Parent Thread

Six weeks? they must have been medicating themselves through it and don't remember. They act like its no big deal because it's such a short period of time in the grand scheme of things. It took us eight months before we did sleep training for our boy. In 24 hours he went from waking up every three hours to sleeping straight through for ten hours. Greatest day of my life.

We've tried getting my daughter into bed between 7:30pm & 8:30pm almost every night since she was born. Sure, a few late nights have gone past where she isn't in bed till after 9pm, but they're few and far between.

The best advice we were given, though, was after she turned 1 year old. When she goes to bed for the night, she can scream all she wants. We never go to check on her until after we wake up. This was REALLY hard for about the first week or so. After that, she stopped complaining. We lay her down and she goes to bed within minutes. Usually before I even get back downstairs. She doesn't even scream at bed time, if she's awake, she just talks to herself a bit. She hardly ever wakes up during the night, now. And when she does, she might make a single complaint, then it's completely quiet in her room once more.

She also wakes up between 7 and 8:30 every morning. So we're (usually) 12 hours of calm every evening. Then she tends to take a 1-2.5 hour nap every day around 11am. I don't know why there's such a big vary in nap duration, but she's a happy kid as a result. She never makes a fuss about sleeping anymore. My wife also taught her the Japanese word for sleep (My wife is Japanese, and only speaks to her in the language). As a result of that, she'll verbally tell us when she's ready for a nap. This doesn't happen all the time, but she still gives us warning when it's either nap or bed time.

I love taking care of her a lot more in her slightly older age (20 months now). I'll be honest, she was damn frustrating as an infant.

Is that something that isn't recommended until a certain age, like after 1 year or something? That sounds amazing, but I have a suspicion that a 4 month old wouldn't be able to deal with that and reason out what was happening in that short of a time period.

We got one week of sleeping through the night... since Sunday night, our daughter has woken up again at 3 or 3:30 to eat this week. We've been putting her to bed about 9:30 or 10.

and yeah, people who tell you their kid slept through the night at six weeks? dirty fucking liars.

Its based on weight Joeboo, I think its fine to do once they are 12 pounds? Its when they hit the point where they can sustain themselves through the night without needing to feed. Our schedule has been EXACTLY what Xarpolis posted since our boy was 8 months old (we didnt know about sleep training until then, we couldve/shouldve done it when he was 5/6 months old).

Our boy gets 11-12 hours sleep every single night (he also asks to go up for a nap at ~11:30-noon).

joeboo_sl said:

Well, it seems like every time we talk to someone they are like "oh yeah, my kid started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks old" like it's no big deal, and I want to rage-punch them in the face, because we aren't getting anywhere close to that and we're closer to 6 months than 6 weeks.

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My third started sleeping through the night at like 14 months. It has nothing to do with weight or age, it is 100% dependent on the kid. My routines were exactly the same with my second and she slept through the night great starting at 3 months.

Sometimes kids are just jerks.

Oh and latest thing in my house... my 6 year old has developed the hugest martyr complex lately. The entire world is against her these days. She actually said "you're ruining my life" today and my husband and I just cracked up laughing. I didn't think I'd hear that for another 7 years at least. She was all on about how we are "stifling her sense of adventure" (her words) because I told her not to run down the street by herself when we were getting in the car. Like... wtf? I wasn't able to keep a straight face during this tantrum which drove her even crazier. I guess I'm a bad mommy.. but my god it was ridiculous.

That's both precious and makes me happy that I don't have a daughter.

My second and third daughter were sleeping through the night, about 6-7 hours or so, at 8 weeks I think. Really it was up to us to make them do it, we were probably lucky though. My oldest it took like 6 months, shit was ridiculous. I had finally had enough and we just did it.

lindz_sl said:

My third started sleeping through the night at like 14 months. It has nothing to do with weight or age, it is 100% dependent on the kid. My routines were exactly the same with my second and she slept through the night great starting at 3 months.

