So when did yours REALLY sleep through?

[moominmama86]

Am feeling very despondent about ds's sleeping and need a bit of encouragement! He's now 6 months and all I seem to hear from everyone around me (hv, mum, strangers in the street) is 'Oh, he should be sleeping through by now' etc, etc... well, he isn't and I can't believe he's the only one! He's still waking to feed twice a night and what makes things worse is there's absolutely NO pattern to it at all. Am really reluctant to do controlled crying but feel as though I am depriving both myself and, more importantly, ds, of decent sleep if I don't.

What age did your ds/dd really sleep through (i.e. 7pm-7am or similar)? And did you sleep train or not? I know I can't be the only one but sometimes it feels that way!

Moominmaman , I am totally with you there ... DD is 3.5 months , bed by 7pm ish, takes a few times to settle , then wakes at least 2 times during the night , but sometimes 4 times till 6ish ... a killer !!!!

Agree with what some others have said ... totally depends on baby, HOWEVER, I also think have to help them to settle back to sleep when it is obvious they are not hungry . Therefore, I will at around 5-6 months do Controlled Crying or the Tracey Hogg Pick up Put down method ... The idea terrifies me as it is hard enough at moment to get through the ninght , BUT I do not want to be this tired idefinitely ! Cannot cope some mornings either.

By the way ... DID CONTROLLED CRYING REALLY TAKE ONLY THREE NIGHTS ???!!!

Wow! Thanks everyone for your responses! You have definitely made me feel a bit better - or worse, depending on how you look at it

I do agree a lot depends on the baby - everyone has always commented on what an alert and aware child ds is, even from just a few weeks old, so maybe I just have to put up with him being 'interested in things' at 3am for a while yet! Maybe he's a boy genius in the making (or not....!)

moomin - that's what everyone used to say about my ds i.e. really alert etc, right from when he was born. It's always been like that and in his book, Toddler Taming, Christopher Green actually says that alert boys can always be more difficult sleeprs. My DS can go from being fast asleep to wide awake within seconds and as SOON as he is awake he's singing, talking etc
He also Really fights sleep and always have done. There is no way for example he would fall asleep on a sofa, or while we are out and about - again, even when he was younger, if there is anything going on then he just won't let himself miss it.

As consolation I guess they are learning fast and absorbing loads.

DSs didn't sleep through (7 til 7) until they were both nearly two, we dealt with it by putting them in beds ASAP, so if they wanted to get up and come into our bed they could do it without getting ME up I personally couldn't deal with sleep training and it didn't really bother me enough to be a problem.

DD in comparison to her brothers is a little angel. She did her first 12 till 6 stint at 3 days (thank you higher powers!). She slept with us until 6 weeks and has been in a moses basket by the bed for the last week and still sleeps fine.

We didn't do anything different really between all 3. I must say though that I tried with DS1 to keep him in a cot as that was the 'correct' thing to do even though he was feeding every 1 to 2 hours. It was only when I was so tired and depressed that I couldn't cope, that I 'gave in' and took him into bed with me and then got enough sleep to function.

IMO you should do what works for you. Its only a problem if its a problem for you, not for other people or books.

My ds started sleeping all night with no wakings for 11hours (he's never slept 12 hours) at 8months, after a bit of sleep training (ie we left him when he woke (after checking for wet etc) and he grizzled himself back to sleep. At six months he was an appalling sleeper waking up all the time - three to five or more (!) times a night. It can change!

dd slept through from 7 till 5 from about 6 to 14 weeks then went through to 6:30am at 15 weeks. I was due to go back to work full time at 16 weeks so this was a Godsend.

dh reckons ds slept thru from 4 weeks but his ex-wife says he is dreaming.

Sister has 3 and all took until 18 months to start sleeping thru.

well, ds was sleeping 10:30 pm - 6:30 am by 5 weeks and then fed and went back to sleep until 8. (he slept 7pm - 10;30 pm and then had a feed)
By 12 weeks he was consistently doing 10;30 until 7am, and so at about 5 months we dropped the 10:30 feed, and after 2 nights he slept through 7-7. I never minded the 10;30 feed, as I would rather have that than a 3am wake up.

he is now 1 and sleeps 7pm until 7:45 am, at then often goes back to bed for half an hour.

