When did your baby start sleeping through the night?

[qtiekiki]

Date: 3/25/2010 4:58:43 PM
Author: 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.

Haha... DH says if both kids want to be in our bed, then he will sleep in M''s bed.

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 3/25/2010 5:01:34 PM
Author: qtiekiki

Date: 3/25/2010 4:58:43 PM
Author: 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.

Haha... DH says if both kids want to be in our bed, then he will sleep in M''s bed.

LOL. I don''t know how people co-sleep with two young kids. I''d have two tortillas as children.

 

[Mandarine]

I can''t sleep with my dog in my bed, let alone my two babies. I just can''t sleep with anyone touching me (not even DH! But he''s the same way so we''re good!).

I do think it''s a good idea to have a thread about CIO, co-sleeping, etc....but isn''t there something in between?

. I''m not for co-sleeping for the reason mentioned above as well as because I want to try to preserve some sort of intimacy/closeness with DH that only includes ME and HIM....but I don''t want to get off in a tangent because I like the info I''m reading on the STTN!!!

But my point is...it''s not either co-sleep or CIO. I''d like to talk more about what people did to get their babies to STTN (gradually reduce amount of feeding, no cry-solution, etc)

 

[TravelingGal]

I see what you are saying Mandy...not sure how we should go about it. I know it''s talked about a lot in the mommy threads, but it would be nice to have a thread for reference. For instance, it would be great for someone who decided they wanted to try co-sleeping a few weeks/months in to have a thread full of resources and other mommies who could support and give advice. CIO thread for support for those moms.

Maybe a co-sleeping/no cry sleep solution thread (those seem to often go hand in hand) and CIO/ferber type thread? Or is a CIO thread even necessary? Hm.

Although I do think that''s pretty much what the newborn thread is about, so it could be redundant. I''ll leave it up to you ladies, since I have no plans to have another child!

 

[cdt1101]

Great thread dreamer!

STTN 6:00-6:00 at 4.5/5 months. Used Baby Whisper starting at 6 weeks, and was definitely really strict about naps and bedtime. CIO wasn't needed.

At around 7 months, we had major sleep regression and have been fight this battle since (he's almost 10 months now). I've gone back to BW to help some, but a big part of our issue is my son is sick/congested chronically at this point so it disrupts his sleep. He *usually* only wakes 1-2 times a night now, last month is more like 6 times a night

He still has a 6:00pm bedtime, it can go either way 30 min though depending on how well he's napped during the day (also no longer a great napper).

Oh and we put him in his own room in crib by 3 or 4 weeks old.

ETA - prior to him sleeping 12 hours though, he only had a dream feed at 11:00pm. He started that schedule at around the 3 month mark. When I decided to drop the dream feed, I just did a gradual wean of that bottle and eventually he just never woke up for it (because that *dream feed* did turn in to him expecting that bottle, so it can backfire).

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

As a new mom, it would be great to have separate threads. I knwo this stuff has been discussed in great detail in the other thread, but honestly we''re not likely to read that end to end (too long and intimidating!).

 

[TravelingGal]

Date: 3/25/2010 5:19:50 PM
Author: Hudson_Hawk
As a new mom, it would be great to have separate threads. I knwo this stuff has been discussed in great detail in the other thread, but honestly we''re not likely to read that end to end (too long and intimidating!).

HH, would you be interested in one giant sleep thread encompassing everything, or a co-sleeping/no cry thread vs a CIO thread (which usually implies not co-sleeping).

 

[jewelz617]

At 10 weeks she was sleeping through the night. Meaning, she went to bed at 6pm and woke up at 7am.

She's almost 2 now and so far no sleep issues. But I know that will change.

We never co-slept, we just established a very consistent bed time routine we still follow. Dinner, bath, pj's, story, milk, brush teeth, bed. The fan is on, the blanket is nice and fluffy from the dryer, and the night light is on.

As long as we follow routine, there is no problem. At 7pm, she starts rubbing her eyes and says "Night night?"

 

[snlee]

I like the idea of one giant sleep thread. You''ll most likely try different things to see what works so I think it would be helpful to have one thread to refer to.

