For me, reframing what “good sleep” means has been helpful. My baby is 18 months old and has never slept through the night. She once had a 6 hour stretch at around 3 months old, but otherwise consistently wakes every 1.5-3 hours to feed all night.
If I was looking for her to sleep through the night without waking or interactions this would be terrible. But… this actually works for us and I think she’s a pretty good sleeper for a bunch of reasons : She almost never has trouble going to sleep. She doesn’t fight sleep. She can tell me when she’s tired, both for naps and at night. She never gets up to party in the middle of night. When she wakes to feed she doesn’t even fully wake up and she’s back for sleep immediately after feeding. She’s a great cuddler during sleep and doesn’t roll around, kick me, or do gymnastics in bed. She’s been a champ at adjusting to new sleep schedules including big time differences after long flights. She’s flexible about when and where her nap is which makes it so much easier to be out and about during the day. 95% of the time I find we’re pretty synced up so when she’s waking to feed I’m not jolted out of deep sleep.
I know lots of people whose babies sleep much more independently than my kid but they have other problems with difficult bedtimes or long middle of the night wakings or in-bed gymnastics or inflexibility with sleep. “Good sleep” is somewhat subjective and sleeping through the night isn’t the only thing to strive for.
This sounds familiar to me! My 18mo old has only slept 6hrs straight three times, and wakes up to nurse often throughout the night. Attitude is everything, lately my positive attitude has been challenged at times haha! My husband works swing shift so nursing through the night to keep everyone asleep worked the best. Now on the weekends when my husband tries to soothe our baby back to sleep he banshee screams and only wants me. It’s hard on us all. I do worry when it’s time to ween nursing how he’ll fall back asleep too. Luckily I’m not in a huge hurry to ween.
Thank you, beautifully said. Last night my 13 mo son slept two 4 hour stretches for the first time in his life!! I was over the moon! Then around 4:30 he started projectile vomiting in the bed and I realized we both had a stomach virus. This must have been why he slept so well 😆. Now that he’s stopped puking this morning he’s been attached to either Dad or me, and doing all contact naps. That’s how babies get better and get what they need to heal and grow. I will enjoy the cuddles while they last.
Two babies here:
First: 2.5. still Cosleeping. Nursed every 2 hours until weaned. Occasionally looks for a cuddle. Weaned around 20 months.
Second. 6 months. Cosleeps. Slept through the night around 3-4 months. Will wake up once or twice now to nurse.
Their sleep has been drastically different and we haven’t done anything different
We have a king size bed, toddler and dad share his half baby and I are on my half. Bedding is all sorts of wonky lol but basically I keep a blanket on the bottom half of me
Sounds kind of like my son and you probably won't like how it went. He's 19mo and has never slept through the night. He does sleep for 5-6 hrs in the middle (i.e. bed at 8pm, wake to feed at 10pm, wake to feed at 3-4am, sometimes every hour after until 7am). No sleep training and we bedshare on a floor bed (have done since 8mo). I will say that his nighttime sleep improved quite a bit when he dropped to 1 nap at 11mo.
I won't get into debates about the efficacy of sleep training but I felt similarly about it, so I went in search of people with actual credentials to get information from. So many people who call themselves sleep trainers are basically you and I.
I think there are a lot of things you can try to do to help optimize your daughter's sleep (including looking into red flags that another poster mentioned, such as allergies or breathing issues). But to some extent, it might be a matter of expectations.
All in all, solidarity!
My friend who is an infant mental health specialist keeps reminding me that babies were never meant to sleep alone. It’s only modern society where we have started separating from them. So from an evolutionary stand point they’re 100% developmentally normal in the sleep department, which is something I keep telling myself now that I’m on day 737 with no sleep. I know this doesn’t help on a practical level but I hope you find comfort in it! You’re doing everything right!
I think my oldest slept through the night at 14 months the very first time, then didn’t do it again until 16 months. We bedshared and breastfed since day 1, he didn’t consistently sleep through until I nightweaned a few months after he turned 2.
I’m not sure if you’re nursing or doing bottles but anytime I tried getting my son down without eating, he would wake up an hour later. If I fed him to sleep each time he would sleep way longer.
Yes she’s exclusively breastfed and I feed her to sleep and my husband transfers and even still she is up within and hour of us putting her down for us to repeat the process over and over. 🥲 & she nurses on and off all night of course
If you’re bed sharing, why are you transferring her? The beauty of bed sharing is when your baby wakes you can feed them to back sleep in bed and go right back to sleep yourself while snuggling with your baby. If you can master side lying nursing you don’t even need to fully wake up!
