Bordering on Obsession

I’ve mentioned before that Mia is not a great sleeper. To be fair, I should say that she is, at great long last, a really good napper. Usually, that is, although not today. She is not so interested at sleeping at night, unless it is sleeping in my arms which she is sometimes more willing to do. 

Before she was born, I expected that Mia would be sleeping through the night by eight weeks or so (ha! color me naïve) and I certainly never thought that at 11 months a really good night would mean getting up twice. We will not discuss what a really bad night means around here, except to say that it makes for a very crabby mama the next day. But I’ve been thinking, a lot of the things I read in my vast library of baby books turned out to not quite meet up with the actual experiences of a lot of the parents I’ve talked to. I think this sleep through the night thing might be the same deal, and I was hoping that you all would help me out. 

I am reluctant to ask these questions. On the one hand, I think the answers might make me (and lots of you too, but this is my blog so it’s all about me) feel better about the long, long months of long, long nights. On the other hand, the answers might make me so depressed that I dive into a gallon of ice cream and refuse to come out until I’ve licked the sides of the carton clean. I have a nice tub of chocolate standing by just in case. Anyway, here are the questions: 

1. Does your kid sleep through the night? (Let’s assume we mean at least eight hours straight from sometime before midnight to sometime after 6 AM.)
2. When did your kid start sleeping through the night? (Those of you who have more than one kid can answer for all your kids, although I’m not sure that I approve of you skipping ahead like that.) 

Please, please, I am begging here, please, with cherries and gumdrops on top please, do not take this as an invitation to give me advice about how to get my kid to sleep through the night. I promise you that I have heard every single piece of advice on this topic that the universe has to offer and have considered all of it and taken much of it to heart and we are considerably better off than we were two months ago but if I have to listen to any more thoughtful, caring, well-meaning advice on the subject I will burst into tears and break out two gallons of ice cream and then these flabby arm wings will never go away and it will be all your fault. Just tell me about you, please, I really want to know.

Comments

[Alissa]

Um, probably not what you want to hear, but here goes...

My oldest slept through the night when he was two. Yes, two. His first night was the night we brought his baby brother home from the hospital. He was 2 years and 2 days old.

The baby, who will be three years old next month, started sleeping through the night last month. That's right. He was almost three years old before he slept all night long. Although, for the past few months he's only been getting up once around 1:00 for a drink of water, so that's not so bad.

Sorry.

[jill]

My son is 10 months old and I thought he'd NEVER sleep through the night. When I went back to work when he was 4 1/2 months old he instantly started waking every 30 minutes and I thought I would go crazy (I think I may have) The classroom full of first graders I greeted every morning were ready to go, despite my bleary eyes! Ah- but at about 8 1/2 months he finally figured it out-thank goodness

[heels]

Cole will be 8 months next week. He has slept through the night once. I don't know how I got so lucky that time, but no amount of silly dances and burnt offerings to the sleep gods have made it happen again. Most of the nights are good nights (wakes up, happily, for food and goes back to sleep quickly after getting it- maybe three times) now, with the occasional "I spent four hours straight awake with an unhappy baby so don't give me shit about waking you up at 7:30 to take over, okay?" night still around (usually when sick).

Wow. This comment is a grammatical nightmare. Sorry about that.

[jodi]

Does your kid sleep through the night? (Let’s assume we mean at least eight hours straight from sometime before midnight to sometime after 6 AM.)
yes-7-7
When did your kid start sleeping through the night? (Those of you who have more than one kid can answer for all your kids, although I’m not sure that I approve of you skipping ahead like that.)
about 12 weeks,

now before that makes you depressed, let me tell you I have a 15 month old that refuses to nap! Currently I have been trying to get him to take a nap since 1 pm, it's 2:30 and he hasn't slept. He took a 10 minute cat nap in the car and is done. Also, he was formula feed (I won't get into that here), and my understanding is formula feed babies sleep through the night before breast fed babies.

[Joanne]

Does your kid sleep through the night? (Let’s assume we mean at least eight hours straight from sometime before midnight to sometime after 6 AM.)
Yes, my one year old usually goes to bed around 7:00 and sleeps until anywhere from 6:30 or 7:00.

When did your kid start sleeping through the night? (Those of you who have more than one kid can answer for all your kids, although I’m not sure that I approve of you skipping ahead like that.) This is a longer answer, beware (!) One time, when he was 9 weeks old, he slept from like 10:00 pm to 6:00 a.m. ONE TIME. Then it was up every few hours until we started sleep training in earnest. I was going to nurse him during the night if he wanted to until he was 9 months old but when he was about 8.5 months old he got a virus and started sleeping through his 3:00ish, 4:00ish feeding. So I guess I'd say around 8.5 months old, at least 5 nights out of seven he sleeps 12 hours or so.