 

[Sabine]

We sleep trained at 4 months, but continued to feed him once, sometimes twice overnight until 6.5 months. He''s sttn since then. Of course, for him, that means going to bed at 6:30 and waking up at 5:45

 

[waxing lyrical]

Not if you define it as 10-12 hours. Henry sleeps 4-5 hour stretches. He's 3 months old. My girls didn't sleep 10-12 hours until after a year--14/15 months or so.

ETA: He's exclusively breastfed. It's perfectly normal for an EBF baby to nurse through the night after 6+ months. We bed share. We're not down with CIO. We only did it with dd1 when she was 22 months because we needed to transition her to her bed as it was beginning to get uncomfortable with her in our bed at 35 weeks pregnant. She's a wild sleeper. The transition took three days. Very smooth. It's not exactly sleep training in the classic sense, though. We just needed her in her own bed as dd2 would be sleeping with us.

I'm a "this too shall pass" kind of person. I'm not in a rush for him to sleep 10-12 hours. He will when he's ready to. I find 4-5 hours pretty good.

 

[MustangGal]

Kyle was going about 7-8 hours at 2 months, and has been doing 11 hours since 4-5 months (sorry, I didn''t write it down!). He goes down at 7-7:30pm and wakes up at 6-6:30am. He was formula fed, and would have his last bottle right before bed.

We do co-sleep maybe a couple times a month, when he''s having teething/sick/crazy fussy issues, but otherwise he''s in his own room. We''ve done a tiny bit of CIO, but nothing longer than 15 minutes or so. To eliminate the last nightime feeding we just started giving him a paci when he woke up instead of the bottle, and he''d go back to sleep on his own.

The only regression I''ve noticed is when he''s sick or major teething, which presents as waking up early, around 5am, and not normally through the night.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Date: 3/25/2010 5:37:37 PM
Author: Sabine
We sleep trained at 4 months, but continued to feed him once, sometimes twice overnight until 6.5 months. He''s sttn since then. Of course, for him, that means going to bed at 6:30 and waking up at 5:45

Hunter treated us to this for a long time too. I started just letting him chat to himself when he got up and delayed giving him milk because I think eating sets the biological clock. It got him stretched until about 6:30. You might try it.

 

[steph72276]

I can't believe some docs would consider STTN 6 hours! If that's true, then E just did his first STTN last night, but wanted to party at 3:30am until 5:30, so he didn't really sleep through the night.

And we did have a few times where Andrew regressed when going through teething or sickness. Especially when he got a bit older and was in his big bed...I would sleep with him if he was really sick b/c it was just easier to wipe his nose, give him his meds every 4 hours, etc when I was right there. But he always took a few days to get back into the groove of sleeping by himself after that. I guess I was the mean mom that put him back into bed every night instead of allowing him to get in, but I've seen too many friends have their 4 year olds still coming into their beds in the middle of the night. I'm of the mindset to tough it out for a few days for a better end result, but then again I don't do well without sleep!

 

[vespergirl]

At 5 months old DS slept two 6 hour stretches - from 7-1, got a quick 10 minute feeding, then went back to bed from 1:30 - 7 am.

At 9 months he slept through for 12 hours straight. We would have sleep trained him to sleep the full 12 hours before that, except DS was always on the skinny side, so I wanted him to get at least one nightime feeding.

 

[E B]

Date: 3/25/2010 6:33:35 PM
Author: FL Steph
I can''t believe some docs would consider STTN 6 hours! If that''s true, then E just did his first STTN last night, but wanted to party at 3:30am until 5:30, so he didn''t really sleep through the night.

It''s considered 5/6 hours for exclusively breastfed babies because breast milk is digested differently (more easily, quicker) than formula and thus, breastfed babies need to eat more frequently. It''s defined differently because it''s a ''normal'' stretch for BF babies.

 

[steph72276]

Date: 3/25/2010 7:26:22 PM
Author: E B

Date: 3/25/2010 6:33:35 PM

Author: FL Steph

I can''t believe some docs would consider STTN 6 hours! If that''s true, then E just did his first STTN last night, but wanted to party at 3:30am until 5:30, so he didn''t really sleep through the night.

It''s considered 5/6 hours for exclusively breastfed babies because breast milk is digested differently (more easily, quicker) than formula and thus, breastfed babies need to eat more frequently. It''s defined differently because it''s a ''normal'' stretch for BF babies.