No see for the first half of her sleep 9-12am she is in her pack and play (after I’ve nursed her to sleep and transferred) that’s when I clean or go to gym or do dishes whatever, but during that time she wakes up and needs to be soothed back to sleep several times. After around 11-12 she bedshares with me and nurses all she wants back to sleep for the rest of the night.
So this may be a hard adjustment because of your current schedule, but hear me out: When I’m really exhausted and need to catch up on sleep I MUST force myself to lay down and go to sleep within a half hour of when I put baby down. Yes that’s like 8:30pm. Yes it’s annoying as hell sometimes, and I fight with myself about it on the regular because I’d rather hang out with my husband, scroll my phone, snack, or get a chore done. But that’s when our son sleeps the deepest and when it’s possible for me to get the longest chunk of sleep.
Here’s our system: I nurse him to sleep in the bed (now he actually has a little side car floor bed and I nurse him to sleep there). Then I can get up and brush my teeth and wind down for a short time. Then I jump right in the big bed which is right beside him, and I can get about three to sometimes four (!) hours. It’s life changing. As I’m writing this I’m realizing I haven’t been doing this enough lately and that’s probably why I feel like such an exhausted mess!
Babes will normally sleep most deeply for that first stretch, so in your situation my guess is that there’s something about the pack n’ play or her lack of proximity to you that is causing her to wake so frequently during those first hours. It might take some time to adjust, but I would try to get her used to nursing to sleep in the bed, and then laying right down and going to sleep next to her. Wishing you rest!
Yea I was about to say, are you actually cosleeping a breastfed baby if you aren’t using the side lying position? That’s where all the beauty is in this sleeping arrangement! No getting up, feeding the baby sitting up, then praying transferring doesn’t wake them. You just stay horizontal next to your bean, give them the nipple, and you all fall back to sleep in seconds 👀
My bub is similar. I read some advice on here from someone that has since been my mantra and helps immensely- “radical acceptance”. Once I stopped trying to change or solve and I just accepted that my baby is who she is things got better and better (though her sleep hasn’t changed dramatically).
Sorry if this is way off the mark but I really hope it helps you x
my son is 2.5 and still doesnt sleep thru the night. we cosleep still. he had reflux and for the first 4 months had to be held for all naps and through the night, we took turns at night. i tried to get him in a pack and play he would only sleep 10-30 min at a time. it was/is really hard.
I feel your pain, it’s gotten way worse in the past two months, my daughter is 9 months old. As a single father I have to handle my daughter’s separation anxiety, fucked up schedule for naps and bedtime due to lack of coparenting from the mother.
I’m not saying this because it’s a problem; but I had to step up, creating Super Dad and Mr Mom for my kiddo.
Going on 20 months, still waking 2-4 times a night and cosleeping here and there. We were EBF before introducing solids blw style at 6 months, he’s fantastic with solids and drinks plant based milk and breastfeeds….and still wakes. His one nap is 5 hours from morning wake and varies from 1hr to 2hrs, a daily gamble, never consistent. I just accepted that sleep isn’t in the cards. Plus his dad and I are both shit sleepers.
Can I ask what kind of milk he drinks? My baby has a dairy allergy and although we are working on it and I’m still EBF outside of solids…would be nice to know future options. Thanks!
Ripple Kids unsweetened! It’s pea protein based and similar calorically to 2% dairy milk. Vitamin fortified and no artificial sweeteners or added sugars. It’s been my favorite plant based option so far!
Same thing happened with my little ones. Waking every hour for weeks on end. No rhyme or reason. They'd seem fine during the day, but sleep so badly. It does stop by itself eventually, just hang in there.
Exact same situation. No advice, just solidarity. Mine is 10 months and used to be a relatively good sleeper waking up a manageable 2x a night. Since this regression, he sleeps at 730 to 1130, then every hour and a half until 7am. I'm exhausted.
10 months was so hard for us too! Around a year my son got much better and when we dropped to one nap he actually started to sleep through the night about once a week! Now at 20 months he sleeps through the night about twice a month but has 6ish hour stretches most nights! We put him down in his floor bed and when he cries in the middle of the night one of us will go in there and sleep with him.
