if you b/fed and DIDN'T do cc/pupd/sleep training, when did you dcs sleep through/stop night feeding?

[LadySanders]

ds2 is nearly 7 months and still waking 2-3 hourly for feeds.

the world and his dog (and my dp and his step mother) seem to think i am insane for not wanting to do any 'sleep training' that involves him crying. we tried pupd and he never stopped crying long enough to put him down... went on for 4 hours, i gave up and fed him which he gratefully received.

i seem to remember that ds1 (now 7 hence why i've forgotten) eventually just gave up the night feeds and slept around a year old.

any thoughts?

DS - 6 mnths
DD- 1 yr

I think.

everyone and his dog doesn't have to live with your baby and they are not the ones crying hysterically at night.

it is physiologically ( including neurologically) normal for babies to wake up in the night up to and beyond a year.

My dd's scenario won't be of much use to you because she has food allergies and eczema which probably answers why she only started solids after 13 months.

DS was 18 months when he decided that he didn't need a night feed anymore - before that he was genuinely hungry in the night and would wolf down a bottle if I was away.

We have friends that did/do cc - and their DCs sleep is a lot more fragile than DS's - I don't know whether there is a link, but it has to be something really, really major (not even fireworks outside the house, teeth, or chickenpox) for him to wake in the night, wheras they all seem to have regular bouts of bad sleep

I think at 7 months they still need the milk as bm is digested so quickly. DD was still 2-3 hourly at this point. She slept through from 10/11 months but not all the time. By a year she was sleeping through regularly. I co-slept though so just let it all go on around me.

If you don't want to sleep-train then don't. You can guide your child towards sleeping through once they are no longer so reliant on milk. They sleep through when they're good and ready in most cases.

DS started to sleep through at 14 weeks, but then started waking up again at about 20 weeks for about 6 weeks (teething).

His night time sleep improved when we licked daytime naps. I sort of done sleep training, but it didn't involve crying or pupd.

v reassuring, i was starting to wonder if i am peculiar in not thinking it healthy for him to cry for ages...

I ffed, but for my bfing friends, it was about 1-1.5 when they slept through regularly. I must say that for many of my ff frinds this was the same.
If you are coping with the night feeds, you don't have to rush to end them.

DS - dropped night feeds about 8mths, slept through, first at 8.5 mths. Stopped sleeping through at all at about 14mths, the bugger.
Didn't do any cc/pupd (tried gradual retreat, but he screamed too much), but, I did get 'nights off' about once a fortnight, when he was confronted with bottles from DP instead of breast, and I think this led to stopping feeds.

Its knackering, isn't it.

cmot, interested to hear that, cos people often remark on how well ds1 goes to bed (ie he just goes off with no coming downstairs or trying to delay)and he also can sleep thru anything, even his brother yelling next door...

I am doing what you are doing, LadySanders. However, my answer to when DS slept through the night would be depressing. (Clue, he is 2.10)

I would do it this way again though. I can reliably put DS to sleep if he needs it. Some of my friends' kids will scream blue murder if they're not alone in their own bed in a darkened room - which would be a nightmare for us when we want to travel. All my DS needs is me and reasonable comfort.

I strongly suggest lying to anyone who doesn't need to know what you do with your DS2 - vague answers "Oh he's pretty good really" or "it depends" or "we're happy" etc. will get you a long way.

kay, yes, i'm a zombie... and he won't take a bottle of ebm so its all down to me all the time

I can certainly put DS to sleep anywhere in any conditions, and after 15 minutes, WW3 could kick off and he'd still be snoring - or at least, he may well wake up, but goes back to sleep on his own.

DH's theory is that its because DS only associates going to sleep with it being a pleasant experience - he's never cried himself to sleep - so as long as he feels safe he'll just drift off again.