Sometimes kids are just jerks.

Oh and latest thing in my house... my 6 year old has developed the hugest martyr complex lately. The entire world is against her these days. She actually said "you're ruining my life" today and my husband and I just cracked up laughing. I didn't think I'd hear that for another 7 years at least. She was all on about how we are "stifling her sense of adventure" (her words) because I told her not to run down the street by herself when we were getting in the car. Like... wtf? I wasn't able to keep a straight face during this tantrum which drove her even crazier. I guess I'm a bad mommy.. but my god it was ridiculous.

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I get that a lot with my 6 yr old daughter and I take it as just wanting to get attention/feel sorry for her/etc. What mine will do is after you say something wrong, she'll go mope around for 10 minutes then come back with a note that says 'sorry' on it.

chaos_sl said:

My second and third daughter were sleeping through the night, about 6-7 hours or so, at 8 weeks I think. Really it was up to us to make them do it, we were probably lucky though. My oldest it took like 6 months, shit was ridiculous. I had finally had enough and we just did it.

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*shrug*

Yeah mine sleeps through the night. We've had a couple of stints since 6 weeks where he's started getting up middle of the night for 2-3 days but at 10 days he started sleeping 6 hours once a night (I think I mentioned earlier in the thread the lactation consultant told me to wake him every 3 hours and I was like FU no way) and starting around 6 weeks he was down by 9 up at 5-6. Though lately its been closer to down at 8:30 up at 6:30 as he gets more efficient with feedings. He's 11 weeks.

I'm sure that it will change come teething time or what not but the only thing that probably kept us sane through the colic was the fact that he was an unreal night time sleeper.

Fuck naps though. Kid hates em. Getting him down is a beast. Though at least 75% of days I can get him to take a 2-3 hour nap. Otherwise its like 4 45min naps a day and by the end of the day he is miserable. Yesterdays big nap was 4 hours and I just started staring at him to see if I could jedi mind trick him awake because my boobs hurt so bad. I got up at 5:30 this morning to pump a bit before he got up - that's actually the down side to your kid sleeping through the night. Engorgement and/or supply issues.

But I know people whose kids didn't sleep through the night until almost a year and actually a few that are up not infrequently once a night with toddlers. I will say I am happy we did the crib thing from basically day 1 - would totally do it again because I think he really feels safe in his room. You can take him in there when he's upset and he'll chill out a lot of the time - especially if you put him in the crib and play with him a bit. We considered co-sleeping (not bedsharing - basically baby sleeps in a bassinet next/attached to the bed) and I'm glad we don't have to go through that transition and he's clearly pretty confident about his space.

I came down with a cold tues and of course now he has it....feel bad. I put a very tiny amount of the little colds chest rub on him after bath time last night and did the vapors bath thing because he's stuffy. I was actually expecting him to wake up at least once last night. Nope. I didn't put him to bed for the first time ever Thurs night because I was putting a bowtie on my new job so my husband put him to bed....totally expected him to wake up. Nope. Even if the kid wakes in the middle of the night he puts himself back down/self soothes (from watching on the monitor this happens occasionally usually around 11pm ish - he won't cry though, he'll just open his eyes, wave his hands around then start sucking on them until he falls back asleep). I don't claim any credit for it. Just is what it is.

Daycare starts Tuesday. Along with a wonder week which is supposed to be the big/bad one. I'm thinking there will probably be a few long nights in there.

joeboo_sl said:

Is that something that isn't recommended until a certain age, like after 1 year or something? That sounds amazing, but I have a suspicion that a 4 month old wouldn't be able to deal with that and reason out what was happening in that short of a time period.

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I am not a fan of CIO (cry it out) so we won't be using it (and I'm not a fan of AP - attachment parenting crunchiness either)...but CIO is not considered a good option until at least 6 months of age (nothing to do with weight - its a mental thing, not weight).

