What age were your children when they slept through the night? (Warning: Long!)

[GiantUnderCrackers]

My dd (now 1) has never slept through the night. She wakes at least twice, I can calm her (she will cry out for me and then it quickly turns to proper crying), put her back down quite quickly drowsy but not necessarily asleep (within 5 mins) and she sleeps again until she wakes at some point. She won't let DH do this though. I am on my knees from lack of sleep. The maximum I get at the moment is 4-5 hours a night. The room is dark, not too hot/cold, she doesn't have night feeds, she eats well in the day and has two naps of up to an hour each morning and afternoon (she has these in her cot in her room quite happily). She seems to just want me when she wakes. I have gone through is she thirsty/hungry/wet/done a poo/teething/poorly etc etc. We have tried controlled crying. She can keep this up all night, and for a number of nights. My DH thinks this ought to work and it doesn't (we have done it to the book). I now find it too distressing - not a big fan anyway but anything to try to get her to be happy and sleep through. Now not doing it though as it didn't seem to work . We have tried soft music as background noise. We have tried staying near her in her room and gradually moving out over the course of a number of nights. Comforting her but not going to her at the first cry. All these things and more for a number of weeks each. Please don't get me wrong, I have not left her to cry without her knowing I am there and getting her distressed. She has a good bedtime routine at the same time each night, with a fun bath time and cuddles and books and playing in her room quite happily. She is in bed easily with no fuss by 7pm. I have been so tired recently that in the early morning she does have a cuddle with me and it is the only way I can get some more rest. She is a happy bunny and a cheeky happy soul during the day!!

It is the night waking which is the killer. Last night was just the worst. She woke every hour and a half and started the day at 4.30am and I got ready for work at 6am. I can't function at my full time job. I am exhausted. I feel like I live in a dream world. I am hyper emotional but try to hide it at work. I need your advice on how to get her happy to sleep through and by that I mean until the early morning - 5am would do! If I can't crack this I am likely to get fired or have an accident or a break down due to lack of sleep! Can you give me any advice please? Is anyone else in the same situation? Help!

Ds did it for the first time (12 hours) when he was 1. Just before I went back to work then swiftly started night wakings again when I went back. I think he missed me and was unsettled amongst other things.

Have you tried sleeping in with her? Then you can comfort quickly. I used to do it with my voice when I was exhausted, just cuddle then tell him it was night time and go back to sleep. It's easier than having to get up etc. plus she gets used to you being there and might relax more.

Ds did have terrible wind trouble though which disturbed his sleep. Any green veg - there'd be bum wind waking him so had to give peppermint tea.

Also 13 months there is a developmental leap anyway.

Has she become worse since you've gone back to work?

A little worse, but there have been times like this when I wasn't working so I couldn't say if it is down to that completely. I do think she misses me and I miss her too. I really would like to just get the sleep sorted as it isn't just me suffering she must be tired too! Argh!

Do consider sleeping in with her for a bit. You could move her to a single bed and sleep in with her then she'll only need a pat to go back to sleep. The other methods havent worked...? We've had to do this with ds as we had a real blip from 13-19/20 months or so. Then he started sleeping through. So we would kip in with him after a certain time eg 10pm. After a while, he slept longer and longer again.

Ds was around 5/6 months. He was always a dream, just dropped feeds by himself and slept. Until we moved house lots, his sister was born, he got night terrors, nightmares, growing pains.....he is 5 now and is up in the night most nights!

Dd er, well...she is 3 and a half and she has slept but she is mostly up in the night thrashing around, she cries, needs cuddles, thrashes a bit....everyone used to say "I just don't understand, she is so happy in the day" and I wanted to hit them . Until she was around 21 months she woke about 10 times a night and could only be bf back to sleep, if dh tried to settle her she screamed. I topped bf because I couldn't cope. I was so sleep deprived my vision kepts going blurred, focussing took concious effort, I kept having to cancel plans because Icouldn't allow myself to drive. She has improved but she can still be dreadful and it is rare for her to sleep through the night.

Sorry.

I can't help, both of mine slept through at 6 weeks. But I used to keep quiet about it when I met up with other parents of babies who didn't. I could see how incredibly hard and relentless the stress was for them.
I did bath, co-sleeping for about four months, they were in my bedroom until they were about two. Lots of music in the house and we didn't tip-toe about either when they were asleep. I'm so sorry that you are living on the thin edge, sleep deprivation is one of the worst things I can think of for long-term damage of your wellbeing.

Aged 5 and at school...you did ask

I have been lucky with sleeping. Ds1 slept through from 11 weeks and ds2 9 weeks.

They both dropped their naps very early and have always been very "full on" so I don't feel too smug.

Have you ever spent the night away from home? What happens then? I have a friend who was in a similar situation and was the only one who could settle her dd. When she went away for the night her dd slept through-her dh said it was like she didn't think it was worth it when her mum wasn't there!
They cosleep which helps, but both mother and daughter sleep through only when Mum is away. She treasures our infrequqnt nights away and her dd is perfectly happy with her Dad.
I'm no help as mine slept through from about 7 mths (well til 5ish!)