I did follow advice from friends about bedtime routines etc, all a bit GF, but I he has always slept well at night (used to breastfeed in his sleep) and has never slept well during the day (no gf 2 hour sleeps here) I think it is genetic as I too am a champion sleeper, and dh and I are both NOT morning people!!

We did do controlled crying twice, once when at 6 months, it took 30 mins the first night, 15 mins the second, and the third he slept through. The second time was after he had been ill and had been waking at night, it only took one night.
He does still sometimes wake in the night and cry, maybe once a week, and it is usually because he has woken up the wrong way round on the cot, or he wants a drink of water, and he goes straight back to sleep.

moominmama86 - if you don't want to do controlled crying, have a look at The Baby Whisperer. She's got a website but I can't remember the url. She has all sorts of non-crying ideas. I don't remember exactly what she does for babies because I didn't find her until mine were almost too old for that section, but I've been reading her toddler book and it's really very good.

Mine were: ds slept through from 9-10 weeks, and we dropped the 10.30ish feed at about 7m, once he was on 3meals a day including meat. Dd would go through the night about once a week from 9-10 weeks, so when she suddenly went through 2 nights in a row at 6m we immediately did cc for the next few nights and that was the end of night-time feeds. Again, we dropped the last feed about 6wks later. But alsthough ds could sleep through an earthquake, it took dd a few more months before she relaibly slept through.

dd 9 mo today and still waking up 2-4 times in night (can never remember exactly how many times; sleeps next to me, gets plugged in, both of us fall back to sleep). ds 3 y slept through on and off from about 1 1/2 to 2 y (also sleeps in our bed..
Prefer this to "controlled" crying!!
Snowywong, read your message with a smile, I know, bad habits and will be better with next one

DS1 slept about 10 hours a night from around 10 weeks but DS2 was about 8 months, we tried controlled crying with DS2 a couple of times but couldn't do it, it just seemed easier on everyone to feed him and put him back to bed and at 8 months he stopped waking.

My first slept through at 8 weeks and has never had any aleep problems, my second was a nightmare and didn't sleep through until 14 mths, she is not to bad now at 4yrs unless her asthma is playing up. My third slept through about 12 weeks but as he is now 1 and still in our room (no where else for him) then he still tends to wake me up just by him moving around. Controlled crying depends on the baby, I think. It worked with my eldest within a week but my middle one would just cry until she was sick. Haven't really had to do it with my third (yet).

Hmmm... ds 2.6yrs old.... STILL waking about 1am to comein bed beside us!

Was waking numerous times a night for a drink of water up until 18mths. Yaaawwwwwwnnn.

DS slept through 11 until 7 once at 12 weeks but it was an absolute one off. When I went back to work at 15 weeks was still feeding several times in the night. By six months had cut out night feeds and was getting 7.45 pm until about 5.30 am (then the day started) most nights. Morning gradually got later over next few months. Now he is nearly 3 and most nights (5 times a week) we get 12 hours out of him, other nights will have to go to reassure him.

mine slept from 5.45pm to 10.00 am which is frankly a bit wierd!
which means he is down a feed today, so no doubt will wake me looking for it in the night... ah well

Both my two slept through (approx 7.30pm - 8am) from 5 weeks old. I am a fan of controlled crying which obviously won't be everyones cup of tea, as you can feel incredibly guilty and it is very noisy for a couple of nights. After that couple of nights though the silence more than makes it worth it, I really do need a good nights sleep to funtion well.

I decided to use this method after reading a really good free book on a baby magazine ( this was 5 years ago). It made perfect sense to me when I read it, so followed the ideas in it and never looked back.

So, I am of the opinion that sleep training definatly works, and produces quick results as long as you don't buckle under the feelings of guilt at leaving your baby to cry - can be hard.

sounds completely barbaric to do that to a 5 week old IMO
troll alert?

I'm not a troll - as I said it's not everyones cup of tea, but plenty of people use controlled crying. There is more to it than I have written here, It is a whole book about sleep training. My two children have not suffered at all, you can comfort them when they are crying, just not give them milk, there is a 'core' night that you look out for when they sleep for the longest night and then you work on that.

