Is fully STTN a myth?

[The[cookie]Doctor]

DS was 8 hourly overnight from about 6 weeks. We got a couple of 10 hours from 3-4 months and then back to six hourly. He started sleeping through the night entirely at about 7 1/2 months. I was very blessed with a low demand baby.

[boobaloo]

my 2 sleep through unless they are sick or teething, dd has since she was 3 weeks old. at the moment with the cold weather i'm getting nearly 14 hours per night out of them. if only i went to bed when they did we'd all be well-slept...

[~Kim~]

Darcy finally got the art of sleeping 7.30-7.30...hmmm just after Nate was born. She turned 3 in May.
The little guy's a looooong way of it yet.

[Indadhanu]

It's strangley comforting to hear all of this (excluding anyone who has a sleeping baby, i ignored all of your posts! PMSL ), expecially being up at 5am after a night of 3 wake-ups (3 is a GOOD night...).

[Lee]

I'm gearing up to have my 4th bub - and all my babies have been great sleepers from a few months of age - sorry if that sound like I'm bragging (I'm not!!) - I put a lot of it down to the "no fuss at bedtime routine" - from about 4 months old I put them in their cots awake at bedtime, kiss goodnight, and shut the door - I can't stress enough the importance of teaching your baby to get to sleep on their own. Mine have never cried more than a minute or two after the door is shut - and pretty soon, they just know the routine and that means sleep. I know there's probably plenty of mums who do this their babies still wake through the night - don't have any real solutions here, other than I don't get up to them the second they cry at night - often they just let out a little cry in between sleep cycles, i.e. they are not really truly awake - and often go back to sleep on their own - once again, try not to fuss too much. But eventually they will learn to sleep on their own - I'm sorry for the mums who are sleep deprived - I have had times of this, and it's torture.

Here's hoping for 12 straight hours (or even 8!!) for everyone soon!!

Lee

[Indadhanu]

Lee - I don't think that can work for everyone, it certainly has never worked for us, Jazz will cry until she spews, so I'm sure it's more luck than routine.

[Lulu]

Oh hell yeah. I followed the exact same routines as with DD1, but DS suffered so badly from colic and DD2 would wake up (bolt upright) when I walked past her room......*sigh

[Willow]

It used to infuriate me when people would say 'oh, you need a bed time routine, that's the key to them sleeping well' Um, no... not really. Both of my children had a bed time routine from birth.

I did all the same things with DS as I did with DD but they are two very different kids and she always slept a lot better than he has.

[*charmalea*]

well my kids are allergic to sleep .... which is unfortunate as i really love it .... never a full night in this house , not even if they are both in our bed

[MrsFabuloso]

well my kids are allergic to sleep .... which is unfortunate as i really love it .... never a full night in this house , not even if they are both in our bed

It's the same in our house too Lea. I often tell people my kids are allergic to sleep. I love my sleep and don't know how I have survived over 2yrs with such a lack of it!!
I have a strict bed time routine too. I've tried the 'let them cry' too. DD just power spewed over her bed herself and the floor. It took me over 2 hours to calm her and get her back into bed when normally it would have been 10min of rocking her. I was more upset than her and cried myself to sleep that I did it to her. DS and I have just coslept since birth so I can just roll over and bf him and so I can get as much sleep as possible.
Every child is different. Every adult is different. I know my DH can get into bed and be asleep in 10 seconds. For me it takes up to an hour. My mum usually wakes a few times a night and has to have a wander around the house or drink of water before she can sleep again. Why would we think it would be different for our babies??

[paradise lost]

I confidently tell myself than DD always STTN, but DH points out that actually about 1-2 nights a week she wakes us and most mornings she's up well before 7am. Ach well, she's certainly not normally awake lots in the night. She's been sleeping about 7.30-8pm to 6.30-7am for a long time, but i can't say i very paid too much attention to when it began. I do remember she fed every 2 hours round the clock for about 4 or 5 weeks when she was a newborn - i remember my sense of disgust that AF hadn't stayed away despite that! LOL. But beyond that...i think she had a midnight and 5am feed until she was about 10months and then dropped them both in a matter of weeks, i think for her it was more to do with her solids/milk balance. When she was ill and on more milk due to lack of appetite she woke more, when she'd stuffed herself with slids all day and had her normal milk too she slept through. By the time she was 12months she usually STTN for at least 7 hours, and often for 12. Not sure if hat's boasting since it was nothing to do with me, she is who she is.

Bx

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Whenever I mention that DS doesn't sleep through - maybe "I can't believe it's light at 3.30am!" or "sorry I dropped that, I started the day at 5 today" or whatever, I get told that the only way to make a child sleep is for them to cry it out, starting ideally at birth. It won't upset them because they don't know any different. Excuse me, they've had already nine months of love and nurturing and that stops as soon as they're born? If I say at nursery "he had a bad night, up for 3 hours between 1 and 4" one woman there tells me to control cry. We don't like her.

So my boy doesn't sleep through all the time, as you may have guessed. And I'm OK with that. We stopped feeding at night at 9m because DS wouldn't feed to sleep so cutting the feed meant I got back to sleep earlier. DS also stopped day sleeps around 16m and still didn't sleep at night. He has to be fully healthy, just the right temperature and no cow's milk proteins in his diet for him to sleep through. And how many toddlers are healthy all the time?

[paradise lost]

Ryn. I too would rather be awake with a cuddled baby than trying to sleep through a crying baby.

Bx

[Lolli]

Bah. My ds has slept through the night (I include one wake up before 10pm, then down till 6ish as STTN) maybe twice. We have good patches and bad ones- we're going througha rough one atm, I was up about 6 times last night. A good night is twice.

As some BB can attest too, I was obsessed with sleep when ds was younger. I couldn't wait until he officially STTN, and thought that once he did my worries would be over and it would be a permanant thing. I think I've come to accept that it will be a looong time before I get some good solid sleep. Being tired is just the mothering condition...

[amberj]

Ugh, my STTN dreams are dashed. At least I'm not alone!!

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I think my STTN obsession stemmed from the fact that I was doing it wrong in the eyes of so many people - Liebling not sleeping reflected poorly on me as a mother.

Now I know it's a load of crap I don't care what others think. I'm fine with Liebling waking up so why should you care? It is nothing to do with my parenting, it's just one of those things. Just as Liebling's weight, height, eye colour or shoe obsession have nothing to do with me. OK, the shoe one, maybe that's partly me. But he's more obsessed than I've ever been.

[Nelle]

I think a better way to put it is that my kids will go back to sleep on their own through the night.
I'm sure they wake up, but #1 is a quiet one who is happy to lie there til he nods off again, and #2 will chat himself back to sleep - I know that #2 doesn't always sleep through the night, but he doesn't make enough noise for me to warrant going in, he's not upset, we just hear a bit of sleepy cheery chatter before silence again.
And of course, if they wake up with teething or a cold, there's no self settling without a hug, drink, and maybe some pain relief.

So I'm not sure any bub really actually sleeps through, I know I wake up and nod off a couple of times.

Hugs to those with those who like a bit of night time action, I don't think my little sis slept through for a few years, which is why my parents stopped at two! It sounds like a hard slog, but I bet your little ones feel so loved and reassured when mum or dad appears in those sleepy hours. You're doing a great job.

[Marlene]

I've pretty much given up all hope of STTN. Jack has done it once (maybe twice) in his 14 months of life.
But you know what? I've stopped expecting it to happen now...sure I get tired, frustrated, even cranky some times..but I refuse to let him cry it out, and I will not refuse him my breast...so I just have to deal with it. Hopefully it will happen one day!!