Sleeping through the night

gerrycollins

Hi all have a 3 month old baby girl(our first) who is most of the time nice and placid but like every child has her moments usually to tell us about bottle,nappies and need for sleep.

what wonders me and my wife is that some people we talk to tell us that the baby should be sleeping through the night at this stage,now im all for "every child is different" but it just that too many have said that theirs of the same/similar age are sleeping through the night from 9/10pm to 6am but no mention if they wake for bottle?

overall she will sleep from 9pm to 7am with exception of feeding times which sometimes mix between going straight back to sleep or staying up for an hour until she falls back to sleep again

is it true that babies of 3 months sleep through or would this information exclude feeding times?

any help please

littlebug

Some do but mine didn't! I can't really compare though as my first was premature and had a lot of problems with reflux and mild asthma and my second was breastfed til 8 months and didn't sleep well until he was weaned.

That said, for comparison sake, my friends baby is 10 weeks old and has just started sleeping from 11pm to 6- 7am without a bottle. He does wake a couple of times but they've started just giving him his dodie and putting on his aquarium with soothing running water sounds instead of giving him the bottle and it has worked for a couple of nights in a row so something like that might be worth a try. To be honest I think 3 months is still very young to expect them to sleep that long without a feed. 9pm to 7am is excellent and if she goes back asleep easily after her bottle I'd be really happy with that!

You'll hate this one... my sister's second baby always slept through the night... yep right from the start! She had to wake him to feed him at night for the first couple of months! Trust me to get the other extreme....

not fair

Ickle Magoo

Both mine slept through the night fairly early on. Have you tried cluster feeding? That way baby has several feeds in quick succession & get a full enough tummy to last the night...I have a 19wk old that sleeps 9pm - 7am but she woke for a midnight snack until a few weeks ago so 3months is still pretty young to expect her to go the whole night...

My wee ones were demand fed but feeds roughly every 3-4hrs then I feed closer together in the run up to bed, so the feeding schedule is something like: 7/8oz bottles at 7am, 11am. 3pm, 6pm, 8pm & 9pm...hth

If it's any consolation, I have friends with 2 or 3yr olds that have never slept through the night desite their parents best efforts!

gerrycollins

thanks for the replys and they are similar to some comments we have recieved

i suppose we are lucky that we are not pacing the floor with her at 3am but we are trying at the mo to adjust her daytime sleeping pattern just so that she sleeps about 10pm after a bottle and stays asleep, i like the idea of calming her to put her back to sleep without bottle might give it a go

thanks again

Love2love

My pyschology teacher in college told me about this technique being used in America that ensures that you're baby will be sleeping through the night in 7 days. Now I haven't had the chance to try in yet as I'm only expecting my first next month but I do intend to try it at least.

Night One: When you hear the child cry you must wait 1 minute before running to see what the problem is. Then feed and change the child without speaking or cooing and put the baby back into the cot to sleep.

Night 2: You must wait 2 minutes before repeating the same as the night before.

Night 3: Wait 3 minutes and so on for the entire week.

They say that because you don't coo and comfort you baby that they realise the difference between day and night and by the end of the week should be sleeping all the way through.

Worth a try, I suppose!

Ayla

Love2Love -

I hear what you're saying, and I've heard of the technique myself. Doesn't seem like a bad idea, but I'd suggest to the OP that it's still a bit early to be asking/expecting the wee one to "learn" the difference between day & night. Perhaps a technique to try in a couple more months?

And I agree w/ the OP when he notes that every babe is different - I've gotten a lot of the "well that's strange" and "that didn't happen to me" when I talk about my pregnancy, so who's to say what's right and wrong? As long as the babe is overall happy she'll sort herself out in good time.

mayhem#

No need to worry.
We've got 5 kids and none of them slept from through the night when they were six months. Sleeping paterns depend a lot on diet. If you breastfeed them they tend to wake a lot more, this might sounds as a pain but as they will get older you will see the benefits of breastfeeding.
Also do not mind other people's "advice" to much and just go with what feels natural, too many people go by what the parenting books say without listening to common sense or their own parenting instincts...

E.

redman

Gerrycollins, how are you getting on now?

We have a 6 month old that is still waking at 2:30am ish and 5:30-6:30am ish for two feeds. (Gone to bottle feeds in last two months)

We put her down at 7pm ish with a bottle, so generally she is asleep by 7:30, then feed her on us going to bed circa 10:30/11pm.