Ah, gotcha.

 

[Pandora II]

If STTN is 10-12 hours without waking or feeding then we're still to get there. If it's a good 8-10 hours decent sleep for me each night then we got there at about 6 months (coincided with her crawling and pulling-up almost to the week).

Daisy will sleep from midnight till between 7.30am and 10.30am depending on whether or not DH's alarm clock wakes her up. During that time she is fast asleep with eyes shut, but will eat maybe 3 times for 5-10 minutes at a time. It doesn't wake me up so that is fine with me.

We co-sleep - until 4 months she slept in a co-sleeper attached to our bed, but spent most of each night in bed with us. From 4 months she has been completely in our bed. If I was to do it again then I would use the co-sleeper for naps and until I went to bed, but co-sleep in our bed from the start rather than trying to put her on her own at night.

We don't have a major bedtime routine as we do baths in the morning. Generally it consists of changing into pyjamas, dimming the lights in our bedroom, a story and then lying down together for a feed or a cuddle till she drops off. I won't do CIO, and actually don't need to as the current system works for us. I guess as we only plan to have one I'm in no hurry to make her arrive at STTN before she's ready. If she was up every hour I would probably be going nuts though.

The only times she wakes up at night is if she is ill or if she is going through big growth spurt/milestone phases when she seems to get Night Terrors - sits up screaming with eyes open, but still fast asleep. It can last 10-15 minutes at a time. I just hold her until she stops. My brother had them so I recognised it straight away and knew that there is nothing to do except make sure they can't hurt themselves and wait for them to drop back off again.

My husband didn't STTN till he was two and a half, and I didn't until I was a year. We both have siblings (3 on each side) who all STTN much earlier. My mother EBF all of us for between 7 and 18 months and didn't co-sleep. My MIL formula fed and didn't co-sleep. Both tried CIO and sleep-training and both doped us up with Chloral (an anaesthetic that they got from the hospital pharmacies - both fathers are doctors).

HH - we have a smaller sized King (between a Queen and a King). DH has half the bed and Daisy and I have the other half. I have a barrier on my side of the bed with a thin pillow against it so we use the whole of my side with no 'falling' out problems to worry about. None of us move much at night and we're both on the slim side so don't take up a huge amount of room.

If you are breastfeeding you will never enter the deepest phase of sleep (due to hormones) and you will nearly always sleep in a certain position - on your side, lower arm raised, knees pulled up - this way the baby can easily reach the breast, can't move up the bed because of your raised arm and can't move down because of you knees and the upper arm keeps the baby close to you. You will automatically monitor temperature and breathing without even being aware of it. The first few nights it feels weird, but then is really comfortable. A breastfeeding mother with almost never turn their back to the baby - one of the reasons that it's not as safe for formula feeding mothers to co-sleep.

I would say that it does reduce opportunities for intimacy IF you have issues of DTD with a sleeping baby the other side of the bed or don't want to get creative at other times/places. Otherwise, we find the snuggling and the happy mornings with a grinning imp in the bed lovely as far as intimate family moments go.

ETA: Anyone interested in co-sleeping, there are two great books: 'Three In A Bed' by Deborah Jackson and 'The Baby Book' by Dr Sears. (Also, although I'm also keen on baby-wearing and Baby Led Weaning, I'm not Earth Mother like in any sense... I'm pretty orthodox on most things.)

 

[Sabine]

Date: 3/25/2010 6:33:14 PM
Author: dreamer_d

Date: 3/25/2010 5:37:37 PM

Author: Sabine

We sleep trained at 4 months, but continued to feed him once, sometimes twice overnight until 6.5 months. He''s sttn since then. Of course, for him, that means going to bed at 6:30 and waking up at 5:45

Hunter treated us to this for a long time too. I started just letting him chat to himself when he got up and delayed giving him milk because I think eating sets the biological clock. It got him stretched until about 6:30. You might try it.

Dreamer, did you do anything different with bedtime to get him to sleep later? I actually don''t feed Jacks till about 6:20/6:30. I don''t go into his room at all until 6:05 (with dh because he wants to say hi to him before he leaves for work). Jacks is usually perfectly content to just roll around and talk to himself in the morning, but he won''t sleep any later usually. I think it''s because his last nap ends around 2, so he really can''t stay up any later than 6:30, and then he''s in such light sleep at 5:30ish that when dh or the upstairs neighbors wake up and move around, he hears them and wants to be up too. Dh''s schedule changes next month and some mornings he will be getting up at 4:30, so I REALLY hope wake time doesn''t get THAT early! Today was 5:20 and that was rough!

