Sleeping through the night
March 13, 2007
Other parents love to ask us: is the baby sleeping through the night yet?
This is a loaded question that parents of older children especially love to ask parents of young infants, because they can gloat on two counts: first of all, they are hardened veterans; they survived the sleepless nights, while we still endure them and have not yet proven ourselves by coming out the other side with our sanity intact. Secondly, they can't wait to tell you that their babies slept peacefully through the night one month out of the womb. After reading their own bedtime stories and changing their own diapers, no doubt.
"By three months, most (but not all) babies consistently sleep through the night," says our baby bible, Caring for Your Baby and Young Child. So for many weeks I just laughed this question off. But now his 3-month birthday has come and gone, and I am smiling while gritting my teeth.
I didn't expect our baby, the Reluctant Napper, to be especially precocious in the sleep realm, but I secretly hoped for some gradual change. His usual pattern was to eat every 3-4 hours at night, which meant, depending on the timing, I got up 2-3 times to feed him. My easy nights were the ones I only had to get up twice.
Now and then he would sleep a little longer and I would only have to get up once. Our motto around here is "every day is different" -- it helps get us through the bad days, and keep us humble on the surprisingly good days -- but I prayed those nights would become the norm.
Last night I put him to bed (awake, in his crib, other parents will want to note) around 7:00. When I went to bed he was still sound asleep, and when I woke on my own at 2:45 a.m. I immediately panicked. I did that thing every new parent has done at least once: I crept silently across the dark room to the crib and hovered above, holding my own breath, until I heard the baby take a breath. Then I crept back into bed and lay there, wide awake, marveling at how many hours he'd been asleep, counting them and recounting them.
My readers with children have already done the math: he slept nearly 8 hours! In a row! Even though I was up with him at 3:00 this is technically known as "sleeping through the night."
So there, you smug parents of older children who remember these days only faintly (and especially you, parent who I saw yesterday, who bragged that both your kids slept through the night at six weeks -- you know who you are): yes, in fact, he does sleep through the night.
I have a 10 month old who is still not sleeping through the night. Maybe it's because he already has 10 teeth...(so he's been uncomfortable)? and wakes up needing comfort from mom or dad?
He has a 8-10 oz bottle before bed, generally at 8pm and will sleep till 1am, sometimes up before then. We change his diaper (which is full!) and generally he falls back to sleep as we are changing him. Lastnight we had to give him a bottle to go back to sleep...
Maybe it's time for tough love? Any advice would be appreciated!
Ahhh, sleeping through the night. I have a friend who has a daughter about my son's age who used to tell me all the time how her daughter was sleeping through the night by 2 months. I was tormented by this! Both my kids were bad sleepers as babies. But, now I know the truth about those "my baby sleeps through the night" parents. Yes, their babies started sleeping through the night at 2 months but maybe for a few weeks and then night awakening started again. Everyone brags about how their kids sleep through the night. No one brags about how their kids wake up through the night. Why show off your ineptitude?
My daughter didn't start sleeping through the night until she was almost 1. Re-reading that sentence makes me want to pass out from sleep deprivation. But, I'm sure there was a night here and there when she slept all the way through. It just happened. Eventually, we just stopped going into her room, and eventually she learned how to fall back to sleep. And, she sleeps all night now (at 3 years old) almost all the time. But, she still wakes up sometimes. So does my son. And, so do I!
I replied to Jessa's comment directly but will put it here for what it's worth:
My completely unprofessional opinion* is that it sounds like he's waking up just for comfort. In which case, if you want him to sleep through the night, it might be time for some tough love of some sort.
*I should point out that I know nothing about teething and what effect that would have.
There are degrees of how tough you want to be. (Wimpiest: The No-Cry Sleep Solution; harshest: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (Weissbluth).)
Before you decide to do anything I would read some books on sleep with different points of view. The beginning of most books explains how babies sleep, how their sleep differs from ours, etc. Everyone, infants and adults, wakes periodically during the night; babies have to learn how to get back to sleep after those wakings. If they learn to go to sleep on their own at bedtime they can do it. That is key to understanding what is going on and may help you decide what tack you want to take.
The books I read and found very informative: Sleeping Through the Night and Ferber's Solving Your Child's Sleep Problems. These "progressive waiting" approaches would be considered harsh by the Dr. Sears / attachment parenting camp, but are gentler than Weissbluth's method which is truly cry it out.
In each book I read only the introduction and the relevant chapters. I'm not actually using any of their methods yet, though I have been working toward some of their goals ( e.g., put the baby down awake so he learns to fall asleep on his own).
Hope that helps. Let me know how things develop ...
By the way, most pediatricians define sleeping through the night as sleepig 5 hours straight. In what kind of crazy world is that sleeping through the night? You know my trials and tribulations. R didn't reliably sleep through the night until 18 months, and that was despite (or perhaps because of) multiple attempts at sleep training. I actually think it was because of all the recurrent ear infections.
So yeah, I like to give sleep advice freely, but you shouldn't listen to me. Instead, you should do the opposite of whatever I did.
