When & how did you get your DC to sleep through the night?

[ourbabygirl]

I mean, at least 5 hours in a stretch?
With DD I pretty much did the CIO method, which I really didn't like (and that's why I waited until she was probably 10 months old to do it), but I guess it worked.
Now DS is 8.5 months old and it's high time I get more than 3.5 hours of sleep at a time! I haven't done anything about it until now because it's just easier & faster to feed him and put him back to bed, rather than letting him cry & risk waking up DD (age 2.5, w/a room next to her brother). But now DS is saying Mama when he's upset, so I've really screwed myself over because I'm sure he'll be saying that when he cries overnight! :(
DS does take a pacifier, has a lovey, and I figure I'll take a week to do this in two weeks when DH takes time off work to get some house projects done. When we were trying to get DD to STTN, she wouldn't go back to sleep for me, she only would for DH, so I'm hoping to get his help again.
Anyhow, I know I'll be a happier and obviously much more well-rested mom if I do this now, so I'm looking for tips from you when you did it (assuming it was a process for you, not just something your kid(s) did automatically). :)

Thanks in advance!

[brittone2]

I think my older two were more like 15-18 months. We cosleep and they nursed overnight most nights until then. And even at 15-18 mo it wasn't every night that they slept through the night.

DS2 is almost 15 mo and still not STTN. He still nurses several times, but I'm not really "up" with him.

For us, it has always passed in time. I'm looking forward to it, but at this point it isn't a huge deal to me.

[waitingforgrace]

We did basically a CIO method with DD, although I never fed her to sleep at night so I think that helped in the middle of the night. How does your DS go down for the night? With DD I had to rock her, but then we worked on putting her down super drowsy and rubbing her back in the crib until she fell asleep. Once she was doing that the middle of the night was the same deal, I would go in and rub her back. Now generally DD was not screaming crying, if she was I picked her up and rocked her. She was usually more whimpering and fussing. It really didn't take us too long to get her back to sleep during the night.

Now that I'm thinking about it more we also played with her bedtime quite a bit. For a long time she didn't really "go to bed" until 10pm so that we would get 5 hrs from her before she woke. Then once we got her sleeping a little longer the bedtime progressively got earlier. I basically took bits and pieces of different things I had read and used them all. It was important for me to be getting my sleep and for that matter important for DD to learn to sleep well also.

[TxCat]

6 months - Ferber. We had to do something because I work nights about 7 times a month and DH just didn't have the patience to deal with DD getting up in the middle of the night anymore. I think it took us about 6 nights until she was sleeping through the night (about 10 hours in a row), and about 2 weeks until there was no crying at all to go to bed at night. We already had a bedtime routine that we used, so no changes to that. We always started the bedtime routine between 6 and 7pm, so we kept the same time. If anything, we've started to move it a little later as she has gotten older.

Good luck! Ferberizing was definitely one of the most stressful times in my marriage, but now I'm glad we did it. It's trite, but it's true - all of us really are sleeping better now and more well-rested. It also helped DD nap better in the day - we never did Ferber for that, but she just transitioned on her own for naps.

[scrooks]

I think it was around 8- 9 months .... No later than 10. I was miraculously blessed with good sleepers although DS was much more of a challenge than DD. I would say closer to 8 for her and towards the end of 10 for him. In both cases I was done nursing.

[scriptkitten]

My twins were both sleeping 5hrs at night by 11 weeks. No CIO!

I have no idea how we got so lucky. We swaddled, bottle fed at night, used pacifiers, noise machines, Moses baskets next to our beds.

[bubbaray]

My kids are 7y and 4y and still don't sleep through the night.

[Staraglimmer]

9 months. We used CIO. We followed the Ferber method, I believe.

[arivecchi]

4.5 and 5.5 months. CIO.

[JBaxter]

DS 1 & 2 were about 17 months old. No CIO or Ferber. They simply wanted a drink at about 4am EVERY DAY. I gave them about 4 oz of milk up to about 16 months then changed to a sippy cup of water.

DS3 8 weeks and was sleeping 7hrs? After 2.5 he stopped sleeping alone for about 2 yrs and came back to my bed.

DS4 I think near 10 or 11 months he co slept so I don't really remember if he woke up to nurse or not he rooted and helped him self. Again no CIO or Ferber

All went to bed pretty easily I dont have the heart to CIO

[fumofu]

9 months with sleep-training using various methods (Pantley, Ferber, etc). It was a stressful 2 weeks, with lots of email with our family doctor. It's been 6 weeks since transitioning DS out of our bed and frequent night nursings to him crying, if at all, for under 5 minutes, and sleeping 9-10 hours straight.

I miss co-sleeping with DS, but I also enjoy our consistent bedtime routine. I bring DS to our bed when he wakes up at 5-6am for his morning nursing.

