Why do so many babies sleep through

[ZebraZeebra]

And neither of mine just never have??

I read/hear about it so often. At six weeks/13 weeks/23 weeks...whatever. It's often on threads about babies going into their own rooms. My ds didn't sleep through until 13 months and my dd - 24 weeks - had yet to wake less than three times.

I just can't wrap my head round not having to wake up. My children woke the most in the evening in the time between their bedtime and my bedtime - whether they were downstairs or in their own room. Why didn't I get one of these great sleepers? stamps foot

I think the only wake up was 4am susanmichelson but I agree, I wouldn't have called that sleeping through. But presumably switswoo was still up at 11pm then went to bed after the feeding, so was basically only being woken once in the night from day one. Plenty of parents would kill for that. I would have done myself, in the early days!

That's right muffmuff. Actually husband did the 11pm and I went to bed before that.
Never called it sleeping through wouldn't have said she slept through until 15 weeks when she dropped the 4 o clock feed. Think it was pretty good though.

Saying that she had severe reflux and vomited constantly so needed my rest after lugging laundry baskets all day!

Probably too easy to say parents with sleeping babies are all liars or sleep trained. And very unfair. Some babies will do it, OP wasn't saying 'newborns' she mentioned a range of ages. My 1 year old DS has slept through on occasion from 7.30-7 from 10 months but I've not sleep trained him (I feed to sleep and put him down asleep which I was always told meant he couldn't magically self settle) and its depending on how he feels, if he's tired out and comfortable and full he sleeps for hours. If he's poorly or unsettled or windy or hasn't eaten lots he wakes a few times. Like you'd expect from an adult as well! So he sometimes gets a feed at 4 am, or I go in for a cuddle to sleep. So when he sleeps through it is by himself, not because I do anything to encourage him. And I'm sure others do the same, as much as PP might like to eye the parents and think they've 'done something'.

I didn't mean to be unfair but I think a lot of people call it sleeping through when their child only wakes once or twice - which is pretty normal.

I didn't want the OP to feel pressured by people saying how well their babies slept iyswim. Sometimes it's just boasting and people bend the truth a little. Other times babies do sleep very consistently but this might only be for a week or a month before they start teething again - in other words I wouldn't be so sure that everyone who says 'mine slept through from 3 months' etc is being completely honest and giving the entire picture.

Obviously some babies are the exception, I'm sure there are those who really do sleep extraordinarily well.

People look at me like when I say that ds2 barely cried when he was a baby - he actually only cried twice, properly, in the first 6 months of his life, it was odd, but he would go to sleep feeding, wake up and make little murmurs, lie there looking at his mobile and so on - completely different to his brothers before and after who hated to lie down and often woke crying.

He cried twice in that time frame for about 20-30 minutes I think with wind or something - and he cried after 6 months, too, many times. It was just one of those things.

He was unusual in a lot of ways though and is now being assessed for ASD.

Babies are all different.

Susan - yes ds2 rarely cried. I don't think he cried until he started walking and falling over. He's baby two, one year after baby one. So he lived in sling virtually all day, helped himself to boob as needed, and slept on us at night, as we were busy with eldest. So yes he was easy and quiet, as long as attached to one of us. Had we not been happy to do that and wanted him in pram/ bouncer/ cot, he would have been known as a nightmare child in sure

My 3 year old still doesn't sleep through some nights. He has never slept 7-7, he goes to bed at 7.30 and wakes no later then 6am. He will have a week of sleeping through and then the next week of waking anything up to 7 times a night.

Everyone knows what a bad sleeper he has always been, and everyone likes to give me their advice tell me what I'm doing wrong so now with 4 month DD I just say she sleeps through, when in reality she wakes up and I bring her in bed with me!

Art - sounds like a charmed life for a baby

My others have been alright when their demands were met but those demands were so much more stringent than ds2's. I still BF'd on demand and co slept and carried about all day, but with ds2 I didn't have to carry him all the time and he was still contented.

Ds3 has been the worst by far! He wouldn't lie flat at all and still cries when he wakes at 2 and a half..

One of mine did from 6 weeks. (Middle one.) He was the one to fall asleep on the move too. The other two were a nightmare and would only nap at home in their cot. With the youngest I put her in a single bed early so that I could just climb in too and go back to sleep. (Was about 4 when it started tailing off.) Can't say I did anything differently with any of them.

I haven't seen you on here for years!! How are you?!

Sleeping through from bedtime to morning at 13 months sounds pretty good to me?

One of mine slept 8 hours (though not the good 8 hours) at about 2 months. Then slept through (bedtime til morning) at 2.5. Other one was sleeping 12-13 hours from about 8-9 months.

True buglife. I'm surprised at the number of posters who seem to think parents of children who are quite different to theirs must be lying or exaggerating. Based on no evidence at all. There's huge variation in adult sleeping patterns and habits, also older children. So it seems odd that people don't think the same could be true of babies.

I'd love to say there was a magic answer but I did exactly the same with both my boys, my eldest didn't sleep through consistently until he was about 1. Did the same with my youngest and he just slept through from about 3 or 4 months. He's just a more chilled person in general.

