When do they really start sleeping through, and when did you stop cosleeping? 😐

[BabyLlamaZen]

About to hit 12 months and still have a few proper breastfeeds a night. We just cosleep now so I don't have to get up which is great, but honestly, anyone been through similar and now have their bed back? 😂

Gentle methods please. If that just means I'm doomed, doomed for how long?

[onlyreadingneverposting8]

Stopped co sleeping when I each wanted to. That's varied between 2yrs and 5yrs old.

[Napqueen1234]

I think it’s very baby dependent. DC1 I could never bf, didn’t cosleep as she hated it. Slept through 15 months when dropped her night bottle. DC2 breastfed co-slept when little but after 4 months starting being a pain so moved to a cot, slept through on and off from 6 months and now 6/7 nights at 9 months. Not trying to be smug but to reassure that it can happen naturally when younger! I think the thing about bf mothers getting better quality sleep overall is complete and utter BS if I’m honest. Generally my friends who’s babies are bf and co-sleep are still struggling with sleep with much older babies and toddlers compared to ones who don’t co-sleep or FF. There’s so many benefits to BF that arguably it’s ‘worth it’ but don’t feel you have to be up hundreds of times a night with a toddler just because lots of people are. If you’re struggling you can take gentle steps to work towards better sleep for you all!

[Changechangychange]

I think the thing about bf mothers getting better quality sleep overall is complete and utter BS if I’m honest

I definitely did when DS was under six months, because I didn’t have to climb out of bed, or really wake up at all, to feed him.

By eighteen months, when he was a kicking starfish, no I definitely did not have a better quality of sleep. He is awful to bedshare with now he’s bigger (even on holiday when it is just me and him in a king size bed).

He always had his own cot, and moved over into ours when he woke up. We started not moving him when he was about eighteen months old, patting him and soothing him instead, and it went really badly - lots of tears and angry screaming for about two weeks. Still totally worth it. So I guess I don’t have much advice (don’t use my method, it was shit), beyond yes do move them out of your bed, it will be a massive relief.

DS still doesn’t sleep through now aged 3.5, still wakes up 2-3 times a night for a drink. Which he is too half-asleep to sort out for himself (the water bottle is next to him). Luckily I sleep incredibly deeply, so Daddy has to sort drinks out.

[Screamingeels]

Honestly if you don't want to do any sleep training and just go with it. Then sleeping through sometime btw 12 mnths and 17 months in my experience and co-sleeping until 9 years old. Altho from age 2ish they would start in own bed and just appear in ours after midnight.

If you do advanced search on older co-sleepers 9 is about the norm. However I am a great believer in do what works for you and if that is get child in their own bed and get them to stay there, then loads of methods for doing that too - they just take effort/ stealing yourself against child crying. I am basically too lazy. Kids now 10 & 12 seem fine.

[Lilybet1980]

@TakeMeToYourLiar

I hate to say this but I'm typing in bed with my 4 year old next to me

He starts in his room, but every night he comes in to me

Same. Have actually given up on his own bed entirely at the moment. Driving me f ing insane.

[mindutopia]

First one (who was ff) slept through at 3.5 years (co-slept until she was 2, but then she had a floor bed in our room and she'd bring herself in until she was about 3.5). She finally slept through mostly regularly in her own room from 3.5. Second one (who was bf) slept through quite regularly in his own room from about 18 months. He's nearly 3 now and we did still co-sleep when he wakes (if he wakes, doesn't always). I care much more about sleep than I do when they wake and if it means I don't lose an hour or two in the middle of the night, they can sleep wherever they want to sleep! But he definitely slept through fairly consistently from 18 months or so. We stopped bf around 15 months, but I had night weaned him before then, so I don't think that had much to do with it. He just generally likes sleep more than the other one.

[BabyLlamaZen]

interesting responses! Starting to feel less alone at least.

[chunkyfunk]

My almost 4 year old still ends up in my bed every night sometimes as early as midnight and I'm too tired ( lazy) to have the battle of getting her back in her room! 🤦🏻‍♀️

[Lollee]

My two both slept through (10pm feed to 6am feed) from about 6/8 weeks, and in their own room. I am not being smug but I really do not understand why so many mum's have such a problem getting a good night routine going. Bath, feed, cuddle, bed. All three of my sisters and both dils and my mum (of 5) had no problems either.

[UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme]

Lollee your lack of understanding, empathy and imagination is your own problem.

[BigusBumus]

@seayork2020 I actually agree with you. My babies all slept through from 8 weeks or so and we never co-slept.

Perhaps don't co-sleep and be stricter about feeding times?

[Goostacean]

@Lollee what did you do if baby woke in the night?

[Goostacean]

Same question for you @BigusBumus ? I don’t think anyone is being smug but as someone who doesn’t cosleep and has a good routine (dinner, bath, bed, doesn’t feed to sleep), I’m frustrated by my child’s nighttime waking and crying.