Still have her in a cot in master bedroom and very keen to get her out to her own room but want her sleeping through the night first without a feed.


Any advice welcome from all.....

Linford

redman wrote:

Gerrycollins, how are you getting on now?

We have a 6 month old that is still waking at 2:30am ish and 5:30-6:30am ish for two feeds. (Gone to bottle feeds in last two months)

We put her down at 7pm ish with a bottle, so generally she is asleep by 7:30, then feed her on us going to bed circa 10:30/11pm.

Still have her in a cot in master bedroom and very keen to get her out to her own room but want her sleeping through the night first without a feed.


Any advice welcome from all.....

With our daughter we used the "cluster method" (didn't realise it was called that till I read the post above), our daughter was fed at around 6.30pm and then again at 8pm and she slept throught the night from about 6 weeks. My wife was breastfeeding at the time, but we introduced one bottle a day becuase of a weening nightmare my sister-in-law had. That bottle was the 8pm feed.

This has worked for other people I know, but I also know others who tried it too and it didn't work.

Good luck.

MyBaby

redman wrote:

Gerrycollins, how are you getting on now?

We have a 6 month old that is still waking at 2:30am ish and 5:30-6:30am ish for two feeds. (Gone to bottle feeds in last two months)

We put her down at 7pm ish with a bottle, so generally she is asleep by 7:30, then feed her on us going to bed circa 10:30/11pm.

Still have her in a cot in master bedroom and very keen to get her out to her own room but want her sleeping through the night first without a feed.


Any advice welcome from all.....

When our baby was about 6/7mths old, we had the same problem. I slept in the single bed in the babies room just in case he woke up etc. Then one night i decided to sleep in my own bed and hope that he would sleep through the night and well he did and has done so 90% of the time since. Maybe it was me sleeping in the bed in the same room which may have been disturbing him or something but it worked.

You could try moving your baby to their room with a night light and see how it goes. Fingers crossed.

We;re now at the 16mth stage and trying to get him to go into his bed and go asleep and stay there for the night. Last night was the first in 2mths, lol took an hour to get him to stop crying etc and he fell asleep at 11pm and woke at 9:30am. Yayyy


Good luck and let me know how you get on

Love2love

Hi,

My little man is 2 months old now and for the past week he has been sleeping from 8.30pm until 6.3Opm without waking to be fed. (fingers crossed that it continues) I used the method that I mentioned above and it has worked for us but then again every baby is different as he is always placid.
Good luck!

Kashkai

Could someone please explain this word - s.l.e.e.p..

I'm asking because I've forgotten what it feels like to put the head down at 11pm and get a full night of uninterrupted sleep.

We've 12 1/2 month old twins who have never, ever, ever, slept through the night. If we have to get up just twice to them during the night, we count ourselves lucky.

Babies sleeping through the night from 3 months, nah impossible, can't happen, can it???

Its just not fair (sob, sob)

TempestSabre

I think every kid is different and I wouldn't be worried if your do thinks differently to everyone elses. Some people are in a habit of telling half truths anyway. Like their commute is 20 mins, when its 20mins @ 4am on Dec 25th! Ours started sleeping through at 2 months. But they wetn through good and bad phases and it wasn't like they slept through 7 days a week. There always a couple of nights that aren't.

Lack of sleep for the parents is a bit issue though, so I see that a big problem. Try to rotate the nights so you aren't both up. Then the next day only one of you are tired. Or do ever other waking so you get a decent few hours together. Get a grandparent or a sister/brother to stay over and do a night here and their. Or stay over in theirs. Even one night is a huge help.

loismustdie

try giving the baby water in his bottle when he wakes during the night, he'll stop waking after a few nights hopefully

simu

Prosperous Dave wrote:

Could someone please explain this word - s.l.e.e.p..

I'm asking because I've forgotten what it feels like to put the head down at 11pm and get a full night of uninterrupted sleep.

We've 12 1/2 month old twins who have never, ever, ever, slept through the night. If we have to get up just twice to them during the night, we count ourselves lucky.

Babies sleeping through the night from 3 months, nah impossible, can't happen, can it???

Its just not fair (sob, sob)

Maybe they wake wach other up? Could you try putting them to sleep in different rooms?

exCrumlinBoyo

We were very lucky with our two kids. My son when he was born was nearly 11lbs in weight; he is nearly 4 years old now. Our daughter is 9 months old now and again we have been lucky.

