If you didn’t sleep train, when did your baby’s sleep improve?

Never sleep trained, my 5 year old has never slept through the night but my 15 month old does🤷🏼‍♀️

My baby started sleeping in 5-7 hour stretches at about 4 months. Every night is different of course but in average she sleeps 5-7 hours in a row after I put her down. Wakes up a couple times a night . Sometimes even once a night. She’s almost 6 months.

Does your baby wake up hourly ???

@Ana yes 😭 it got better for a week and now back to hourly

First baby slept through the night from 8 weeks old. Of course we had periods of illness where he wouldn’t sleep well, but these were short-lived and as a default he was a really great sleeper from the word go. Second is 6 months old and was sleeping in 4-5ish hour stretches, then for 1.5 months was waking every 2 hours. Currently we are somewhere in between and sleep is absolute chaos. She mostly co-sleeps because she sleeps better that way and I am struggling with the lack of sleep whilst also dealing with a toddler.

One thing to remember is that there typically are some things you can do rather than sleep train. Heysleepybaby on Instagram is a great resource, as is the Facebook group Hey Sleepy Parents.

@Beth Omg! I’m sooo sorry! Does your LO feed every time? could you think of anything that you did differently during that time period when they were waking up less?

I picked 1 year or older, mainly cause her worst regression was from like 9/10 months until well over a year. And since she still doesn’t sleep through consistently (20 months), I feel like I can’t say with confidence that her sleep is sorted yet 😅 But from 4/5 months until 9ish months, she usually only woke up 1-2 times a night, so there were definitely some better patches before a year.

@Ana he does feed but I’m certain is mostly for comfort. Only thing I did differently was rocking him back to sleep when I could bare it, but I was so tired that feeding him was easier 😭 I thought I could be quite resilient but I clearly choose the easier path in life 😭😭😭😭

First baby woke every 45 mins at the worst! Moved him to his own room at 5.5 months and we stopped disturbing each other - he would wake once or twice which was a massive improvement. But we still had a lot of bad nights where he would want to sleep on me all night or start the day at 2am! After he turned 1 he started to sleep better and around 15 months he started to sleep through more and more and was doing so consistently by 18 months. He’s now 3 and still sleeps through most nights (although he comes into our room sometimes if he’s scared of the dark or something). My 10 month old has slept through a few times but not since 4-6 months when the regressions hit. So we co sleep which has helped me get more sleep but also made things tricky as he won’t sleep in his own room 🤪 hoping his sleep will naturally improve like his brother’s did

Does he cry every time when he wakes up or just makes noises? Can he self soothe?

In my limited experience (two kids) it depends on the child but how you feed them might make a difference. It's not been an age thing for me. My eldest was bottle fed a mix of expressed breast milk and formula and mostly slept through from a few months old. My youngest is exclusively breastfed and still sharing a bed with me at almost two years old. He wakes several times a night to help himself from the milk bar.

I never sleep trained either of my boys. My oldest was sleeping through around 3-4 months old - he was formula fed. My youngest who was breastfed up until 2 years 11 months only started going longer stretches around 2.5 years old. He was waking up every 2 hours or so (the odd occasion 3 hours) then from 2.5 only wakes up once or twice

4 years old but my kids have autism and require Medication to sleep

Just after his second birthday. His wake ups did fluctuate depending on teething but he went from every one to two hours to sleeping through in one night. My daughter is 6 months and we had a rough patch while her one tooth was coming in but otherwise sleeps great. Very different sleepers.

My son started sleeping 4-6 hours around 4 months, at 5 it got back to hourly and at 6 months we are at about 3 hours. I'm not sleep training but I did start using an app to track his wake windows so that he's hopefully getting more rest.

4 months x

Never sleep trained. My son was sleeping in 3-4 hour stretches by 6 weeks. He's now 10 weeks and will sleep an 8 hour stretch if I don't wake him up most nights.

Didn’t sleep train but moved his sleep schedule and routine a lot and moved him to his own room for overnight sleep around a year and his sleep improved. He still has bad nights but not nearly as bad.

My pediatrician told us to stop all night feeds and sleep train she was still waking at 9-10 months we started and she’s been doing great! She still wakes up sometimes but rarely cries and is able to put herself back to sleep after 11 months of waking every 2-3 hours and being a zombie we now get decent sleep

With my son immediately at 18 months when I night weaned but i don’t know that this is improvement he would get up several times to nurse on demand because that’s what he’s suppose to do at this age it’s normal for him to do that my girls do that now because they’re still nursing . I’ll also say that his nap always went pretty well while he was younger it was typically 3 to 4 hours daily for a very long time up to the age of late 2 or so . Nursing at night is customarily every 2 to 3 hours it just always is that and never altered from birth it consistently was that until I stopped nursing at night. I never used bottles or pacifiers and my kids are exclusively nursed around the clock until 1 well my son was but with my girls I introduced solids at 6 months but it’s been the same with them for sleep no sleep training whatsoever they get to nurse whenever they want at night

Hourly wakes are a red flag for a medical issue affecting sleep. Hard to tell at 5 months. Has bub woken hourly since birth? My oldest woke 2 hourly until 17 months then slept through no wakes. My youngest has so many food allergies. She woke hourly for the first year, 2-3 hourly for the next year, starting sleeping through when she was 2.

Just after turning one xx

@Ella oh really? I didn’t know that! He hasn’t ALWAYS woken hourly, he used to sleep 3-4 hours then 2 hour chunks for the rest of the night. He hit 3 months and began waking hourly. If you were me, would you check with a doctor? My GP is super old fashioned and I know I’ll be palmed off 🙄

No sleep training here and with my first she was sleeping 5 hours stretches at night around 4 months old and my second is 4 weeks old and he sleeps from around 10.30pm-2.30ish, sometimes 3am then he will wake up for another feed around 7am

So I’ve been allowing natural progression towards independent sleep since day one; we did/do cosleep/bedshare by like 11 months his put downs even for naps were longer and more consistent, By 14-16 months he was laying himself down for his own naps during the day whenever he got tired, by 21 months he was requesting to be placed in his own floor bed at the start of bedtime and he doesn’t join me in the big bed until like 4-6am There were definitely regression with sleep I didn’t even notice until we were out of them, but everything always leveled back out & was normally due to a physical cause like teething or sickness

I wouldn't go to doctor at this stage because it's normal to wake hourly in regression, or illness, or teething. But you can do the checklist. Does bub have any of the following: Mouth breathing Snoring Lots and lots of gas, particularly painful gas at night (squirming around and farting a lot) Problems feeding Clicking tongue when feeding Excema Family history of food allergies ?

My son is nearly 3 and he still doesn’t sleep well

I bedshared and breastfed throughout the night with all my kids. They all started sleeping for at least a 3 hours stretch between 8 weeks & 5 months. Sleep ebbs & flow due to teething, growth spurts, & developmental milestones. My boys were all decent sleepers as infants but my first and second had awful sleep at 15 & 18 months (both started talking a lot more at the time).