I find this so depressing. DS1 woke ever two hours for the best part of ten months (not to feed, just couldn't self settle despite my best efforts). DS2 looks like he is going the same way (although could just be that I am depressed after a bad night - he is only 6 weeks, so still time to turn round right???).

So glad that other people have good sleepers but really, really wish I could too!

I'm not sure if it helped but I never fed mine to sleep and always put down awake. They both slept well. Maybe something to try? Of course I often laid next to them and stroked face or held hand until asleep, but it seemed to help with the association of waking for feeds

I try to put down him awake but even with stroking and white noise he won't fall asleep - he fights sleep even when exhausted.

It is tricky because all my instincts say hold him, be as close to him as possible, give him whatever comfort he needs (not least because we had a tough start - week in the NICU), but sleep deprivation makes me depressed and miserable very quickly.

Sorry for the hijack OP!

I'm afraid with regard to sleep deprivation I always took the line of least resistance - ie fed them to sleep, fed them immediately if they murmur/root around or 'wake' (co sleeping) and they went off again immediately after that usually.

It's not undisturbed, but the least disturbed I could manage if that makes sense - never try and change a baby's habits when you can guarantee a result by changing your own!

Plus instinct is a biggie, if you can follow that you're probably onto a winner.

So much easier imo than struggling in a battle of wills with a non verbal child. I did try briefly with that but I lasted about an hour...it's no good.

I've been really lucky that both of mine responded brilliantly to white noise, and I was able to 'sleep train' them early with it. At first murmuring, as long as they were over 3 months, and fed within the previous 2.5 hours I'd blast them with white noise instead of offering a feed. It has seemed to work with both of them to get them do 4-5 hour stretches of sleep early on.

I accept this is complete luck though, and I would be very careful how I phrased my success with someone struggling as I don't want to look like an arse.

I think it's mostly luck...I had one that slept from 8.30 to 7.30 from 5 weeks and the other didn't sleep longer than about 3 hours until he was 4.5 yrs.

It does come down to luck, I don't know if people purposely lie about how their babies sleep, or if they just forget over time. My GN is convinced all 4 of her children slept right through for 12 hours at 6 weeks old.

DD1 was a pretty good sleeper, did a few 9 hours stints at night at around 9 weeks old, then a couple of weeks after that started waking 2 hourly for seemingly no reason up until 7months old. Now at nearly three she sleeps through 9 times out of 10.

DD2 has also been a fairly good sleeper, woke 3hourly from birth - hard but doable. As the weeks have gone by that time has extended and now she usually sleeps from 7pm to anywhere between 5-7am. It's not consistent and we do get the odd waking or two in between that, but I am very blessed. I'm just hoping and praying she doesn't do what DD1 did and regress to waking 2hourly (touchwoodfingerscrossedetc) as I really struggled when DD1 was going through that. Neither of them woke 2 hourly even as fresh out of the womb newborns.

Luck of the draw, nothing to do with hereditary sleep preferences. I think it's all about personality and possibly some elements of birth experience.

I consider sleeping through to be bedtime (7 or 8 or 9) to wake up time (6 or 7 or 8 or 9), it seems now I'm 'in' it, that most of my friends who had babies before me and said their babies slept through, meant midnight until 5 or 6. If that's the case then my baby slept through from about 6 weeks. Considering I think that a normal night's sleep for me is 8 uninterrupted hours, I'd not call that sleeping through. My baby has done a few nights 11pm - 7am, but I can count them on one hand... mostly we have to get up to comfort at least twice, and feed at least once between 7.30pm and 6am. She's 10 months today.

YY technical sleeping through is 5 or 6 hours. So my dd who sleeps at 7pm, wakes at 1am then gets up at 6 "sleeps through" from 7-1. But in real life that's not so good!

Most adults don't sleep through in real life. A habitual sip of water, wake/turn the pillow/drop off, or a wee means you wake. But of course we can fix our issue instantly on our own terms unlike a baby.
When you look at it that way it's reassuring in a way! Sleeping through is a false milestone.

My dd2 (6 months) wakes less than my almost 3 year old dd1.
Dd1 slept from 8-5 from 10 weeks then at 18 weeks she hit a sleep regression and was up 7-8 times until around 14 months. She sometimes sleeps through now but usually we need to get up at least two or three times as she has bad dreams etc.
dd2 still wakes for a night feed most nights between 4-5 but more often than not she'll go from 8-1am then need a dummy re settle then go til 4 then back down by half 4 and sleep til 7.
She's a much better sleeper than dd1.

Two sleepers here. Part luck and part effort/ encouragement I believe, followed the same thing for both and they both slept from about 6 weeks.

Slept in their own rooms from 6 weeks - so DHs snoring didn't wake them up.
Didn't jump at every little murmur in the night
Let them settle to sleep by themselves
Had a night time routine which became more regular as they got older.
Tried to keep night times quiet and dark so that they got used to the difference between day and night

I don't think that's effort though She. That's more like not going out of your way to fuck up a potentially good sleeper. If you have a poor sleeper none of that makes a blind bit of difference and the idea of leaving them to self settle is like saying that, if you allow them to fly to the moon they will sleep - it might work , if only they could do it.