Do bad sleepers ever come good?

[Auntycaz]

Tired mummy here. LG almost 9 months. She has never slept great. From about 4months she's gotten up 2 or 3 times a night for a feed but it's getting progressively worse. At bedtime I have to wrestle her to sleep. She arches her back, hits punches and fits sleep. This will take usually an hour to get her to sleep. Then when she wakes up she'll cry until we come and do the same process again. This happens a few times a night. I am starting to reach the end of my rope. I can't do it anymore. Anyone had bad sleepers eventually get it? I'm thinking of sleep training her but she's been a bit sick recently and I've let her come into the bed with us whilst she's poorly but after that I want to do something. ANYTHING! any advice?

Interested in this. I have a 21 month old who had the 4 month sleep regression and never recovered. He's still up a couple of times a night and starts his day at 5:30am.

We've tried sleep training btw, but they all seem to involve them crying. My DS doesn't so much cry, he shouts and wakes up my three year old.

Can I ask what her feeding schedule is like?

My almost 9mo DS was up at least once a night before we made huge changes to his food/bottle schedule.

Does she nap a lot during the day?

Also are you breast or bottle feeding?

Definitely. My DS didn't sleep much for the first three years. He loves his bed now (10 yo). Be patient

It does get better. You will get through it.
DD didn't go for longer than 3 to 4 hrs for the first two years. Then suddenly, one day she just started sleeping 12hrs through the night. I have no idea what caused it.

DD1 slept really badly until she was 2.5y now 3.5y and only wakes twice a night

DS turned from an awful to a good sleeper at about 15 months. We'd done a fair bit of gentle sleep training (Elizabeth Pantley) to get rid of bad habits like rocking him to sleep from about 9 months when we hit an awful spell of it taking 2 to 3 hours to get him to sleep. We tried the supposedly easier sleep training options including a small amount of cry it out with no success first. The big thing that seemed to change at 15 months was teething paused for a few months, and suddenly the work wed put in paid off - he went from 1 to 2 wake ups to sleeping through within about a month.

It's child dependent though - DC2 still rarely sleeps through at 2.....

Yes it does improve but in my case, so slowly that you don't really notice it!

Both mine were awful sleepers, no type of sleep training worked, we'd take a few steps forward then teething/ colds/ growth spurt would take us several steps back!

Neither slept completely through the night till they were 4/5 but did go gradually from waking multiple times to just once and sliding themselves into my bed without me noticing!

My 6yo still wakes up and gets in my bed about 20% of the time and my 11yo sleeps brilliantly till 9am if he doesn't have to be woken for school.

You have my sympathy, sleep deprivation is the worst x

Mine sleeps ok now at 3, he was a horrendous sleeper as a a baby and younger toddler

She's bottle fed. She wakes up and has porridge or weetabix and some fruit then 7oz bottle and a nap about 9.30 for an hour then up some lunch about 12 another 7oz bottle about 1.30/2 then she'll sleep for about an hour and a half then dinner bath 9oz bottle at 7.shes a big baby too! So I don't even know if it is hunger or habit with her

I also have a 3 Yr old and getting the 2 of them to bed at night (on my own) is becoming a nightmare!

Yes but not until he was 7. And still gets regular nightmares

Based on the question ' is she bottle or breast fed ' is that saying one or the other is a key feature of sleeping issues?

I feel your pain OP, its so destructive long term sleep deprivation. Personally, I would get her into bed until sleeping through, then try getting back to cot.

Oh, and your other ask, no, one doesn't automatically lead to the other. I've had years of awful sleeping patterns through mine, turned out all were capable of and did accomplish 13 hrs sleep a night!!! I wish I'd known that in the early stages I would have given me such hope! There are others though who will always have sleep issues through life, or not need so much sleep, who can tell?!

Yes, DS was an awful sleeper, awake every hour. Suddenly by the time he was 3 he slept 12 hours!

Yes, dc1 was an awful sleeper, nap refuser, and an absolute nightmare to settle, never slept more than 2hrs at night without screaming. We tried it all, sleep training, I walked miles with him, my dh and I drove miles with him to just try and get some sleep, it never worked. I also co-slept but still he fought sleep every step for two and a half years, I was exhausted. Now at 4 yrs he is brilliant, goes to bed with no problem and sleeps through. He has anything from 10-12 hours, sometimes up at 6am, sometimes 8am, comes downstairs bright as can be. Hang on in there, it gets better. Dc2 was the opposite, dc3 somewhere in between the two.

From my baby group a lot of breastfeeding mums say they feed a lot during the night so was just curious as my DS is bottle fed and sleeps well. There probably are loads of breast fed babies that sleep all night - I only have a small sample group!

OP your schedule for her is much like mine for DS. Was wondering if she was hungry and that's what was waking her. Could it be that she's copying your 3yo? Do you use a dummy?

Try Elizabeth Pantley No cry sleep solution, I think there is a free pdf of it online. Saved my life.

My daughter didn't sleep more than 2 hours at a stretch without waking for a BF until she was 9 months old. It gradually got better and she is now 10 years old and I'm waking her up at weekends haha.

She has a dummy. She's loves her dummy! She used to get up feed and then just go back to sleep but now she fights it every chance she gets. I'm starting to lose my mind. I'm finding it hard to enjoy her at all because my husband can't even sleep in the bed now. I'm always tired and cranky which isn't fair on my 3 Yr old. I'm starting work next month and I just don't know how ill cope. I think I'll be in a mental hospital if I have to wait til she's 3 to get sleep.

It does get better, my son didn't really sleep for the first 14 months...he loves his bed now (hes 12)

Mine eventually came good, at 2 and a half years and 4 and a half years.

The four and a half years one wakes maybe 1-2 nights a week and takes 45-60 minutes to get back to sleep, now, at age 7. The 2 and a half years one sleeps all night 7 days a week unless sick and did so reliably from about 4 years.

Erm, honestly, my son went through a stage like this. It was taking us hours and hours of battling to get him to sleep. Eventually we realised he would go to sleep after 10-15 minutes of crying and this to us seemed a lot less damaging for everyone than engaging in an hours long battle with us trying to get him to sleep during which he'd be crying/unhappy/diatribes for far longer than the short time we left him to cry before falling asleep. We were at our wit's end with it, just couldn't find a way to get him to sleep happily and had to make the decision on the balance of his well being that it was better to leave him.

Yes, they do!

I had babies who were both horrific sleepers - so bad that I once fantasised about crashing my car so I could have a couple of nights sleep in hospital!

Both DDs now sleep 7pm - 7am without any wakings and have done since they were toddlers.

Hang in there!

Hang in there. DS1 couldn’t sleep for longer than an hour, maybe 2, pretty much constantly latched on to my boob for the first year of his life.
It was torture. Couldn’t see any light st the end of the tunnel. By his second birthday he was sleeping 12/13 hours a night. He’s amazing now. Can’t remember exactly when if changed, it was a gradual thing over that year. 18 months probably a turning point.