When did your baby start sleeping through the night?

[Dreamer_D]

I am not talking 5 hours, here, I mean really sleeping all night long. Lots of talk about this in the newborn thread, and I thought it would be helpful to the parents of young babies to have an idea of how long it takes and what worked for other PS moms!

So the question is: How old was your child (children) when he/she started sleeping a loooong uninterrupted stretch at night (like 10-12 hours) and, briefly, what was the method that helped achieve that goal? (i.e. happened on its own, CIO, what have you).

Please lets avoid any judgement of any methods that anyone chose to use, and lets avoid any discussion about what is or is not normal or socially accepted too. This is purely for describing the age and what worked for your family!

****

I'll start.

My son was 9 months old when he started sleeping 12 hours a night. Prior to that he woke up 2-4 times a night to nurse. What eventually got him sleeping through the night was using CIO. It took two nights.

 

[DivaDiamond007]

My son will be 2 in July and still doesn''t sleep through the night

He usually wakes at least once for a bottle and then goes back down easily. DS has been a tummy sleeper since he was an infant and we use a verison of CIO.

 

[Mandarine]

awesome thread!!!

Mine don''t STTN. They are 5.5 months and wake up once (most nights) to eat about 3-4oz.

They go down at 7pm and wake up at 6ish.

If you guys don''t mind, can you also post at what time they were going to bed and what time their last feeding before bed was?

 

[qtiekiki]

M never slept 10-12 hours stretch, but I consider her STTN since she doesn't wake up in the middle of the night. It's only rare occasion when she sleeps longer than 8 - 9 hours, and she started the 8 hours sleep at 4 weeks old. No method used for STTN, but used CIO for her to put herself to sleep at around 5 months. Her bedtime is pretty late compare to other babies/toddlers on PS, at 9pm, and she wakes up at 5-6am (I get up for work at 5am). We tried earlier bedtime at 7pm for a few nights, but she ended up waking up twice at 11pm and 2am each night. So we just went back to what worked.

 

[TravelingGal]

DD, interesting thread. I''d honestly be interested to see if people co-sleep or not, to see if you theory of CIO (usually done by non-cosleepers) before 18 months seems to be the case...

6 hours by 6-8 weeks.
12 hours by 3 months, 3 days (solidly by 3.5 months.) 7-7.
Last feeding was right before bed. Formula.

In her crib by 6 weeks, CIO not needed (but I was willing to try it if needed), used Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, and was generally a sleep/schedule nazi for all of her early weeks.

note: needed to use CIO in much later months for a few minor sleep regressions, mostly when it came to going down.

 

[snlee]

We co-slept until almost 11 months. At 6 months, he slept 8 hours and could go 11 hours without being nursed during the night. Last nursing was around 9:30pm and he would sleep around 10pm. Not sure when he started to sleep longer 10-12 hour stretches. Forgot to write it down in my notes.

At almost 11 months we decided to move him to his own room and crib. It took 3 nights of CIO. The longest stretch of crying was 3 hours. For 2 hours we tried to comfort him but nothing helped (unless we held him constantly) so for the last hour we just let him cry. After that he learned to soothe himself and on the 4th night he sleep 11.5 hours! He woke up a few times but put himself back to sleep.

At 18 months, he's sleeping about 12 hours a night (7:30-7:30) and sometimes wakes up and needs our help to go back to sleep.

ETA - sleep regression - it happened and we just did CIO again for a night or two.

 

[Mara]

great thread dreamer..!! also if people can post if they had any regressions or issues later that they had to work and how, through it would be so helpful.

i also wanted to say that i am not a fan of the ''STTN'' by technical stretch which i think is 6 hours because who is happy only getting 6 hours? and for kids they should get longer than that anyway, so why not make the technical definition the stretch we''d all be happy with which is prob more like 9-12 hours hehee.

 

[packrat]

Trapper was a year, and it was a boom all of a sudden thing. One night he got up twice, the next night, no. He needed to go to bed at 5:30/6pm-I was floored by that. London was 6 weeks and slept 6-8 hours at night. She started that the night I went back to work. No methods there, she just gave herself that schedule. A little later on then she was 8pm to 8am, like clockwork. We tried to put Trapper on London''s schedule b/c it worked so perfect for us..but he was NOT digging it, so we had to fart around and try to find what worked for him. We didn''t co-sleep, and did use CIO at times-usually at naps tho.

