Sleeping through the night - when, how?

cocojack10 · February 2011

I know I can't rush things and they are probably still too little to be sleeping through the night (even though some children already do at this age, and even younger), but mommy and daddy can dream!

Right now we'd love for them to sleep midnight to 6am, but alas they don't. Right now their longest stretch of sleep comes around 6pmish - midnight. We try to keep them awake as long as possible, but nothing works. They wake between 11pm-12am to feed, and then again at 4am, at which time I only give them 2-3oz (I'm trying to wean them off that feeding)... and then again @7am.

We've tried bathing them @9-10pm and then feeding, but they still wake @ 4am.

Eve - how the heck does your little one sleep almost 12 hrs already?! Are you the baby whisperer? Can you please come over?!

When did your baby begin sleeping through the night (and what hours)?

Did YOU do anything to get them on that schedule, or did baby do it on their own?

mjz · February 2011

Oh, I'll be watching this thread like a hawk. Javy still wakes up once, and lately sometimes twice, to nurse.

CesEve99 · February 2011

cocojack10:

I know I can't rush things and they are probably still too little to be sleeping through the night (even though some children already do at this age, and even younger), but mommy and daddy can dream!

Right now we'd love for them to sleep midnight to 6am, but alas they don't. Right now their longest stretch of sleep comes around 6pmish - midnight. We try to keep them awake as long as possible, but nothing works. They wake between 11pm-12am to feed, and then again at 4am, at which time I only give them 2-3oz (I'm trying to wean them off that feeding)... and then again @7am.

We've tried bathing them @9-10pm and then feeding, but they still wake @ 4am.

Eve - how the heck does your little one sleep almost 12 hrs already?! Are you the baby whisperer? Can you please come over?!

When did your baby begin sleeping through the night (and what hours)?

Did YOU do anything to get them on that schedule, or did baby do it on their own?

first off...i'm sorry you are going through this - not once, but twice fold!

mady was sleeping through the night by 7 weeks without me having to do much. actually she would sleep all day too! she was also not a cryer and was pretty content and used to doze off be herself.

evan on the other hand, is her complete opposite. he does not sleep much at all during the day. if i'm lucky he naps 20 minutes in the morning, 30 min-an hour in the afternoon, maybe another 20 minutes between 4-6pm. so technically he has to be exhausted. all the crying he does from colic/reflux during the day has to leave him exhausted by bedtime. i do practice the EASY method (never did it with mady but felt the need to do it with him). he started sttn as soon as i implented EASY. around 7pm or so he has his last bottle, some tummy time, bathtime and by 9pm-ish he is swaddled and off to bed. today he slept until 8am! the last time we gave him a feeding in the middle of the night he must have been 4-5 weeks old.

gl! i'm sure it will get better for you!

Lina1030 · February 2011

It all depends on the baby (in your case babies). K slept through the night from the hospital (5 hour stretches is considered through the night). I would set my alarm to wake up and check up on him. He started sleeping about 8 hours within the first month. He is now (3 mos) at 10-12 hour. He goes to bed around 10:30 and wakes up at around 8:30 on average. Sometimes a leaky diaper may disrupt his sleep or else he would sleep almost 12 hours. Natalia was also a good sleeper, but not as good as K. She started sleeping through the night around 4-5 months. At 3 months she would still wake up 1-2 times at night. Bath time certainly helps get them in their bedtime ritual routine and I find it calms and relaxes K (but maybe not for all babies). Yesterday after his bath he wanted to play a little...so he went in his jumperoo played a little then started his "I'm tired cry" and ate and went to bed . He loves his massage after the bath (and he smells so yummy!). He's just been a calm, go with the flow easy baby...nothing really I did/didn't do. Just be patient...in time they will be sleeping through the night

RoseWhite · February 2011

I know how tired you are...trust me!. Mine didn't STTN until 6 months...I know that's not what you want to hear!....but hopefully yours are quicker to learn than mine were...hehe!.

I did find (and it's still true to this day!) that the earlier they go to bed, the better they actually sleep!. I kept them up until 8:30pm on Superbowl day (they are usually down between 7-7:30pm) and Lucas was up 3 times that night and then up for the day at 5am!.

