Sleeping through the night- when?

[DetentionGrrrl]

When did your little ones sleep through? My son is 14wks, and goes to bed by 7.30pm. Usually wakes twice, around midnight-1am and at around 3-4am. He gets up about 6am then. Was wondering when this mythical sleeping through starts?

erm- my three yr old has only just started sleeping though the night.

i really do hate parents who have chidren who sleep through from 3 weeks!!!!!!

Yes, i've had several helpful people ask how he sleeps and then say theirs slept through from 5 weeks...i never know whether to believe them to be honest!

Varies hugely and also depends on your perception of "sleeping through the night". My idea of that is going to sleep about 7.30/8.00pm and waking up after 6am, but others think midnight-5am is "sleeping through".

dd2 'slept through' from about 12 weeks - she'd be put down at about 8, I'd give her a dream feed when I went to bed about 11 ish ( or wake up for one!) and she'd wake at 5/6 - feed her again and she'd go back for another hour or so.

dd1 still doesn't sleep through and she is 5

Sandyballs- i'm with you on this one. By sleeping through i mean not getting up until about 6am after being put to bed the previous night.

erm for me 7 months - and that's 7-5.30 ish (roughly) I don't get up till 6 thou, today I was told to try cutin out afternoon naps so he'll sleep longer into the morning.

don't beleive these folk who tell u little freddie/whom ever slept thru from day 1

Hi DetentionGrrl

Um like you thought that there was a magic time after 12 weeks when they suddenly sleep through. My perception of sleeping through was from after a late feed at say 11pm until 6/7am! Ds is now 18 weeks old and is put to bed at 7.30pm, usually asleep by 8pm and then goes from 11pm - 4am then til 7.30/8am so still waking once a night. Can't really see how or when this is going to change so just trying to take advantage of the longer first stint, if i go to be at 10pm i get 6 hours which is better than I thought a month or so ago!! Personally think this sleeping through the night thing is a fantasy!! Womdering if things will change once he starts to get some solids inside him!!

10 months, 11 months and not really yet (2 and a half)! Hope yours is better!

DD slept through the night (about 7-8 hours) from 6 weeks. Oh,how smug I was feeling then! BUT we then went on holiday at 12 weeks and it all stopped completely. Next time she slept though consistently after that was at 20 months, when we resorted to 2 or 3 days of CC.

Munz. 7 months and still waiting.

Cutting out afternoon nap??? He'd be miserable all afternoon and would promptly fall asleep halfway through crawling across the lounge!!

He sleeps fine, just wakes lots to feed.

In our case at about 2 years!

DD1 - from 8 weeks, and that's put down at 7pm and waken for a feed at 10pm then asleep until 7am.

DD2 - same pattern, but from 12 weeks.

I'm perfectly happy hanging in there...just wondered if there was a roundabout age, but from everyone's posts there clearly isn't!

Not yet at 7.5 months. Bf or FF can make a diff - which are you? I had a thread a week or so ago about bf babies over 7 months not sleeping through - you might want to stay away from it if you're looking for messages of hope!!

Think the technical definition of "sleeping through" is sleeping in a block of 5 hours !! Mine used to wake up at 10pm, 1am, 4am, 5 am and then up around 7! It did get better once I stopped feeding him every time he woke up and much better when he started on solids. He now (at almost 8 months) tends to go down at around 7pm and (usually) sleeps through until 5am. Tried reintroducing a late feed recently to see if that would help him wake later and it made no difference. Occasionally, we are woken by our alarm clock at 06:30 which sends me running to his room to make sure he's okay!

I have a 1 year old and a 4 year old who both wake up about 4 times a night

perhaps that will cheer you all up

Hi mumpbump - I am interested to know how old your baby was when you started not feeding every time he woke in the night? And how did you manage to get him back to sleep? Have been reading Jo Tantum's book which sort of advocates the same thing so curious to see how it works in practice. My dd's only 6 weeks old at the moment so early days yet, but I can't help wondering if she is actually hungry every time she wakes (just had a bad night of waking up every 45 minutes!! )

My 6 1/2 month old generally goes down at about 8-8.30, wakes again at 9-9.30, maybe again 45 mins or so later, again at midnightish always, then sometime in the small hours (between 2 and 5) and again at about 6.30... So that would be 3 or 4 night wakings followed by an early start. And he's not so hot at naps either, I think he's getting about 12 hours sleep in 24 on average...

