Those of you who had babies not great at sleeping - when did it get better?

[tinierclanger]

Just looking for a bit of encouragement and something to look forward to. When did DC start sleeping for longer stretches at night, and get easier to put down for naps?

feel tons better for reading some of these messages havin spent last night sobbing with my 7 week old cos she was awake again and fed up with listening to well meaning relatives who keep telling you it will get better think i might ring said relatives at 3 tomorrow morning when im up and give them a taste of sleep deprivation!good to know its not just me

By the way - from the other side - my dd was great sleeper when a baby and rubbish now aged three! By which I mean that if anyone ever looks the teeniest bit smug when their child is sleeping well, remember it might come to them too! My friend's child who was born same day as dd nomw sleeps beautifully after being up all the time to start with!

just did cc with dd (16 months) and she slept through the first night and ahs continued to do so. only 5 mins of crying on first night too, now when she's put in the cot she babbles for a bit then falls asleep for 12 hours. bliss! never thought cc would be that easy!

i really do recommend it for babies over 1 year old

we go back and forth - he's always been fairly easy to put down but a frequent waker.

He was pretty rubbish from 0-14 months.

Slept through from 14-16 months.

Woke fairly frequently from 16 months to about 2 years.

Slept through (mostly) from 2 - 2.5 years

Started night waking again when we had DS2.

Currently the option is either a) sleeps through until 5am and then gets up or b) wakes at 1am and then goes till 6ish. Not sure which is worse!

DD2 will be 4 next month and has only recently started to go to sleep in her own bed, she still doesn't sleep through everynight and climbs in between me and dp.
DD3 is 17 months and is now in a bed and takes a few minutes to settle and sleep through.
Dd4 is 4 months and goes to sleep between 6-7pm wakes for a couple of bf's during the night but usually self settles and doesn't wake till i get up at 7am.

advised by health visitor to do dream feed at 11 ish before we go to bed to stop the middle of the night feed anyone know if this works cos up to now no joy just an xtra feed for dd2 all a big shock cos dd1 was model child from about 3 months and still is now at 8 years.is waking dd2 really a good idea or should she find her own pattern running on
empty now on 2 months of sleep deprivation (sad)

First son is now 3 and still doesn't sleep through the night... Never has... The broken sleep thing is something I guess im used to now.
Second son is now 11 months and sleeps through roughly 4 nights out of 7. He does sleep well though. He's been like that since aroung 3 months old...
They are all different and one day we will sleep through...LOL
x

AM I THE ONLY ONE WITH A CHILD THAT DOES NOT SLEEP THROUGH?

I have a little boy 7 Months old, who wakes up still for a 7oz bottle at night. Its not always at the same time, so its not habit led sometimes its 1am, 3am etc. He is only ever awake 20 mins max but its still tiring for me and my partner.

I have to go back to work in a month and I am dead on my feet - how can I encourage him to sleep through?

I have tried the diluting of milk till we only offered water and he still drank 5oz and we have tried only giving small amounts of milk but then he goes mental and at that time of morning its v hard to bear.

I am not a fan of controlled crying but is this the only way?

All my friends say there kids sleep through 7 till 7 is this true???

Please help a very very tired and worn out mummy

it got better at 1 year.

It got MUCH better at age 3 (was when he started to reliably sleep though).

So no, Kezza, you are not the only one! My DS1 didn't sleep through until 3 years old.

My DS2 is 8 months and still wakes anything from 3-6 times a night.

Somewhere around 3yo.

oo weird - just noticed what a randomly old thread this is!

3 years are you kidding me, how comes everyone I know says there kids are sleeping all night (are they all fibbing)

Some probably are fibbing.

Some will have babies who are sleeping through at the moment but will shortly stop (evil cackle)

Some people have weird definitions of sleeping through. A friend counts sleeping through as any night when she doesn't give a feed (eh? what?) and another friend only counts wake ups if they occur between 12 and 6am.