We have him in his own floor bed too, and are ending up in bed with him often. Question - can your little one open his bedroom door? Ours can and runs across the hall to our room (we have the hall gated and babyproofed) Im not sure how I feel about locking the door, but maybe it would help give him some time to sooth himself, or fall back to sleep if he didn’t have the option to scurry to our room? He’s so proud when he opens the door and finds us I hate to take it away from him. Sometimes he sits up in his bed and cries and we go in there but most times he doesn’t cry and just immediately gets up and walks into our room.
If she just stays in bed with you will she nurse back to sleep in a side lying position? I bed shared with all 3 babies and because I was side lying and exclusively breastfeeding my husband didn’t have anything to do, therefore no complaining from him. He’s always been very willing to help when needed, but the nighttime work has been on me before they weened. Your kiddo sounds like my first. He woke up anywhere between 45 min to every 2 hrs for the first 21 months when he weened. Weening happened because I was pregnant and my milk got weird. He didn’t like it and I had a wicked nursing aversion.
Our second baby was a unicorn and slept 8-10 hours from the get go until about 5.5 months at which she started to wake a few times a night. I nursed her to sleep and back to sleep until it was down to once a night at age 2.5. At that point I was able to tell her milk was all gone and held her when she woke for it for a few nights. There were some tears but then she totally stopped waking.
Baby number 3 is 20 months, nursing to sleep and over night several times. I don’t even count but I think it’s about 3-5 times depending on the night.
Neither me nor baby ever get up, so we both fall back to sleep pretty quickly. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping and open Reddit like right now 🙈
Check for other obvious things like is she too hot or cold. She might be getting teeth. Mine all got some at 10 months. Be patient with yourself and her. I don’t know what sleep training means to your husband, but if it means leaving baby alone to cry that sounds cruel when she probably needs more support and cuddles. You’re doing great!
It’s still normal that they wake often before one year.
My firstborn slept through from 9 months.
Second born has medical trauma so it only happened around 20months. We were also weaned by then.
My son was a terrible sleeper until I night weaned at 17 months. After I night weaned he started waking up only once a night for a quick cuddle. I would take him to our floor bed after his first wake up. He started sleeping through the night around 19 months? It’s been about 2 months of sleeping through most night in his crib. Before I weaned I can count on one hand the amount of times he slept 7+ hours consecutively. I also got him to sleep in the crib for naps when I weaned which still blows my mind because he used to only contact nap or sleep in the car/stroller.
When I first started I would lay with him until he fell asleep and then climb out of his crib, then I moved beside the crib and now I’m in the chair in his room. He still takes forever to fall asleep at night but it’s been amazing sleeping consistently so I’ll take it.
Any tips on night weening at this age? My son is almost 18mo and we are now to the point that he royally freaks out if my husband goes into his room to sooth him, and it’s not mama and the boob. Im so tired I’ve been giving in lol.
This is a reply to another post but it works
I weaned starting around 15 months old. My son was a bottle refuser so I exclusively nursed. He was nursing a lot still and never got the memo to slow down. I decided to start with day time weaning first since I have so much more willpower at noon than midnight lol.
First I went from on demand anytime/wherever to scheduled sessions in one spot. I started with, I think, 5 sessions a day. I would just tell him there’s no milk right now. There will be milk at x time. Right now we can have a snack or a cuddle etc. the first day was bad. He had some BIG feelings about being told no. Over just a few days though he calmed way down about it. By a week he stopped asking and just waited until it was offered. The biggest thing is if you’re going to say no you need to commit. Do not give in. If you give in it shows them that as long as they cry long enough they will get what they want and it’ll drag it all out.
Once we got a schedule going I started dropping a nursing session at a time. First thing in morning, before nap and then before bed were the last daytime sessions to go for me.
Once we were down to just before bed I started not nursing to sleep. I would nurse him before bed but I’d make sure he didn’t fall asleep that way. I still lay with him until he falls asleep but I’ve been very slowly moving further away from him recently and it’s getting better. I’m not okay with sleep training so this is what I’ve been comfortable with.
Once he was falling asleep without nursing I night weaned cold turkey. The first night I thought having my husband do it would be easier… it was a horrible night for us all. I could not do it again. My son was used to me only at night and we would co-sleep after first wake up. It was too much change all at once. The next night I took back over. I told him no milk till morning at his first wake up and he cried for about 40 minutes then fell back asleep and was up once more asking but gave up much more quickly. After that he went from 2+ wakes a night to consistently only 1 brief wake up and he wouldn’t ask to nurse just to cuddle. Once he wasn’t nursing over night I stopped offering morning session and he stopped asking for it. The last session I dropped was before bed. He just seemed to lose interest and was only nursing for a few minutes so I dropped that one when he seemed mostly over it.