Bikebug. My DD also does a max of 12 hours in 24. That's plenty for some babies, so although it would be nice if they did more, you might need to lower your expectations a little! Sympathies on the wakes though - we got better at that a few weeks ago with the help of some CC.

not til she was well over a year. we did sleep training at 11.5 months but even though she learned she wasn't going to be picked up shéd still wake once or twice a night crying for her dummy and then be up at 5 and be taken into our bed. since ds was born though shes stopped waking for her dummy and stays in her cot til 8/8.30 after going to bed at 7.30 so.... 19 months

Can'tSleepWon'tSleep- Baby is breastfed (which makes it alot easier when he wakes at night!)

Well, we had problems getting ds to go to sleep so we tried controlled comforting which is an Aussie modified version of controlled crying for babies under 6 months. (You'll find it if you do a google search.) Although quite stressful for all concerned, it meant that the poor little thing knew that when he was turned on his side and had his back patted, it was time to sleep. Once he had that association, I could use it in the night to get him back to sleep. (Once he had learnt to settle himself, we didn't need to do this any more.) I think I reinforced his night-time waking because he ALWAYS got fed immediately 'cos I didn't want DH to be disturbed. When I started doing this in the night (which led to a week or two of more disturbed sleep for DH), it could take a while (up to 20 minutes on one occasion) to get him back to sleep, but generally didn't take too long. Guess you could give it a go if it appeals - the good thing about it is that you do comfort the baby whilst waiting for him/her to go back to sleep, rather than just leaving them to cry.

Also, I kept a mental note of how long he went between feeds. For example, once he had gone for 3.5 hours between feeds, if he woke up less than 3.5 hours from his last feed, I would try to get him to go back to sleep rather than feeding him. Amazingly, he would usually go back to sleep for an hour or so, so the times between feeds lengthened out quite quickly. But you do have to take a view fairly quickly (based on time since the last feed) whether they are so hungry that they simply won't go back to sleep...

It did take a couple of weeks of disturbed nights sleep until he started going for longer stretches of time, but it was worth it. Once ds realised he wasn't getting a cuddle and food when he woke up, he had much less of an incentive to wake.

The other thing you could try is stretching the time between night feeds out gradually using cold boiled water. I think this creates a cycle where they are hungrier in the day so they feed more and the knock-on effect is that they are less hungry during the night - in theory...

Mind you, none of the above has yet sorted out the 5am start to our days!!

My 10-week old DS generally sleeps from 8ish at night until 4am - he wakes at this time like clockwork. I have tried the 'dream feed' idea to see if it can be extended but he point blank refuses to take it whilst he is asleep and he won't wake up either - stubborn little so-and-so!! Not sure if this counts as 'sleeping through'??

I feed him when he wakes at 4 and then put him back in his crib although he is often wide awake - I think he just wants to start his day at 4am and why not?? Just because it doesn't fit with what we want, doesn't make it wrong does it? I do count myself very lucky that I get 6 hour sleep as I usually go to bed at 10 but wouldn't class it as sleeping through.

Good grief superblue - why do you not count that as sleeping through - that's fab!! Many 10 week olds only need around 8 hours at night, and if he's doing that in one stretch then you're very lucky!

depends on what you define as sleeping through. Apprantly (from some website or other) GP's define it as 6 or more hours in one stretch.

Ds slept 11-6am at 13 weeks, 7-6am at 6 months, 7-6am with 3-5 wake ups from 8 months to 13 months
now he sleeps 7pm - 6am with one wake up at 3am (back to sleep after a drink of water) or 7pm - 5am.

Sorry but I don't believe those who smugly say 'slept through from 8 weeks!

btw my definition of slept through is 7pm - 6/7am. So we're still not there.