Babies Sleeping Through the Night

[taovandel]

Evan was on the exact same schedule as you..1, 4....about two weeks ago he dropped his 1 am feeding...i woke up around 3 and woke my husband...we waited and we could hear the baby making his normal grunts while sleeping....he didn''t wake until 4....he is 2 months old.

 

[neatfreak]

Date: 1/4/2010 9:18:41 PM
Author: Tacori E-ring

NF, people''s memories OBVIOUSLY play tricks on them. That is a funny story. Most babies aren''t even sitting at 4 months.

I know right? I could not BELIEVE my ears when she said that!

Mara Mine naturally slept through the night at 4 months without intervention just using a regular bedtime routine and sticking to a regular bedtime. The CIO came much later maybe around 9 or 10 months when they had a sleep regression.

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 1/4/2010 9:52:49 PM
Author: neatfreak

Date: 1/4/2010 9:18:41 PM
Author: Tacori E-ring

NF, people''s memories OBVIOUSLY play tricks on them. That is a funny story. Most babies aren''t even sitting at 4 months.

I know right? I could not BELIEVE my ears when she said that!

Mara Mine naturally slept through the night at 4 months without intervention just using a regular bedtime routine and sticking to a regular bedtime. The CIO came much later maybe around 9 or 10 months when they had a sleep regression.

Ha, that''s why we all blog on PS...it''s all right here in black and white!

Mara, same with us as NF. I didn''t have to use CIO at all. We used a regular bedtime routine and stuck with it, as well as gave her the tools we thought might work for self soothing (in our case it was a swaddle and paci. The swaddle was phased out sometime between month 2 and 3, but I''d have to go back here on PS to check. Could have been between months 3-4). We used CIO when we had a couple of cases of regression, but it was never for more than a night or two and it was much, much later on.

As for non crying solutions, IMHO, it depends what. I think it was Ferber who has a method where it is all about pick up, put down, pick up, put down, but as many here can attest, that goes against basic conditioning and frustrates the baby more. However, one of my close friends did just that and while it took a couple of weeks, she said it worked. It depends what your level of tolerance for certain things is, I suppose.

Depending on the DISPOSITION of your baby and the conditioning you do in the early weeks, I don''t believe your baby has to CIO to STTN. But I do think at some point, CIO comes in handy, especially when the start to use crying to get reactions/behaviors.

Babies/toddlers are funny...they go through all sorts of phases. A few weeks ago, I couldn''t put Amelia down for bed without crying and sobbing (which stopped when I left the room, btw). Now she''s in a phase where she waves and says bye to me even before I put her down and once she''s down she says bye again and blows me a kiss. Weird kid. However, I am quite certain that if I succumbed to the crying and let her stay up and play, we would NOT be in the current bye bye kiss kiss stage so quickly.

 

[Sabine]

At 4 months, ds was only sleeping if I held him all night long, so we made the decision to sleep train at that point. Before we did, I spent a few sleepless nights seeing how long he could go without eating, and I learned that he really didn''t need to eat at night (would go back to sleep with paci. and rocking, but it took longer for him to fall asleep than if I would feed him). That made me confident for the first few nights of sleep training so that I''d know he wasn''t crying from hunger.

For a week or so, he would have his last bottle at around 7 and sleep till 6. Then we started solids and he started spacing out his daytime bottles and dropped from 5 bottles to 4, so he started waking up once a night to eat again (and twice a night every once in a while). Just this week (at 5 months on the dot) he dropped his overnight feeding for the first time, and he''s done it 2 more times this week, so I think he''s finally ready to sttn officially.

I can''t imagine how hard it is to deal with the sleep issues when you''re working, but 3 months is young to expect no nighttime feedings. If your LO has an early bedtime, have you considered doing a "dream feed" when YOU go to bed to help the longest stretch be while you''re sleeping?

 

[mela lu]

Date: 1/4/2010 9:13:28 PM
Author: Mara
thanks gals. the friend only swaddles at night.


for those whose kids STTN...those who did CIO. did anyone try non-CIO methods first? just wondering how many started with non-CIO methods but end up with CIO working out.

I started with CIO at 16 weeks, and he only cried for 2 nights. On the third night he STTN and has been ever since
ETA. I mis read your question. Oops. Oh well. I did not use a non-CIO method first. I went straight for the heavy artillery.

 

[Mara]

thanks gals. this thread is actually really helpful to reference later because i am sure i will have a ton of STTN, CIO questions and the newborn thread is so fast moving!

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 1/5/2010 9:31:37 AM
Author: Sabine
At 4 months, ds was only sleeping if I held him all night long, so we made the decision to sleep train at that point. Before we did, I spent a few sleepless nights seeing how long he could go without eating, and I learned that he really didn''t need to eat at night (would go back to sleep with paci. and rocking, but it took longer for him to fall asleep than if I would feed him). That made me confident for the first few nights of sleep training so that I''d know he wasn''t crying from hunger.

For a week or so, he would have his last bottle at around 7 and sleep till 6. Then we started solids and he started spacing out his daytime bottles and dropped from 5 bottles to 4, so he started waking up once a night to eat again (and twice a night every once in a while). Just this week (at 5 months on the dot) he dropped his overnight feeding for the first time, and he''s done it 2 more times this week, so I think he''s finally ready to sttn officially.

I can''t imagine how hard it is to deal with the sleep issues when you''re working, but 3 months is young to expect no nighttime feedings. If your LO has an early bedtime, have you considered doing a ''dream feed'' when YOU go to bed to help the longest stretch be while you''re sleeping?

Not according to my pediatrician. He let us know it was no longer necessary at her three month appointment. I was unsure, but 3 days later, she skipped her night feeding and never went back. So it''s possible and acceptable.

Like some others have said, I made sure I fed her routinely during the day on a frequent basis. She fed every 3 hours, and got 4 bottles at that point. I never gave her more than 8oz in a bottle, so that was 32 oz a day, which was plenty.

 

[Jas12]

My son was exclusively BF and started STTN at 6 mos (12 hour stretches). I had to work for it. Up until then he was waking at least twice a night to nurse. I do think that BF babies will take longer (they metabolize quicker) and so it seems unrealistic to have more than a 4 hour stretch at 3 mos. That said, i know some formula fed babies that STTN really young (which is certainly a nice perk!)
For me, the key was the night wean, i could not do CIO so i used a combo of EASY routine and another method that suggested reducing the nursing time by a min or two each session over several nights. That worked for us. Also, i committed to routine very early. Consistency really pays off. Even more so as your kid ages and develops other habits!
good luck

 

[Blenheim]

He started STTN on his own at least half the time sometime around 4 months? 5 months? but regressed when we moved at 7 months. He''s still not back there yet at almost 9 months.

In addition to the faulty memory bit, I know some people IRL who admit to flat out lying about their babies STTN so that they can avoid unwanted sleep advice or those looks that you''re talking about... so I''d take others experiences with a grain of salt.