 

[sugarpie honeybun]

Our little guy started sleeping through the night (+8 hours) at 8 weeks old. We established a nightly routine when he was only two weeks old and still follow the same nightly routine to this day (he is now 5.5 months). In his 5.5 months on this Earth, a night has not gone by that DS hasn't had a nightly bath at the same time every single night.

We coslept (using a cosleeper) only until he was 4 weeks old and then decided to try putting him in his own room in his crib at night. It was very, very difficult, especially during the worst of the sleep deprivation phase when I would've loved just bringing him in bed with us, but we consistently kept him in his crib, night after night after night....

At 8 weeks, he slept 8 hours straight (according to my daily log) and has continued sleeping through most nights from 8:30 PM-6:00 AM. We usually have sleep regression issues following his vaccinations, and had a few rough weeks following his 4-month ‘wakeful’ period.

We strictly followed the EASY routine starting at a very, very early age. Up until recently, our families thought we were neurotic (okay, so maybe we were just a tad

) but I don't do well on very little sleep, and wanted to do anything and everything possible to lay the foundation for DS to have better sleeping habits. He's now a great sleeper. I have no clue if it's because of our neuroticism, or what, but it's working for now.

Hopefully I didn't just jinx everything...

ETA: There's a lot more that we did during the 'sleep training' phase, but I'll refrain from putting it all on this thread, unless that's what we decide to do here?

ETA2: Naps have always been a challenge, but over time, he seems to be falling into somewhat of a routine. He usually takes a short early morning and early evening nap (30-45 min), and one long mid-afternoon nap (2-3 hours). I never let him nap more than 6 hours total during the day.

 

[Jas12]

6 mos

Mandarine---I *personally* don't like the idea of CIO or cosleeping either so up until that point he was nursing once in the night and my method was to gradually reduce the time at the boob until i was confident he was waking more of habit than for nutrition and then also lengthen the time i took to respond to him when he woke. Once he was down to a min or so of nursing i'd put him back to sleep with a paci and after a couple weeks of this gradual weaning he started going the full 12 hours and never looked back. I think i got a bit lucky b/c i anticipated needing to soothe him over several nights after totally dropping the boob, but he skipped that stage.

I started putting him to bed at 7 pm when he was a few months old, and he still goes down from 7-7 each night
Routine is important, i think predictable nap and bedtimes result in good sleepers.

 

[NYCsparkle]

there are babies who sleep through the night?!?!?!

..lol

dd wakes 1x a night...at around 4:30ish then goes back til 8. she goes to bed at 8.

 

[lili]

Date: 3/25/2010 3:36:36 PM
Author: 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.

I hate you

Even now J still doesn't sleep through the 10 hr stretch.
She'll wake up and fumble around and use my neck as a pillow.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Date: 3/25/2010 7:50:43 PM
Author: Sabine

Date: 3/25/2010 6:33:14 PM
Author: dreamer_d

Date: 3/25/2010 5:37:37 PM

Author: Sabine

We sleep trained at 4 months, but continued to feed him once, sometimes twice overnight until 6.5 months. He''s sttn since then. Of course, for him, that means going to bed at 6:30 and waking up at 5:45

Hunter treated us to this for a long time too. I started just letting him chat to himself when he got up and delayed giving him milk because I think eating sets the biological clock. It got him stretched until about 6:30. You might try it.

Dreamer, did you do anything different with bedtime to get him to sleep later? I actually don''t feed Jacks till about 6:20/6:30. I don''t go into his room at all until 6:05 (with dh because he wants to say hi to him before he leaves for work). Jacks is usually perfectly content to just roll around and talk to himself in the morning, but he won''t sleep any later usually. I think it''s because his last nap ends around 2, so he really can''t stay up any later than 6:30, and then he''s in such light sleep at 5:30ish that when dh or the upstairs neighbors wake up and move around, he hears them and wants to be up too. Dh''s schedule changes next month and some mornings he will be getting up at 4:30, so I REALLY hope wake time doesn''t get THAT early! Today was 5:20 and that was rough!

