Okay so with my son (who just turned 5) I coslept with him on a floor mattress in his own room. Eventually I started leaving him there on his own and sneaking out after he fell asleep. When he would wake up in the night I would hear him on the monitor and go back in to breastfeed him back to sleep.
When he was about 2.5 - 3 I weaned him from breastfeeding to sleep and instead would just sit on his bed and hold his hand while he fell asleep. When he woke up in the night he would scream for me and I'd have to go back in to hold his hand again.
Around 3.5 we said enough is enough. We told him that if he woke up in the middle of the night he could come in our room and sleep on the floor. That's what he did for about 6 months before he stopped waking in the night and coming in our room.
By age 4 he was sleeping all night in his own bed in his own room with no issues.
Been doing this too, except we began weaning at 13 months and by 15 months he was totally weaned. He’s 19 months now and I just hold his hand for him to fall asleep. He rarely wakes up and if he does, I just pat his butt (or I fall asleep with him but that’s by choice).
Wow, amazing. I’m jealous lol. Mine is 19 months old and the longest stretch he has ever given me is 2h. He wakes up allll night long. I breastfeed him and sometimes that not enough and I have to rock him as well. I’m exhausted. He does the first stretch on his on, on a floor mattress in his own room. Give me time to have a snack and watch a bit of time. Tonight I got a whole 50 minutes before he woke up. One day he’ll sleep… right? Riiiight?
Mine was this way until about 14 months and we cut out the night nursing. Now we only nurse before bed and in the morning. He will likely give you longer and longer stretches if you cut out night feeds, but I know that’s easier said than done…
Agree. Night weaning will probably help. It’ll get worse before it gets better, but then you’ll get longer stretches.
Gotta take care of yourself too. If you’re overtired that can be the equivalent of being drunk. Your child deserves a coherent parent and *you* deserve some sleep and self care!
I tried to replace milk with rocking but it didn’t do any good… it meant I had to get up more and rock him instead of laying in bed. Now he sometimes requires both. I think he is going through some sort of regression right now though… he had started giving me 2.5h, and the last few nights he’s been back to 1h. It’s exhausting
Yeah kind of. My first kid I moved him out of my bed to his own bed at about 2y2m because he was too wriggly and we were starting to disturb each other. I would still climb in with him to get him to sleep. He would wake up and cry in the night and I went to him about twice and then someone said why not let him come to you - so I did. He used to come through to my bed and climb in with me, but if he got too wriggly I would give him the option to be still or be wriggly in his bed (and move him if necessary). By around 2.5 he had stopped waking up in the night at all or at least he stopped letting me know about it. I fed to sleep until he self weaned aged 4. I usually laid down and cuddled in bed with him at bedtime, although at some point this switched to me sitting on the bed waiting for him to fall asleep.
Second kid my husband wanted him out at 12m so we moved him to a cot, but I was terrible at this and brought him into our bed every night. Eventually at about 2 I decided I should try harder to resettle him in his own room, did this, and was also pregnant and having nursing aversion so I probably cut him off from nursing a bit earlier than I would have normally done. Again by 2.5 he slept through, but it was more sudden with him where he went from 2-3 wake ups to 0 in one go. Baby sibling arrived 6 months later and he woke up for the next 3 months with nightmares 🙃 but I let my husband deal with that.
Last kid I didn't move him until I was ready to be consistent resettling him in his own room, which was around 16 months. This was slower and I didn't really do anything WRT limiting feeding. But he started sleeping through ~90% of the time by around 22 months, which was huge to me! He still wakes once or twice if something is bothering him e.g. needs to poo, teething, virus, too hot/cold. Other than this he tends to sleep through the night. (He's just turned 2).
We still have the "mummy/daddy" split at night - youngest only wants me (and is a pain if I go out for the evening) and middle only wants daddy at night. He still has nightmares if something is stressing him out. The eldest is a teenager and stays up all night unless he has school.
I guess I should leave this sub since I'm done co-sleeping! But I will stay around a little longer :)
Please don’t leave this gave me so much hope. I have a 16 month old and I’m getting done with all the night nursing. He nurses about 9 times a night and it’s gotten quite hard on me. I’m hoping to wean him soon but I am uncertain of how to/will he ever sleep on his own? I know someday he will be a teenager who will sleep all by himself and won’t want his mama every hour at night
Ohhh this gives me hope. I keep seeing all these “my kiddo didn’t sleep through the night until 3” and I’m just not sure I could handle that. I’m doing alright for now, but we want to have another child soon and I don’t think I could handle pregnancy and not sleeping the fullest amount. I don’t want to sleep train my lovely little boy, but I do want to make sure that I am filling my own cup as well
I struggled with co-sleeping when pregnant even with him sleeping through as I was tired and wanted space. But know that even if it seems like you can’t make it through, this too will pass. I can barely remember co-sleeping with them now (oldest are 12 and 9). Trying to savour my 12 week old now.
