Great thread girls

Love the evolutionary theory Maya. I'm another two headed mummy! I don't do "pat pat pat" etc at night. Our babe just comes in with us (into our bed), almost always settles then. His bedtime is flexible too, DH is able to rock him to sleep if we both can't keep our eyes open to watch him. He begins each night in his bed and nearly always ends up in ours by about 3am. I pretty much always get to sleep between 10.30pm amd 3am which keeps me sane. Sometimes I carry him back to his cot after his feed, other times I let him stay... it's about 50/50. I'm all for flexibilty. Loved your posts Liz and I know what you mean about it being scary to tell someone that there might not be any "answers"... it's just a case of taking each night as it comes. My DD was the worst sleeper BTW. Not sure if that was due to our inexperience as parents of if it's a gender thing... i don't think it's a gender thing.

The theory that makes most sense to me is that childrens' sleep habits often are the same as the parent they are closest to genetically. My almost 4yo has been our "best" sleeper. He slept from 7pm to 7am very frequetly as a baby. He is like me: loves to sleep, has endless capacity for sleep, he is most like me genetically. My other 2 are more like my DH genetically and my DH is a night owl. he will stay on the 'pute until midnight most nights and still get up at 6am easily for work, that would kill me. DH claims he doesn't need much sleep but I think he is kidding himself... anyhow... this seems to be a common theme amongst the other families i know. it doesn't really help, but it does kinda help if you can say to your DH: "well, he has your non-sleep genes... you deal with it!"