So I truly do believe that sleep begots sleep. The better naps the take, the better they sleep at night, etc.

Once they were down to one feeding from 7pm to 7am (I think that was at around 4 or 5 months) then I slowly started to give them less and less in that bottle...until they were down to like 2oz...and at 6 months I decided to let them "cry it out". I felt they were old enough but I told myself if they cried for more than 20 minutes, I was going in (I'm a wimp and even making that decision was tough!). Well, I didn't need to...the first night they cried like 10 minutes at around the usual feeding time and went back to sleep until the next morning. The second night it was like 3-4 minutes...and the third night they didn't make a peep. I think they were just ready at that point but had still been waking up from being used to it, not from being hungry.

Hang in there...it will happen, even though right now it seems like it never will and you "hate" (not really!) anyone that tells you their kid STTN when they were half the age of yours!. I know that's how I felt anyway...hehe.

cocojack10 · February 2011

The boys love bath time, and it does calm them and they do pass out afterwards, but not a long 6 hr stretch... just the usual 3hrs.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

RoseWhite · February 2011

oh and Jackie, my boys were the same way. Their long stretch was the first part of the night...which sucked...but no matter what I tried ("dream feed", later bedtime, etc) that was just how they were wired.

VandRicky · February 2011

let me tell you from experience: every baby is SO different.

Did you know that sleeping 5h in a row is actually considered sleeping through the night? so you may want to try to keep them up longer and push their bedtimes back but that can back fire and screw everything up.

I don't believe in CIO or any other method that will make it so my baby cries more than a minute or two so if you are like me, your babies will sleep through the night... one day and then the day you finally have them sleeping through the night, they will start teething and not be able to sleep more than an hour without crying...then they will start crawling and want to pratice in their sleep and not sleep.etc, etc...

See how much fun it all is? LOL

My babies (all three) have always been terrible sleepers, amongst the worse sleepers I know and i think that is why God made them super cute... so I wouldnt want to strangle them when I am super sleep deprived.

Good luck in whatever you chose to do.

cocojack10 · February 2011

RoseWhite:
oh and Jackie, my boys were the same way. Their long stretch was the first part of the night...which sucked...but no matter what I tried ("dream feed", later bedtime, etc) that was just how they were wired.

Thanks so much for the input! Greatly appreciate it.

It is good for DH and me to have that alone time, so for that I'm grateful. I can cook, we can eat, and I can clean up around the house in peace. I prepare bottles then and shower, all before they wake. It just takes patience, right?!

My niece (same age as boys) has been STTN since she was home from hospital (not that SIL let her the first month)! CRAZY.

RoseWhite · February 2011

Jackie the downtime is really such a blessing....

We've always treasured that time...we have dinner, clean-up, watch some tv, talk...and that's also when I would sometimes go running or to the gym, etc.

When they were little that's also when I would do the bottles and all that fun stuff!

By the end of the day with them I'm exhausted and bedtime can't come soon enough!

I know it's tough to hear that other babies are STTN much earlier...and I do think the "twin" thing has something to do with it. Do they share a room?. Mine are pretty good about tuning each other out now, but when they were smaller I'm pretty sure once would wake the other one up sometimes. Also, one of mine seemed to be ready earlier to STTN than the other one...but he would get woken up when his brother would wake up to eat.

Hang in there!

Albah · February 2011

Hi Jackie! Evan didn't STTN until he was 13 months old (right after weaning him from the breast). Ethan is a much better sleeper and he wakes up once per night usually sometime between 2-4 am to eat (but he really does eat unlike Evan who would just 'snack").

I never purposefully did anything to try to make them sleep longer. I kind of followed the EASY method without knowing it...it just made sense to me to follow that kind of schedule. But I'm a firm believer that when they are ready, they will STTN. Oh, and yes the technical definition of STTN is 6 hours, which Ethan already does, but i don't buy that. Waking at 3 am breaks sleep, so to me that's not STTN.

Like you said, keep enjoying the time you have with your hubby when the boys go to bed. They will STTN when their time comes. :-)

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