Bizarre. To me sleeping through means 8-6 at the minimum, with no wake ups, no requests for juice/potty/cuddle - nothing.

theyoungvisitor sums it up very well

tinier - don't know if this will help but wanted to share: I have 17-week-old dd. Slept v. well (7.30-6.00ish) 6-12 weeks then went up the spout with 3 month growth spurt coinciding with heatwave, getting worse and worse until a miserable week where she would only sleep lying on me or DH. No one was happy, she was tired and miserable during the day and so were we. I ordered NCSS book (which I haven't got around to reading yet) and Baby Whisperer and have been doing Pick Up Put Down for three nights and it's working really well (so far, fingers crossed). She has gone down after twenty minutes (around 7.30), woken once to feed at around 2 am and slept till 6, fed, then gone down for another hour with no fuss. I know it's really early days, but maybe worth a try for you if NCSS doesn't work.

daisyj - I think the OP has gone! This thread was started back in December

Sorry kezza, just realised this is a really old thread from tinier and my post is totally irrelevant to youu . I've seen sleeping through defined as a 6-7 hour stretch, so not a whole night by any means. I like PU/PD because you are still able to be there for them and hug them and not abandon them but also show who's boss. I don't think my DD is ready to go all night without a feed yet, but apparently PU/PD should work to wean them off this when you and they are ready. I'll definitely be trying it as I also have to go back to work when she's six months and am a little worried about having to get up in the night.

Kezza have you tried upping his food intake during the day. I've got a 3year old and I done CC when she was 10 months as I was going back to work and had to get some sleep and it worked a treat and only took 3 minghts don't get me wrong it was hard but well worth it she's a great sleep now and sleeps 12 hrs a night. I've also got a 9month old who has just started sleeping through and was horrendous up until 6 weeks ago she sleeps from 7 until 5/6 has a quick feed then goes back to sleep until 7 and it's like a luxury as she was getting up every couple of hours before. It does get better. Good luck Karen x

7 months but not consistently. Still, at that point a couple of good nights a week were amazing for us!
Some things which might have made a difference:
He started nursery
He was eating lots more (slow starter with weaning)
And...my great suspicion but rather controversial...he started sleeping on his tummy. I think he hated being on his back.

15 months to be able to go longer than 3 hours without waking and 18 months for solid 11-12 hours a night - although that was at expense of daytime naps which were dropped gradually between 15mo and 18mo. DH is an insomniac, I should have seen it coming.

I have'nt read through (too long), just wanted to send you hugs. My DD is 4 and half months and is awake up to 5 times a night (yawn). I am planning to gradually wean her off the breast at 6 months and try and get some structure.....although I'm not hopeful as my other DD does not sleep through all the time (she is 4) although it is not very often that she wakes now.

those of you whose children suddenly changed, did you do anything to make them change or did they just change?

I am the OP! And it has got better.

4 months was a nightmare, 6 months started getting a bit better and then plateaued, and then from about 9 months we have seen a gradual improvement. He's now just over a year and still wakes for a feed but not till around 4 or 5 am, and the day naps are MUCH better.

I only did very gentle things, making sure he came off the breast before falling asleep, gradually cutting his feeds shorter and shorter, and then he dropped most of them himself. One I got rid of by patting and cuddling him and again after about of week of that he dropped that one too.

I know by a lot of people's standards waking once in the night at his age is still not 'good enough' but for us it's fine, I can get enough sleep now and we're all happy!

I think a lot of it was to do with genuine hunger, I think when younger he really needed all that milk. Weaning helped a bit, but most of it I think is just maturity. But yes also he does flip onto his side or tummy now to sleep and that has helped too.

Anyway thanks to all that posted, and those of you in the same situation now, take heart, it will improve!

DD1 slept through at 10 months when I weaned her off the boob...She always woke up every 2 or 3 nights in a week sometimes she went a whole week...but then when i put her in a new room and on a mattress on the floor she slept through all the time at 2 years...only wakes up if ill.
DD2 9 month old wakes up at 12.30 ish then at 4am then 6am. I am trying to wean her off the boob also but finding it very difficult, she started usuing a dummy 3 weeks ago and this seems to help...We went camping and she slept through till 4am but this was because she slept next to me!!!