When & why did it get better for you?

[Louisep]

For those mamas who are out the other side of sleep deprivation, give those of us hope by telling us when your LO started sleeping better and why you think they did.

I'm into month five of 1-2 hourly wakings, my DS is on the verge of walking and I'm hoping things might get better then? Or at one year, or...??!! I just live in hope

[Blueone]

I think it was around a month. He started sleeping 6 hour stretches at that point and we were co-sleeping every night. If he started to get restless I just pat his back and give him his paci and he's usually back to sleep. I don't know why it got better unless it was just the co-sleeping. I attribute it to a growth spurt as well.

ETA: That was also when I put him on his tummy to sleep. He does much better that way.

Although, now he's just a very early bird. I need to start going to bed earlier.

[ReadingRenee]

unfortunately for us with dd1 it was nightweaning at about 16 months that did the trick. Thats when I finally knew the joy of sleeping 5 or 6 hour stretches again. I followed the Jay Gordon plan and it worked extremely well and was not too traumatizing. Now with a 5 month old who sleeps a little better than her sister did I am back in the land of sleep deprivation and telling myself its only temporary.

[calpurnia]

ditto. we nightweaned at 15 months & pretty much instantly got STTN. honestly i look back at that first year & marvel that we made it through.

[paula444four]

ummm....2 years

Of course every child is different. Mine...was a frequent waker and frequent night nurser...till....over two years old. I just read in his baby book that at 22 months he was still waking 5 to 20 times a night!!!! However...at two years of age he did start sleeping longer periods of time. I also put him in his own bed (next to mine) and ended up night weaning around 25 months. The great news is that for a year now..he has been sleeping GREAT. I did nothing to force it. I did nothing to "train" him. He just matured. Much love mama!

[Wild Lupine]

DD is now almost three and sleeps 12-13 hours at night with no significant wakings. When she was an infant she woke every few hours, and woke for good at 4 AM until she was 18 months old, then she woke at 5. Now she's an awesome sleeper and I never thought I'd see this day:

1) Rolling over onto her stomach; once she could get herself comfortable and the doctor gave the OK for her to stay on her stomach she slept for longer stretches.

2) Walking; her naps lengthened from 20 minutes to three hours when she began walking. Nope, those aren't typos. She napped about 20 minutes as an infant (longer if she was in the swing), and three hours in her crib after she began walking. You can't imagine how wonderful this was, although I was terrified during that first, sudden three hour nap!

3) Night weaning, at close to two. She began sleeping through the night then.

4) Dropping naps at 2 3/4. She began sleeping until after 7 AM then, and taking only 15 minutes to fall asleep.

Except for the night weaning, none of this was anything I did, she just slept better when she was ready.

It will happen for you, I promise. If we can go from the degree of sleep deprivation we had during that first year to the blissful situation we are in now, anyone can!

[mrs_mandolini]

We got 5 - 6 hr stretches consistently at around 18 months (we got them once in a while before that.) STTN was just after age 2.

[Louisep]

Thanks everyone, these stories are awesome! Really helps me keep going.

paula444four - how did you cope until 2 years? What did you do to stop yourself from getting burnt out?

onemomentatatime - I love your nap story! My DS rarely naps longer than 40 minutes and he's about to walk. I cannot wait to see what it does to his naps now.

Keep the stories coming!

[paxye]

Honestly, when I stopped expecting things from my LO and just went with the flow...

Before I did so, I would wake up, be stressed out, look at the time often and that alone made things worse. The more I stressed, the less sleep we all had... my stress alone was enough to keep my LO awake and the cycle just got worse and worse....

When I just started to go with the flow, just roll over and nurse, not stress at all with sleep and know understand that it was completely normal for my LO to wake up then I started getting great sleep... Instead of waking up and stressing to get my LO back to sleep, I just was completely relaxed and we all slept through night nursings...

Never night weaned, never sleep trained etc... 3 kids and and one on the way and there are still night wakings at times for one thing or another... No stress about it, no sleep lost (unless they are really sick and then I am up)

[noobmom]

18 months was the peak of night wakings for us. It steadly got better until around 2 yo when DS started STTN. When I was going nuts from trying to nurse DS down for 1 or 2 hours, I just left the bedtime routine to DH. As long as DS was tired enough, it would work.

[racie0417]

With my ODS, he took 30 minute naps until about 8 months when he dropped to 2 naps a day and each was about 90 minutes. From 12 to 16 months, he took 1 awesome nap that lasted 3 hours then from 16 months until 24 months, he napped 30 minutes a day or not at all.....this coincided with my pregnancy and early newborn days of YDS.

For nighttime sleep, ODS woke every 2 hours, but from 8 months until 11 months was up every hour. At 11 months he went on nursing strike (which led to me conceiving YDS) and we inadvertently night-weaned. I was pumping to try to get him back to the breast and there wasn't enough milk for all his night wakings, so DH started taking him. Within a week, he was only waking once a night. A week after that, he was on formula (I had my BFP by then and my milk immeidately dried up) and he was sleeping through the night.....kind of.....he still wakes up 2-6 times a night, but he turns on his aquarium and doesn't require us to go to him, except occasionally.

YDS only naps once a day for 30 minutes....I never thought I'd have a baby that made ODS look like a good napper, but there it is. He used to nap while I wore him, but no more. He is 6 months and no end in sight.