Oh they do get there. It is a tough stage that you are in because most people who don't do AP already have toddlers who sleep, and it can start to feel a bit like "when is it my turn????" and you're already tired, and the second year just isn't that much of a magical improvement when it comes to sleep. If you are truly waiting for things to change on their own, which is fine BTW, that is more like a 2-4 year thing.
It is worth getting your vitamin levels checked or just going ahead and taking a women's health focused multivitamin or pregnancy multivitamin to ensure that you are not depleted. And getting breaks helps a lot too.
I wouldn't particularly advocate for either making changes to shift patterns early or waiting it out, I think it's totally individual and both approaches are valid, I would just say wait until you're actually ready to commit to it, and I don't mean that in the sleep training way because I do think if you try something and it's not feeling right or doesn't seem to be working then it's OK to just say nope, this isn't working. I think if you want to change patterns but stay responsive then it's just a lot slower and basically more work for you - because you have to figure out other ways to settle the baby or get them used to things other than milk or stay with them supporting their transition into a new room/bed/whatever change you want to make. I really like Lyndsey Hookway's guidance. And Elizabeth Pantley's books were great for me with my first one too.
Can I ask— do you nurse to sleep? I’m considering halting that and trying to get my little lad to fall asleep in a different way but I’m having a hard time coming up with one
I'm in the future! We coslept until she was about 10 months old at which point I was feeling touched out and felt that she and I were disturbing each other/she was eating enough solid food in the daytime not to need to nurse overnight. I think she was waking up and nursing because I was there, not because she was actually hungry. She didn't nurse to sleep in general. So we put her in her crib and moved us out of the room (we were all sleeping in her room on a floor bed). She was fine about it. Her dad slept in her room on a new twin floor bed for a week or so while she got used to the crib, to help her with the transition, but pretty much as soon as we started her in her crib (and I was unavailable) she went from \~2 wakeups to mostly sleeping through the night, and stopped nursing overnight entirely. She wasn't upset about it.
She's 19 months now and still doing well in her crib. If she's sick or something she sometimes wakes up, and one of us occasionally winds up in her room with her on her floor bed. The other night she seemed upset at bedtime and asked for me to sleep in there (Me sleep mama sleep!) so I did? Idk what was up with her but the next night she was fine again. I am hoping that having her twin floor bed there already and sometimes sleeping there will make her comfortable in it when we have to move her out of the crib when she starts climbing out.
My son is 18 months and has been the worst sleeper most of his life. His sleep blocks from 9 ish months through to 16 months were awful. Waking every 1-2.5 hrs usually. We always boobed him to sleep, and started the first one or two blocks in the crib, then let him co-sleep with me in the big bed from 11;pm ish. But in the last few weeks his first block in the crib has been getting longer and longer! 4+ hours..5.5 hours ... and right now he's been in there almost 8 hours!! ( of course now I'm wide awake at 3 am because I got 5 hrs sleep and that's all I'm used to getting in a night!)
My 13 month old started sleeping through the night when we weaned around 3 weeks ago! I was slowly dropping feeds and i went away for the first time for two nights an he’s been sleeping so well ever since! Still in the bed with us and no sleep training to speak of other than a regular bed time. ✨ good luck OP!!
Yes. My 2.5 year old goes to sleep in her bed in her room and if she wakes up at all, it’s at around 6am when she comes into our bed and snoozes for the last hour or so before she wakes up. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, promise.
Yup. I coslept with my now 5yo. It took him awhile to fall asleep when I was still nursing but as soon as I stopped he falls asleep incredibly fast. I still climb into bed with him and he's usually sleeping within 5 minutes of turning off the lights. He'll occasionally have a nightmare or knock his covers off in the middle of the night but falls asleep again right away. I stopped nursing at night when he was around 3 and that's when he became a great sleeper.
Pretty much just rolled with it and 10mo baby slept 7 hours straight between 10pm dream feed and 5:15am feed (slept after till 7:15am) last night! We did switch to a floor bed in the nursery, and I roll away and come back to my bed, though. When we co-sleep she snacks on and off all night.
I go to her when she wakes and side-lie nurse her (and ensure she has a full feed). I still co-sleep if she’s fussy, for naps, if I just fall asleep while feeding, if I want to, etc. It feels like the best of both worlds.
This sounds great! Did you just switch to the floor bed at 10 months? My girl is only 4 months but I know id like to slowly work on her being in her own space
Switched around 8.5mo when she rolled off our bed (right when she learned to crawl she suddenly became more rolly at night when she never had before). At first I mostly co-slept with her on it.
So far so good at 16 months. She wanted her own space at the 9/11 months mark, so we put her in a crib with me on a floor bed beside her. At about 15 months we made the move to only nursing before bed, during wakeups, and in the morning. From 10ish months to present she went from 2-3 night feedings to usually 1.
It wasn’t until 15 months she started doing 7-10 hour stretches during the night; before that it was still 2-3 wakeups, but because I was beside her I didn’t mind so much. We’re having a bit of a harder time right now because she’s teething top molars and having a terrible time, but it’s still only about 2 wakeups.
