Is this really not the norm?

[Gabity]

Had some friends over last night, all of whom are Mums themselves.

I gave DD (10 months) her last bottle downstairs (usually do it in her room) then took up to her room, popped her into her sleeping bag, into her cot, said goodnight and was back downstairs in less than 2 mins.

Everyone was shocked at how I put her to bed. Comments ranged from how lucky I was, how easy DD is to its cruel putting her down so quickly.

This is the way I have done bedtime since day 1 (which was when she was 6 weeks old as she was in hospital for that time). She is my first and I always thought that babies had a bedtime and this is what you do?

Feel like a cruel Mummy now! Should I be sitting with her till she falls asleep? We do have a baby monitor and she never makes a sound once I leave the room.

Good grief not cruel - suspect your friends might a bit jealous that your dd is such a good sleeper

However a cuationary tale - my friend's DS2 was a brilliant sleeper from 6 weeks (he was fully bf as well!) he is 18 months now and she is having an utter mare with him and has been for the last couple of months, won't settle wakes up 2-3 times in the night. She is literally tearing her hair out as she has no idea why he his sleep is now so disrupted!

I have every sympathy with her - it is absolute rubbish having a crap sleeper and having to constantly prop your eyes up with matchsticks - my DS was a crap sleeper until he was at least 2. But I would be lying if the word karma didn't cross my brain occasionally

Agree, not cruel, very lucky. Both of mine had bath, milk, story and off to bed to sleep at least 12 hours from 8.5 weeks and 13 weeks.

However things went downhill when DD was about 4 and turned into a yoyo at night time. Then last year when she was 10 she had such bad nightmare and was up 3 times a night that she had to have counselling . Payback for the easy time I had when they were babies I think and broken nights are a lot worse when you are 40!

my 22 month old was up til almost 12 last night.

After spending 4 years before he was born fighting the other two to sleep i just gave up with him and he stays up til he drops, which can be anywhere from 8.30 to 2. Then usually he sleeps til 9.30 the next morning, except when he doesn't (currently he's in my bed as that's where he ended up and i left him there when i got up)

None of my three have been good sleepers, which considering dp and i coud happily sleep 23 hours a day is quite baffling

On the plus side none of them are morning kids... the earliest we see a child is 7.30 and that would be unusually early, usually the older two stumble into our room at 8.30/9am so i at least get to feel smug when i hear mothers complaining of 5am wake ups!

Enjoy your good sleeper, I'm sure she'll find a way to make up for it in a few years

Not cruel or even that unusual OP. Most of the babies/toddlers I know have a similar bedtime routine and settle easily.

DD didn't do that at 6 weeks, but she did at 4 months when we started a routine with her. At 23 months still going strong.

Hoping DC2 due in Feb will be the same

Sounds like you have a happy little sleeper there OP, enjoy it!

All I can say is that life is not fair to some of us, is it?

DD was like this. Well, almost. She woke up once for a feed, and then would lie there happily, still awake, no yelling

DS on the other hand demanded feeding every two hours for 9 months, then screamed and refused to be put down for the next hour and a half. So half an hour's sleep between feeds.

Fortunately DS was my first, and DD my second, or I might have gone mad.

They have both been great sleepers from about 18months though.

My two (4 months and nearly 3) are the same. DS1 will (usually) go down without complaining, and certainly went down awake when he was a baby. His little brother does the same, although obviously he still wakes in the night to be fed. I'd left DS1 with GPs to babysit one night and my anguished dad had to go and get my mum because he had sung to DS1 and told him his story and he wasn't asleep so GD didn't know what to do. He was shocked when she told him he went to bed awake.

Wow, i am very jealous. My 12 week old takes hours, i mean hours, three last night to get her down.. How did you get her to sleep 12 hours at three months? was she breastfed? Any tips gladly recieved... thank you

rosierosa No tips really, like I said, i'm a first time Mum and half the time I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing!

Think credit is probably due to the nurses in the NICU for getting her into a routine in the first place! Which we carried on when we got home. We have always had a bed time routine of bath, massage, bottle and bed. At first she was swaddled and the usual low lights, not much chat during the night.