YDS only wakes 1 or 2 times a night....which sounds great EXCEPT.....He is usuallly awake for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night and wakes for the day at 5am. Typically, he wakes at 2am, falls asleep at 4:30am and is up for the day at 5am, takes a 30 minute nap at 1pm and goes to sleep at 7pm. I have been getting 4 hours of sleep for 6 months now....trying to chase a toddler, care for a baby, and DH is about to deploy. I have no family nearby to help. I just constantly feel quite drunk from exhaustion.

[ecoteat]

Originally Posted by paxye

Honestly, when I stopped expecting things from my LO and just went with the flow...

Before I did so, I would wake up, be stressed out, look at the time often and that alone made things worse. The more I stressed, the less sleep we all had... my stress alone was enough to keep my LO awake and the cycle just got worse and worse....

When I just started to go with the flow, just roll over and nurse, not stress at all with sleep and know understand that it was completely normal for my LO to wake up then I started getting great sleep... Instead of waking up and stressing to get my LO back to sleep, I just was completely relaxed and we all slept through night nursings...

Same here. We tried SO many things to try to get her to sleep between 4-8ish months. The only thing that made any difference at all was a change in my attitude. DD VERY gradually started sleeping longer stretches. She moved into her own bed at 14 months and was still waking 2-4 times a night then. She didn't really start STTN until she was almost 3, but I had gotten used to it well before then! She weaned on her 3rd birthday and then started to sleep even better. She was SUCH a terrible sleeper as a baby I wondered why anyone would be crazy enough to have 2 kids. Now she sleeps from 9:30-7:30 and takes a 2-3 hour nap every day. I am VERY happy with our sleeping arrangement now. So my advice: be patient and do whatever you can to rid yourself of any expectations you may have. I know it's hard, but I really think that's the only thing you can do.

[ommom]

Originally Posted by paxye

Honestly, when I stopped expecting things from my LO and just went with the flow...

thank u paxye for the reminder/affirmation of that.
when i get upset 'bout waking i get all worked up & it becomes harder to zzzzz
vicious cycle!

[lurve]

DD is almost three and we are just starting to get three hour stretches. well one three hour strech if i am lucky and then two hour stretches. hugs mama!

[blizzard_babe]

We nightweaned at 15.5 months when DS had ceased to nurse back to sleep. He'd wake up, want mum-mums, and then... still be awake. That was the beginning of my crawl back towards functional (it takes me a looooooooong time to fall back asleep; I can't sleep while DS is nursing, and I'm just generally a light sleeper... all this plus DS being a needy nighttime monkey added up to me just about losing it on a semi-regular basis).

He still wakes up once a night most nights, but just needs some quick snuggles and some back-patting. I can totally handle that!

[blizzard_babe]

Originally Posted by onemomentatatime

2) Walking; her naps lengthened from 20 minutes to three hours when she began walking. Nope, those aren't typos. She napped about 20 minutes as an infant (longer if she was in the swing), and three hours in her crib after she began walking. You can't imagine how wonderful this was, although I was terrified during that first, sudden three hour nap!

I had forgotten about this, but DS did the same thing! Before he started walking at 9 1/2 months, we were LUCKY to get an hour nap. Now, at 17 months, the kid can snooze the afternoon away. He's always been VERY high energy. I think up until then he had way more energy than he had ability to spend it.

[Louisep]

racie0417 - I feel for you mama with your hubby about to be deployed. I hope you have friends who can lend a hand when you need it.

Some great advice in these posts! I think trying to relax, be patient, and wait it out are what I need to do. Also, I definitely think DS has so much energy and he can't tire himself out by crawling. He's on the verge of walking, so fingers crossed!

[~Charlie's~Angel~]

For us it was the combination of a few things.

1.) DS2 is a horribly light sleeper. Sleeping with us was actually keeping him awake. Between me moving around, my husband snoring, and him having to have the TV on all night, I was lucky to get 2 hour incriments. At 9 months, When we moved him into his own room, in a CRIB (First tried a pack and play, NO DICE) he slept 5 hours straight. I was in HEAVEN!

2.) right around the time we moved him, he also started his version of "crawling" (scooting on his butt) I think all the extra exersion just wore him out.

3.) About a month after the move into his own room, he night weaned himself. I SWEAR! I offered him the boob everytime he woke, he would litterally knaw a little and dose right off. So for Sh*ts and giggles, one night, I tried just picking him up and rocking him. He was out in 30 seconds. And slept for the rest of the night. Thats how its been every since and its been almost a month. for two nights now, he has slept 11 hours straight! Im not kidding. This all coming from a baby who used to keep me up ALL.NIGHT.LONG.

I still expect to have regressions. Hell, he doesnt even have teeth yet, so I am trying to prepare myself for that little adventure. But it can happen, is all I am saying.

[sept15lija]

For us, night-weaning helped quite a bit. We did that around 13 months, it wasn't difficult, I think he was ready. There was little to no crying. Then we moved him to a big-boy bed at 18 months in his own room, a double bed we could join him in. We did it because I am expecting number two and just thought we'd get it out of the way, but it was the biggest help ever! He now usually sleeps from 8:30pm until 5:30 or 6am, and then comes into our bed and sleeps another hour or so. He's great, he just gets out of his bed and comes and climbs in ours. Even if he does wake up during the night, I can easily go in there and just pat him and he goes back to sleep without fuss. The first year was pretty bad for us, little to no sleep for me. I am not looking forward to that with #2, but at least I know there's light at the end of the tunnel, if she's anything like her big brother.

[mamakah]

For us it got better at 14 months when he stopped breastfeeding. It was a matter of days until he was sleeping through the night. ahhhhhhhh.