so when did your LO start sleeping through the night?

[maybelater]

and how did you do it??

Might it not be the case that one is more likely to feed a grumbling baby if it's in the room with you? Esp if you also share with a DP who has to get up early for work. If I have to get up and go next door I tend to let the baby grumble a bit more on the offchance it might settle itself back down. Just my experience...

how many sleep through well ds2 is 12 months (just) and not sleeping through.. Has small bouts of going through but then decides mummy milk is too yummy.

He also often decides mummy bed is much nicer too. We are ttc and may already be (never know) so was planning on moving him to his own room new year eve. Doesnt 'feel' right but feels like i 'ought' to. Dilemma eh?

Don't forget that often people tell you what they think you will want to hear.
I ALWAYS answered the "does he sleep well?" question with a soppy smile, my head on one side and a long "yeeeeees". It's so much easier than explaining to yet another person the intricacies of ds's bedtime routine, night time activities and how we are all working through it together. You can never please everyone and everyone will have an opinion.
So bear in mind when you are convinced that yours is the only baby awake habitually at 2am that everyone else is probably fibbing for an easy life!

DD is 13mo and still waking every night, our bedside cot is a godsend, we are gently trying to persuade her to sleep for longer, unlatching her before she goes to sleep, not feeding to sleep, trying shush pat before feeding.. She will sometimes sleep until 4am these days, so maybe we will get there before 2?

DS1 was 11 weeks and just did it, Dd was 20 weeks and just did it too. No techniques, no training.

Ds2 was 2 yesterday and still isn't very reliable. He can go 7pm - 5:30am but regularly wakes at about 3am. Until 18mo he woke up to 6 times a night, more on a bad night and we tried every sleep training going bar just leaving him completely alone to scream himself to sleep which I feel is barbaric. Nothing worked and he has gradulayy improved by himself.

I have since come to the conclusion that some babies/toddlers/young children are just crap sleepers and all you can do is go with it and find a coping strategy as best you can. It's entirely down to luck and nothing else.

There are always smug mums who express absolute shock and disbelief at the fact that your child hasn't been sleeping through since day dot and give lots of 'helpful' tips on how to train them to do it. I usually want to punch them in the head, but instead I smile sweetly and hope like mad that their luck runs out with their next child and they get a sleeper from hell. At least then they might realise that children who don;t sleep are not the fault of the mother parents and sometimes there is bugger all you can do to make them sleep until they are ready.

dd and ds1 were both about 2 years old when they started sleeping through (by which I mean 8-7, about 4 or 5 nights a week).

ds2 was 5 months. Woohoo!

Not cheering that loudly though, as someone gets us up most nights. More likely to be the 3yo or the 6yo than the 1yo though!

ds1's latest is to take his pj top off in his sleep and then wake up cold and unable to find it. Joy.

Ds still doesn't at 17 months but there is a continuation of teeth breaking through and those dreaded night terrors. I've gotten used to it now though

6mths , 3 mths and 2 mths. I'm a routine kinda girl..

ds1 slept through (which for him means 9:30-7) pretty much as soon as the last of his teeth came through. Until then he spent much of his nights awake.
ds2 sleeps 10-7:30 since about 9 months.

can't imagine dc who slept 7-7 - what would we do in the evenings? (thinks of all sorts of things...)

DD was around 3.5 years when she finally slept through (still in my bed).

I'd stopped breastfeeding at 2.5 years, but even that didn't help with the sleeping.

The way that I cracked it (and am prepared to be flamed) was to go away for 2 weeks on holiday without her and leave her in the capable hands of my mother, who cracked the sleep issue with no problems and I came home to a daughter that would sleep through the night [I appreciate however, that the option to escape to Thailand for a beach holiday is not always possible for everyone with young children - I was very lucky!!!!]

19 months and with the 'Wake to sleep' method.

dd1 @ 3 months old
dd2 @ 6 weeks old

Though dd1 seems to be regressing atm

Is it possible to have bad dreams before you fall asleep?

sleeping through consistently: about 3, and not til started school...

can anyone advise me?? My ds is now ten months old and was happily sleeping through ffrom 7pm til roughly 7:30am since he was about 12 weeks old but over the past couple of weeks he is wide awake at 5- 5:30 and needs a feed but then won't go back to sleep. i realise I was lucky with his sleeping before now but I am not coping well with this new situation and the lack of sleep!!

Message withdrawn

13 weeks.
Dropped the 10pm feed at about 8/9 weeks. Then at 13 wks dropped the 2am feed. He has slept 7pm-6am ever since, for the last 4+ years.
Now ds2 is only 8 weeks old. But I envisage real problems.

Why did ds1 do it. No idea. Just one of those things.

All those with sleep problems, who dislike CC, need to read :
E Pantley - the no cry sleep solution

and

J Waldburger and J Spivack

The sleepeasy solution

I am reading them now. Never needed them with ds1. Ds2 is awake from 10pm-6am. ALL NIGHT.

These books were recommended to me by VictorianSqualor.

It is middle of th road and helps you teach your child how to settle themselves. No crying involved at all.

I recommend it.

Amen, Olihan! Rockingsockbunnies, that really sounds like my kind of sleep training lol. to be fair, my mum keeps offering, but even though she is wonderful, i don't feel like i could impose not one but two non sleeping children on her!!! i think dd1 would be ready to spend some time without me for a while, but dd2 is far too young and i don't want to split them to avoid jealousy issues... so i think it'll be another year or so before i can spend a night without kids...

and just to put a differnt spin on things- I am from a mediterranean country where it is considered completely normal that children go to sleep at 9-10 in the evening, get into their parents bed at some point, and dont sleep throug till school age. it is a completely anglosaxon obsession that babies and children should sleep 7-7, and i am often at the lengths some parents will go through to achieve that result!

sassie - DD started waking up at 5 AM or so at one point. She was in her own room by then. We kind of ignored her and she eventually went back to sleep. Soon she was waking up at 8-9 AM.

Babies' sleeping/feeding habits are quite malleable, ime, assuming you are willing to allow for some crying. Less so, as they get older.

Great post by Olihan Mon 29-Dec-08 22:50:56

I'm also from a Mediterranean country, currently living in another Mediterranean country.

Yes, babies/children go to bed much later - we eat together at 7 PM and DD goes to bed at 9 PM or so.

No, it is not normal/expected/accepted that children will not sleep through the night until school years. At least not in the Mediterranean countries I've lived in.

CoteDAzur, with all due respect, you don't really know what you are talking about. I will accept that some babies' sleeping habits are malleable, but for some, it is truly a matter of maturity and you can do anything you want, including letting them cry out for months, but it won't 'break' them. and that's assuming that breaking them is your goal, which it isn't for every parent.

Having said that i am very happy for you that your children sleep so well, you are a lucky mum!

we clearly move in different circles then

I'm willing to accept that there could be a few babies in the world who will resist all sleep training (because anything is possible in the universe and all that) but you have to accept that for the vast majority, sleep training works.

Maybe the trick is not to leave it until too late. Everyone I know did this before 6 months and it worked like a charm within days. Not weeks, and certainly not "months".

DD could hardly be considered a good sleeper before the sleep training. She certainly didn't just decide to sleep through, like some babies here