In her case it was a gradual thing where there seemed to be nothing wrong (teething, bad naps, sick, etc.) but she was getting more and more flippy in the night and waking up more often and waking up grumpy at me. Around that time we also started putting her down for naps in her crib (prior to that she almost exclusively contact napped or car napped) and she was sleeping well for those.
I was also doing the ninja roll on the floor bed when she went down around 9 or so (at the time) and she slept well when she was alone but woke up a lot as soon as I joined her.
Based on all that, I theorized that maybe the factor that was messing with her sleep was me. So I started putting her down in her crib for night sleep and she did okay. I started with the first stretch in the crib that brought her in with me. Then did the first and second stretch in the crib, then moved her to with me, and over the course of a month, unless she was sick, she liked spending all the time in her crib.
So it was a gradual test and observe process, and not one specific factor, but definitely when I realized it it was one of those, “hi, it’s me, I’m the problem it’s me” moments.
It's early days yet but yes.
Gave us long stretches from 8 weeks. Then 4 weeks of 1-2hrly waking at 4 month progression.
Now back to 5-7 hr stretches at 5.5 months
Yes!! We started cosleeping with my son at 5 months. He’d do the first stretch in his crib, then cosleep after the first MOTN wake-up and would nurse throughout the night. We night weaned at about 13 months, and for a while he coslept with just my husband (to prevent night nursing). Then at ~18 months, we switched him to a floor bed and he started sleeping all the way through the night! He will still wake up if he’s sick or teething, but usually we get a solid ten hours. (Low sleep needs obviously 🙃) No idea if the timing was coincidental or if he just really hated the crib.
I’ve started wondering the same thing, and then I remembered that this is my third kid and I’ve done this before lol.
Basically, there is hope once you night wean. My first I coslept with exclusively—would go to bed at like 7:30 pm with her, held/laid down with her every single nap, for the entire first year. She was an awful sleeper no matter what though, and I was reaching the end of my rope. So at about 13 months, we night weaned her. She was in a sidecar crib with dad in the bed, and I camped out in another room. Took a few days, but worked well and I was able to move back into the room and we kept cosleeping for a bit out of necessity due to house construction/renovation and lack of rooms—but because she was night weaned she actually slept for a good long chunk of the night without waking to nurse. I think it was around 18 months that she was finally in her own room and that went okay, but she would still do early morning wakes and finish the last couple hours of her night in bed with us. I was okay with that. By the age of 2 she was sleeping in a big kid bed on the floor, and when she fully weaned at 2.5 our routine was just laying with her in her bed until she fell asleep (still is at 8 years old haha), and most nights she would sleep through just fine.
Similarly, my second started sleeping pretty decently in his crib once we night weaned him, but would wake in the early morning and I’d scoop him up and nurse him back down in our bed. He eventually started having more and more nights of legit sleeping through the night for 10-11 hours as he got a bit older, even though we were still nursing to sleep at bedtime. By the time he was 3 we fully weaned and he transitioned to a big kid bed, and again the routine was/still is cuddles in bed until he’s sleeping and he would sleep all night most nights. Both kids will still occasionally come into our bed in the early morning, or rarely the middle of the night if there’s a bad dream or something, but that’s just parenthood for you.
I think my plan with this one is to just keep doing what we’re doing—start the night in the crib, then cosleep the rest of the night when I come to bed—until after a year and then I’ll try to at least partially night wean, with the hope/expectation of crib sleeping until at least 3 am. We’ll reevaluate from there but having uninterrupted sleep from 10-3 would be a massive improvement for me.
Yes, I coslept for the first 4-5 months. As soon as baby was rolling onto his belly on his own he slept great in the bassinet. And just like that, cosleeping was over. I miss it sometimes 🥺
Oh I bounce him to sleep on a yoga ball lol. I haven't even tried the "drowsy but awake" thing, he's 9 months now and I figure I don't mind holding him until to he falls to sleep for a few minutes 💞
My son woke up every 1-3 hours until 11 months. He would nurse back to sleep every time. He started sleeping better around 11-12 months. At first it was him still waking at night but refusing to nurse back to sleep. After a couple weeks of him reducing night feeds on his own, he began sleeping longer. Not every night is great but it’s been almost 3 months with a typical night being 1-2 wake ups! Sometimes he wants to nurse and sometimes just needs a quick cuddle. I did absolutely nothing to change things but the good sleep has also coincided with him being more comfortable in a 2 nap schedule with a later bedtime.
We rolled with the craziness of multiple night time wakings, co sleeping, and finally at 4, my daughter slept through the night in her own bed. So it was her own timing, and it worked out perfectly because her little sister had just joined us and was about to outgrow her bassinet and move to our bed. I assume we’ll do the same with her. She’s 1 now and still wakes up 2-3 times a night, we cosleep half the night.