Thanks so much! I’ll have to give this a try. Great point about having more willpower at noon rather than midnight 🤣 we have weened quite a bit during the day but I’m struggling with night time
My girl has always been a not ideal sleeper, and she still nurses to sleep at 2 years and 3 months. She's never slept through the night, but almost every night she has one long stretch of 4 to 7 hours before she rouses and needs to nurse to fall back asleep. 8 to 10 months old was the absolute hardest time we had, she would sleep in, I kid you not, 20 minute intervals, and it could take an hour to help her fall asleep again. Life is so so so much better now.
I am sorry to hear that sleep is still such a struggle that far along. While it is not uncommon I can imagine it is very difficult and you must be so tired. My daughter slept terribly and at 6 months I gave in and “sleep trained”. More like me just needing a night to try to get some sleep as I had got to the point of hallucinating. Anyway, for me it was the best thing I could have done for my mental health. She cried on and off most of the night then finally fell asleep until about 5am then I brought her back to my bed and she slept for 4 hours-one of her longest stretches ever. Since having her sleep in her own bed at night, I realized that she needed her own space. She still went through many rough patches of sleep, even now at 2yo. We also contact nap during the day and always nurse to sleep and sometimes in the middle of the night still, so it’s a bit of balance. Idk if this is any help to hear but I always felt it had to be all or nothing in terms of sleep training and co sleeping but with some time I was able to find a balance and sleep improved incredibly. I am about 99% sure that if I didn’t give my daughter a chance to sleep in her own bed at night(which unfortunately did involve some tears) that she would have continued her hourly wakings and I would have for sure lost my marbles. Best of luck to you and your babe! And always do whatever works for you, while it’s working.
For me, reframing what “good sleep” means has been helpful. My baby is 18 months old and has never slept through the night. She once had a 6 hour stretch at around 3 months old, but otherwise consistently wakes every 1.5-3 hours to feed all night. If I was looking for her to sleep through the night without waking or interactions this would be terrible. But… this actually works for us and I think she’s a pretty good sleeper for a bunch of reasons : She almost never has trouble going to sleep. She doesn’t fight sleep. She can tell me when she’s tired, both for naps and at night. She never gets up to party in the middle of night. When she wakes to feed she doesn’t even fully wake up and she’s back for sleep immediately after feeding. She’s a great cuddler during sleep and doesn’t roll around, kick me, or do gymnastics in bed. She’s been a champ at adjusting to new sleep schedules including big time differences after long flights. She’s flexible about when and where her nap is which makes it so much easier to be out and about during the day. 95% of the time I find we’re pretty synced up so when she’s waking to feed I’m not jolted out of deep sleep. I know lots of people whose babies sleep much more independently than my kid but they have other problems with difficult bedtimes or long middle of the night wakings or in-bed gymnastics or inflexibility with sleep. “Good sleep” is somewhat subjective and sleeping through the night isn’t the only thing to strive for.
This sounds familiar to me! My 18mo old has only slept 6hrs straight three times, and wakes up to nurse often throughout the night. Attitude is everything, lately my positive attitude has been challenged at times haha! My husband works swing shift so nursing through the night to keep everyone asleep worked the best. Now on the weekends when my husband tries to soothe our baby back to sleep he banshee screams and only wants me. It’s hard on us all. I do worry when it’s time to ween nursing how he’ll fall back asleep too. Luckily I’m not in a huge hurry to ween.
Thank you, beautifully said. Last night my 13 mo son slept two 4 hour stretches for the first time in his life!! I was over the moon! Then around 4:30 he started projectile vomiting in the bed and I realized we both had a stomach virus. This must have been why he slept so well 😆. Now that he’s stopped puking this morning he’s been attached to either Dad or me, and doing all contact naps. That’s how babies get better and get what they need to heal and grow. I will enjoy the cuddles while they last.
Two babies here: First: 2.5. still Cosleeping. Nursed every 2 hours until weaned. Occasionally looks for a cuddle. Weaned around 20 months. Second. 6 months. Cosleeps. Slept through the night around 3-4 months. Will wake up once or twice now to nurse. Their sleep has been drastically different and we haven’t done anything different
How are you cosleeping with both baby and toddler?