My ds2 is a very variable sleeper - he has perhaps once or twice slept until after 6, now 18 months, he regularly wakes at 545 but we are fine with this given the history. It comes in waves with good patches then off again when anything puts him off balance (a holiday, being ill, me going back to work when he was 13 months). We have a few times broken this cycle by dh sleeping on the floor right beside his cot so that he catches him and reassures him the second he wakes and he does not have time to start shouting (I can't do it as he won't settle for me without feed and that was a one way ticket to waking every forty five minutes). Now he understands more, dh picks him up (if needed) tells him "ds2 I am going to put you in your cot" puts him down and waits. For a few cycles, he has not cried at all at this stage, gone back to sleep and within a few nights stopped waking before (early) morning. Might you try your dh going in - might be tough to start with but dh would be there, holding lovingly etc

Dd1 slept through from birth. Dd2 is 2.10 and is horrific currently on melatonin and still doesn't sleep! Doesn't get to sleep til 10pm then is up all night playing!

Do you always pick her up to soothe her? Have you tried just holding her hand, stroking her hair instead? She will still know you are there but there's no picking up and cuddling.

My sympathies are with you though, I cannot function on the day without enough sleep x

DD slept though at 8 weeks, but with DS he was 3 years old before he slept through. Nothing we did made any difference. He never woke at the same time each night either so we couldn't get into a rhythm with him.

Thankfully I am a much heavier sleeper than Dh so he did almost all most of the night stuff with him. Despite this we were both like zombies until he slept through.

DD is a rare breed she slept through at 6 weeks (12 hours) after being born 10 weeks early! So -4 weeks! Since six weeks she has maybe woken for a total of about an hour through the night. (She is 2.5 years now)

I was prepared though as Mum keeps telling me I never slept more than 3 hours at a time until my 2nd birthday.

DD1 never never ever ever slept through.

She's 13 and up at 6/6.30 every morning and I heard her puddling about at after midnight.

I can see that you've tried everything in the book to get your DD to sleep.

How about sharing a bed with her? Does she sleep better in your bed? This has been a lifesaver for me with DS.

If you're really not into this, then at the risk of sending you down another fruitless route.... I reckon your DP needs to take a couple of days off work, and you need to leave the house/ not attend to DD at night at all. Then, he needs to go in to her at each and every waking. She will protest, very loudly, but eventually (and it may take hours and hours) she will go back to sleep. It takes real persistence but eventually she should learn that she's not going to get mummy in the night so she might as well go back to sleep.

At 12 months. Ds was a nightmare sleeper before that and i was losing the will to live. However, he started sleeping through on his own and when he was ready.

from 4 months my DD has managed to sleep through about 80% of the time. Failures are down to illness/teething/night poo! I was suggest a sleep consultant/trainer at this stage. A few friends of mine have used one and they come and stay over, teach you techniques and help you hold your resolve when it comes to sleep training. Drastic perhaps, but when you have a full time job to consider it might be helpful?

My DD is 19 months old, she went through months of night wakings and months of us wondering 'do we pick her up, do we let her cry, do we feed her' all my friends babies slept like a dream while I was on 4.30am wakings.

I don't have a magic answer except to say we do the same bedtime routine every single night, bath, milk, story and bed, and I have a video monitor to watch her - I don't go in to her unless she's standing up as she would sometimes cry without being actually awake and resettle herself.

Many a night I've given a feed or a bottle as a last resort as a full tummy really settles her. I know many would say this is an absolute no but when you're desperate you'll try anything - but then far from starting bad habits, she started to wake less and less.

As sh77 said, she just started sleeping through when she was ready (about 3 months ago) and now easily goes 7pm til 7am consistently.

Ds slept through once aged 5 months and never again until 20 mo. But around 15 mo he was like you describe but eventually we tried a cup of milk in the night.
Result: he'd wake once, maybe twice, but then down the milk and be asleep again in under 10 min. I didn't care that people said he 'ought' to manage without; it made nights bearable.

Worth a try?

DS1 didn't sleep through the night until he started school.

Recently, I put all the pieces of the puzzle together and worked out he had tongue tie, a high palate and sleep apnoea.

Like you, I tried everything and none of it bloody well worked.

DD currently on melatonin, she is 22 months and a diabolical sleeper. Will go down at 7ish, if we are later she takes hours to fall asleep bit is up every 2-3 hours and often after midnight it's every hour. Night weaned at 19months her sleep is quite honestly tearing my world apart, my relationship is suffering, I feel constantly sick and dizzy through lack of sleep, my research post is hanging by a thread because I am just too tired to be able to think.

Definitely try co-sleeping.

DS has slept through on 9 occasions, not more than 2 in a row. He's 2.5 years.

Allergies can often cause persistent sleep problems too.

DD1 was a bugger to put to sleep but seemed to get better once she turned 2 - now at 4.6 she's great, goes down at 7 and sleeps through until 6 no problem.

DD2 is 2 and has never slept through. She seems to have an active phase between midnight and 3am and then she's up for the day at 5am. Co-sleeping hasn't helped as she just thrashes around next to me for a few hours. My coping strategy is to go to bed between 8 and 9 in the knowledge that I should be able to get a good 4 hours unbroken sleep before she wakes up. I also share the nighttime duties with DH or he will get up at 5am with her and let me have a lie-in, particularly on weekends.

I'm curious about the melatonin and whether it does any good.

Sorry - not much help is it?

Forgot to mention, she did get better for a while when I switched her bedtime milk to rice milk. Someone mentioned that the prolonged waking in the middle of the night can be due to tummy upsets - particularly if they're sensitive to cows milk. Maybe I should try that again sometime...