I held out on letting CIO for as long as I could - I was definitely in the Dr Sears camp. But it got to the point where it took over an hour to nurse DS to sleep, and it was a lot of tugging, unlatching and wanting to play, and then it progressed to biting. He also took half the bed, so I slept at the foot of the bed on his side. DS also woke up frequently to nurse, even though he wasn't hungry, at least for most of the night nursings. I also had almost no time to my own, since DS naps on or with me.

Now he goes down at 7:30pm, and I have 3 hours to get on BBB, FB, Netflix, sometimes cook for DH and me if we don't eat with DS - basically all the things I used to try to do while DS was awake. Now I rarely check mail or browse on my phone during the daytime.

[AustenFan]

DS--7 weeks (7 hours--he lengthened from there--CIO two nights at 4 months to get him to sleep through the 4 am wake-up). I'd put him down at 7, dream feed him when I went to bed (around 10), and by 5 months, he was sleeping 7-7. I dropped the dream feed around 8 months (?). It's been awhile. Basically, he was great.

DD1--10 weeks (8 hours). She did not take to the dream feed and wasn't as rock solid consistent as DS, but she was definitely doing 6:30-6:30 by 6 months. We did let her CIO at some point to drop her early morning wake-up, but it took less than a week.

DD2--Just turned two months today and will give us at least 6-7 hours pretty consistently. I've just started dream feeding her this week, so if I put her down at 8 and dream feed her at 10 or 11, she's been sleeping 'til 5.

I've been fortunate that my kids are good sleepers, but things I'm remembering this time around are that I'm more likely to jump up and feed when the baby is in my room (moved DD2 out this week, and amazingly, she slept better and longer) and that "through the night" doesn't really mean through the night for me if I go to bed at 10!:)

My pediatrician told me that children are physiologically able to go without eating (and thus sleep) for 10-12 hours when they reach the 12-14 lb range. Sure enough, my first two chunkers started doing the full 12 hour stretches when they hit 12 lbs. DD2 is smaller, so I'm expecting it will take longer. I think it helps to think about their weight rather than their age.

Other advice I found helpful was that "sleep begets sleep"--better naps during the day=better overnight sleep, and earlier bedtimes=longer nighttime stretches. Definitely true for my kids!

I think a lot of it, too, depends on your parenting philosophy and your own temperament. My friends who AP don't mind co-sleeping and nursing through the night. Their kiddos don't STTN as soon as mine, but they enjoy that extra snuggle time. DH and I sleep terribly when we have a child in bed with us and wouldn't enjoy it, so I don't. Even if I nurse DD2 in bed with me, I try to get up and put her back in her crib so that both of us will sleep better. We are big on routines here, so we generally do Eat-Play-Sleep (with an extra nursing at bedtime until 12 months), and my kids had to learn right away to put themselves to sleep. DH and I are both okay with letting our kids cry for short periods of time when we know everything is okay (we obviously don't let them cry when they're hurt, sick, teething, etc). Some of my friends don't want to hear their kiddos cry, so our methods might not work for them. But like I said, as much as I'd like to credit my mommy skills:wink2:, I've mostly been fortunate to have good sleepers!

[mackmama]

DC slept through the night starting around 3 months but not consistently until 5 months. The dream feed was really helpful for us. DC liked the paci for awhile but has since weaned off of it (at around 5.5 months) - just doesn't seem to like/need it anymore.

[dragop21]

6 months dd1, CIO, but it didn't "stick" all the time. I felt like I had a re do, then it felt pointless but in retrospect she was better than her sibs. if I could go back and hit myself over the head for letting her cry for TWO HOURS I probably would.
21 months dd2 no CIO if I went back I would probably do something different. she. was. awful. we co slept and she was up constantly to nurse. so I moved her to her bed at 13 months before I totally lost my mind. it was not a smooth transition, but she did sleep better. maybe CIO would have worked with her? not sure. it was an awful awful 21 months.
22 months ds no CIO. he also co slept, but for longer periods of time. it was obviously a completely different kid and I have no idea why we worked so much better co sleeping, but we did. he STTN the first time on March 11, the night of the major 9.0 earthquake. :lol I figured it was the repeated aftershocks that shook our bed that helped the transition. ever since then he's been STTN.

with this one we'll co sleep again and see if they are easy or hard to sleep with. I don't want another dd, it was to flipping exhausting, though I know somethings can't be controlled...

[mommylamb]

DS was consistently sleeping through the night by those standards by the time he was 6 months old. We didn't do Ferber, he just did it on his own. But he also consistently woke up between 4-4:30 am for about a year after he started sleeping through the night. It was awful because we both work full time so it stank to have to wake up that early every day.