[BigusBumus]

@Goostacean When my babies woke in the night, given that everyone, even babies, wake in the night several times, I would ignore them. I would listen to perhaps 15 mins of restless leg kicking, snuffling etc and wait for the baby to go back to sleep, which they invariably did, seeing as I'd never gone rushing in at the first sound of wakefulness and so they didn't expect me to. If they cried then I would go in and soothe, no lights, no talking, no nappy changing, no lifting, just the smell of me and a gentle shhh shhh shhh and a finger running from the hairline downwards down to the bridge of the nose, over and over. (Which is the best tip ever to get a baby to close its eyes). And then leave again. No milk after 6 months (but this is 2001 I'm talking about so we weaned at 16 weeks in those days) just water if wanted.

It seems so harsh to young mums nowadays and I'm not smug about it at all. I have told so many mums with new babies about the importance of routines, being consistent, not Co sleeping if you want to have a decent marriage/relationship etc, that CC when done well only takes 3 days and your baby goes to sleep at 7pm ever after and have been met with horrified looks and "no I could never let me child cry" etc. It saddens me tbh that people find their babies such hard work when it needn't be that way. So I've learnt to shut up over the years (I'm nearly 50 and my 3 boys are late teens). I so wish it would come back into fashion again to do it like I did but alas I think it's more and more fashionable/the norm to let your baby rule your life and not the other way around. 😔

[yikesanotherbooboo]

DD stopped b feeding at 11 months but still called out t on come in every 4 hours or so and once she was in a bed at about 2 came into our bed until she was about 5 or 6. DS1 stopped night feeds at about 7 months and only came in when he was older and wet his bed.DS2 kept up the occasional night feed to nail he was nearly 4 and was creeping in at night until he was over 10. They were all fully bf and I never did any active weaning... they just reached the point at different times

[BertieBotts]

About 2.5 in my experience. And 2.2ish is when I get fed up of Co sleeping. DS2 has just got there and we are starting to say to him at night that he can be still in our bed, or move around and wriggle in his own. That was it for DS1 - he decided he preferred the space to the company. Hoping DS2 feels the same way!

[ShinyGreenElephant]

@Lollee did it not worry you to go against NHS advice on safe sleep and preventing SIDS? To me a 6 week old sleeping in their own room is a crazy risk to take and not in a million years worth it just for a bit of extra sleep.

[ScarMatty]

i think the thing about bf mothers getting better quality sleep overall is complete and utter BS if I’m honest

Have to totally disagree with you. Getting up, out of my cold bed, going downstairs to make a bottle, waiting for it to warm up etc woke me up fuck loads more than simply staying in bed and getting a boob out

But OP, for what it's worth, night weaned at 12 months, co slept until 18 months, still wakes regularly at 24 months

[BigusBumus]

@ShinyGreenElephant I don't know how old @Lollee's kids are but if they're the same rough age as mine (late teens/early20s) nobody really stuck it out with a baby in your room beyond about 8-10 weeks. No one would ever have got any sleep, including the baby. Yes cot death was a thing then but we laid our babies on their backs and had no cot bumpers and a new mattress and that was about it in those days.

[loopylindazdaughter]

7 months before sleeping through, once I stopped BF at night. Cosleeping stopped aged 2 2/12 with DD. DS still in bed with me most nights at 7

[ScarMatty]

[quote BigusBumus]**@ShinyGreenElephant* I don't know how old @Lollee*'s kids are but if they're the same rough age as mine (late teens/early20s) nobody really stuck it out with a baby in your room beyond about 8-10 weeks. No one would ever have got any sleep, including the baby. Yes cot death was a thing then but we laid our babies on their backs and had no cot bumpers and a new mattress and that was about it in those days. [/quote]
I'd take a few hours less sleep if that resulted in fewer cot deaths...

[Sevo7]

I weaned DD altogether from the breast at 11 months as I was going back to work and she was still waking between 3-7 times a night to feed. She’s been in bed with my from day 1 but once I stopped breastfeeding she transitioned to her own cot very easily and started to sleep through. I was absolutely amazed at how easy it was.

Then at around 13 months she started waking again in the night and got poorly so back in the bed she came! She’s almost 2 now and we still co-sleep but it’s very rare she wakes up so I don’t mind. The plan is to try her in a proper bed in her own room when she’s a bit older and see how she goes with that but I’m certainly not prepared to push it if she’s upset.

[ShinyGreenElephant]

@BigusBumus okay well I will rephrase my question to @Lollee - if you had your kids sleeping in a separate room at just 6 weeks old because it was a long time ago and you didn't realise how dangerous that was, do you regret it now its clear through research that it put your baby at risk? If not, why not? and if so, why are you expressing shock that more parents don't follow your lead?

[ShinyGreenElephant]

@ScarMatty same and I'm quite baffled that anyone would disagree!

[Goostacean]

@BigusBumus Thanks, that’s very interesting- mine are both under 3 and clearly the advice changes a lot over the years. When my first was about 9mo I was too tired to go to him when he cried at night, I physically couldn’t get out of the bed... and after 10mins he dropped off again. Taught me a thing or two about rushing in!