When he didn't sleep through the night (4 feeds a night when I was back at work full time for instance), I just told people that we were happy if they asked. My lovely HV said to me at his one year check that night feeds were only a problem if you felt they were.

think with me it was about resigning myself to the fact that ds2 was going to be wakeful like his brother had been and adjusting accordingly. This takes a thick skin though and a lot of early nights and afternoon naps if poss. I have always thought the the fact that mine were terrible sleepers was very much to do with on demand bf, but it was completely something i was prepared to live with. Once i let go of the 'trying to make them sleep' it was all less stressful. But I would think you have some way to go before the broken nights are done with...think years not months imo and get dp onside. And tell mil that this is how it is.

DS2 is 13 mo and still has night feeds and is a terrible sleeper generally. I think it is more important to learn to cope with it than to obsess with trying to force a routine that your baby obviously isn't ready for yet.

Saying that, I would kill for a decent fecking nights sleep

Both of mine only slept through once I stopped BF forever.

Oh, how I was hoping everyone would say '22 weeks'.

I'm at 21 weeks with ds2 now and he has slept through the night once.
He used to sleep from 8:30pm til 4am, feed then sleep til 8/9am.

Now he wants feeding at 11/1/2/3/5/7. I'm knackered!!! Today we were downstairs from 5am because even after his feed he didn't go back to sleep

One thing that did help a bit (I'm sure he is waking up due to teeth now as one is very nearly cut through but short of dosing him up there isn't much I can do, plus he is half-crawling so wakes up in pain, crawls up his cot and bangs his head) was putting him in his own room. We were doing sidecar but I think DP&I were waking him up moving around and making the bed squeak etc.
Though he is waking more atm he certainly sleeps better in his own room.

Meant to add DD-FF and DS1-BF were both sleeping through by three months, and a couple of my post-natal ladies are having the same sleep problems whereas some are getting a full nights sleep (all BF)

Yes, DS1 who was also bf was totally different and slept through from about 3/4 months old. He is a terrific sleeper. I don't think whether bf/ff really makes a difference.

ds1 6 months
ds2 12months when I actually stopped bf him but was weaned until 6 months as gguidance had changed by then

vs, we have same issue with the crawling round cot banging head thing. though in fairness, if he's woken up cos of that, he then goes back to sleep if i put him back in the middle of the cot... which is what makes me think that he is genuinely hungry the times when he wakes and is not placated by anything other than milk.

i only wondered whether bf might be diff than ff in that perhaps he gets less at each bf than he would with a bottle.

washersaurus, yup, that's me too. don't want to leave him to cry, but also yearning for more than 2 hours sleep at a time. as yet though, the instinct to comfort him is proving stronger than desire for sleep.

and i also have wondered, as cmot mentioned, whether there is connection between not doing cc and ds1 being such a good sleeper now, doesn't have any negative associations...

I haven't done any sort of 'training' (bar a bit of reaching through the cot bars next to the bed and patting/finger sucking if he stirs early on in the night) and DS did a few tantalising 8 hour stretches at about 13 weeks, reverted to every 3-4 hours (or less!) for a while and has now (for last 2/3 weeks, at about 23 weeks) done stretches of 8-9 hours almost every night. One disadvantage - he still needs a boob in his mouth to get to sleep in the first place, and I hardly ever manage to put him down in that mythical 'awake but sleepy' state! Along the same lines as cmot's HV, ours just said that the boob-to-sleep thing was only a problem if we saw it as one.

We found that it just happened. No rhyme or reason why.

Should say that these 8 hour stretches start at 8 or so, when he (finally) goes to sleep and is put down, so he's waking at 4 or so...but as far as he's concerned, he's sleeping through! (getting him to go back down after the 4am feed is variable - he's usually in bed with us by 6...)

DD is 18 months now and has just started to go from 7.30pm to 7am without a feed, though she did have one last night at 1.30am . She cut down to 2 feeds at about 1 year and then to 1 feed (at about 4.30am) at about 15 months.

I couldn't bring myself to do sleep training, though did try very half-heartedly when I found it tough going. Have always let her feed to sleep too, though recently she has started coming off herself and pulling my top down saying 'All gone' , I put her in bed after this, but it takes much longer for her to go off to sleep (and I have to sit on the floor in the dark), but it's progress of a sort.