She dropped her 11pm feed almost as soon as we were home and then stopped waking at 3am a short while after. We moved her into her own room then as OH gets up for work at 3am (hense why I am awake now !) and he was waking her up!

I exclusively expressed milk for her for the first 16 weeks until she eventually started to breastfeed! Think this helped as well with learning to self settle as she was always laid down after a feed as I had to go and express. She breastfed until 6 months and is now on formula.

No idea why she has never suffered with sleep regression or teething (now has 8 teeth and they just appear overnight!) just very very lucky I guess!

DD is just the same, put her down anywhere from between 6pm-7pm when I see the first yawn and eye rub, she goes into a sleeping bag and has her little music box on for 15 minutes and that's it!

Rosierosa: As some posters have said, it's mostly nothing to do with parental behaviour. We have had the same routines (teeth brushing, bath, sleeping bag, milk, bed) in place from when DS was a few weeks old, and we plonk him down awake for naps and at night, but it makes absolutely no difference, he still has "regressions" (and now at 14 months old we are in the middle of one - he gets up only once a night, but stays up for an hour or hour and a half). Some babies just are better sleepers than others (as are adults.. I'm a pretty crappy sleeper, but don't disturb anyone if I'm up :) ).

Okay, I have to admit that we didn't do the teeth brushing until he actually had teeth (at 9 or so months) .

I think your friends were prob just a bit envious, I know I would be!

I think you are right about the NICU nurses though, I have noticed that as they obviously have to be quite routined, dimming lights at certain times etc, feeding at certain times that the babies are more routined.

My friends baby wasnt prem but contracted strep B when she was born and was in the SCBU for three months. She left in a very set routine, my poor friend had a really tough time thougfh and then got a huge shock when she had another child, she had absolutely no idea about newborn sleep patterns.

Can't believe your friends said you were cruel - what did they expect for you to cuddle and wake up your baby who's ready to sleep. I've got a terrible sleeper and although jealous of you cannot see anything cruel in it. I do think your friends were cruel to put doubts in your mind though.

I don't think you are either cruel or unusual! I established a bedtime for each of my 3 when they were about 6 or 7 weeks old. After their bath I would give last bf then pop them into bed and that was basically that, during the first few weeks while I was establishing a 7pm bed time I'd be up and down for a while for a rock / pat / put down, but certainly by the time they were 2 months my experience was much like yours. Mine all slept through 12 hrs ish early too (approx 9, 10 and 13 weeks respectively) and have remained good sleepers. So yes, I've been lucky, but the thing is, in real life (as opposed to the 'sleep' board on MN) most of my friends, whether breast or bottle feeding, have actually had a pretty similar experiences - i.e. 7pm bed time established by around 2 months old and sleeping through the night by about 4 months old.

I suppose the threads on this board are slightly skewed as of course people tend to post here most when they need advice as they are having a hard time.

DS1 was just like that, DS2 however is being a complete ratbag.

I have a dreadful feeling I am going to have to get a routine which makes me want to scream because I fucking hate routines but I think he might be happier with one.

He was fine before our move, now he is unhappy and tired a lot of the time.

OP, this sounds absolutely fine and it's normal for some babies to settle and sleep well (mine did and still does as a toddler). You had guests so you wanted to go downstairs quickly so I understand that, but I enjoy the 30 mins bedtime routine I've followed with DD since she was a small baby - includes milk and two stories or more before bed.

BTW, I never used to join in conversations about sleep with fellow mums in RL because I knew it would be hard on them (my DD settled and slept well from birth).

Not cruel at all.

I am however very jealous of you. It takes me ages to settle my DD at night.

Any tips?

My 11 week old DD starts getting very restless at about 7.30pm so I feed her then she is in bed and flat out at 8pm she has been like this for about 5 weeks. She wakes at around 1am for a 10 minure feed then goes straight back down again then wakes around 5am feeds again then settles in bed with me until we get up.