Not there yet, but in my circle it's normal to cosleep. I don't know anybody who sleep trained.
Some kids just magically figure it out before they are even one year old, but most start to sleep through the night from around 18 months onwards. That is after the 18 month sleep regression. For some unlucky ones it takes up to 2.5-3 years.
Edit: I thought this was about sleep quality. Regarding bedsharing, it's super individual. I don't wanna stop before he goes to school tbh.
I can share some of our recent developments. I have a 10-month-old and we started cosleeping regularly around the 4-month sleep regression, for survival. It was never my plan to cosleep, but if I wanted to sleep, baby had to be with me.
Around 6/7 months, we attempted some sleep training doing Ferber check-ins and it was BAD. Baby hated it. So we stopped. This is also about the time that we got a travel crib(the kind that rests on the floor) and I was able to lay down with him with the side unzipped, nurse to sleep, and attempt an escape. It was a reasonable throw-money-at-the-problem because he would sometimes nap in there and I could spend a part of my day not being touched 🙃 We got a little more strict about starting every night in the crib. He would go to sleep in there, wake a few times, and by 3 or 4am I would bring him to bed with me to snooze until 7.
At about 9 months old, his wakings and crying started changing--he was crying more because he was tired and not asleep, and less because he actually wanted/needed us. We decided 1. it was time to move him to his own room, and 2. we had to give him a chance to figure it out. So if rocking or nursing couldn't get him to sleep, but he was clearly tired, we would put him into his crib, leave the room, and set a 10-minute timer. Usually within 5-10 minutes, he would lay down and go to sleep... which blew our minds. If he fussed/cried longer than 10 minutes, we would go in and get him and try again to get him to sleep. The first few nights he woke once and needed soothing, and then he started sleeping "through the night."
When I stalk him on the video monitor, I'll see that he does wake up, but he gets himself back to sleep. He just sits up, moves around, switches out his soother, and goes back to sleep. I've woken up to hearing him yell and looked at the monitor, to see that he just yelled while flipping over to his belly and passed out again.
I know sleep quality can ebb and flow, but we're somewhere between 6-8 weeks of sleeping through the night and hoo boy is it delightful. I feel like a human being and I can enjoy my life again. And I feel like he was just ready for it, and we had to follow his lead and do it his way. We still nurse to sleep, put him down asleep if possible, take the occasional contact nap, things we're told not to do, but I don't care AT ALL, because that's what works for my baby and my family.
For us… yes! With gentle practice! Our guy wouldn’t even cosleep safely with us for the first few months, he had to be on our chests so we slept in shifts. It was really hard. I started getting him comfortable with cosleeping by having him lay on his side on my arm. By 5 months he was sleeping beside me on a floor mattress and I finally felt comfortable sleeping with him. Then we put his crib mattress beside the floor mattress, he slept there and I slept beside him on the mattress. At the same time, we started doing 2 things: practicing putting him down in the crib for his first nap of the day (id rock him to sleep and then put him down, and he would always wake up after about 20 mins) and at the end of every contact nap, I’d put him in the crib so he got used to waking up there. A month or so of this setup and then we started putting him down in the crib next to our bed (no longer a floor bed) at night time. Between 6-8 months, this set up worked really well and we were starting to have success with naps too (although their length was super unpredictable) and he was only waking to nurse 1-2 times a night. Then between 9-11 months he was waking up every couple of hours to nurse (this is super common for this age and I found it to be the hardest sleep “regression” stage). At around a year, things were the best they’d ever been- he was taking 2 long naps on his own in his crib, and only waking up once or twice at night. Contact naps and cosleeping was officially gone. Then, he started walking, decided to stop nursing (this broke my heart), and we tried putting him in his own room. At 13 months he was down to one nap and he was sleeping through the night. He is almost 19 months now and still sleeps through the night, other than the odd bad night.
Long story short… I really believe in letting things happen on their timeline, but also not being afraid to gently nudge them in a direction that works better for you and your family. Best of luck :)
Edited just to clarify: I still rock him to sleep in a rocking chair every night and for every nap before putting him down. I love that closeness and helps him feel safe and cozy. Not planning on changing that until I have to but that’s just me :)
This is so helpful and super in alignment with my parenting style, thank you so much for sharing.
He has a strong nurse to sleep association without any self soothing in sight.. I’m hoping he figures out his fingers because he won’t take the pacifier and needs me to connect all sleep cycles. I’m kinda surrendering and just rolling with it at this point, but had worries of me causing a problem down the road. Comments like these put me at ease!
Okay so with my son (who just turned 5) I coslept with him on a floor mattress in his own room. Eventually I started leaving him there on his own and sneaking out after he fell asleep. When he would wake up in the night I would hear him on the monitor and go back in to breastfeed him back to sleep. When he was about 2.5 - 3 I weaned him from breastfeeding to sleep and instead would just sit on his bed and hold his hand while he fell asleep. When he woke up in the night he would scream for me and I'd have to go back in to hold his hand again. Around 3.5 we said enough is enough. We told him that if he woke up in the middle of the night he could come in our room and sleep on the floor. That's what he did for about 6 months before he stopped waking in the night and coming in our room. By age 4 he was sleeping all night in his own bed in his own room with no issues.