Eyashusa_sl said:

We got one week of sleeping through the night... since Sunday night, our daughter has woken up again at 3 or 3:30 to eat this week. We've been putting her to bed about 9:30 or 10.

and yeah, people who tell you their kid slept through the night at six weeks? dirty fucking liars.

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Sorry duder. It happens. Its fresh enough in my mind to be accurate and like I said he was doing 6 hour stretches at 10 days and the pediatrician was like yeah you need to wake him up. I'm not just imagining it!

Actually - are you using white noise? We have the white noise on all night. Kid literally slept through a cabinet falling off my bathroom wall in the room next door to him - and his cribs on the wall dividing the two rooms - last week. It was loud as fuck at 3:30am. My husband I were stunned that he could sleep through that. There's one white noise mix that I turn on and I swear the kid could be on speed and he'd start to get drowsy.

Bonus actually is that it comes through on the monitor at night too so everyone sleeps better . If you're not using white noise try it.

I should clarify that we were at first just using it to get him down at night and it would only be on for like 30 mins and he was sleeping through the night without it but when it started working for keeping him asleep during naps we said screw it lets do it for night time too. So who knows if that is what's really keeping him down at night. We vary the type and volume of noise so that he doesn't get addicted to a type of sound or what not.

We also still do a modified swaddle. Though he can move his hands/arms they are covered in a muslin blanket that wraps down into the swaddle me which is fastened around his torso under his arms. So whether its also swaddling that works for this kid who knows - he refused to sleep in the swing at all until we started using the swaddle in there though. Weaning him off swaddling is going to be bad for us I think.

Etoille_sl said:

Fuck naps though. Kid hates em. Getting him down is a beast. Though at least 75% of days I can get him to take a 2-3 hour nap. Otherwise its like 4 45min naps a day and by the end of the day he is miserable. Yesterdays big nap was 4 hours and I just started staring at him to see if I could jedi mind trick him awake because my boobs hurt so bad. I got up at 5:30 this morning to pump a bit before he got up - that's actually the down side to your kid sleeping through the night. Engorgement and/or supply issues.

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Naps, I am clueless how to do that. My oldest just stopped taking naps at like 18 months. She straight up refuses. Half the time she is miserable by the end of the day. Middle girl will take naps pretty well, usually about an hour or so. And they share a bed, so they wake us up at night at least 2 times a week with something. Usually it is only one time, they ask for water or something and then go right back to sleep, so it isn;t a big deal to me.

Not a parent yet, but I have been licensed for adoption via the State of Texas. We're going to adopt older kids (approved for children ages 3-13) that actually need a home. On a serious life-high right now after cutting through all the red tape to get approved. Thought I'd share.

Fucking growing pains. Seriously. My 4 year old acts like she is going through ponn far or something. She is wailing and crying and grabbing her legs, unable to sleep. Horrible shit. This happens in cycles, every couple of months she does this for a few days. I read up that it actually has nothing to do with growing.

I don't know what it is, but I used to get that as a kid. Throughout elementary school, I'd just randomly have nights where my shins hurt like HELL, just terrible, so bad I couldn't sleep and would often cry, my parents never knew what to do. It never happened again once I got to puberty, but it sucked. It was never real common, maybe a handful of times a year at most.

Ameraves_sl said:

All of my 5 daugthers...

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Good god man, you deserve a medal or something for sounding as sane and collected as you do after sharing a home with 6 women.

my daughter doesn't really nap at all. She maybe sleeps for a couple hours in the morning after waking up and eating, but the rest of the day it's just 30-45 minute naps.

After a week off, she's back to sleeping through the night the past two nights. She's almost 3 months old so I think that is one of those wonder weeks or something maybe?

regarding white noise, we have it because I need it to sleep and she is still in the bassinet in our room (which is ending this week because it needs to). We have a humidifier and a box fan in the hallway and she has some lamb thing that has different white noise sounds that we've used occasionally.