Sleeping through??

[Sammyg81]

I've seen and heard from alot of people that have their child sleeping through, or waking once a night, from very early on. My DS is 18wks and is still feeding every hrs, sometimes less very rarely more. I feel very low at the moment, and as if I'm the only one doing this? Is there anyone else who is struggling?

Sammy - ds has never slept through and he is 29 weeks
Believe me you are not alone. And some of those who claim their babies are sleeping through probably mean something like 11pm - 5am, or are lying
I think there will be people coming along to tell you of even older babies not sleeping through!

My DS woke every hour or so for over a year and it was extremely crap. There are lots of other mums going through the same thing but often there is so much pressure for babies to sleep through from a very young age that people lie about it, or just don't talk about it, for fear of being given loads of advice that is inappropriate to them.

Are you BF? Do you co sleep and feed lying down or do you have to get up and pick your DS out of a cot?

my bottlefed dd slept through at 5 1/2 months and bottlefed ds slept through at 8 1/2 months. It also depends what you count as sleeping through - some people may say it is a good 10-12 hours stretch whereas others may count it from say midnight to 5am which is quite a big difference. Neither of my lo's slept through until they were well established on solids (dd started at 16 weeks and ds started at 5 1/2 months)

Ds slept through a few times in the last month .

He's 18 months old.

24wo ds finally seems to be improving - 3 nights out of the last 5 he only woke every hour

Lots of mums in RL look shocked when I've been honest about how he sleeps, so I try and not talk about it. But then when their perfect babies who slept through at 8 weeks starts waking frequently at 3 months or whenever, they'd come and talk to me quietly about it (both bf and ff babies), whilst letting every one else think their babies were still sleeping through. I think there are far more bad sleepers out there than gets admitted!

I bf and co sleep, as it's the only wayi get any sleep at all. Prblem is, i've forgotten how we managed to get my other ds into in his cot or routine. Think i'll just have to be patient.

At 22m my DS has still never slept through 7 - 7 but he will often sleep 7-1 and then 1-7 with just a brief cuddle in between. We co sleep so it is no big deal. I tried everything except CC but what finally sorted it was a) Sorting out his diet as his is dairy intolerent and also gets tummy cramps at night from some other things b) He sleeps more heavily now. He just does. I think that happens much more quickly with most children but my DS was a late developer in that respect.

Sammyg81 I think every child is different anyway so you would probably have to do something different even if you could remember! Just be grateful you are not heating bottles at 4am

DS is 7 months and usually wakes 6/7 times. Last night it was only 3 though-hooray!

Hum, 18 weeks.

Is he feeding himself to sleep every time he goes off?

Baby sleep goes in cycles, they drift off, sleep deeply for a while, then after an hour or so go into a lighter, more easily disturbed sleep. If things aren't the same as when they went off - ie, sucking - they fuss around trying to get it back. Thus waking themselves up and you too.

The solution is to give DS his feed and then make sure he's awake when you lay him down so he can drift off to sleep on his own. If he cries, you rub his tummy and do shhh shhh shh for a while until he looks sleepy. Then you let him go off to sleep unaided. This in theory should mean that when he goes into that lighter sleep phase, things are the same as when he went to sleep, so he doesn't wake up and will only wake up if he's actually hungry.

You might find that having a comfort toy that he can hold / rub / suck when he's drifting off helps.

Disclaimer - it might take a while for him to get used to this if he's used to feeding to sleep and it might get quite loud while he does!

Oh, and by the way re the tummy rubbing - Some babies don't like being fussed over when they are going off to sleep and in fact need to sort of moanily cry for a bit, to wind themselves down. My 2nd DD is like this. You'll get to know what your DS prefers!

Ds slept through very early. I really think it was just luck. Nothing more. Some children do, some don't. I really do believe there is little you can do.
I know that sounds negative, but really it is not. I am sure it is very hard for you, but I think if you accept that you and your ds are the norm, rather than the exception, I think that helps alittle bit.

Sammy, I'm in much the same position. DS is 17 weeks, excl bf, and having gone 11pm - 4 or 5am up until 12 weeks, for the last 5 or so he has been waking up every 2 hours during the night for a feed. At first I thought it was a growth spurt, but it's lasted too long now for that. I also tried giving a bottle of formula for his bedtime feed, but it didn't make any difference...

I'm now hoping that weaning in a few weeks time will do the trick!