S/O Poll Baby Sleep

[Desert Strawberry]

I cosleep with my babies and all but one were great sleepers. Even that one was probably more of a normal sleeper. He'd wake up every hour or two to nurse, then go back to sleep. Nothing dramatic. I did have to sit up with him to feed, He just wasn't as relaxed a sleeper or nurser as my others. 

I have always heard stories of sleep deprived new moms trudging down the hall hour after hour all night long. I wonder if this is accurate. In contrast, I've also heard stories of moms tucking the baby in, closing the door and coming back in the morning. This sounds...evolutionarily unlikely. I do understand parents who can't sleep well with their babies in the bed or in the room. Personal space and all that.  No judgement. 

 

If your babies slept in their own beds, in their own rooms, how often did they wake? How long did you spend feeding, rocking, soothing before they went back to sleep?

 

 

Edit: Any age, I guess. Mine settled in within a couple of weeks, and that was pretty much how it was forever. I know there are changes, but I don't know what they would be. 

Everyone I know intimately has coslept. I have no experience with crib sleeping. 

[Kathryn]

If I were to average all three babies, I'd say waking every 3-4 hours and 20-40 minutes of eating until they unlatched, although they were almost always immediately asleep.

[Btervet]

I had one of each. My first woke every hour or two, and would often take an hour to get back to sleep. He just wouldn't sleep without me there for over a year. I resisted co sleeping far too much with him.

 

My second won't sleep with me in the room. He won't even nap while being held. He sleeps all night in his crib. Getting sleep is nice, but I miss the late night snuggles sometimes.

[JustEm]

All 3 of my children were sleeping more than 5 hours through the night by 6 weeks old. I'd have to get up once to feed them for about 15 minutes. We didn't cosleep but the slept in a bassinet right next to our bed until they could sit up. I didn't feel overly sleep deprived but I did sleep less with a newborn because I have a specific sleep schedule that I can't adjust easily

 

I know many women who dealt with sleep deprivation because they were always getting up in the middle of the night

[momto10blessings]

I've co slept with all 10 of my babies.

They'd wake every 1-4 hours, latch on and nurse for who knows how long.

 

I did have 3 babies that I had to walk halls with, but only sporadically. Maybe 2-4 nights each. Maybe they were sick or teething, I'm not sure.

[SKL]

What age?  I think this will vary greatly during the 1st year of life.

 

My kids came home at 9mos and 12mos, and except for one of them grieving her foster home some nights, they never woke up until 12 hours had passed.  Initially I checked on them a few times to make sure they were in fact sleeping.  Once I knew they'd let me know if they needed me, I stopped checking.

 

Much younger babies need to wake up to eat.  So that's kind of a no brainer.  I would only worry about breathing if I knew they had some issues.  And, nowadays they do have monitors for children who have known breathing issues.

 

I understand responding to a baby's needs, but one of the things babies need is a parent who eventually gets enough sleep.  If I woke up every half hour to check on my kids (over a long period of time), I would not be very awake during daylight hours.  I don't know how I'd make good parenting choices on no REM sleep.

[wapiti]

It depends on the age (or developmental stage, in the case of my premies).  Sleeping all the way through the night depends on other factors as well, such as whether the baby had an appropriate number and length of naps during the day, what time was bedtime, did the baby eat enough during the day (a whole 'nother ball of wax in itself) etc.  And, of course, on top of that some babies are innately more sensitive than others and have difficulty falling back to sleep during the perfectly natural cycles of almost-waking-up during the night.  My favorite source of natural sleep cycle info is the Weissbluth book.

 

A nighttime feeding probably averaged 30 minutes from start to finish, in terms of when I got up and got back in bed, though that changed over time too - longer in the early weeks (maybe 40 min), shorter later on (maybe 15 min?).

[Dory]

I coslept with my oldest, but with the other two, I kept them in a separate bed in my room until they were about 5 months and then moved them into the room beside us. My oldest had mouth issues and nursed every 2-3 hours around the clock. I was raw and uncomfy from a poor latch and constant nursing and he was a poor sleeper, but otherwise a very cheerful easy going baby. My second was a preemie and nursed every 2 hours until about 3 month and it moved to every 3 hours until about 7months and through the night, she'd make it 5 hours. My youngest started at every 3hours for his first couple months and then started sleeping about 5 hours a night.

[mommymilkies]

My ds did not like cosleeping.  He slept in the crib after ~2 months old most of the time.  He woke every 2 hours or so and then I had to make the bottle, feed him, clean up, get him to sleep.  Breastfeeding was not successful for him, so I'm not sure how that would have gone if he was breastfed after 2 months.  My other kids bf and coslept and it was MUCH easier.

[Katy]

I can't answer this poll because newborns have very short sleep cycles and wake up a lot, but by 3-4 months old they sleep 6-8 hours without crying unless something strange happens (a diaper blowout, a loud noise, etc).  I pretty much instinctively followed the advice in Bringing Up Bebe about how French moms do this- which is to only answer persistent crying that's longer than several minutes, not the little fussy episodes every baby has.  Babies have to learn to connect their sleep cycles, and they can either learn it as newborns, when they won't be able to remember it later, or they can learn as toddlers, when you're putting them back to bed a dozen times each night.

