Mums of 12-hour a night babies how did you do it?

[EllaWt]

Just that really... my 6 months old is nowhere near that and I'm dreaming of a 7pm to 7am baby

Another one for saying mostly luck (feel like we didn't do anything special with DC1 or DC and they were both sleeping 8 hours by 8 weeks and 12 hours from about 3/4 months plus.

Having said that, purely anecdotally all of my friends who have exclusively breast feed and/or co-slept had a MUCH harder time of it.

Gentle sleep training (gradual retreat)

Same here. I know a lot of people are dead against sleep training but there really are gentle ways to do it that don’t mean leaving your child to cry.

First one didn't sleep,till I broke and tried Ferber at 15 months. Slept after one night, 12 hours.

Second is only five months but a much better sleeper overall. Probably because I don't have the energy or time to worry about it. Sometimes I have to put her down and change toddler or rescue toddler and not rush every time she squeaks. She self settles much better and is up once in night but not trying to kill me like her sister.

Give it time. DS was a horrendous sleeper for the first 6 months, then one day he just started sleeping through. I woke up in the morning and panicked because I thought something was seriously wrong!! He's 19 months now and it's probably 50/50 between sleeping 7-6 or waking up once at about 2. Obviously worse if he's ill or teething. Your baby will sleep eventually. I tried all sorts. None of it worked and then one day it just magically happened!

Routine routine routine. And cry it out occasionally if required.

We thought dc1 was a fluke but we managed it again with dc2 6years later, both sleeping through from 3months. Routine, routine, routine. We do dinner, bath, bottle and bed. If they cry, go in, no speaking other than 'bed time now', lie them down and re give comforters and leave. If they cry again, give it 5 and repeat. I find if we give them a minute to stop crying, rather than run straight in, they settle down faster. We did this from a young age and they sleep great

I didn’t do anything to make it happen and on the (fairly rare) nights she doesn’t sleep well I can’t do anything to make her. I’m really certain it’s just luck - lots of my friends are much ‘better’ mums than me in the sense of being more strict with routines etc and the results varied a lot, mine just had the ability to sleep for long periods from the day she was born - not to say that she always did it! I do think it’s good to get used to putting them down awake from early on though, and not to jump up at the first sign of a noise (obviously much easier once they’re in their own room).

I waited....and waited and waited. We did gentle sleep training at 10 months to get him into his cot and into a better routine.

He continued to wake 3 times a night until 2.5 years, when suddenly I realised he had slept through for 3 nights on the trot and we never looked back. Hang on in there!! I didn't believe anyone who told me it would end but it bloody did.

Fluke and don’t let anybody make you feel bad about it. It was my biggest bugbear when some snotty ex friend would say ‘you just need a routine’. No ex friend you are not mum of the year. Your baby sleeps to get away from your boring talk about routines!

Also! As a PP has already mentioned, any friends who had babies that slept well had it all go to shit when they grew into toddlers. That made me feel better

Routine!
Start and finish the day at the same times roughly, feeding at the same time each day and adapting that as they grown and eat solids etc.
During night feeds, cuddle and feed/wind and lay down. Minimal fuss and low lights.
Start as you mean to go on, 6mo tha is a good time to start.

She's not a terrible sleeper ... she goes down fairly easily but has just started to do 8pm to 6am with a few night wakings when previously 8pm to 7am with zero night wakings... we're just so tired uh

Absolutely nothing other than luck. Twice.

FWIW, early wakings were quite common around this age if I remember correctly. Generally I was happy with a good 8-10 hours undisturbed so never bothered too much about it.

DS aged 2 has slept through the night since we did pick up and put down at 4 months old (bar illness) He’s never done 12 hours though, at the moment it’s about 7-6. He lives an early morning but I’m not complaining. He needs to be up early on nursery days anyway.

I don’t know many babies or toddlers that sleep until 7am to be honest.

Hefty dose of genetic luck I think as I always slept a lot, mine were 8 and 13 weeks.

To give a helping to the luck day time sleeps were all downstairs, never in cot and night time routine started from pretty much day 1 with darker rooms and quieter voices in the evening, DS had a grobag which I think he associated with night time when he went in it then into his cot.

DD was then a complete nightmare when she was 4 and we ended up at CAHMs with her nightmares at one point so had lots of sleep,DS’s nights later on.

Luck. Routine and sleep training will help with sleep but some babies/children just don't need 12hours.

We've had a solid routine from 4months and did sleep training. Which taught her to self settle and helped us improve on her 2 hourly wake ups. But at 18 months she will only do 10.5hours max a night and 1.5hours max in the day.

We've tried everything, moving naps, capping naps, moving bedtime, black out blinds, leaving her in her room if she wakes early, etc. But it's still 5.30am wake ups in this house most days.

SIL did no sleep training and never set a routine but DN has been sleeping 12 hours through the night from around 6weeks. Now at 2.5years still does 12 hours a night and 2-3hours in the day.

Formula feeding, regular bedtime, bath routine, dark quiet bedroom, cot beside my bed, dummy to suck.
Mine slept through from 8 weeks old.
I thought she’d died in the night, and was panic struck to wake up at 7.30 am and see her motionless! I prodded her, and she opened one bleary eye, scowled horribly and went back to sleep!
I think it’s much more difficult if you have a baby with reflux or colic, or are breast feeding, or just have a baby who doesn’t need much sleep.

Long naps during the day, went to bed awake so learned how to self settle, both DC were thumb suckers, lots of good luck. DC1 used to sleep 14 hours, I would go in to his room and put laundry away in the morning and he'd sleep right through it. Can't get him to go to bed now he's a teenager so it's swings and roundabouts.

Cannot be. None of mine ever slept that long. They still don’t.

Luck, I'm afraid - sheer luck it was in my case with DD. DS also slept well but woke for one feed 1am-ish (DD was bottle fed after 12 weeks, he was breast fed), but honestly one wake a night was a non-issue.

They were both in a separate room to us by 12 weeks, which may also have helped.

Luck! Honestly, I have two very different sleepers and they’ve had the same routines from about 4 months. Nothing different. DS 3.5 has slept 13 hours since about 8 weeks DD 1.5 wakes constantly and ends up co-sleeping. I have no answers!

@Aprilwasverywet wow you must be hardcore

Ditto luck. We were just given a baby that slept through.

She dropped day time naps at 12 months though so we had the fun of no breaks in the daytime and a crotchety baby every evening for 2 years

We didn't really have a strategy. He just likes to sleep at night. When he sleeps he sleeps.

He didn't for the first 8 weeks though .

My 12 month old DD still doesn’t do 7-7 no matter what I do. She did however sleep 7pm - 6:50am last night with 1 wake up at 5:20 but that was only because she refused her afternoon nap and was surviving on 1 hour sleep 🤣

She tends to do 7:30-6/6:30 most nights (usually with a wake up around 5ish for her dummy) - I think the average is 10-12 hours at night.