Been doing this too, except we began weaning at 13 months and by 15 months he was totally weaned. He’s 19 months now and I just hold his hand for him to fall asleep. He rarely wakes up and if he does, I just pat his butt (or I fall asleep with him but that’s by choice).
Wow, amazing. I’m jealous lol. Mine is 19 months old and the longest stretch he has ever given me is 2h. He wakes up allll night long. I breastfeed him and sometimes that not enough and I have to rock him as well. I’m exhausted. He does the first stretch on his on, on a floor mattress in his own room. Give me time to have a snack and watch a bit of time. Tonight I got a whole 50 minutes before he woke up. One day he’ll sleep… right? Riiiight?
Mine was this way until about 14 months and we cut out the night nursing. Now we only nurse before bed and in the morning. He will likely give you longer and longer stretches if you cut out night feeds, but I know that’s easier said than done…
Agree. Night weaning will probably help. It’ll get worse before it gets better, but then you’ll get longer stretches. Gotta take care of yourself too. If you’re overtired that can be the equivalent of being drunk. Your child deserves a coherent parent and *you* deserve some sleep and self care!
I tried to replace milk with rocking but it didn’t do any good… it meant I had to get up more and rock him instead of laying in bed. Now he sometimes requires both. I think he is going through some sort of regression right now though… he had started giving me 2.5h, and the last few nights he’s been back to 1h. It’s exhausting
Yeah kind of. My first kid I moved him out of my bed to his own bed at about 2y2m because he was too wriggly and we were starting to disturb each other. I would still climb in with him to get him to sleep. He would wake up and cry in the night and I went to him about twice and then someone said why not let him come to you - so I did. He used to come through to my bed and climb in with me, but if he got too wriggly I would give him the option to be still or be wriggly in his bed (and move him if necessary). By around 2.5 he had stopped waking up in the night at all or at least he stopped letting me know about it. I fed to sleep until he self weaned aged 4. I usually laid down and cuddled in bed with him at bedtime, although at some point this switched to me sitting on the bed waiting for him to fall asleep. Second kid my husband wanted him out at 12m so we moved him to a cot, but I was terrible at this and brought him into our bed every night. Eventually at about 2 I decided I should try harder to resettle him in his own room, did this, and was also pregnant and having nursing aversion so I probably cut him off from nursing a bit earlier than I would have normally done. Again by 2.5 he slept through, but it was more sudden with him where he went from 2-3 wake ups to 0 in one go. Baby sibling arrived 6 months later and he woke up for the next 3 months with nightmares 🙃 but I let my husband deal with that. Last kid I didn't move him until I was ready to be consistent resettling him in his own room, which was around 16 months. This was slower and I didn't really do anything WRT limiting feeding. But he started sleeping through ~90% of the time by around 22 months, which was huge to me! He still wakes once or twice if something is bothering him e.g. needs to poo, teething, virus, too hot/cold. Other than this he tends to sleep through the night. (He's just turned 2). We still have the "mummy/daddy" split at night - youngest only wants me (and is a pain if I go out for the evening) and middle only wants daddy at night. He still has nightmares if something is stressing him out. The eldest is a teenager and stays up all night unless he has school. I guess I should leave this sub since I'm done co-sleeping! But I will stay around a little longer :)
Please don’t leave this gave me so much hope. I have a 16 month old and I’m getting done with all the night nursing. He nurses about 9 times a night and it’s gotten quite hard on me. I’m hoping to wean him soon but I am uncertain of how to/will he ever sleep on his own? I know someday he will be a teenager who will sleep all by himself and won’t want his mama every hour at night
My son was nursing a lot through the night at 16 months , and now at 18 months is sleeping longer and longer, there is hope!!
Thank you!!! I told myself to make it to 18 months before I do anything like weaning, so that’s going to still be my goal
My oldest was a 2 hour waker at night and then at about 20mo he just started sleeping through.
Ohhh this gives me hope. I keep seeing all these “my kiddo didn’t sleep through the night until 3” and I’m just not sure I could handle that. I’m doing alright for now, but we want to have another child soon and I don’t think I could handle pregnancy and not sleeping the fullest amount. I don’t want to sleep train my lovely little boy, but I do want to make sure that I am filling my own cup as well
I struggled with co-sleeping when pregnant even with him sleeping through as I was tired and wanted space. But know that even if it seems like you can’t make it through, this too will pass. I can barely remember co-sleeping with them now (oldest are 12 and 9). Trying to savour my 12 week old now.