 

[Mrs Mitchell]

Amelia slept from about 7pm to about 6am from seven months, on an off. Some nights were great, some nights had one or more wake-ups.
By 9 months, she was sleeping reliably from 7.30 to 7am or later, with only occasional wake-ups for something like teething or when she was sick.

She's a champion sleeper at night, for which I am profoundly grateful. Naps during the day were never good- up to an hour twice a day was her max, usually closer to 40 mins. Then about 3 months ago, she went down to one nap a day and it's between two and three hours now. Bliss!

We didn't use CIO and although we didn't co-sleep, we followed the guidelines our Dr gave us and had her sleep in her crib in our room until she was over six months (I think we moved her out around 8 months into her own room.

I didn't really do anything in the way of sleep training, because she always seemed pretty much on track and I didn't want to mess with her reasonably good night sleeping. The day time naps were never easy but I think Pandora had a similar experience with Daisy and I think it's about the personality and needs of the child.

We did have consistent routines at bedtime. I know some people favour a very minimal bedtime routine, but we like to make a bit of a event of it. Depending on DH's schedule, it's sometimes the only real time we have together as a family during the week, so we enjoy it. Bath, PJs, story, cuddles then bed. We were careful not to add in anything we couldn't replicate if we were away over night or if one of us wasn't home, or to make it too complicated for the nights when we're too tired. It's worked very well for us.

I have a very easy going child, though. I really do believe that the temperament of the child is the biggest factor in determining sleep, to be honest. I have also noticed that my friends with boys are having a harder time establishing night time sleep routines than those with girls, in that it is taking them longer to sttn. Not a scientific study, by any means, just an anecdotal observation!

ETA Mara- we did have a fair few regressions, but we didn't do anything in particular. We just worked through them one day at a time and hoped for better luck the next day! They were usually related to something specific - teething in particular. Amelia has a hard time with new teeth.

 

[steph72276]

Andrew was sleeping 10-12 hours at 8 weeks. He''s always been a great sleeper and we never had to use CIO. Evan is 8weeks now and the most he has gone is 6 hours so far. Did nothing different, so I think we just got lucky with A. Can''t wait to get a full nights sleep again!

 

[fieryred33143]

6 months. She goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:30pm and is normally awake on her own by 7:30am. We wake her up earlier because of work.

We did the following:

-Set a consistent bedtime routine since she was about 8 weeks old (wish we had done it much earlier).

-Eliminated bottles once we realized she was eating for comfort. She started with either her 2/3am or her 10/11pm bottle (don't remember which one was first). Her normal intake at the time was 5 to 6oz. For several evenings she would wake and only have 2 to 3oz. So we worked on eliminating that by not offering a bottle when she woke at that time and soothing back to sleep. Most nights it was just pick her up, rock a little while standing, and lay her back down to bed. Sometimes we needed the glider. It lasted probably 5 days before she stopped needing us to go in there. After a few weeks, the same thing happened with the other overnight feeding and we followed the same process.

-We did not do CIO to get her to STTN. We played around with letting her complain in her bed to help her learn how to fall asleep. Sophia is the kind of child that once she starts crying, she gets worked up and it requires a lot of rocking and shhhing to sleep. Instead when she's right at the point of crying, I go in and sometimes rub her hair, pat her bottom, or pick up and just give a kiss and she falls asleep. Takes a minute tops and is much better than letting her cry for however long to fall asleep.

It's very rare if she wakes up now. Even when she got sick and when she was going through teething, she still STTN.

ETA: I had started a similar thread back when Sophia was about 7 weeks old (lol @ me trying to get her to STTN at that point

) but there were some tips in there too:

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/sleeping-through-the-night-methods.123467/

 

[Dreamer_D]

Date: 3/25/2010 3:18:24 PM
Author:dreamer_d

I'll start.

My son was 9 months old when he started sleeping 12 hours a night. Prior to that he woke up 2-4 times a night to nurse. What eventually got him sleeping through the night was using CIO. It took two nights.

