Please share your success story

[CuteLittleToes]

Would be very grateful to hear from those who had babies that were challenging sleepers.

When did they improve? What did you do? Or did their sleep just get better on its own? Nap times as well!

I think there are more sleep deprived mummies like me who are looking for a bit of encouragement and some light at the end of the tunnel :)

Thanks for starting this, I'm a sleep deprived mum and would love to hear the positive stories!

No positive stories?

My 21 month DD has always been a shocking sleeper. She was two weeks overdue and then spent the first week and much of the first three months screaming.Ugh. Her napping was the WORST - often it would take 45 min of rocking to get 30 min of sleep. At 10 months we tried CC and failed, she just kept getting more and more upset. I finally gave up with any kind of sleep training, accepted the co-sleeping and we have all been much happier. At 18 months she went down to one nap ( either in her buggy or fed to sleep) and she will now snooze for about 2 hours in the afternoon. Bedtime is about 7 and she gets fed to sleep again. On a good night she'll drift off after 30 min if milk and cuddles and sleep for a few hours til I come to bed. On a bad night she's up and down like a jack-in-the-box and I get no me time at all. She will also sleep right through to 6am now (sometimes) but usually wakes for a quick feed a couple of times. It helps that I don't work and that my OH is happy in the spare room (and that despite all the warnings our marriage is fine ).
I have accepted her sleep patterns and once I relaxed about them and stopped reading the manuals life got much better.

I believe 90% of babies/toddlers go through good and bad sleep phases. Personally we have gone through so great sleep phases (which you take for granted at the time) and some lousy ones (which you stress about at the time.) Just when things click into place a new problem presents and there isn't always an answer or solution. The biggest help to us was teaching DS to self settle when he was 10mo. Before that he was fed to sleep and woke up through the night. Gradual retreat worked for us in two nights and I will never look back. It does just take him to be ill or breaking a tooth or had some weird food setting his digestive system to go out of routine and for a while his sleep gets disturbed. He likes to wake early too which in the moment I look at negatively but more positively it means we are up and organised early every morning and get out and about at a reasonable time and make the most of our day.

My 9 month old was a terrible sleeper for the first 7 months of her life, and then all of a sudden she started waking up once a night or not at all.

She also started falling asleep really in her cot in the day which was previously unheard of (although still doesn't stay asleep very long). We didn't do anything, it was like she was just suddenly ready.

I fully expect things to keep changing, but hopefully that gives you some hope that things can improve without having to do anything!

I just posted about this the other day. My DD, who has struggled with sleep from day 1 has just turned 2 and has gone from waking 2-3 times a night to doing a solid 12 hours. In her cot, in her own room. Up til age one, her record was 3 hours, maybe 5 hours by 18 months. DH and I slept in shifts, took turns getting up, co slept, did whatever it took to get through. I would have gone mad without his support and help. We had a few goes at sleep training using gradual withdrawal, but it was horrible, upsetting and ineffective. Tweaked routines endlessly to no effect. Only thing that sorted it was time.

Oh, and re daytime sleep, she naps in her cot for about an hour after lunch, and has done since she dropped morning nap at 14 months. Before that it was 2 30-45 minute naps daily, usually in her buggy or in my bed. Up til 6 months mostt naps were in sling as she hated the buggy and would get really upset in it. She was the ultimate velcro baby, though you wouldn't know it now she is so independent, very caring and affectionate too. Loves getting out and about, happy at nursery part time, rarely clingy. And I'm loving the sleep after two years of torture!