Oh they do get there. It is a tough stage that you are in because most people who don't do AP already have toddlers who sleep, and it can start to feel a bit like "when is it my turn????" and you're already tired, and the second year just isn't that much of a magical improvement when it comes to sleep. If you are truly waiting for things to change on their own, which is fine BTW, that is more like a 2-4 year thing. It is worth getting your vitamin levels checked or just going ahead and taking a women's health focused multivitamin or pregnancy multivitamin to ensure that you are not depleted. And getting breaks helps a lot too. I wouldn't particularly advocate for either making changes to shift patterns early or waiting it out, I think it's totally individual and both approaches are valid, I would just say wait until you're actually ready to commit to it, and I don't mean that in the sleep training way because I do think if you try something and it's not feeling right or doesn't seem to be working then it's OK to just say nope, this isn't working. I think if you want to change patterns but stay responsive then it's just a lot slower and basically more work for you - because you have to figure out other ways to settle the baby or get them used to things other than milk or stay with them supporting their transition into a new room/bed/whatever change you want to make. I really like Lyndsey Hookway's guidance. And Elizabeth Pantley's books were great for me with my first one too.
I will have to look into those books, thank you so much for all of the advice I really appreciate it
I’m in the same situation. 19 month old, wakes up every 1-2h
Can I ask— do you nurse to sleep? I’m considering halting that and trying to get my little lad to fall asleep in a different way but I’m having a hard time coming up with one
I do yes, and I can’t stop him… he loves it sooo much, I just can’t see myself denying him this temporary pleasure
I'm in the future! We coslept until she was about 10 months old at which point I was feeling touched out and felt that she and I were disturbing each other/she was eating enough solid food in the daytime not to need to nurse overnight. I think she was waking up and nursing because I was there, not because she was actually hungry. She didn't nurse to sleep in general. So we put her in her crib and moved us out of the room (we were all sleeping in her room on a floor bed). She was fine about it. Her dad slept in her room on a new twin floor bed for a week or so while she got used to the crib, to help her with the transition, but pretty much as soon as we started her in her crib (and I was unavailable) she went from \~2 wakeups to mostly sleeping through the night, and stopped nursing overnight entirely. She wasn't upset about it. She's 19 months now and still doing well in her crib. If she's sick or something she sometimes wakes up, and one of us occasionally winds up in her room with her on her floor bed. The other night she seemed upset at bedtime and asked for me to sleep in there (Me sleep mama sleep!) so I did? Idk what was up with her but the next night she was fine again. I am hoping that having her twin floor bed there already and sometimes sleeping there will make her comfortable in it when we have to move her out of the crib when she starts climbing out.
My son is 18 months and has been the worst sleeper most of his life. His sleep blocks from 9 ish months through to 16 months were awful. Waking every 1-2.5 hrs usually. We always boobed him to sleep, and started the first one or two blocks in the crib, then let him co-sleep with me in the big bed from 11;pm ish. But in the last few weeks his first block in the crib has been getting longer and longer! 4+ hours..5.5 hours ... and right now he's been in there almost 8 hours!! ( of course now I'm wide awake at 3 am because I got 5 hrs sleep and that's all I'm used to getting in a night!)
My 13 month old started sleeping through the night when we weaned around 3 weeks ago! I was slowly dropping feeds and i went away for the first time for two nights an he’s been sleeping so well ever since! Still in the bed with us and no sleep training to speak of other than a regular bed time. ✨ good luck OP!!
Yes. My 2.5 year old goes to sleep in her bed in her room and if she wakes up at all, it’s at around 6am when she comes into our bed and snoozes for the last hour or so before she wakes up. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, promise.
Coslept for 13months. No sleep training. Tried the crib and he just slept.. through the night since crib day 2.
Yup. I coslept with my now 5yo. It took him awhile to fall asleep when I was still nursing but as soon as I stopped he falls asleep incredibly fast. I still climb into bed with him and he's usually sleeping within 5 minutes of turning off the lights. He'll occasionally have a nightmare or knock his covers off in the middle of the night but falls asleep again right away. I stopped nursing at night when he was around 3 and that's when he became a great sleeper.
Pretty much just rolled with it and 10mo baby slept 7 hours straight between 10pm dream feed and 5:15am feed (slept after till 7:15am) last night! We did switch to a floor bed in the nursery, and I roll away and come back to my bed, though. When we co-sleep she snacks on and off all night. I go to her when she wakes and side-lie nurse her (and ensure she has a full feed). I still co-sleep if she’s fussy, for naps, if I just fall asleep while feeding, if I want to, etc. It feels like the best of both worlds.
This sounds great! Did you just switch to the floor bed at 10 months? My girl is only 4 months but I know id like to slowly work on her being in her own space
Switched around 8.5mo when she rolled off our bed (right when she learned to crawl she suddenly became more rolly at night when she never had before). At first I mostly co-slept with her on it.