To answer the additional questions, Hunter goes to bed at 6:30pm and wakes at 6:30, give or take 30 minutes either direction for both sleep time and wake time. And he gets his last milk right before bedtime. Used to nurse then, but now has some cows milk.

Regressions happened after he was sick and got used to waking at night or being rocked/held/driven around for naps. We just CIO again for naps. Our biggest discovery was that going in to comfort him just interrupted him and amped up his crying and prolonged things. So for us, hard as it is, the best is to literally shut the door and walk away. We learned his cries and can tell when he is just crying like a mantra to fall asleep and when he really needs something.

 

[jas]

Baby A -- 8 months. Last feeding at 6:30 or 7, in bed at 7:30, wake at 7.
Baby B -- 3 months (except when awoken by Baby A). Same routine.

CIO...and no more bottles at night (he didn''t need it at 8 months). I thought I was going to have a rough time, since Baby A really was getting up 3-4 times a night at that age, but it took one night of CIO (and that was literally 5 minutes). We reduced the amount of milk he was getting at night until it was 1/2 ounce. He figured out it wasn''t worth it.

We didn''t co-sleep with the boys, but I think if I had to do it again, I would put them each in their own room.

 

[Mandarine]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:20:58 PM
Author: jas
Baby A -- 8 months. Last feeding at 6:30 or 7, in bed at 7:30, wake at 7.

Baby B -- 3 months (except when awoken by Baby A). Same routine.


CIO...and no more bottles at night (he didn''t need it at 8 months). I thought I was going to have a rough time, since Baby A really was getting up 3-4 times a night at that age, but it took one night of CIO (and that was literally 5 minutes). We reduced the amount of milk he was getting at night until it was 1/2 ounce. He figured out it wasn''t worth it.


We didn''t co-sleep with the boys, but I think if I had to do it again, I would put them each in their own room.

Hmm, so my idea to put Alex in the garage is not a bad one!

 

[E B]

He still doesn''t, and he''s 9 months old. He''ll sleep from 7:00pm until ~1:00am (sometimes it''s midnight, sometimes it''s 3:00am) and wake just once to nurse. After he''s done, my husband brings him back to his crib and he sleeps until ~6:00am.

We co-slept until ~6.5-7 months (the timeline''s fuzzy) and had to use a little bit of "modified" CIO to transition him to the crib. I would have liked to co-sleep longer, but he''s a light sleeper and was waking constantly as we moved.

(When I say "modified" CIO, I mean I comforted him at certain intervals, and his longest cry was probably 30 minutes during a failed nap attempt. That was my max- any longer, and we probably would have tried something else. We were crawling the walls as it was.)

We''ve had a few rocky nights recently, and I''ve read it may be due to the "8/9 month sleep regression" (though I''m hoping, hoping, hoping they were just flukes). It may be due to teething too, since they''re popping up like weeds. So far, he has eight and we think we see another coming through on the top.

 

[jas]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:22:59 PM
Author: Mandarine

Date: 3/25/2010 4:20:58 PM
Author: jas
Baby A -- 8 months. Last feeding at 6:30 or 7, in bed at 7:30, wake at 7.

Baby B -- 3 months (except when awoken by Baby A). Same routine.


CIO...and no more bottles at night (he didn''t need it at 8 months). I thought I was going to have a rough time, since Baby A really was getting up 3-4 times a night at that age, but it took one night of CIO (and that was literally 5 minutes). We reduced the amount of milk he was getting at night until it was 1/2 ounce. He figured out it wasn''t worth it.


We didn''t co-sleep with the boys, but I think if I had to do it again, I would put them each in their own room.

Hmm, so my idea to put Alex in the garage is not a bad one!

I''m all for putting children in the garage. I wonder if there are twin hooks, sorta like bike racks.

In all seriousness, once they each got their own cribs (they were in the same one for about 5 weeks) I should have split them up. However, the flip side is that now I am enjoying their morning chatter. They have lovely conversations for a good 30 minutes.

 

[hmr_mama]

ooooh.....I like this thread. Makes me feel like less of a disappointment!