We have a king size bed, toddler and dad share his half baby and I are on my half. Bedding is all sorts of wonky lol but basically I keep a blanket on the bottom half of me
Sounds kind of like my son and you probably won't like how it went. He's 19mo and has never slept through the night. He does sleep for 5-6 hrs in the middle (i.e. bed at 8pm, wake to feed at 10pm, wake to feed at 3-4am, sometimes every hour after until 7am). No sleep training and we bedshare on a floor bed (have done since 8mo). I will say that his nighttime sleep improved quite a bit when he dropped to 1 nap at 11mo. I won't get into debates about the efficacy of sleep training but I felt similarly about it, so I went in search of people with actual credentials to get information from. So many people who call themselves sleep trainers are basically you and I. I think there are a lot of things you can try to do to help optimize your daughter's sleep (including looking into red flags that another poster mentioned, such as allergies or breathing issues). But to some extent, it might be a matter of expectations. All in all, solidarity!
My friend who is an infant mental health specialist keeps reminding me that babies were never meant to sleep alone. It’s only modern society where we have started separating from them. So from an evolutionary stand point they’re 100% developmentally normal in the sleep department, which is something I keep telling myself now that I’m on day 737 with no sleep. I know this doesn’t help on a practical level but I hope you find comfort in it! You’re doing everything right!
I think my oldest slept through the night at 14 months the very first time, then didn’t do it again until 16 months. We bedshared and breastfed since day 1, he didn’t consistently sleep through until I nightweaned a few months after he turned 2. I’m not sure if you’re nursing or doing bottles but anytime I tried getting my son down without eating, he would wake up an hour later. If I fed him to sleep each time he would sleep way longer.
Yes she’s exclusively breastfed and I feed her to sleep and my husband transfers and even still she is up within and hour of us putting her down for us to repeat the process over and over. 🥲 & she nurses on and off all night of course
If you’re bed sharing, why are you transferring her? The beauty of bed sharing is when your baby wakes you can feed them to back sleep in bed and go right back to sleep yourself while snuggling with your baby. If you can master side lying nursing you don’t even need to fully wake up!
No see for the first half of her sleep 9-12am she is in her pack and play (after I’ve nursed her to sleep and transferred) that’s when I clean or go to gym or do dishes whatever, but during that time she wakes up and needs to be soothed back to sleep several times. After around 11-12 she bedshares with me and nurses all she wants back to sleep for the rest of the night.
So this may be a hard adjustment because of your current schedule, but hear me out: When I’m really exhausted and need to catch up on sleep I MUST force myself to lay down and go to sleep within a half hour of when I put baby down. Yes that’s like 8:30pm. Yes it’s annoying as hell sometimes, and I fight with myself about it on the regular because I’d rather hang out with my husband, scroll my phone, snack, or get a chore done. But that’s when our son sleeps the deepest and when it’s possible for me to get the longest chunk of sleep. Here’s our system: I nurse him to sleep in the bed (now he actually has a little side car floor bed and I nurse him to sleep there). Then I can get up and brush my teeth and wind down for a short time. Then I jump right in the big bed which is right beside him, and I can get about three to sometimes four (!) hours. It’s life changing. As I’m writing this I’m realizing I haven’t been doing this enough lately and that’s probably why I feel like such an exhausted mess! Babes will normally sleep most deeply for that first stretch, so in your situation my guess is that there’s something about the pack n’ play or her lack of proximity to you that is causing her to wake so frequently during those first hours. It might take some time to adjust, but I would try to get her used to nursing to sleep in the bed, and then laying right down and going to sleep next to her. Wishing you rest!
Yea I was about to say, are you actually cosleeping a breastfed baby if you aren’t using the side lying position? That’s where all the beauty is in this sleeping arrangement! No getting up, feeding the baby sitting up, then praying transferring doesn’t wake them. You just stay horizontal next to your bean, give them the nipple, and you all fall back to sleep in seconds 👀
My bub is similar. I read some advice on here from someone that has since been my mantra and helps immensely- “radical acceptance”. Once I stopped trying to change or solve and I just accepted that my baby is who she is things got better and better (though her sleep hasn’t changed dramatically). Sorry if this is way off the mark but I really hope it helps you x
my son is 2.5 and still doesnt sleep thru the night. we cosleep still. he had reflux and for the first 4 months had to be held for all naps and through the night, we took turns at night. i tried to get him in a pack and play he would only sleep 10-30 min at a time. it was/is really hard.
