Tell Fairy Non Bio about your experience of sleep with a new baby - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

As part of our new partnership with Fairy Non Bio, we’ve produced our first ever Mumsnet Babies Podcast. There are ten episodes in the series and so far we’ve released five. Episode two is about sleep, and you can listen to it here . Fairy Non Bio would like you to listen to the podcast whenever you can, and then discuss your experiences of sleep with a baby.

An unbroken night of slumber is the holy grail of parenthood - but it’s often difficult to actually achieve. Fairy Non Bio would like to hear about your experience of sleep with a new baby. Did your baby miraculously sleep through from 3 months? Or was your experience much more of a struggle? Do you have expert tips on getting your child to sleep for that precious extra half an hour, or perhaps on how to cope through bleary-eyed days when you feel like you didn’t sleep at all?

Whatever your experience, share it with Fairy Non Bio by posting on the thread below.

Everyone who posts on the thread will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

If you want to rate the Mumsnet Babies Podcast, please go to the iTunes store and add a review!

Thanks, and good luck with the prize draw!

MNHQ

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First child was a nightmare, we were petrified if they were asleep and more worried when they wouldn't sleep :-). We got through it as we all do and luckily both of mine have both been pretty good at getting a routine sorted.

I honestly can't remember nay problems. However, we arranged our working lives carefully, with myself taking an evening instead of a daytime job, so there was always one of us with the children and able to cope.

My daughter was a terrible sleeper! My hubby and I would be up about three or four times a night with her. The only thing that worked in the end was for her to be swaddled up and rocked in my hubby's arms.

luckily my babies both slept very well from birth

I would say it is so so important to sleep when baby does, housework can wait!

We were so lucky that DD was a good sleeper from early on. She slept through from about 10 weeks.
We had a routine from the day we'd come home from hospital - Bath, bottle, bed at 7pm. Even if it meant me sitting next to her stroking her tiny hand, we were firm about not getting her up (except for nappy changes and bottles, or if she was distressed, obvs).
But we know that we were lucky, and are eternally grateful for that.

I tried to stick to routine bath feed then sleep - unfortunately that didn't work for me! I always caught up my sleep when my little angels were sleeping

Sleep! haha! just make sure you nap whenever they are napping and always accept help from family and friends!

getting into a routine is the best advice!

My 2 were amazing, DD1 would wake every 3-4 hrs for a feed and would then go straight back to sleep. She dropped her 3am feed from 8 weeks and then slept 12-13 hrs from 3 mths old. I thought she was amazing, but then DD2 came along and she was sleeping 6-7 hrs between feeds. Then 3 days before she turned 2 mths she did 12-13 hrs. I stopped telling the sleep deprived mothers at groups as they weren't very impressed especially when I said I was breastfeeding!

It always makes me laugh that 8am is now considered a lie in in our house. But with two little ones we are now used to less sleep, plus the longer we are awake the more we get done. Silver linings etc.

I have been very lucky as my daughter goes to sleep at around 8pm, and now has started to sleep until 6am, i feel very blessed whilst it lasts!

Whomever coined the phrase "Sleeping like a baby," didn't have one.

How to cope when you have had so little sleep you think you are going to lose it : Get out of the house. Even when you are so tired you just want to curl up and cry, and can't face walking the streets with a baby /toddler - gear up and go. It's always better out. Do whatever works, sweet bribes for the toddler, money for a coffee for you if that's plausible.

You will have used up an aliquot of time, often the baby /toddler calms outside, and it's much much harder to lose it outside.

I was really lucky my daughter never really napped so slept for 7 hours solid a night. I actually slept less when she was a toddler as she is autistic and had really bad night frights.

My first born didn't sleep through the night for more than two years, it was exhausting and made us all cranky from the lack of a good sleep

Sleep is such a big issue, while pregnant, you look forward to sleeping in comfort but then baby arrives and you look forward to just 2-3 hours of uninterrupted sleep, then as baby grows, you aim for a whole night. Then you have an early waking toddler and you look forward to sleeping past 6.30am...then you finally get a teen and you look forward to them getting out of bed! Goalposts are always moving! I think you just need to be grateful for what you're getting and try to have naps if possible and don't listen when people tell you about their DC who slept 7pm-7am from 2 days old!

My daughter slept through from about 6 months onwards. The first 6 months were rough, waking every hour or every couple of hours to feed while still maintaining a full time job, but I survived :)

Sleeping is a precious experience, not expected or often achieved but get to enjoy a few hours napping here and there, adapting around the baby's needs

I found sleep was nonexistent with a newborn! Even though my baby was a brilliant sleeper I couldn't sleep, I spent the first few weeks just staring worried that something would happen or that I wasn't good enough to be given such a beautiful precious little baby

I tried everything I read in baby books - none of it worked. But I did eventually strictly would not let them sleep after 3pm - it worked for one and not the other. There is no rhyme or reason and they are all different. I think you just have to accept that being a parent means always being tired!

My DD never slept for more than 2 hours asa baby. Now a 10 year old, she sleeps for about 6 hrs a night. Whereas my 7 year old DS needs 12 hours!

With my second child I spent too long looking for solutions to fix her lack of sleeping. Once we accepted that this was her and not a problem to be solved our sanity improved. We weren't failing, she wasn't being difficult. It's just who she was. She didn't sleep through the night til she was about 2.5.

Quite how we coped I don't know. I was at uni on a full time demanding vocational course. My partner worked full time. If we had started point scoring we would have split up for sure. What did help was planning lie ins. Saturdays he got til 9. Sundays I got til 9.This meant getting up with the children and dealing with them and keeping them quiet. Knowing there was that bit of a reprieve on the horizon helped!

Ds1 slept through from 2 weeks - he would sleep from 8 till 6. It was amazing and we were so smug. Then the four month sleep regression hit and we didn't get another full night's sleep for about a year!

Oh what a terrible time I had of it. My son slept in our bedroom and would wake nearly every hour to feed, he wouldn't settle and would cry and cry until I felt so very tired and at my wits end. The health visitor said he should go in his own room and it was hell for a week whilst I left him crying for 5 minutes as per her instructions, but after a week it had worked and he slept like a regular baby from then on.

I think i had it relatively easy and my partner was very helpful