When will he sleep

[TheRedSquare]

What age did your little ones go through the night?

And what did you do differently/to help this happen?

Mines 18 months and just started doing it now 7pm-5/6am, he had done it a few time around 15 months but then went backwards again, up to recently he was waking a few times a night usually 9pm/1am and then 4am and often wanted to get up at 4am, we have a week old baby who is now up all night so starting it all over again

adogrocket it's not luck - it takes a lot of effort to do the routine. But in my mind getting a night sleep was really important for me to function during the day.
OP you just need to persevere. Good luck.

I think it’s a bit misleading to tell OP that all she needs to do is persevere and it will work for her. As I said, I know people who put months of effort into Gina Ford and it just did not work. Equally I know some people it worked a dream for. Not all babies are created equal.

@SoyDora I haven't been on MN for long but it seems to me that there are some posters who refuse to believe that this is the case. I remember one ouster who couldn't understand why people rocked babies - to me this shows that it really is basic on the baby. I've been surprised at how nasty some sleep threads can get.

Sorry was holding baby whilst typing- poster and based!

Around 2.5 years old for the oldest, 18 months for middle one, 2 years for the 3rd.

You sound so stressed op What exactly is your babies sleep/routine like at the moment?

Please don’t feel you have to be perfect or have the perfect baby. It’s all bollocks. My twins are a year next month and they don’t sleep through. They also went through a stage from four to eight months where they wouldn’t nap for more than twenty minutes a day! Even now they only have two 30-45 minute naps a day!
Please don’t let these precious early months be spoiled by fretting about what your baby ‘should’ be doing. I’m sure you’re doing a great job

In my experience, it's nothing we could control! My first child had a lovely routine but he's only just stopped coming into our bed at 2am. He'll be 5 in November. My 10 month old has no routine at all but it feels so much more enjoyable and he's a super jolly baby. He has never done more than a 2 hour stretch though, i've resorted to co-sleeping now. I cant see him sleeping through the night anytime soon!

I did Gina Ford with my preemie DD, and it worked a treat as long as we stuck to the routines...l was not prepared to struggle with no sleep endlessly or to leave mine to cry it out, so it worked well for me but l did persevere.....and prioritise the routine.
My DD slept from 7.30 - 5.30 with a sleepy feed at 11pm, by 18 weeks old.

My Ds too a bit longer about 6 months to get to the same stage.

I would not hesitate to do it that way again.

I have very little routine with DS (two older DC with school/pre school runs/activities etc which makes it almost impossible) and he was sleeping 7-6 with no dream feed by 16 weeks!

(And sleeps 7-7 now at 6 months)

OP, if you want to follow a routine and enjoy following the routine then do it. If you detest every single moment of following a routine, then there is no point doing it in the vain hope it will magically make your baby sleep through.

My DC slept through at between 2 and 3 months. I did absolutely bloody nothing to encourage it. Neither had anything near any kind of routine at that point. Neither of them were on solids. One got put into his own room at 3 months and the other stayed in with us until almost a year. The one who stayed with us slept through earlier than the one who didn't. I didn't even do a bath before bed because it always made the pair of them hyper and sleep worse. I don't think anything I did made one bloody bit of difference.

I always remember though that neither of them ever woke me up in my sleep when I was pregnant. They've just always been that way.

Thank you for all the replies...my little one is not great with naps and I believe that is why we're having a rough time...for two solid weeks now he won't go down to bed until 10pm 😩 so I get no time at all to myself...before he was going down 8pm latest, and so nice to have a couple of hours in the evening...he naps all over the place...sometimes for 20 mins, and if I really work at it can get about 1.5 hours, but usually wakes in the middle 😩 he has taken to napping around 6ish which is a nightmare....I guess it's just something we have to ride through and hope he goes back to going up by 8!
He wakes usually once during the night for a feed, but it is getting later in the night, so that's good I guess.
I've bought a blackout blind too as his room is light by 5.30am

How old is your baby OP?

26months - doenst sleep through yet!

@GenevaMaybe he is 5 months old.
From day dot hasn't been a brilliant sleeper or napper.
I've took advice on nighttime and keep the room dark and I don't talk to him when I see to him feeding..which in fairness he does take his bottle and go back down really well.
I'm pretty sure it's the napping that is interfering with nighttime as he try's to have a nap late afternoon, and he cat naps a lot!!

