
Can't think that I did anything that different to ds1 who didn't sleep through 'til he was 11 months or dd who at 7 months still has me up twice a night on average.

Ds1 slept from 7pm to 7am from 6 weeks old. He also slept for four hours in two two hour naps. He did this until he was one, when he dropped a nap and tacked an hour on in the morning instead. He did not like, need or want human interaction in the middle of the night.

He once slept until lunchtime, he regularly slept in until 10, and he had a 2 hour nap every afternoon until he was 3.

on the minus side... oh who would I be kidding? there was no minus side. It was fucking fantastic. And it is true.

Yes some babies do, but most don't, and even more don't 'consistently' so the only conclusion you can give for 98% of people saying that theirs does, is that they are stretching the truth.

Hardly surprising when current culture seems to judge a parent by how much control they can demonstrate that they have over their children and all problems reporting in the media are down to mothers who don't.

I must add that ds2 didn't sleep through until he was 1, nd didn't sleep past 5 am until he was nearly 2. And I honestly think the early start was worse than a night feed - it nearly drove me insane.

i didn't do anything different, and I don't think he was unusual.