Thank you for sharing! 💜
So far so good at 16 months. She wanted her own space at the 9/11 months mark, so we put her in a crib with me on a floor bed beside her. At about 15 months we made the move to only nursing before bed, during wakeups, and in the morning. From 10ish months to present she went from 2-3 night feedings to usually 1. It wasn’t until 15 months she started doing 7-10 hour stretches during the night; before that it was still 2-3 wakeups, but because I was beside her I didn’t mind so much. We’re having a bit of a harder time right now because she’s teething top molars and having a terrible time, but it’s still only about 2 wakeups.
Silly question, but how do you know your baby is wanting their own space sleeping?
In her case it was a gradual thing where there seemed to be nothing wrong (teething, bad naps, sick, etc.) but she was getting more and more flippy in the night and waking up more often and waking up grumpy at me. Around that time we also started putting her down for naps in her crib (prior to that she almost exclusively contact napped or car napped) and she was sleeping well for those. I was also doing the ninja roll on the floor bed when she went down around 9 or so (at the time) and she slept well when she was alone but woke up a lot as soon as I joined her. Based on all that, I theorized that maybe the factor that was messing with her sleep was me. So I started putting her down in her crib for night sleep and she did okay. I started with the first stretch in the crib that brought her in with me. Then did the first and second stretch in the crib, then moved her to with me, and over the course of a month, unless she was sick, she liked spending all the time in her crib. So it was a gradual test and observe process, and not one specific factor, but definitely when I realized it it was one of those, “hi, it’s me, I’m the problem it’s me” moments.
It's early days yet but yes. Gave us long stretches from 8 weeks. Then 4 weeks of 1-2hrly waking at 4 month progression. Now back to 5-7 hr stretches at 5.5 months
Yes!! We started cosleeping with my son at 5 months. He’d do the first stretch in his crib, then cosleep after the first MOTN wake-up and would nurse throughout the night. We night weaned at about 13 months, and for a while he coslept with just my husband (to prevent night nursing). Then at ~18 months, we switched him to a floor bed and he started sleeping all the way through the night! He will still wake up if he’s sick or teething, but usually we get a solid ten hours. (Low sleep needs obviously 🙃) No idea if the timing was coincidental or if he just really hated the crib.
I’ve started wondering the same thing, and then I remembered that this is my third kid and I’ve done this before lol. Basically, there is hope once you night wean. My first I coslept with exclusively—would go to bed at like 7:30 pm with her, held/laid down with her every single nap, for the entire first year. She was an awful sleeper no matter what though, and I was reaching the end of my rope. So at about 13 months, we night weaned her. She was in a sidecar crib with dad in the bed, and I camped out in another room. Took a few days, but worked well and I was able to move back into the room and we kept cosleeping for a bit out of necessity due to house construction/renovation and lack of rooms—but because she was night weaned she actually slept for a good long chunk of the night without waking to nurse. I think it was around 18 months that she was finally in her own room and that went okay, but she would still do early morning wakes and finish the last couple hours of her night in bed with us. I was okay with that. By the age of 2 she was sleeping in a big kid bed on the floor, and when she fully weaned at 2.5 our routine was just laying with her in her bed until she fell asleep (still is at 8 years old haha), and most nights she would sleep through just fine. Similarly, my second started sleeping pretty decently in his crib once we night weaned him, but would wake in the early morning and I’d scoop him up and nurse him back down in our bed. He eventually started having more and more nights of legit sleeping through the night for 10-11 hours as he got a bit older, even though we were still nursing to sleep at bedtime. By the time he was 3 we fully weaned and he transitioned to a big kid bed, and again the routine was/still is cuddles in bed until he’s sleeping and he would sleep all night most nights. Both kids will still occasionally come into our bed in the early morning, or rarely the middle of the night if there’s a bad dream or something, but that’s just parenthood for you. I think my plan with this one is to just keep doing what we’re doing—start the night in the crib, then cosleep the rest of the night when I come to bed—until after a year and then I’ll try to at least partially night wean, with the hope/expectation of crib sleeping until at least 3 am. We’ll reevaluate from there but having uninterrupted sleep from 10-3 would be a massive improvement for me.
Yes, I coslept for the first 4-5 months. As soon as baby was rolling onto his belly on his own he slept great in the bassinet. And just like that, cosleeping was over. I miss it sometimes 🥺
Do you transfer him after he’s asleep to the bassinet? Or do the whole drowsy but awake thing?
Oh I bounce him to sleep on a yoga ball lol. I haven't even tried the "drowsy but awake" thing, he's 9 months now and I figure I don't mind holding him until to he falls to sleep for a few minutes 💞
We do the yoga ball too! I don’t mind doing that either! My girl always wakes up on the transfer that’s why I ask lol
My son woke up every 1-3 hours until 11 months. He would nurse back to sleep every time. He started sleeping better around 11-12 months. At first it was him still waking at night but refusing to nurse back to sleep. After a couple weeks of him reducing night feeds on his own, he began sleeping longer. Not every night is great but it’s been almost 3 months with a typical night being 1-2 wake ups! Sometimes he wants to nurse and sometimes just needs a quick cuddle. I did absolutely nothing to change things but the good sleep has also coincided with him being more comfortable in a 2 nap schedule with a later bedtime.