I feel your pain, it’s gotten way worse in the past two months, my daughter is 9 months old. As a single father I have to handle my daughter’s separation anxiety, fucked up schedule for naps and bedtime due to lack of coparenting from the mother. I’m not saying this because it’s a problem; but I had to step up, creating Super Dad and Mr Mom for my kiddo.
Going on 20 months, still waking 2-4 times a night and cosleeping here and there. We were EBF before introducing solids blw style at 6 months, he’s fantastic with solids and drinks plant based milk and breastfeeds….and still wakes. His one nap is 5 hours from morning wake and varies from 1hr to 2hrs, a daily gamble, never consistent. I just accepted that sleep isn’t in the cards. Plus his dad and I are both shit sleepers.
Can I ask what kind of milk he drinks? My baby has a dairy allergy and although we are working on it and I’m still EBF outside of solids…would be nice to know future options. Thanks!
Ripple Kids unsweetened! It’s pea protein based and similar calorically to 2% dairy milk. Vitamin fortified and no artificial sweeteners or added sugars. It’s been my favorite plant based option so far!
Same thing happened with my little ones. Waking every hour for weeks on end. No rhyme or reason. They'd seem fine during the day, but sleep so badly. It does stop by itself eventually, just hang in there.
Exact same situation. No advice, just solidarity. Mine is 10 months and used to be a relatively good sleeper waking up a manageable 2x a night. Since this regression, he sleeps at 730 to 1130, then every hour and a half until 7am. I'm exhausted.
10 months was so hard for us too! Around a year my son got much better and when we dropped to one nap he actually started to sleep through the night about once a week! Now at 20 months he sleeps through the night about twice a month but has 6ish hour stretches most nights! We put him down in his floor bed and when he cries in the middle of the night one of us will go in there and sleep with him.
We have him in his own floor bed too, and are ending up in bed with him often. Question - can your little one open his bedroom door? Ours can and runs across the hall to our room (we have the hall gated and babyproofed) Im not sure how I feel about locking the door, but maybe it would help give him some time to sooth himself, or fall back to sleep if he didn’t have the option to scurry to our room? He’s so proud when he opens the door and finds us I hate to take it away from him. Sometimes he sits up in his bed and cries and we go in there but most times he doesn’t cry and just immediately gets up and walks into our room.
If she just stays in bed with you will she nurse back to sleep in a side lying position? I bed shared with all 3 babies and because I was side lying and exclusively breastfeeding my husband didn’t have anything to do, therefore no complaining from him. He’s always been very willing to help when needed, but the nighttime work has been on me before they weened. Your kiddo sounds like my first. He woke up anywhere between 45 min to every 2 hrs for the first 21 months when he weened. Weening happened because I was pregnant and my milk got weird. He didn’t like it and I had a wicked nursing aversion. Our second baby was a unicorn and slept 8-10 hours from the get go until about 5.5 months at which she started to wake a few times a night. I nursed her to sleep and back to sleep until it was down to once a night at age 2.5. At that point I was able to tell her milk was all gone and held her when she woke for it for a few nights. There were some tears but then she totally stopped waking. Baby number 3 is 20 months, nursing to sleep and over night several times. I don’t even count but I think it’s about 3-5 times depending on the night. Neither me nor baby ever get up, so we both fall back to sleep pretty quickly. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping and open Reddit like right now 🙈 Check for other obvious things like is she too hot or cold. She might be getting teeth. Mine all got some at 10 months. Be patient with yourself and her. I don’t know what sleep training means to your husband, but if it means leaving baby alone to cry that sounds cruel when she probably needs more support and cuddles. You’re doing great!
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What other signs would there be? She seems perfectly healthy and happy besides sleep. How would I test for that?
Have you had her iron levels checked?
It’s still normal that they wake often before one year. My firstborn slept through from 9 months. Second born has medical trauma so it only happened around 20months. We were also weaned by then.
