Please tell me about your child who was a terrible sleeper as a baby...

[happymom]

and is now a great sleeper! I am desperate for some encouragement. DS is 9 months and we are having an impossible time getting him to sleep normally- I really don't think there is anything bothering him. We've tried so hard and just keep getting nowhere. In any case, I keep telling myself- This too shall pass...right?! Please, tell me I'm right!

[SnuggleBuggles]

Ds1 was a great sleeper til 6 months. Then, the sleep was total crap til 18m. Ds2 was always a horrible sleeper but at 17m, he turned into a perfect sleeper. 9-10 months was especially horrendous. Really, they went from ugh to awesome and never looked back though.

[SummerBaby]

My DD2, who is now 7, was a terrible sleeper. Honestly I don't think she slept through the night- meaning a 10 hour stretch- until she was about 2 years old. She always woke up- something fell out of the crib, etc and she would scream bloody murder. She started out with a severe milk allergy/colic and I wasn't able to do "cry it out" until she was about 10 months old. OMG she proved Ferber wrong. Absolute nightmare!

That is all to say that she ended up being a great sleeper! Once she was 2 she slept 10-12 hours a night with no problems! So there is hope!

[StantonHyde]

DS didn't sleep more than an hour at at a time when he was born--UGH!!! He didn't sleep through the night till 15 mos, when I finally went to Ferberize him but found that first I had to stop feeding him every time he woke up. I gave him 1/2 an oz less at each feeding each night. He finally STTN at the end of one week. He has been an amazing sleeper ever since! DD was an easy baby. She is now a very bad sleeper!!!(and she's 9!)

[Raidra]

Niall was a terrible sleeper. He wasn't colicky or anything, just slept incredibly lightly. My memory of how he got better is really foggy, but I know around 18 months we had a futon mattress on the floor next to his toddler bed - he would fall asleep on his own, but wake up around 1am and one of us would just lie next to him (he'd often insist on lying on the futon mattress with us) and we'd sleep for a couple hours like that. Then there was the phase where we'd put him to bed at 8:30 and around 9:30, he'd start coming out of his room to see what we were doing and often continue doing that until 11pm or so. Then he'd sleep through the night. He was falling asleep on his own and sleeping through the night by age 3 at least, though he'd often call for us to refill his bottle once during the night and go right back to sleep (since this was relatively easy, we let him keep his bottle way late). He's been off the bottle for a little while and sleeps really well for the most part, though he will call us once or twice after we say goodnight to tell us he's 'scared of everything' - which is new since giving up his bottle.

It won't last forever, I promise. We didn't rush it, I felt more comfortable just accepting his sleeping quirks than fighting it.

[smilequeen]

My oldest and my youngest were not great sleepers...DS1 never slept more than 3 hours until he was close to a year and DS2 was not much better. My middle was an awesome sleeper, then started getting EIs and then was an awesome sleeper as soon as he got tubes put in. They got there between 12-18 months and all 3 of them sleep wonderfully now.

[trcy]

DD was an awful sleeper as a baby, but has improved. Still not perfect, but livable. I am a terrible sleeper, so I guess I can only blame myself for passing on the poor sleeper genes.

[happymom]

Thanks everyone. With DD, we just did classic sleep training (Baby Whisperer style IIRC) and it worked. This little guy is a different story altogether! Its like he is determined to NOT sleep! Every night is such a hassle, and DD isn't sleeping well either since we have a fairly small house and she wakes up when he does....I feel stupid complaining every day to my family/friends IRL, you know? But every morning I am just so frustrated at how terrible the night was and at the fact that I now have to go to work and function despite my exhaustion. DH is awesome and we really lean on eachother, but its just tough.

DS is so beyond adorable of course, so its all worth it...just hard.

Thanks for listening .

[hellokitty]

DS2 was a horrible sleeper. He did not STTN until after he was 3 yrs old and as a baby, bedtime and naptime were always a struggle. The good news is that he is now a good sleeper. HOWEVER, he wakes up REALLY early, like 5:30-6:00 every day! My youngest one is similar. He was a horrible napper as a baby, slept ok at night, but basically didn't nap and would fight naps if he actually took one. He sleeps ok now at night, BUT once again, another early riser, although not as early as DS2.

[mjs64]

Mine! It was so bad, I swear I have PTSD. I would sing to him, rock him, nurse him, swaddle him: anything! My own mother couldn't believe how hard it was to get him to sleep. It was so bad I almost can't talk about it.

Now? At 3.5 (and really since 1 yo)? Hasn't had a night waking in, literally, a year. Sleeps solidly from 8pm to 6:45-7:00am. Full disclosure: we sleep trained out of desperation at 9 mo, and it was effective for infant sleep, but who knows whether that had an impact on his toddler/preschool sleep. We did have a problem with early waking around 2.5, but the "ok to wake" alarm clock pretty much solved it.

There is light at the end of the tunnel!