For those with good sleepers

[Itsmeitscathyivecomehome]

Is there anything you did that you would recommend?

I have a two week old and my eldest didn’t sleep through the night til 9 months old.

id be interested to hear what people did that they felt impacted their babes sleep positively.

I know obviously all babes are different and will sleep in their own time but just want to canvass ideas.

my mum keeps telling me I slept through the night at 6 weeks and it’s making me feel crazy.

we would always put our DC down when they were almost asleep. So no feeding to fully aleep or rocking to fully asleep etc, IYSWIM. Figured nobody likes waking up, having no idea how they got there. Worked well. DS1 slept through from 6 weeks. DS2 from 3 months.

White noise on you tube we played it from day one it still helps now

I would say sleeping through at 9 months is a good sleeper.

I followed The Little Ones program to a tee when she was 12 weeks old and she has slept 6.30 to 6.30 ever since bar a few interruptions caused by illness or sleep regressions. I do not know anyone who followed it properly and still wasn’t able to get their child to sleep.
The only downside is that i never got to co-sleep at all as she preferred her own space to sleep.

Nap schedule from about 6 months old which we stuck to as much as possible. Naps in cot worked best for us to get a proper sleep in.
White noise continuously.
Bath and bedtime routine from about 8 wks (doesn't always work at that point but I found it helped develop those sleep associations and get them nice and ready for a big sleep).
No dummy once 4 month regression hit.
Very dark room.

We also used this with both from 5ish months!

Sorry just saw that your newborn is 2 weeks old. I would really ignore your mum, enjoy newborn cuddles and leave worrying about sleeping through the night until much much much later.

I got lucky, that’s about it. My first slept through from 6 weeks, my next took 3 years to sleep through, both parented the same.

This! Ignore the people that tell you their baby slept through at 6 weeks or whatever.
I had a friend that said this and it turned out she was getting up numerous times to put a lost dummy in or whatever.
Mine both started to do longer 5-6 hour stretches once they were 6 months plus.

Ferber at six months. Read the book rather than relying on second hand accounts that conflate Ferber with crying it out or whatever else.

Routine from about 6-8 weeks old when I had recovered a bit and got to know my babies feeding etc a bit better.
I say routine but it had a lot of flexibility. Always started the day at 7 by either parent so one of us got to lie in. Always finished by being in bed by 7:30ish in the evening, bathed maybe alternate days but by the 2nd realised it wasn't needed.
Feeding no more than 3.5-4 hour gaps and when able always being put to sleep in their own room for day time napping.
If going out anywhere I just stuck to the feed times and they both seemed to follow the pattern of sleeping after.
They both slept through by 15-20 weeks and still do now at 9 and 5.
Also very good at self settling, my 2nd was more of a challenge between 6-10pm as she had colic.

That being said, routine however loose is great aslong as the baby feeds well, has no issues etc. there must be a lot of anomalies that wouldn't make it work.

I really think it is luck. It just depends what sort of baby you get. Mine slept through from a few weeks old. I didn't get the chance to do anything. He just slept 6 hours at a time from birth, and built up from there. I actually worried myself sick at the time thinking there was something wrong with him but it was just how he was.

I just thought we were lucky, just happened to get kids who slept well.
Never had a very strict routine, they always napped in random places and at random times, often in slings instead of bed while I did housework.

Just always held and jiggled/rocked them to sleep- took between 3 and 15 minutes for them to be properly off and then lay them down.
We had a very noisy fan in the bathroom that worked like white noise and that was on sometimes.

Complete luck. First child slept through 11 hours a night from doing 2 nights of sleep training (CC) at 10 months, second baby still wakes constantly and is a fan of the split night despite all environmental factors and sleep training being the same

Nothing particularly. He slept through from 5 weeks. As in last feed at 22.00, first about 05.30. Then would sleep for another few hours. We just did everything we could to make lives easy for ourselves - so bed shared. The only time sleep was an issue was during teething. We didn't religiously follow any kind of strict schedule, just went with the flow. I do think it's entirely down to the baby rather than anything we do or did. Just lucky.

