To be a little upset hearing all the other Mums say their baby sleeps through the night?

[Newmumtobabyno1]

As the title reads really... my 19 week old has always woken twice a night unless teething/jabs/ill. We had a little routine going of bed at 8.30-9, wake between 1-2, wake between 4-5, up around 7.30. I THOUGHT this was pretty good. When we got to 15 weeks this all went to pot as 4 month sleep regression/teething/mental leap and growth spurt kicked in. Since then he's had good nights of 2-3 feeds and bad nights (last night) of around 7-8 feeds. All I hear at baby groups are how EBF babies are sleeping through the night and that Mums are so tired if the baby has woken once. Once Mum was saying that her baby was going through his 4 month sleep regression as he was waking once for a feed at night sometimes twice.... Am I being silly for letting this get to me? Her sleep regression is better than my normal!!! But I thought our normal of twice a night was ok... I fully expected to be up multiple times a night with a young baby. Now i'm a bit worried that what we are doing isn't 'normal' and that i've missed something or am doing something wrong?

It's normal to feel envious and also worried that you're doing something wrong when you hear about other people's babies sleeping better, hitting milestones earlier etc. Your baby's sleep is normal, there's a huge range of normal. It took a while but I learned to just accept my DD for how she is (challenging!!) and not compare.

If it makes you feel any better my 23 week old baby's sleep (which I've worked on to get this 'good' involves waking every 1-2 hours most nights for a rolled over five minute feed and then both going immediately back to sleep. If she only woke twice I'd worry. I'm accepting it as just the way it is and trying to let other people's sleep chat wash over me. I know it can be frustrating though if comparing is hard to resist!

Oh dear, it sounds like the opposite to mine - she was/is a brilliant sleeper but all anyone ever did at baby groups was moan about how bad their nights had been so I never dared mention how mine slept! It honestly does sound like yours is the more usual situation.

What helped with mine was being immensely boring anytime she woke up in the night - so I fed her but didn't interact (not difficult, I'm a right grump in the middle of the night anyway!) And also making sure she was actually hungry when she woke up before feeding her, rather than assuming she'd woken up to feed. Sometimes she just needed patting or reassurance rather than actually being hungry. So look out for the hungry cues.

Good luck! It does get better.

OMG if I heard that one more time when I had my wee one. He only started sleeping through the night - AKA we only started also sleeping through the night - soon after he turned 1. he only wakes now if he has a bad dream or is too warm etc but honestly so many people said to me - o he / she has been sleeping from 6 weeks. Recently when talking to a new mum and trying to pass on some empathy saying 'I know its hard work' she replied (also looking serene and like she stepped out off St Tropez) ' you know its not as hard as I had thought it was going to be.' I almost struck her.
But you work away, keep going, it wont last forever and you will come out the other side believe me. just hang in there.

My older DD never slept longer than 2 hours at a time until she was 2.5, and she never napped longer than 10 minutes either. She had awful reflux. If I'd known then that'd it would be 2.5 years before she slept through, I think I would've given up! As it is, you just hope tomorrow night will be better!

It's nice to know I'm not alone completely acknowledge that my situation is better than some.
Spoke to a Mum at a baby class yesterday who switched to formula for this exact reason (I have been so tempted in the last few weeks) and she said it made no difference whatsoever.
Can I ask do you always feed when they wake? I usually do as it usually means he feeds for under 5 minutes and goes back to sleep. But the last two nights he's stopped going back to sleep after and just cries when I put him down. I downloaded an app where i can record his feedings. It's definitely shown me that he likes to graze. Feedings are never more than 6 minutes day or night. More depressingly it also shown me how much he feeds... 11 times last night

I do the same as you and my rationale is if I get in quick I can be asleep again in 5 mins time. If I don't I'm up for up to 2 hrs per feed. I'd change tack though if it stopped working as aware it could be habit forming and frequent long feeds appeal much less!

I'm convinced that people exaggerate about this as part of a competitive parenting thing.

