Tell me about your good sleeper

[kmini]

i can't help but wonder why some babies sleep well and others not?

So...i have two dc' s.. .both rubbish on the sleep front. I now joke I create non sleepers. I joke about this...but I think it must be true, once is unlucky, twice is a pattern???

Ds almost 4, now sleeps well, once we sorted his eczema at 2 he progressively slept better. Never keen on cry it out with him, so we almost always stayed with him till he settled. Now does it himself for over a year and a half.

Dd has just turned 1. Never slept longer than 2-3 hours consistently for her 1st 10 months and at times much worse. At 6 months I implemented a strict day time routine (prior to this still in routine just less rigid) and was trying gradual retreat for naps and sleep. At 8 months I resorted to controlled crying, by 10 months we had a sleep consultant and cranial sacral therapist. 11 months she was sleeping 10 hours albeit waking and self settling and by 12 months we were back at 2-3 hourly wakes!!

Anyway all above is just context...my real question has been bothering me since our 8 month year old nephew stayed recently. He's a trooper with sleep. 1st time away from his mum - bed by 6.45, fell asleep quickly and slept till 5.30, then happily played in his cot till 7. Same with naps - very easy. I know they were probably more relaxed with letting the little guy grizzle/cry to sleep when he was younger but apart from that I don't think they've done anything out of the ordinary with him.

So tell me parents of good sleepers what did you do.
What age did they sleep well?
Did you let them cry it out? If so, what age?
Breastfeeding vs bottle make any difference?
Do they have any comforters?

Many thanks for your opinions!

I think good sleepers are born not made

I have 3 DC; middle one slept through from 6/7 months but the other two never slept a whole night. They are adults now and I still hear them pottering about in the night when they are home but they no longer come in for a cuddle.
The two bad sleepers are quite settled personality wise and are very similar to each other. They were both terrific breast feeders and very attached( all senses of word) to me whereas middle DC have up the breast at 6 months.
Upshot is that I think a lot of sleep pattern is personality.

Yeah we have routines too we have bought up our kids the same but one responded better than the other due to their personality I think.

I have twins, one is a great sleeper the other is terrible and wakes many times at night. I haven't done anything differently, they have exactly the same routine so I agree that good sleepers are born that way and it's nothing to do with what parents do.

My first slept beautifully. He slept through the night from 6 weeks old. I would put him down awake and let him self settle, then used to go in to wake him in the morning and he would lying happily in his cot. He would nap perfectly too. I totally thought this was down to my good parenting. Then I had number 2...

He did not sleep at all. The parenting books went out the window, I didn't care if I was making a rod for my back, I did whatever it took to grab a couple of hours peace. It was then I decided that number 1's perfect sleep routine had very little to do with me.

Number 1 (age 10) makes up for it now though. Turns out he is autistic and he is up half the night, I class it as a success if he is asleep before midnight.

Ds settled easily, slept through from about 7pm to 1am, night feed then down again until about 7am from about 5 months. He carried on like that until 12 months. I got to the point I could bf while almost asleep myself.
From 1 he slept from 8pm to 5am without a night feed.
He was bf, only child, never wanted a comforter, if he was awake in his cot he didn’t whinge, he formed an escape committee.
When he was asleep I could hoover under the cot without waking him.
But later, getting him dry at night took ages - he was nearly 6 - because he was so deep asleep he didn’t notice.

DD is a brilliant sleeper. I was pretty much obsessed with her sleep over first few weeks of her life and I was ready to go through short-term pain for the longer-term results.

Here is what I did:

• I never fed to sleep. I know a lot of people find it natural and easy and argue that unsustainable sleep associations do not exist but I knew if I had started feeding to sleep it would've had to go on for longer than I wanted.
• I formula fed so I tracked feeds and monitored how much DD was taking.
• I followed a routine which was quite loose until 8 weeks and became stricter as DD got older. She was always quite aware and could stay awake for longer than average.
• I started sleep training early so I didn't need to use controlled crying. I personally believe the earlier you start the less tears there will be. I used swaddling for very early days and pick up/put down + shush/pat after 6 weeks. Pick up/put down and shush/pat were not tear free but I was always there. Weeks 8 to 10 were hard - DH and I spent a lot of nights shushing/patting DD. The trick was actually to begin shushing before DD got fully awake. It was much harder to get her back to sleep once she woke up.
• I read the actual SIDS research (rather than the NHS guidelines) and was comfortable moving DD to her own room at 12 weeks. I learnt the risk of having the baby in its own room is slightly lower than the risk of so called "safe co-sleeping". Of course, it was a personal choice and a lot of people will make a different call.
• From 12 weeks, DD consistently slept for 11-12 hours with one dream feed. If she woke up and cried during the night after that, there was always a reason (e.g. teething or dirty nappy). I dropped the dream feed when DD turned 8 months.
• I regularly tweak DD routine by reducing / moving naps to protect the nighttime sleep. It is not too difficult but it is very true that if a routine works wonders today, no-one can guarantee it will still work tomorrow.
• DD has always slept with a muslin but I do not think she recognises it as a comforter. In early days, she did a cute rocking movement to help herself settle. Now she has dropped it but is sleeping hugging her mattress or holding onto cot bars. It looks like her comforter is the cot:). If we put any toys in the cot, DD will play with them when she is awake but will throw them all out before going to sleep. As far as she is concerned, the cot needs to be clear (the only exception is the muslin).

DD is now 18 months and loves her sleep. She is cutting her second molars and can be a real nightmare during the day but, surprisingly, she still sleeps well at night.

Hi

I have two bad sleepers! I won’t be having a third and the only reason is sleep!!

First - didn’t sleep. Tried everything in terms of techniques....nothing worked. Slept through out of no where at 14months. Never ever self settled.

Second (currently 14months). Self settled til 6 months then has never done so since. Haven’t done any techniques but gave a dummy which as far as I can tell hasn’t made any difference. This baby wakes in the night several times and gets up early every day. No sign of sleeping through.

I have no idea why they don’t sleep! My Bffs baby slept through at 5 months on her own and that was it ever since. She did nothing different to me.

I have wondered if it might be something to do with teething - as in some feel the teeth more and it wakes them and others don’t. Other wise brains wired differently or it could be something subtle I’m doing wrong but I really can’t see lol!!

I really wanted a good sleeper the second time haha!! :)

DS1-didn’t sleep through until about 3 years. I breast fed to sleep, let him determine routine and co-slept.
DS2-slept through from about 3 months. I didn’t do anything different.

I didn’t have a good sleeper for he first year. I did a bit of controlled crying around 11 months but didn’t take much. He became a better sleeper but not perfect. around 13 months he now sleeps through 7-6/7 pretty much every night. I don’t think I did anything in particular - he just did it.