When did you know you had a good sleeper?

[Bancha]

Just interested in people’s experiences.

DD was an awful sleeper as a baby - had to be held to sleep and couldn’t be put down. Had split nights for months. My mental health was on the floor and after going back to work we eventually resorted to CC. It was actually really quick and she now goes to bed so happily and sleeps like a dream.

DS is four weeks old and he sleeps 12 hours a night waking for a couple of feeds. Goes straight back down in his next to me. Settles by himself for some of his naps in his bouncer or Moses basket. When he stirs when I put him down, more often than not he just goes back off to sleep. He will drift off in my arms without any effort from meS He still sleeps most of the time unlike DD at the same age - he just seems really different in temperament and I am so surprised as it’s so, so different from DD.

I’m so grateful for every day that he is sleeping well but nervously waiting for reality to hit! So just curious about others’ experiences - did you have a seemingly good sleeper and it all went horribly wrong? Or is this a good omen for things to come?

When I had ds2 I was also shocked about how completely different they.

Ds1 was a horrendous day time sleeper and good night time sleeper until he got to 4 months then got gradually worse until it was horrendous at 8 months . We did sleep training (gradual withdrawal/retreat) and from about 12 months he has been an amazing sleeper and still is a teenager

Ds2 random- always has been and is now having sleep issues as a teenager amongst other things

Ds3 - amazing at night time and daytime until about 12 weeks then completely swapped day for night! I actually did not bother too much as I had a 4 and 2 year old to care for in the day. Ds3 had lovely long naps in the day then pretty rubbish at night. As he got older he gradually slept less in the day and the nights sorted themselves out. He still occasionally comes into our bed and is nearly 12!

On the other hand I have a friend with 6 kids who all slept through the night from about 6 weeks- amazing!

Thanks for the reply. It does seem to be luck of the draw. I’d very much like one of the sleeps through from six weeks types though!

Hi Bancha, I might not be on topic but you noticed you've had split night with your DD. I was just curious (and very desperate) how did it fixed? Did you do something specific or it just solved on its own?

DD1 slept really well for the first 12 weeks, she'd sleep 6/7 hours straight, then wake for a feed, then sleep another 3 hours. From 12 weeks it really went to hell for a few months which was a shock as I'd (naively) thought sleeping would always be ok, even if it didn't stay quite as good. Overall I guess she is quite good though - she's 3 now.

Unfortunately I'd say 4 weeks is too early to say you've definitely got a good sleeper. But you've got a good one for now, and that's worth a lot when they're 4 weeks (DD2 is 4 weeks and is terrible at night, very different to her sister).

My first was a great sleeper from the start really, just generally very chilled (if anything we had to consciously keep him awake sometimes in the day). By 8 weeks he was down to 1 feed a night and by 16 weeks he slept through. My second was completely different and although not awful in the grand scheme of things, he had a lot more periods of disturbed sleep in his first year whereas his brother just slept through one night and never woke again. Second still comes in our bed at around 3am every night for cuddles and he's 2.5 now pregnant with number three now and wondering what sort of sleeper we will have this time!

DC2 was a dream baby (contrast to DC1) great night time and daytime sleep until about 6 months.

then it suddenly got bad - awake every 1-2 hours every other night.

i got in touch with Anne and Nurturing Sleep and a couple of sessions with her helped me
understand what was going on and what to do about it.

i highly recommend her (Google to find her website and contact details) she was great value and helped me understand that many sleep issues are about needing to express and resolve emotion. So working through it isn’t about crying / not crying but supporting them while they express their feelings, not suppressing those feelings with feeding , rocking etc. But not cry it out or CC either.

was a game changer for us. DC2 has been fine since, though we re do Anne’s principles regularly.

wish I’d called her with DC1 who would have benefited too when smaller.

Anne’s way of charging is also v reasonable. It’s pay as you go, not a large up front fee.

my kids are 3&8 now and I still speak to her from time to time for generally parenting advice. She’s fab!

Thanks for these replies! DD2 is still a pretty good sleeper at 2 months now. Quite variable on the number of wake ups - sometimes one, sometimes three 🤷‍♀️ but always goes back down no problem and sometimes self settles for naps. So far, so good. I agree with what @3amAndImStillAwake says - while it’s good I will just be grateful! I am still waiting for it to all go south.

@BlieCoffee I really understand your desperation! I’m so sorry, split nights are hell. Thinking back to it now, one of the main causes for DD1’s split nights was if she slept too long in the day. She usually went through periods of split nights when she needed to drop a nap or her nap was too long. She tended to need on the lower end of a ‘normal’ amount of sleep. I was merciless about waking her from naps as it meant she slept well overnight.

However, she also went through a period of waking in the night from around 14 months which I think was behavioural. She would cry if I tried to leave the room and I eventually clicked that the split night kind of ‘rewarded’ her in a sense because I would lie on the floor next to her cot. So I decided just to stop doing it. She was 16m at this point. When she woke, I went and comforted her and checked on her and she cried for a very short amount of time before going quiet. She lay in her cot awake for her full 2 hour wake up but not crying, had another brief cry and fell back to sleep. The same thing happened maybe once or twice more, from what I remember, and she hasn’t done it again (2.5 now) since then! I now need to be careful she doesn’t nap too long in the day but it’s because she takes ages to fall asleep if she does, not because she wakes for ages in the night. Which is much easier to deal with! I sometimes wonder if I’d been a bit stricter earlier on if I could have saved myself months of torment…!