My DD is 24 weeks and i was the exact same schefule as you prior to sleep regression.

Also, babies can be very efficient feeders so 6 minutes could be a fairly hefty feed (for comparison neither of mine ever fed for more than 10 minutes total day or night and went 4+ hours between feeds). Equally could it be teeth or something of that sort? In which case they feed for comfort and Bongela or equivalent may help?

Much sympathy though...took until nearly 2 for DS1 to sleep through and at 15 months DS2 still wakes twice most nights. It's exhausting (have had some very funny conversations with other mother's who were too polite to tell me I was clearly doing it all wrong when DS1 didn't sleep and have subsequently had their own sleep refuser after their DC1 slept beautifully so don't blame yourself!).

I would have been jealous of your baby! I remember mine waking every 20 minutes at 6-7 months old... Babies vary so much. Try not to compare yours with others. You haven't done anything wrong. Good luck

My son didn't sleep through an entire night until he was 3 years old! I think I did actually go slightly insane. He just doesn't need as much sleep as others. On the up side he has never been grumpy through being tired (cos he's never tired!) All kids are different. Just get your own naps in whenever and wherever you can x

Fatjilly, my son is like yours. He did not more than 10 hours a day in total from very young. He is now 10 and still like this. But he is never tired from lack of sleep nor even been jet lagged. It is an asset as an adult when he ends up with a child like himself

It's very little to do with the parent, and much more to do with the child.
I have 3dc and all of them had bedtime routines pretty much the same.

Dd1 slept through the night, 12 hours every night from 8 weeks. She never had a shorter stretch than 6 hours from birth.

Dd2 would wake 3-4 times a night until she was about 18 months when she started waking for the day at 2am. GP had mercy on me and gave her medised (no longer registered for children) which was wonderful. I gave her 2.5ml and she slept 12 hours. I did that for two days and after that she slept much better even without it, although not as well as dd1, she would only wake once at most generally. If she had a few days when she seemed to be getting worse again then I gave her a dose the next night, and that seemed to sure it.

Ds had slept through for 2 nights just before his 8 week jabs. He reacted badly to them and it put him right back. He had just started sleeping through again at 11/12 weeks when he had his first ear infection which again stopped him sleeping. From then until he had grommets he slept about 1-2 nights in 10: the other nights he either had ear ache or tummy ache from antibiotics. When he had grommets in at 20 months he finally slept consistently.

I have to say that medised did not even touch the sides for my 2 non-sleepers

Some babies do sleep really well (not mine HA HA HA - bitter laugh) and some people exaggerate this stuff to be competitive. In fact, they will exaggerate all sorts of things about their baby/child to make them feel better. Also, some people have a week of good nights with their baby and start telling everyone what an amazing sleeper they are then they regress and the mum feels she can't backtrack and admit that the baby no longer sleeps well. This happens wth eating too - the amount of people who go on about how their baby will eat everything (while yours eats literally nothing except floor crumbs) is huge...but they suddenlygo very quiet on the subject when the baby becomes a fussy toddler who will only eat fish fungers that have been gathered by moonlight from the back of a unicorn.

Take everything with a pinch of salt and focus on your our own baby. Have you tried cranial osteopathy? I helped my non sleeper (no miracles but I was up twice a night rather than every hour after one session so might be worth ago especially if you had a forceps, ventiuse or crasarian birth)

Apologies for typos - half asleep

That's interesting about the cranial osteopathy! His birth all went a bit wrong at the last minute and they had to pull him out quickly with ventouse. Turned out cord was twice round his neck. Maybe I will speak to one locally and see if they think it would do some good. Thanks

Definitely contact one and have a chat. If the baby doesn't come down the birth canal in the normal way, or their head is compressed by instruments on the way out it misaligned the tiny bones in the skull and manipulating them back into place can ease issues with sleeping, eating etc. Basically your baby might have a headache or a horrible feeling of pressure when put on their back because of this that can be eased.