I am simply offering my opinion which worked for me, my children have slept through from 5 weeks, they are gorgeous, happy children, who in no way would think I was barbaric for sleep training them. The fact that they and me and DH all get a great nights sleep is good enough for me.

If you don't beleive in controlled crying then don't use the method, but in your opinion it's barbaric, that does not make me a troll.

pinkfluff many of us have used the controlled crying techniques (including me) but I think that Richard Ferber doesn't advocate it at such a young age

I can't remember who wrote the book, it was 5 years ago I used the method, and don't still have it, but the idea was to look out for the 'core' night at 'around 4 weeks' and work with this, so other babies may take longer, and not be sleeping though for a few weeks after that. I'm simply saying it worked for me, as I'd rather have a few tough nights, where I'm still comforting my baby, not just abandoning them alone to cry, than still being woken every night until they are 2, which I know some people still do.

There's a book called "sleep-the secret of problem free nights by Hollier & Smith which is all about the core night method. According to them at around 4 weeks babies do their first core night sleep, ie. a night when they sleep longer than they have ever slept before. Their method works along the lines of once a baby has done this, you never feed them again during those hours. Gradually over the course of a few weeks you extend the core night by something like 15 mins, half an hour in both directions until you get them sleeping 12 hours at the time you want. Can't remember what exactly you are supposed to do rather than feed them during 'core night'- stroke, give dummy etc I think. We failed miserably, managed to miss the core night and the first time we tried it gave up after a few mins and fed him. They did make some interesting points and made me realise that I was getting into a cycle of DS snacking and not taking proper feeds as I'd feed him the minute he cried.

It has now joined Gina Ford & Tracey Hogg on the pile gathering dust under my bed. DS (14 weeks) has just started a 12 hour stretch, which I put purely down to genetics- DD did at 8 weeks and I was famous for my sleeping when I was little and haven't changed that much!

Five WEEKS old and not giving them a feed if they wake up????

An infant that young will only just have regained their birth weight, its not recommended that you let them go 5 hour without a feed.

Am I reading your post right pinkfluff?

ok, to clear this up (ie. I'm not barbaric or a troll)this was 5 years ago, I can't remember the exact length or amount of hours it started with, but for example if the core night at around 4 weeks is 6 hours, which I believe my experience was, what the book is saying is that your baby is showing you that it can sleep for 6 solid hours without a feed, it will survive, the baby has done the core night itself. You then work on that, so you would never feed the baby again between the 6 hours that it did the core night, and after a couple of nights it will never wake again for a feed between these hours.
If you were to feed the baby if it woke the next night between the hours of the core night, you would simply be started a habit of the baby waking every night for a feed it has already showed you it doesn't need. A lot of the time it becomes a sucking habit rather than need for a feed.

It is very hard to explain in a few lines and without the book anymore, maybe I'm thinking it happened a couple of weeks earlier than it did, I know it was before 2 months.

Both my kids had no problem with weight gain as babies and have always both been on the highest centile in their red book for weight and height.

Sorry if this has upset anyone, I can assure you no harm came to my babies, and forgive me if my exact recollection of facts and figures is slightly hazy, as the only harm that came of having babies was to my once excellent memory.

The general idea I still stand by, and would certainly use it again, although I have absolutely no plans to have a 3rd, ever !!

Happy christmas, and chill.

6 hours at 4 weeks??!!! all I can say is lucky you, that's not at all typical IME

hmmm . I'm sure most of mine had isolated instances of sleeping longish patches (eg. 6 hours) at the kind of ages you describe, pinkfluff. I certainly don't think it sounds barbaric though not sure if I could stick it out with such a young baby. And what about the breastfeeding implications - would bf experts consider 5 weeks old enough to be, in effect, limiting feeds?

DD1 around 8 mths after deciding to put her on to GF at 6mths, had to do controlled crying, which was very hard but good in the end. It did not take 3 days, more like a couple of weeks. DD2 12 hrs at 3 mths, GF baby from day one, it was all easy as pie.