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?

my definition of sleeping through is when they sleep for 11/12 hrs without waking.

DD1 - from about 8mths to 2 yrs, she then started waking and coming into our bed. sometimes doesnt sleep for a couple of hrs, but doesnt really wake us and knows not to go downstairs so she plays in her room or ours and them goes back to sleep.

DD2 - from 12 mths (exactly) ... took far too long in my eyes but at least we're there now. i'm never transfering her from cot to bed

DD was about 9 weeks (10.30 - 6.30). DS 3 and half. Yes, I do mean years! he still wakes at 6.30 no matter what time he goes to bed. So no guarantees!! Good luck [dozing off emoticon]

DD slept through (7pm-7am - yep i was bloody smug !!) from 6 weeks.

DS is now 4 months and we think (and pray) that he is now sleeping through (6.30pm - 7am) as this has been the case for the last few nights.

We breed sleepers down here in Cornwall me ansum!!!

I only put dd into her own room aged 12 months, 2 nights lare she slept through from 7.30. to 7am and has stayed pretty similar since then. Previous to this she would wake any time between 2.30 (from 7.30) and 6 for a bf and not go back to sleep for up to 2 hours often going back to sleep an hour before I had to get up for work. We have always gone for a nap on our days at home with her so at least we can catch up. Now that she is in her own room as soon as she goes done for a nap / sleep so do we, its great. I cant beleive how I functioned sometimes.

2 1/2 years of broken nights. and a massive bill in expensiv eye reams and touche eclait to mask the effects. feel like i'll never feel not-tired again.

Hi Detentiongirl,
I got so stressed by people telling me their child slept through the night from 6 weeks, I felt like such a failure when he reached 6 weeks and wasn't sleeping through. I then spoke to a neighbour who said her dd woke up every 2 hours until she was 6 months old and they resorted to cc. I then decided that ds sleeping for 4/5 hour blocks at 12 weeks was fantastic!!
He got a cold the next week and slept through for the first time. I thought this would be it, routine sorted, it hasn't worked out quite like that we have a good few weeks then have a couple of restless nights, but like you I bf (thank god for boobs) it always puts ds back to sleep and helps me sleep too.
I think people especially the older generation remember things with slightly differently to how they were, even when I look back now I can't remember the first few days home from the hospital and I'm sure in 30 years I'll be telling my poor dil how my ds slept through the night from birth!!

12 months and ds still waking up 1, 2, 3, 4 or more times a night. Grrrrr! Need sleep...

Hi again Mumpbump - thanks so much for taking the time to explain. It sounds as if its a trade of a couple of weeks bad nights for hopefully continued good ones. Will certainly look into controlled comforting.

The only thing I can't seem to find a general consensus about is whether my dd at 6 weeks would be too young to learn controlled comforting of any kind. Several books say it can be done from day one, but my health visitor and many other mums say way too young. Not sure how old your ds was when you started?

I suppose in truth its easier for me to say that she's too young so I can put off the heart-wrenching job of teaching her to settle on her own!

At 6 weeks she's definitely waaaaay too young!! The absolute earliest that controlled crying can be done is 5 months, and the principles for this will be the same as those behind controlled comforting. At 6 weeks your DD is too young to 'learn' what you are expecting of her.

The person who came up with controlled comforting, as opposed to controlled crying, says you can use it for babies under 6 months and controlled crying for babies over 6 months. I started using controlled comforting around 10 weeks. TBH, I think the baby has to get to a critical mass (can't remember, but I think it was about 10lb) before their tummies are big enough to hold enough milk for them to go longer between feeds so you might to think about waiting until your lo is up to that weight. As I mention, the problem for me was that I was encouraging him to wake up which meant I was scratching my head, wondering why he didn't sleep longer once he did hit the relevant weight!! I think you'd get an idea quite quickly of whether your lo really can go longer between feeds or not..

PS - in Australia, they say you can do controlled crying at 6 weeks and one of my friends had both her boys in Oz and followed this. Someone told me they thought the reason they say 6 months in UK is primarily because of the risk of cot death, rather than because of lasting mental anguish for the baby. I must admit, though, that I generally picked ds up if he hadn't calmed down after 10 minutes and occasionally fed him to sleep if he got too worked up...

In the US, general advice is not to try any kind of sleep training until they are at least 4 months as their bodies are still adjusting to life in the 'real world'. Most controlled crying advocates say to begin around 16 weeks.

I never did it - it was too horrile to hear and I really felt that my ds shouldn't have to cry himself to sleep. That said, I paid for it - up many times some nights to bf him. He's now 1 and I put him in cot sleepy but awake and he drops off by himself, no problems. The past week or so he has only woken up once to be fed, yipppeee!

DS1 was 5
DD was 12 weeks then started waking at 7 months so we did sleep training and it worked within a fortnight.

DS1 now 13 still needs virtually no sleep though.

5??!!! Oh my goodness. The sleep training certainly sounds appealing now! Glad you have 1 good sleeper,
Holidaymum

My dd slept through from 9 weeks, and I can honestly say that appart from seeing a cranial osteopathm I did nothing for it to happen - it was just her personality. Now she's 6 months and has been waking up lots due to hunger. It's getting better now she's started on solids, and is old enough for me to just reassure and not feed her back to sleep. So I'd say between 5 and 6 months for the not-feeding approach. In fact, since we've started she goes to sleep much easier and quicker.

Oh, and I've found that waking at around 4am only for a while preceeds the magic through the night.

I'd have to say that while through the night is nice, if you're used to waking up and it doesn't make you too tired, that is fine as well. Mixing the two, that's stressful! (in my experience)

My ds is 7.5 weeks and there seems no pattern to his waking - when he was 3 weeks old he went through a period of sleeping from about midnight till 6am without waking, then he started waking at 3-hour intervals, night before last he was up nearly every hour, then last night he slept from 8.30pm till 7am! He's keeping us guessing every night at the moment.

Lazybones - maybe you are right about the waking at 4 preceeding the 'through the night' as DS slept through until 7 this morning - fingers crossed it continues!!

Thanks to all those who have commented on controlled comforting/crying. Really hate the idea of leaving my dd to cry so more than happy to wait until she's older!

I must admit my first ds was bottle fed and slept really well without any kind of 'sleep training'. However that was nearly 12 years ago and I had no idea then that I had to do anything other than wait for him to sleep through on his own - which he did from around 8 weeks. It seems we are almost overloaded with information about what we should/shouldn't be doing as mothers and forget to rely on instinct!

Me again - just read 2labs post about your ds changing his pattern every day. So relieved that I am not the only one! Just when you think you have cracked it everything changes...