No, we tried putting him to bed later and it didn''t help. When he was waking at 5:30 it was for a big poop

so that is why I thought not feeding him until a little later would help, and for him it seemed to. His body just started waking up later -- still a poop in the am but not at 5:30 thank goodness! The 5:30am thing lasted for a month or so when Hunter was 9-10 or 11 months. Maybe it was just developmental?

 

[gailrmv]

I was not comfortable doing CIO with a young baby. We tried it at 9 mo and after a couple very painful nights, he STTN great for about 2 weeks. Then he started regressing, and I started going in to feed him again. Before I knew it we were back to where we started, so we did CIO again. Again, it worked for a short time and he regressed again. Now, at 12 mo, he''s still up a couple times a night. Hence my 1:30 am post! Logically I know that if we do CIO again, we need to stick to it even if he regresses. In the middle of the night, though, sometimes it''s easier to stick him on the boob for 15 minutes than to let him CIO for 2 hours (and it feels like the right thing to do, as well, if he is truly hungry when he wakes up).

I will say that getting up a couple times a night for quick nursings are not that big of a deal compared to the newborn days, when we were up doing who knows what all night long. Now it''s pretty mindless and I can doze while nursing him.

So that''s where we are on sleep. Never did co-sleeping.

May I just say I am jealous of those whose husbands help overnight. Mine doesn''t. Not that he isn''t willing, but with nursing, there''s only so much he can do, and he needs the sleep so he can focus at work.... but man, it is a lonely feeling being up in the middle of the night, night after night, with your sleepless LO!

 

[vizsla]

i would consider any amount of 'restorative' sleep (4hrs-8hrs) STTN. this is our biggest struggle.. at 5 months C has yet to sleep for more than 3 hours.

anyhoo.. i would love to have a sleep resource thread, as long as it doesn't become a CIO vs. no CIO thread.

KWIM??

 

[MrsBettyBoop]

This is a cool thread. My oldest DD started sleeping through the night pretty early but I rocked her to sleep every night. When she was about 9-10 months DH said I shouldn''t have to rock her to sleep, she needed to put herself to sleep. So she CIO for about 20 minutes that first night and that was it.

My 9-month-old (10 in 5 days) twin DDs were micro-preemies so it was my mission to feed them very often around the clock. About 3 weeks ago they were very agitated that I was waking them up during the night to eat. So I just stopped.

Oldest DD goes to bed at 8:30p and the twins eat at 9:00p and go to sleep, if I''m up at 12-1 I might try to feed them again, I might not. Otherwise they all get up about 8:20a - 9:00a.

 

[D&T]

my First DD slept from 7pm-5am at around six months give or take a month, my second sleeps from 7am-5am at 9months. We have a consistent routine of playing, then wind down (movie - quiet time for about 15-20mins) about an hour before bed time, then they took a bottle before bed, and off they go. Sometimes if they are really tired, they cried maybe for a few minutes at most and zonked out. Now with my second DD I always keep a sippy cup of water next to her, while I put her down (must be her comfort thing)

 

[sbde]

my munchkin co-slept with us in our king bed until about 13 months old. i loved it and would do the same next time around as well. he slept very well and somewhere between the 10-12 month mark his nighttime feedings drastically dropped.

transitioning from co-sleeping to crib:

when he was 13 mos old we started putting him in his crib at night (he goes down at 8:30) and we would bring him back to our bed whenever he would wake up and fuss. for a few days i thought he would catch on and just start waking up earlier and earlier in order to get into our bed, but quite the opposite happened. initially he woke up around 2:00 or 3:00 am but every day he slept longer and longer in his crib! now we're at the point where he'll wake up around 6:30 and i'll bring him back to our bed for about an hour of snuggling and a bit of a snooze until we wake up for the day. again, i love

that cuddle time and will keep doing it as long as i can.

co-sleeping or not in both cases he's had hiccups and hurdles whenever he was sick or teething, but i think that is just normal for babies.

 

[Skippy123]

bumping; I will post a little later, it has been hectic here at home. Not sure if this thread closes so I thought I better post before the close window (that use to be true with the other PS) just in case.