 

So yes, you probably get less sleep initially.  But it was worth it to me to be able to get good sleep several months later.

 

I really think you should follow your instincts about this kind of thing.  Not every kid is the same.

[sassenach]

I seriously don't remember. Also, doesn't really depend on the age of the baby? What age range are you asking about here? Three of 4 co slept until they were 8 or 9 months old. Not sure if you're looking for data on 9 month olds or just newborns.

[Farrar]

I had cosleeping twins who woke pretty much every hour. And needed a good half hour of soothing usually to get back to sleep. Until they were about 3 yo. And they didn't nap really after 6 mos. And they didn't sleep in the car. Thank goodness I knew so little about baby sleep or I might have ended up in an asylum.

[Veritaserum]

I co-slept with four and did the crib with two. The crib sleepers slept longer and deeper. I got more sleep. My co-sleepers woke frequently to latch on and my arm and neck would hurt due to the positions I had to adopt to co-sleep.

[Jennifer132]

We have not co-slept with any of ours. We use a bassinet and then we move them to their own rooms. Aside from the first few weeks, mine all slept about 6 to 8 hours and woke one time at night until 6 to 8 weeks. After that, they slept 10 hours. And around 3 to 6 months they started sleeping 12 hours. Breast or bottle, made no difference in the sleep pattern. All of mine were swaddled using a miracle blanket for months on end. My youngest was swaddled for over a year! I believe the swaddle makes the difference for our children.

[Mommy_of_4]

The only child we didn't co sleep with was the first and he woke up bout every 45 minutes until we finally let him cry it out at 11ish months. I tried co sleeping with him but he was such a noisy active sleeper I didn't get any sleep. At least with him in a crib I could get a tiny stretch of sleep before he woke up again. I have co slept with my youngest 3 children and they slept a 30min - 4hr stretch depending on the night. My youngest is 15 months and just started sleeping a 11 hr stretch a few weeks ago.

[Tutor]

My oldest 3 woke about every 2 hours to nurse until they were 8 weeks old. Then they averaged once a night until they were 4-6 months old. By 6 months, they all slept through the night (minimum of 7 hours). Our 4th was similar but shifted about a month later than the older three because he spent the first 2 weeks in NICU before coming home, woke once an hour to eat for a couple of weeks after coming home, then seemed to follow the same pattern as the others and was sleeping through at 6 months. It was a trait for which I was very thankful.

[Rachel]

My oldest was born slightly early, he was up frequently the first month of life. By 7 weeks he was sleeping 6-7 hours and by 4 months 12 hours. When he was waking early on he nursed fairly quickly and went right back to sleep.

 

My middle was full term and sleeping 5-6 hours straight from day one. She would wake around 2am nurse and go right back to sleep. She was just under 6 months when she started sleeping 12 hours straight.

 

My youngest was a week late, spent a brief time in NICU before coming home. He woke once or twice a night (between 7 & 7) until 4 months and then was sleeping 12 hours straight. Of the 3 he was the only one who never had random night waking once he started sleeping through the night.

 

I definitely felt sleep deprived during the early weeks with all my kids but it had little to do with them waking at night.

[fdrinca]

We didn't cosleep with my oldest. Oh, I wish we had. So much wasted time! 

 

He woke every 4-5 hours, but would take FOREVER to get back to sleep, mostly because we hadn't figured it out as parents yet and were still operating on the "what we saw in movies" type of parenting. That is, DH would come in and try to soothe the baby, sometimes with a breastmilk bottle. All he wanted, I'm sure, was to nurse again.

 

This was back when we thought that babies could be "trained" to sleep, that the purpose of breastfeeding was to nourish the baby, and that the baby was manipulating us by crying all night.

 

I regret a few things, but little as much as these early mistakes with my oldest. And while it's absolutely anecdotal and my n=1, I see the difference between DS7 and the other children.

[Gentlemommy]

Mine all refused to sleep alone. Trust me, I tried lol. And I can totally understand that new mom exhaustion...dd1 was a horrific sleeper. For her first 10-12 months-

She slept no longer than 20 minutes. Ever. When she woke up, she was happy and AWAKE. There was no shushing, nursing, lulling, rocking, bouncing, swinging her back to sleep. For 2-6 hours. Luckily, she only nursed for 3-5 minutes, so that wasn't the issue. And yes, I tried forcing her to continue nursing, thinking she wasn't getting full enough to last longer...she refused. I kept trying until the day I pumped five ounces on one side in two and a half minutes. She was also not content to be in a swing, bouncer, car seat, or any other baby holding device. She wanted to be in arms, moving, and seeing the world. She did not want me to hold her and sit. Or stand still. It got much better when she learned to crawl at five months, and then better again when she learned to walk at ten months.

I was completely spent. The exhaustion turned into depression. I lost a ton of weight...I'm 5'10", medium build, and was wearing a size two pants, and they were saggy. Not a good time.

My other two were much better, although not sleeping eight hours until well after a year. My dd3(turned 4 today) still wakes up 1-2 times per night. We just make really cruddy sleepers.