I think 90% of it is luck. I tried to follow the Little Ones guide obsessively when DC1 was about 4 months old. I ended up so so stressed - he just wouldn't sleep at the right time, or wake up anywhere near the right times. Then I tried timed crying when he was about 8 months old - he just got more and more hysterical. Then I tried gentle sleep method from about 12 months. Each "step" would take weeks and weeks with so much crying. I still feel very guilty for trying all these things and how much crying it involved with almost no benefit, but everyone said it worked for them and that I really should do it. He finally slept through at about 18months with out any new "training". I was determined to this right from the start with DC2 and made sure I always put him down awake and had white noise - he was great at going to sleep by himself from a very young age. But that didn't stop him waking up many times in the night until he was 2 and needing a quick comfort. I felt much better once I just coslept and went with the flow.

I've often seen other babies just fall asleep in their high chairs or in busy situations - mine have never ever just fallen asleep like that. I'm going to tell myself that 4 years of sleep deprived hell is because mine are just so alert and bright (I know that's crap).

Sorry - rant over! I'm a bit over-sensitive to parents who think they are responsible for having good sleepers.

Mainly luck I think. DS has slept through the night since he was 6 weeks old (starting from 11-6/7 then by a few months old 7-7). We've always had him in a good routine and white noise has been like magic but saying that other mum friends have done similar and not had good sleepers so I honestly think it's just luck. DS has never went through a sleep regression and always naps well too, I really count my blessings with him and we are considering TTC later this year and I just know my luck will of run out and I'll be given an awful sleeper, it's actually making me have second thoughts!

We switched to formula
Put them in their own darkened room and not afraid to let them cry a little
Feed them weetabix or porridge at bedtime (by about five months)
Never ever ever brought them into our bed, ever
No lying on bedroom floors, no lying with arms through cot bars
Encouraged reliance on blankets and teddies as they got older.

This was twenty years ago though but two great sleepers from about four months.

@Springintoabetterlife
Me too!

I think a lot is luck or at least it is the nature of the child. One of mine was what I would call an excellent sleeper, sleeping through from 7 months and napping consistently in the day until they were 4 .The other two never slept through and were haphazard nappers but generally very placid baby and toddlers.

I classify DC2 as a good sleeper (so far!) as he’s only waking twice a night at eight weeks, and does mega naps anywhere and everywhere. Also doesn’t tit about in the middle of the night like DC1, who woke hourly and napped barely and was generally evil.

All I’ve done differently is give birth to different children. DC2 occasionally does drowsy but awake, and sends himself off to sleep after a middle of the night nappy change: DC1 simply didn’t have that setting. She was a very awake baby so there was no choice but to feed, rock, bounce and riverdance to sleep. DC2 I have the opportunity to nudge in the right direction. I’m not currently bothering though until he’s through the cluster feeding weeks and the four month regression. And also he’s my last baby and I like the cosleeping cuddles and contact naps.

I have NO IDEA if this actually did anything or whether DD was just a unicorn.

I EBF which helps them to get to sleep.

Then she had a rhythm to the day from day 1. She had to he got up at 7 and dressed for the day as I had to drop eldest at nursery. Then the rest of our day followed from there. By 8 weeks she was feeding in a very regular pattern and sleeping 10pm to 5am about 90% of the time.

I stuck with a strict schedule from 8 weeks regarding awake windows and activity times as much as poss.

Going to bed awake but sleepy. I did use a sleepyhead from 10 weeks and I used Ewan sheep from birth.

Dream feeds were amazing for us so used to feed around 10pm.

Put baby in her room at 4 months- we were just waking each other up all the time.

I used white noise now and a salt lamp- she's 3 now and loves it! She sleeps really well apart from usual illness/teething and some hiccups through regressions. Xx

But it all sounds terribly sad. And is entirely against current thinking on feeding.

Ollie the owl was my lifesaver... top tip buy rechargeable batteries as you will go through them