Now to explain myself: my siblings got their kids to sleep through the night by about 6 months....same for my IL''s. I''m the weak one.

Baby 1: Started sleeping through the night after spending a few days at her Grandparents house. She was 15 months old. Had been weaned since she was 8 months old.

Baby 2: Just started sleeping throught the night!!!! 15 months old (see the pattern?). Still breastfed--morning and night only. Goes to bed at 9ish...wakes up at 5:30-6:00 for "breakfast" and usually sleeps until 8:00-9:00. CIO--but only cried for about 15 minutes for 3 nights--but adjusted better after I started reading a couple books.

Oh and we co-slept with both for about a year. Before sttn they were up 3-4 times/night....but were easily put back to sleep.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Ladies, what's your definition of co-sleep. Is this in the bed, in a PNP next to the bed, in the room?

ETA: I find it interesting that some ladies say their LO sleeps through the night, yet they still have to feed 2-3 times (this is from the earlier thread Fiery posted). Clearly this is my not-yet-a-mom ignorance speaking, but I would think the real milestone is a time when both the baby AND you get to sleep through the night.

 

[snlee]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:34:50 PM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
Ladies, what''s your definition of co-sleep. Is this in the bed, in a PNP next to the bed, in the room?

In the bed.

 

[Mandarine]

deleting

wrong thread

 

[qtiekiki]

In her crib in her own room

Re: Sleep Regression
There were a few time when she woke up from high fever and teething, but we can usually put her back down. Most of the sleep regression isn''t with STTN, but with going down. We had a major case at around 15 months when she couldn''t go down by herself. We did CIO again, but it doesn''t work anymore and led her to climb out of her crib. Now that she is in a full size bed, we have to lie with her until she falls asleep b/c there''s no other ways to keep her in bed.

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:41:23 PM
Author: qtiekiki
In her crib in her own room

Re: Sleep Regression
There were a few time when she woke up from high fever and teething, but we can usually put her back down. Most of the sleep regression isn''t with STTN, but with going down. We had a major case at around 15 months when she couldn''t go down by herself. We did CIO again, but it doesn''t work anymore and led her to climb out of her crib. Now that she is in a full size bed, we have to lie with her until she falls asleep b/c there''s no other ways to keep her in bed.

I think we had a case around 15 months too. I believe we had some 4 month and 9 month weirdness too.

Even the best "trained" babies seem to go through a period in toddlerhood where putting them down becomes drama. My BFF had a bad one with her toddler girl, and you don''t wanna know what she did to get her to stay in her room at bedtime.

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:34:50 PM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
Ladies, what''s your definition of co-sleep. Is this in the bed, in a PNP next to the bed, in the room?

ETA: I find it interesting that some ladies say their LO sleeps through the night, yet they still have to feed 2-3 times (this is from the earlier thread Fiery posted). Clearly this is my not-yet-a-mom ignorance speaking, but I would think the real milestone is a time when both the baby AND you get to sleep through the night.

I would say in the bed is co-sleeping.

And I don''t know what the technical definition (besides the one where it''s 6 hours by the peds), but I consider for this discussion that STTN is 10-12 hours of consistently not waking or feeding.

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

How do you avoid squashing the baby if you sleep with them in bed? We have a queen and I feel like most nights DH and I barely fit together, we''d never fit with a LO with us!

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:47:42 PM
Author: TravelingGal

Date: 3/25/2010 4:34:50 PM

Author: Hudson_Hawk

Ladies, what''s your definition of co-sleep. Is this in the bed, in a PNP next to the bed, in the room?


ETA: I find it interesting that some ladies say their LO sleeps through the night, yet they still have to feed 2-3 times (this is from the earlier thread Fiery posted). Clearly this is my not-yet-a-mom ignorance speaking, but I would think the real milestone is a time when both the baby AND you get to sleep through the night.

I would say in the bed is co-sleeping.


And I don''t know what the technical definition (besides the one where it''s 6 hours by the peds), but I consider for this discussion that STTN is 10-12 hours of consistently not waking or feeding.

Thank you, that''s what the selfish woman in me wanted to hear!

 

[fieryred33143]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:34:50 PM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
Ladies, what''s your definition of co-sleep. Is this in the bed, in a PNP next to the bed, in the room?