[ann adams]

My full term kids all did quite early. I can't tell you why because I didn't do anything except put them to bed. For a while, we had a 2:00 a.m. feeding but that was about it.

Who knows?

[Julie]

My daughter is 18 months old. Yes she sleeps through the night, from sometime between 7-8 pm to sometime between 7-8 am.
However she only started doing so at about 14 or 15 months.

[lori]

At 3 1/2 months, Bennett has had 4 nights where he slept 8 hours straight (9:30pm - at least 5:30am). Three of those nights occurred this weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a trend here and not an anomoly. BTW, *I* didn't sleep for 8 hours straight because I'd have to get up and check on him at his usual wake-up time of 3:30am.

I have no idea how or why this happened, so I couldn't offer you advice even if I wanted to.

[R*belle]

Beaux is now 27 months and has started to sleep through the night on occasion. He slept through the night from about 5months-10 months and then promptly quit (I blame it on chronic ear infections). Like you, I have tried every bit of advice that well meaning humans have given me. Unlike you, I have a child that is 15 months old as well as my 27 month old. And um, I did nothing different with her and she sleeps like a stone from 7-7. And naps three hours. So, who knows?

[Melissa]

1. Yes, both mine generally sleep from 8:45pm to somewhere around 7am.

2. Maya was 6 weeks when she started sleeping from 8-midnight. Waking up to eat and then sleeping until 6:30am. Nata was still waking up twice a night until 13 months. She wasn't breastfed, but she liked to eat. Then when she got older and I stopped giving her a bottle when she woke up, she just liked to wake up for no reason. Sometimes she was convinced it was time to play. Sometimes her Bubby had gotten lost. No clue what happened or why, but she stopped doing it around 13 months.

[Sarah]

The Princess (now 4 y.o.) started sleeping thru the night at 6 weeks, and was a pretty good sleeper until the past year - it's a PITA to get her to go to bed at night - but it's cuz she's four and would rather play.

Pumpkin, who is about Mia's age, wouldn't sleep thru until she was weaned. We quickly realized as I was going thru the weaning process that she was nursing in the middle of the night, merely for comfort. Oh joy. Now that she's completely weaned, she sleeps (usually) from about 7 p.m. - 6 a.m.

She's either sick, teething or both right now, though, so she was up at 4:30 last night (this morning?).

Our doctor insisted that sleep begets sleep - that a baby who sleeps during the day would sleep at night. We did find that once she was sleeping at night, she was able to nap more consistently...

And to show you what a jackass I am (and I'm not offering advice, I swear) - nothing worked for sleep training quite as well as just using my two eyes and watching Pumpkin. Now as soon as she yawns or starts rubbing her eyes, etc., I swoop her up, and sing her a song and wrap her in her blanket and put her down for her nap/bed. At least 80% of the time, she zonks right out. Wish I'd done that in the first place rather than go thru the heartache of Crying it out, which about killed me.

[Advice At Your Own Risk]

My little Bug started sleeping for 8 hours regularly at around 13/14 weeks. He's six months now and his usual bedtime is between 8 and 9 (sometimes 7:30, sometimes 10:30). Getting him to GO to sleep is sometimes a real challenge [he has his own playlist on itunes of sleep-inducing songs; sometimes they help], but once he's down, he's very rarely wakes up. [Now that I've typed this, no doubt he'll be up at 2am tomorrow...].

If it makes you feel any better he is a HORRIBLE napper. I think I hear him now and its only been 30 minutes. I'm lucky if I get a single 1-hour nap a day.

[Rengirl]

I have a 7 month old. We started sleep training her just before she learned to crawl and although the first couple of nights was a nightmare, it worked like a charm and she passed out by 9:30pm and slept until 6am the next day.

We were about to break open the champagne bottles and then...

... she started crawling. And climbing.

She loves to climb up but hasn't learned to climb down. So when she cries, she gets up (maximizing the volume of her screaming) and gets stuck there and we can't let her "cry herself to sleep" anymore being that she is stuck in a standing position.

Now she gets up about twice a night and dictates her own bedtime which is anytime between 9 and 11pm.

There's nothing consistent about my child.