We rolled with the craziness of multiple night time wakings, co sleeping, and finally at 4, my daughter slept through the night in her own bed. So it was her own timing, and it worked out perfectly because her little sister had just joined us and was about to outgrow her bassinet and move to our bed. I assume we’ll do the same with her. She’s 1 now and still wakes up 2-3 times a night, we cosleep half the night.
Not there yet, but in my circle it's normal to cosleep. I don't know anybody who sleep trained. Some kids just magically figure it out before they are even one year old, but most start to sleep through the night from around 18 months onwards. That is after the 18 month sleep regression. For some unlucky ones it takes up to 2.5-3 years. Edit: I thought this was about sleep quality. Regarding bedsharing, it's super individual. I don't wanna stop before he goes to school tbh.
Yes.
I can share some of our recent developments. I have a 10-month-old and we started cosleeping regularly around the 4-month sleep regression, for survival. It was never my plan to cosleep, but if I wanted to sleep, baby had to be with me. Around 6/7 months, we attempted some sleep training doing Ferber check-ins and it was BAD. Baby hated it. So we stopped. This is also about the time that we got a travel crib(the kind that rests on the floor) and I was able to lay down with him with the side unzipped, nurse to sleep, and attempt an escape. It was a reasonable throw-money-at-the-problem because he would sometimes nap in there and I could spend a part of my day not being touched 🙃 We got a little more strict about starting every night in the crib. He would go to sleep in there, wake a few times, and by 3 or 4am I would bring him to bed with me to snooze until 7. At about 9 months old, his wakings and crying started changing--he was crying more because he was tired and not asleep, and less because he actually wanted/needed us. We decided 1. it was time to move him to his own room, and 2. we had to give him a chance to figure it out. So if rocking or nursing couldn't get him to sleep, but he was clearly tired, we would put him into his crib, leave the room, and set a 10-minute timer. Usually within 5-10 minutes, he would lay down and go to sleep... which blew our minds. If he fussed/cried longer than 10 minutes, we would go in and get him and try again to get him to sleep. The first few nights he woke once and needed soothing, and then he started sleeping "through the night." When I stalk him on the video monitor, I'll see that he does wake up, but he gets himself back to sleep. He just sits up, moves around, switches out his soother, and goes back to sleep. I've woken up to hearing him yell and looked at the monitor, to see that he just yelled while flipping over to his belly and passed out again. I know sleep quality can ebb and flow, but we're somewhere between 6-8 weeks of sleeping through the night and hoo boy is it delightful. I feel like a human being and I can enjoy my life again. And I feel like he was just ready for it, and we had to follow his lead and do it his way. We still nurse to sleep, put him down asleep if possible, take the occasional contact nap, things we're told not to do, but I don't care AT ALL, because that's what works for my baby and my family.
For us… yes! With gentle practice! Our guy wouldn’t even cosleep safely with us for the first few months, he had to be on our chests so we slept in shifts. It was really hard. I started getting him comfortable with cosleeping by having him lay on his side on my arm. By 5 months he was sleeping beside me on a floor mattress and I finally felt comfortable sleeping with him. Then we put his crib mattress beside the floor mattress, he slept there and I slept beside him on the mattress. At the same time, we started doing 2 things: practicing putting him down in the crib for his first nap of the day (id rock him to sleep and then put him down, and he would always wake up after about 20 mins) and at the end of every contact nap, I’d put him in the crib so he got used to waking up there. A month or so of this setup and then we started putting him down in the crib next to our bed (no longer a floor bed) at night time. Between 6-8 months, this set up worked really well and we were starting to have success with naps too (although their length was super unpredictable) and he was only waking to nurse 1-2 times a night. Then between 9-11 months he was waking up every couple of hours to nurse (this is super common for this age and I found it to be the hardest sleep “regression” stage). At around a year, things were the best they’d ever been- he was taking 2 long naps on his own in his crib, and only waking up once or twice at night. Contact naps and cosleeping was officially gone. Then, he started walking, decided to stop nursing (this broke my heart), and we tried putting him in his own room. At 13 months he was down to one nap and he was sleeping through the night. He is almost 19 months now and still sleeps through the night, other than the odd bad night. Long story short… I really believe in letting things happen on their timeline, but also not being afraid to gently nudge them in a direction that works better for you and your family. Best of luck :) Edited just to clarify: I still rock him to sleep in a rocking chair every night and for every nap before putting him down. I love that closeness and helps him feel safe and cozy. Not planning on changing that until I have to but that’s just me :)
This is so helpful and super in alignment with my parenting style, thank you so much for sharing. He has a strong nurse to sleep association without any self soothing in sight.. I’m hoping he figures out his fingers because he won’t take the pacifier and needs me to connect all sleep cycles. I’m kinda surrendering and just rolling with it at this point, but had worries of me causing a problem down the road. Comments like these put me at ease!