ETA: I find it interesting that some ladies say their LO sleeps through the night, yet they still have to feed 2-3 times (this is from the earlier thread Fiery posted). Clearly this is my not-yet-a-mom ignorance speaking, but I would think the real milestone is a time when both the baby AND you get to sleep through the night.

I still do not STTN LOL

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:50:01 PM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
How do you avoid squashing the baby if you sleep with them in bed? We have a queen and I feel like most nights DH and I barely fit together, we''d never fit with a LO with us!

I wonder if we need separate co-sleeping threads and CIO threads? Might be helpful for those who are in the middle of it? What do you gals think? Necessary or already able to be done on the mommy threads? Might be nice in that the co-sleepers/nonCIOers can offer support and advice to one another without the non-cosleepers and CIOers chiming in, and vice versa?

 

[Dreamer_D]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:51:10 PM
Author: Hudson_Hawk

Date: 3/25/2010 4:47:42 PM
Author: TravelingGal

Date: 3/25/2010 4:34:50 PM

Author: Hudson_Hawk

Ladies, what''s your definition of co-sleep. Is this in the bed, in a PNP next to the bed, in the room?


ETA: I find it interesting that some ladies say their LO sleeps through the night, yet they still have to feed 2-3 times (this is from the earlier thread Fiery posted). Clearly this is my not-yet-a-mom ignorance speaking, but I would think the real milestone is a time when both the baby AND you get to sleep through the night.

I would say in the bed is co-sleeping.


And I don''t know what the technical definition (besides the one where it''s 6 hours by the peds), but I consider for this discussion that STTN is 10-12 hours of consistently not waking or feeding.

Thank you, that''s what the selfish woman in me wanted to hear!

That is how I defined it when I asked the question. Many/most babies it seems sleep for a long period only waking to feed from a relatively young age. Hunter was waking 2-4 times a night to nurse and then went down to sleep immediately after that. When they are a newborn this is a BIG deal, because you can get up for 30 min and get back to sleep, whereas earlier you have to sit up and amuse them for longer until they go back to sleep, all night long. So really, both sleep patters are real milestones in baby development.

 

[Mandarine]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:30:32 PM
Author: jas

Date: 3/25/2010 4:22:59 PM

Author: Mandarine

Date: 3/25/2010 4:20:58 PM

Author: jas

Baby A -- 8 months. Last feeding at 6:30 or 7, in bed at 7:30, wake at 7.


Baby B -- 3 months (except when awoken by Baby A). Same routine.



CIO...and no more bottles at night (he didn''t need it at 8 months). I thought I was going to have a rough time, since Baby A really was getting up 3-4 times a night at that age, but it took one night of CIO (and that was literally 5 minutes). We reduced the amount of milk he was getting at night until it was 1/2 ounce. He figured out it wasn''t worth it.



We didn''t co-sleep with the boys, but I think if I had to do it again, I would put them each in their own room.

Hmm, so my idea to put Alex in the garage is not a bad one!

I''m all for putting children in the garage. I wonder if there are twin hooks, sorta like bike racks.


In all seriousness, once they each got their own cribs (they were in the same one for about 5 weeks) I should have split them up. However, the flip side is that now I am enjoying their morning chatter. They have lovely conversations for a good 30 minutes.

did I mention my garage is detached from the house?

I''m seriously thinking about separating them...at least for a few weeks to see if at least one of them is capable of sstn.

When you started reducing the amount of formula...would they go back down to sleep happy or would they ask for more?. Sometimes I take the bottle away at 2oz and they''re fine...sometimes they scream for more....but if I put them back in bed the most they cry for is like 10 minutes...

 

[snlee]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:50:01 PM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
How do you avoid squashing the baby if you sleep with them in bed? We have a queen and I feel like most nights DH and I barely fit together, we''d never fit with a LO with us!

I used to be a heavy sleeper but after having my son it changed! When he''s in our bed I''m very aware that he''s there, even when I''m asleep. We have a queen sized bed too and didn''t have any issues. What I don''t want/won''t do is have FOUR of us in our bed when the new baby comes. Of course you need to figure out what works best for your family.