[erika]

Sophie is 8 months old on the 22nd and she slept through from 8pm to 5am ONE time when she was about 5 months old. And then I told everyone I knew and jinxed it and that has not happened since. We generally get her to sleep around 7ish and then she tends to wake up around 11ish and then maybe a couple of more times in the night. We co-sleep, so the night wakings are kind of a blur. Ask my husband and he'll say she sleeps through the night. HA! He doesn't have to wake up to feed her! He lies!

[Susan]

Ryan slept through the night from 10 weeks old to 10 months old, BUT NO NAPS!!!! So I had a beast from around 3pm until bedtime.
Then the teething began and it was anyone's guess if she'd sleep at all each night. Now at 18 months, she is back to sleeping through the night WITH one 1-3 hour nap each day.

[Melissa Wiley]

I am sitting here laughing at myself because *I can't remember*. I literally cannot formulate an answer to the question because my brain goes all foggy when I think about it. Hmm. It's like when you click a link and you get taken to an error message that says the server doesn't exist. I guess that particular page has been deleted from the website of my brain.

Which probably says a lot about my own current state of sleep deprivation.

[Goon Squad Sarah]

I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but here you go:

1) My kids are two years old. They have both slept through the night (on the same night) exactly three times ever. Sometimes (maybe twice a month) Claudia will sleep through.

2) The first time she ever did it was around 11 months. The first time he ever did it was about 14 months.

[ben]

My kids (three, five, and eight) still don't always sleep through the night. We're getting closer, though.

Lucky for me, they don't require my assistance anymore, they can all pretty much reach the controls on the microwave and work the Tivo.

[haley-o]

Joey didn't start having "good nights" until around 8 months old--when I decided to stop nursing her at night...although I've since started nursing her again at night because I can't bear the sceaming....Anyway, she now sleeps roughly from around 7:30 until anywhere from 3:00 to 5:30am. But, big BUT, she's the world's worst napper....

[Mutt]

Peanut is 8 months and has always been a good sleeper. Home from the hospital I had a 4 hour stretch at night. I think around 3-4 months he started going down for 8 plus hours. Now bedtime is between 7:30 and 8 and he is up by 6 ish. Naps are hit and miss. This morning was great, two days ago, not so good. As long as night time sleep is good, I don't care what happens during the day.

I think you can read every book and get everyone's advice, but it's really up to your child what happens. I couldn't handle much crying it out, but we did let him do it for a while. After 15 - 20 minutes he was out. I had to leave the house practically and let my husband listen to it. I agree with an earlier post about watching the child's signs. Peanut rubs his eyes and will pause while playing to 'rest' for a bit. If I miss it, he doesn't go down as easy or as long.

Good luck!
Mutt

[Mutt]

PS

Peanut was/is breastfed. Not sure if that makes any difference, but I don't think you have to wean to get them to sleep. I will say that my sister still nurses her son twice in the night and he is also 8 months. It just depends on what you're willing/able to do.

[liz]

Muffin Man did his first full night at 4 months, his first full week of full nights at 5 months.

[Angela Rasmussen]

My son is 1 year old.

Ash does sleep through the night and he started to sleep through the night between 3 and 6 months old. I just can't quite remember exactly. I had just returned to work and was getting too exhausted by the nightly wakings so I resorted to the dreaded CIO. It worked amazingly well. Ash goes to bed at 8 to 6/7am. No matter how late he goes to sleep, he still wakes up early.

Please keep in mind that every baby, every mom, every environment is different. You'll have to do your own way to find out what works for your lil' kid. There's no 'standard' way of when a normal child should sleep. Hang in there! Your girl will eventually give up and sleep through the night.

[princessr9]

Most of the time my kids sleep through the night. They're 6 and 4 years old.

I don't remember when they started sleeping through the night. I think my son was around 3 months old and my daughter was about 2 months old.

[Guwi]

You asked, so here goes. My son, now 5 1/2, started sleeping totally through at around 8-9 months old. By totally, I mean 11-12 hours. Prior to that, he was waking once a night for about 2-3 months.

My daughter, now 2 1/2, slept 5-6 hours a night at around 12 weeks, by 5 months, she was sleeping a full night, 8-10 hours. They both nap, and they're both still great sleepers.

I did nothing right to deserve this, I just really, really lucked out. So far, the same luck hasn't worked with winning Powerball. But I'll take sleeping kids any day.

(Okay, if I won a hundred million bucks, maybe I wouldn't mind a few sleepless nights, I can't lie to you. Because then I could pay someone to clean my house, and nap during the day. But I digress...)

Anyway, I don't know if that made you feel better or worse, but there it is. Survey SAID...you're still tired regardless of what any of us say.