Both our kids started to sleep through the night from about 3-4 months old and there are a number of factors in which you have to consider.

Since both our kids were big babies when they were born, by the time they were 3 months old they would be able to hold more food in their bellies.

Routine is the key my friend. If you can get a routine going it will help big time. Babies love routine. We would each and every evening with both our kids do the exact same thing with them. We would give them baths at the same time, have the room quiet in which they would be dried off and dressed. We would have the same alibi music playing and we would feed them a nice bottle and put them down to be between 7-8pm.

Before I would go to bed at around 11-11:30pm I would check on the baby and sometimes I would pick them up and feed them a few ounces of food so they would not feel hungry and stay asleep. I would gradually narrow this down as time went on.

Again routine, routine and routine is the key, babies thrive on it. Right now, both my kids have their bath at 7:30pm each and every night and are both in bed asleep at 8:15pm and sleep through till about 7:30am the next morning.

Also remember not to take to much notice of what other parents say or think as each babies needs are different. As my grand-mother used to say “they are all made of different ingredients”

Best of luck.


Also, if the baby is constantly waking up, trying and not jump to give them a feed right away, try and let them sooth them selves. Someone mentioned first time wait 1min and then 2 ect, this can actually work and it did for our first. We would never let it go beyond 3 min’s before we would pat his back or rub his head and after a few nights, he would learn to comfort him self and put him self to sleep. My daughter who is 9 months old, is at the stage were she will wake up and she will wimper or cry for a few moments, but she will end up putting her self back to sleep most of the time.

embee

My daughter, who is almost 11 months old, has slept through the night since she was about 8 weeks old, but when she got to about 5 months old (when she started to get her teeth) she would wake up at about 3am most nights. She was in a moses basket until she was 5 months old, but once we moved her into the cot she started to wake at night too, as she wasn't used to all the space.

We used to put her into her moses basket, then put her into the cot, just for a couple of days. Once she had dozed off, I'd move her into the big cot and she would be fine. A lot of the problem with her was that, once she woke up, she found it difficult to get herself back to sleep. Perserverance was what worked, and also we followed some of the tips from "The Baby Whisperer" book. The "Pick up/Put Down" technique was what we followed, and it eventually worked, but it takes a few rough nights before she was able to self-settle.

Cionn

I have a 2.5 year old and a 1.5 year old I can count on my fingers the times they have both slept through. On a good night I only get woken up 3 times on a bad night well there pretty bad.
Still I maintain you have to do things your own way. Gladly listen to what other people tell you they do but because all kids are different you will prob have to approach getting them to sleep through based on what you know and feel what is right for your kids.
Remember don't get too hung up on it they'll be asking you for €50 to take their latest crush to the disco in no time at all just enjoy it while it lasts and they can't tell you how uncool you are.

Cionn

davidoco

We have used total blackout curtains from day one in both our room when the baby was in with us and in her room now. She is 17 months now but sleeps from 7.30 pm to 7.30 am every night (with the odd exception when she is teething). We have also used sleepsuits so that you don’t have to worry about her getting cold.

I found that routines are fine but the baby will change the routine every couple of months and the transition can be confusing/difficult until you find what she is happy with again.

For example when she was switching from two naps a day 10am and 2pm to one nap 12 pm to one nap at 10.30am and then back to one nap at 1.00pm. it can be difficult to manage for the couple of days until it settles down again.

If you get a good nights sleep you can handle just about anything during the day, so blackout blinds, constant temperature, sleepsuits and ideally not a overtired and excited baby going to bed – we would always make sure that the ½ hour before going to bed is relatively calm.

dame

I read in "Child of Our Time" (the book that goes with the BBC TV series), in the chapter on 2-3 years old, that an intolerance to cow's milk can cause problems with sleep. Could be worth considering for any parents with kids that age having such problems.

crosstownk

Our first (who's now almost 3) slept through the night at 5 weeks. We didn't do anything to 'encourage' it - it just happened. But the significant thing (I think) was that it happened about 1 week after she went from being breast fed to formula feeding. Currently, our latest arrival who's 4 weeks old, feeds around 10pm, again at 3am (ish) and sleeps till about 7ish. The amount of sleep he's having between feeds has been increasing a lot in the last 10 days. And like the last child we've done nothing to encourage it. All babies are different, some sleep well, others don't and there are a myriad of reasons for it. But parents will try anything if it results in unbroken sleep!