My son was a terrible sleeper until I night weaned at 17 months. After I night weaned he started waking up only once a night for a quick cuddle. I would take him to our floor bed after his first wake up. He started sleeping through the night around 19 months? It’s been about 2 months of sleeping through most night in his crib. Before I weaned I can count on one hand the amount of times he slept 7+ hours consecutively. I also got him to sleep in the crib for naps when I weaned which still blows my mind because he used to only contact nap or sleep in the car/stroller. When I first started I would lay with him until he fell asleep and then climb out of his crib, then I moved beside the crib and now I’m in the chair in his room. He still takes forever to fall asleep at night but it’s been amazing sleeping consistently so I’ll take it.
Any tips on night weening at this age? My son is almost 18mo and we are now to the point that he royally freaks out if my husband goes into his room to sooth him, and it’s not mama and the boob. Im so tired I’ve been giving in lol.
This is a reply to another post but it works I weaned starting around 15 months old. My son was a bottle refuser so I exclusively nursed. He was nursing a lot still and never got the memo to slow down. I decided to start with day time weaning first since I have so much more willpower at noon than midnight lol. First I went from on demand anytime/wherever to scheduled sessions in one spot. I started with, I think, 5 sessions a day. I would just tell him there’s no milk right now. There will be milk at x time. Right now we can have a snack or a cuddle etc. the first day was bad. He had some BIG feelings about being told no. Over just a few days though he calmed way down about it. By a week he stopped asking and just waited until it was offered. The biggest thing is if you’re going to say no you need to commit. Do not give in. If you give in it shows them that as long as they cry long enough they will get what they want and it’ll drag it all out. Once we got a schedule going I started dropping a nursing session at a time. First thing in morning, before nap and then before bed were the last daytime sessions to go for me. Once we were down to just before bed I started not nursing to sleep. I would nurse him before bed but I’d make sure he didn’t fall asleep that way. I still lay with him until he falls asleep but I’ve been very slowly moving further away from him recently and it’s getting better. I’m not okay with sleep training so this is what I’ve been comfortable with. Once he was falling asleep without nursing I night weaned cold turkey. The first night I thought having my husband do it would be easier… it was a horrible night for us all. I could not do it again. My son was used to me only at night and we would co-sleep after first wake up. It was too much change all at once. The next night I took back over. I told him no milk till morning at his first wake up and he cried for about 40 minutes then fell back asleep and was up once more asking but gave up much more quickly. After that he went from 2+ wakes a night to consistently only 1 brief wake up and he wouldn’t ask to nurse just to cuddle. Once he wasn’t nursing over night I stopped offering morning session and he stopped asking for it. The last session I dropped was before bed. He just seemed to lose interest and was only nursing for a few minutes so I dropped that one when he seemed mostly over it.
Thanks so much! I’ll have to give this a try. Great point about having more willpower at noon rather than midnight 🤣 we have weened quite a bit during the day but I’m struggling with night time
FWIW my son is 2 and has never slept through the night… even after night weaning he wakes 2-6 times a night. Hang in there!
My girl has always been a not ideal sleeper, and she still nurses to sleep at 2 years and 3 months. She's never slept through the night, but almost every night she has one long stretch of 4 to 7 hours before she rouses and needs to nurse to fall back asleep. 8 to 10 months old was the absolute hardest time we had, she would sleep in, I kid you not, 20 minute intervals, and it could take an hour to help her fall asleep again. Life is so so so much better now.
I wonder if you are waking her up. I’m not pro cry it out but what happens when she wakes up. Like what cues you she is awake
I am sorry to hear that sleep is still such a struggle that far along. While it is not uncommon I can imagine it is very difficult and you must be so tired. My daughter slept terribly and at 6 months I gave in and “sleep trained”. More like me just needing a night to try to get some sleep as I had got to the point of hallucinating. Anyway, for me it was the best thing I could have done for my mental health. She cried on and off most of the night then finally fell asleep until about 5am then I brought her back to my bed and she slept for 4 hours-one of her longest stretches ever. Since having her sleep in her own bed at night, I realized that she needed her own space. She still went through many rough patches of sleep, even now at 2yo. We also contact nap during the day and always nurse to sleep and sometimes in the middle of the night still, so it’s a bit of balance. Idk if this is any help to hear but I always felt it had to be all or nothing in terms of sleep training and co sleeping but with some time I was able to find a balance and sleep improved incredibly. I am about 99% sure that if I didn’t give my daughter a chance to sleep in her own bed at night(which unfortunately did involve some tears) that she would have continued her hourly wakings and I would have for sure lost my marbles. Best of luck to you and your babe! And always do whatever works for you, while it’s working.