What is going on with your DC?

I am going to be really annoying and just remind you that bouncers aren't safe for sleep (even if you are right there watching him). I know it's tempting to let them sleep in one but the position of them makes it really dangerous for sleep.

@Bancha Thank you so much for your reply. Split nights are indeed pure hell. My son is 14 months old and has been waking up and staying awake for 2-3 hours every night, since he was about 9 months. Around 8 months old I hired a sleep consultant (he was waking up many times at night). Nights improved considerably after using a very soft sleep training method...but after 1 month, he started this terrible nightmare. Useless to say, I have tried everything I knew or could, including letting him cry, taking him in my bed, feeding him ..but nothing works, he just wants to be let down so he can play and explore at 2-3am. My older son on the other hand (3 years old), he's a very good sleeper. At 10 months old, I used a gentle sleep method, after about 1 month he was sleeping 11-12h a night, with a nap of 2h, rarely waking up. Around 2 years old, after his brother was born, he had a sleep regression..for some months he had troubled sleep, but now he's back on track with 11-12h a night, no nap anymore. Small kids's sleep is just a huge mistery!

That sounds so tough. Five months of split nights! Poor you!

What are his naps like? At 10m DD had a period of split nights. She would go down no problem for naps so she didn’t appear to be getting too much day sleep, but at the same time after being up half the night she didn’t appear tired in the day. when I dropped her down to one nap she stopped the split nights immediately (until they started again haha, but we had a good period of sleep!)

With my first we were told to wake her to feed during the night. She often didn't wake for a feed. So it got to the point I thought when am I supposed to stop doing this? One night I actually didn't wake up during the night and woke up in a panic at 8am. She hasn't been fed since 9.30pm night before. She was 6wks old. That's when I decided I wld no longer be waking her and she was sleeping 12-14hrs a night. She never regressed and was also a happy baby that never cried.

Sadly I can't say the same for my 2nd 😂 she didn't start sleeping properly until she was closer to 2 and often sleeps in my bed now 🙈 She also was not a happy baby and def did cry, she also bit, nipped, pulled hair and scratched. Although def a lot better now behaviour wise and is so cute and loving, never met a more cuddly child.

@Bancha While following the sleep consultant's program, baby's naps were 9.15-10.00 and 12.30-14.30, bedtime at 19.00. He was most often sleeping the exact same amount of time, at morning nap I had to wake him up every day. We followed this for 3 months and we were very consequent and strict, but split night were happening. After 3 months I decided to just let the baby sleep the morning nap, without waking him up...he ended up having 2 naps of 1.5h, until max 15.00. I saw a bit of improvement for a 1-2 weeks, but then again split nights every day. After that, I tried for 10 day having him on 1 nap (11-13.30), no improvement. One week now I try a later bedtime (20.30), with one nap at 9.15-10.30 and 14.00-15.15...still no difference in the night, except that instead of 2-3am, he might wake up 3-4am.

@BlieCoffee Ah that’s frustrating, it sounds like you’ve tried out to see if he is over or under tired and it hasn’t made much difference! The only other thing I can think of is sleep restriction. It’s where you work out how many hours he has overnight in total (9 or 10 at this point by the sounds of it?) and put him to bed later so that he has that number of hours to sleep. So, if he has 10 hours overnight you could put him to bed at 9pm and hope he sleeps til 7am etc. then, once he is reliably sleeping all night (fingers crossed) you start moving bedtime earlier again to extend the sleep, possibly combined with a gro clock. I have heard that suggested as a solution for split nights. I was never too keen because I didn’t want a young toddler awake all evening but if it gets you more sleep it could be worth it!

@rosewater20 thank you, it’s not annoying 🙂

My first was horrendous. We had to co sleep and he wouldn't self settle. My second slept from the word go. Our first night home from hospital and he slept all night (fed at 2am and went straight back down) by 3 weeks old I was dream feeding at 11pm and he'd go through til 7am. I never had a bad night with him ever. No so called sleep regression. I'm just glad I had the bad sleeper first. It would have been an awful shock if it had been the other way round.

I have three DC - one great sleeper, one terrible sleeper and one in between! IME you can tell pretty early so I think you may be lucky this time OP!

@Bancha Indeed, his amount of night sleep is 9-10h and 2.30 in the day. I was also reading about sleep restriction, I will start from tonight..20.30 to 6.30, regardless of how long he stays up in the middle on the night. It's indeed more difficult to have him awake until 20.30, but I prefer that instead of waking up every day at 1-2 am. I'm also a working mom and I usually need to stand up at 5am for my work.... Trying to stay positive tho. Thank you for your advice!

Oh yeah, that is really crucial, you don’t let them make up for a bad night by sleeping late into the morning. My DD was terrible for that! I did have to be really strict with waking her which is the last thing you want to do after a bad night! I do think it helped her though. I really hope things improve for you, @BlieCoffee

@Northernsoullover your DC2 sounds amazing! I don’t have one of those, unfortunately. But I get what you mean about having the better sleeper second, otherwise you’d be in for a right shock!

@GreatCrash i hope you’re right about being able to tell. I’m not sure if she’s a ‘good sleeper’ really, but she’s so far so much more easy going with sleep than DC1, which makes life so much easier. I’m hoping that doesn’t change!