Maybe I will just have one that doesn't sleep well 🤷🏻‍♀️ I find it so hard. I have an under active thyroid and the biggest symptom of the illness is fatigue and exhaustion no matter how much you sleep...so I'm at a disadvantage before I added broken sleep 😫
Husband doesn't do night feeds or settling as he works, and atm he can't settle baby at all, as he use to put him down on the evenings...so I literally have no break at all what so ever 😔

DS is 13 months and is just starting to (maybe) sleep through the night. We were co-sleeping and we have moved him into his cot, also taught him how to fall asleep himself (gradually went from rocking him, to rubbing his back, to leaving the room for 5 minutes at a time.) and are starting to help him self soothe so if he does wake up he can just settle again.

I am still breastfeeding him but we have introduced a bottle of formula at bedtime to change the association of sleep/bf.

Seems to be working! Hope this helps.

5 months is a perfect time to introduce a routine and good sleeping habits.
To help with the routine, you can

• wake him at the same time every day (7am)
• keep bedtime consistent (6.30-7pm)
• do all naps in his cot at least for a week except the little catnap in the afternoon
• teach him to self settle

At 5 months we did
7am wake and bottle
9-10am nap
10.30am bottle
12-2.30 nap
3pm bottle
4.45-5pm nap (this one you just do however you can, car/pram etc as it is gone by 6 months)
6pm bath
6.30pm bottle
7pm bed

The lunchtime nap is the hardest as they can wake after one sleep cycle and you have to persevere with settling them back. Once they’ve got the hang of it then it’s a solid 2 hr nap that they keep until they’re 2 years old so it’s worth putting in the effort.

@GenevaMaybe thank you so much for that...that's really helpful...half the time I have no idea how long he should be awake between his naps etc...people say just follow baby which I've tried and he would nap at 6-6.45 and then awake until gone 10, so I have to start a routine of some sort. We always bath at 6pm anyway, and I aim to do bottle around 7ish...we've gone to 4 hourly feeds, and they are a little all over atm due to as mentioned his sporadic napping, which in turn interferes with feeding...think it's something that will take a little time bashing out.
He woke at 5am crying today...I went in, gave him dummy and left the room...he was wide awake, but got himself back off to sleep until 7.45!

I would say set alarm & make sure baby is awake 7am every morning even if you're knackered. Also I didn't let mine cat nap - used to keep them awake when it wasn't nap time. Might seem cruel but they then sleep can be measured. If they're getting too much between 7am-7pm then obviously they won't sleep long at night.
There are charts online about max hours they need at each age, By 5 months pretty sure it's one mid morning nap say 9.00-9.45 and one lunch nap 12-2 or 1-3.

It’s family legend that I was a horrendous sleeper; ninety minute stretches max, only napped in car when in motion, permanent bags under my eyes. Apparently all changed overnight as I’d just turned 9 months and got up one morning and toddled across the room to follow the cat. I’m told that I then spent all day walking increasingly fast around the house, then crashed for 12 hours after bath and bottle and slept through from then on. Even, I’m told, took myself upstairs after lunch every day for a nap as a toddler.

The next sister in age apparently slept through 12 hours from 6 weeks old until she worked out how to climb out of the cot, and then didn’t sleep through again until she started school.

Parents swear they did nothing differently with us or the following two children (average sleepers), which leads me to believe that more often that not A Good Sleeper is predestined....

My DD (nearly 8 months) likes a party from 3-5am, and rarely goes back to sleep after it. Only naps in half hour stretches. I was not blessed.

converseandjeans my 6 month old has never slept until 7am, so that wouldn’t work for us. Also however long (or not) he’s awake between naps he still only naps for half an hour, despite doing every single thing in the books to try and get him to nap longer.
It just doesn’t work for every baby. Honest.

@converseandjeans 'wake him up at 7am'. Hahahahahahahaha.
I am currently dealing with my hysterical DS. He is 10 months and woke at 4.10. He will not go back to sleep- its not looking hopeful.
You cannot actually genuinely believe that every baby works like this can you?

I tried to do a routine. DS wouldn't take a dummy, which didn't help, but he was not having ANY of it. At about 9/10 weeeks he stopped napping for more than about 20 minutes, so no long lunchtime nap was going to happen. In over a year I think I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he has napped for 2 hours. I beat myself up about it and tried really hard for a while to get him to nap longer, but in the end I just admitted defeat and decided beating myself up wasn't helping anyone, so I just went with the flow.

He still doesn't sleep through. He goes through periods of sleeping well and periods of sleeping shit. He has been able to self settle since about 4/5 months, it made no difference. I've given up thinking there is anything I can do about it. Before I had DS I was determined that I was going to get him sleep trained, turns out I failed - oh well 🤷‍♀️

Both of mine started sleeping through consistently (7pm to 7am) when they were just over one year. Being mobile definitely helped them sleep better. I think my daughter sleeping through the same week she started walking. They're both still very good sleepers they're now 8 and 6.