a bad friend or am i normal?

[tiki_mama]

Not sure if this should be here or in the nightwaking bit

My friend has had no routine for her DS (7.5 month old) and did have some problems in the past, but now the little blighter's sleeping from 7.30pm to 6am without a peep!! 

my DD has been on EASY since birth and has never slept longer than 7 hours from bedtime!! it drives me mad!! i'm the one who's done hours of sleep training, sitting on the floor in a heap beside her cot holding her legs down, pat shushing waking to sleep and all that jazz!! she didn't do a thing!!

to be fair to my lo she was less than 6lbs when she was born and we had some problems with B/F in the early weeks so I knew that night feeds would be a long term thing til we got her bit more beefy. she's only about 17lbs now (at 7 months) and her little buddy is a good 5lbs heavier!

last night we tried to go cold turkey in the DF and she woke up at 1am and fed from both boobs. basically it seems she can't go more than 7 hours in the night as previously when she was getting a DF at about 10pm she'd sleep until 5am at the latest

i've tried to up her calorie  intake during the day but she's at that stage where she gets so easily distracted so she doesn't feed well. she's on 3 solid meals a day and i even tried to cut them back a bit in the hope she's take more milk, but she's still not that interested!

is there anything i can do? i'm going to try cutting out the DF gradually by bringing it back 15 minutes at a time every few days but she'll still probably wae up anywhere up to 7 hours later!

don't get me wrong, 1 feed a night is fine with me and i certainly prefer the 5am feed as it gives us all a good long stretch asleep initially and then a few hours after but it really aggrivates me when my friends who have no set routine have babies who sleep through (although her DS does get fed to sleep ...meow!!!) will she ever sleep from bedtime through to morning? is it a weight issue? if she got enough calories would she sleep longer or is it perhaps habitual now? help?!?

[Samuel's mum]

I should move this post to night wakings as you say but it sounds as though you would like a bit of sympathy from folks on this board so...
HUGS (if you want more practical solutions later I could move the post to night wakings after a few more hugs!)

Yes, it's not bloody fair. Your consolation is that your LO will have comfort and security from her structure and independence and to be honest your friend who is feeding her baby to sleep (meow) almost certainly has the difficult bit still to go. I am willing to bet they'll be times down the road where she will have some struggles as all of us do. She'll need good friends with wise words then.

Some babies seem to sleep through after only a few weeks with absolutely no prompting at all. Other take months of support or really do seem to be hungry in the night.

If it makes you feel at all better - some mums would say your 10pm to 5am is sleeping through (infact it 'technically' is) and be very very jealous - even at 7.5 months.

More hugs
Here's hoping your 'distracted' phase doesn't last long and more calories helps.

[linfran]

Sending lots of hugs - there's no justice, is there?

The way I would look at it is that you have established a routine for your child and that will stand her in good stead.  My ds is nearly six months old and is now starting to realise what happens next during the day, particularly at bedtime and it makes life so much easier.  A friend of mine has done everything on demand with her kids (who are five and two) and now seems to have a problem with setting boundaries such as mealtimes and bedtimes - you could phone her at 10pm and the kids are still leaping round the place with no sign of them going to bed!  I just wonder what'll happen when they have to go to school!

So, I would take heart, and think of the old story about the tortoise and the hare - you could be benefitting your child far more than you realise in the long run.

But for the meantime.....yes it stinks!!!!!

[jbepko]

HUGS!
Its not fair.....but I'll play the devil's advocate...maybe your friend is "boasting" or over-emphasizing how well her child is doing? I think 10:00 to 5:00 in a 7 month old is pretty good- some do better/some do worse- and that's pretty darn good. Your work and dedication to sleep independence will pay off down the road.

[First Time Mom]

Hugs!

I can tell you it's not related to weight, my dd was 13.5 pounds at 8 months and has her last feed at 10ish and sleeps through until 7ish. She's bf 5x in a day and has 3 meals of solids though doesn't take too much solids, has just increased her amounts recently. I am still doing the df but only because my ped said to continue for this month (wants to see if it'll help her gain weight).

 My dd was waking at 5am for a while until I shortened her day naps- she has a 1.5 hour morning nap and a 45 minute afternoon nap- the first day I shortened her morning nap from 2 hours to 1.5 she woke later the next morning so it made a huge difference for her. She is starting to teeth and has woken in the night due to this, also I had my period for the first time and for a few days she didn't take a bf meal- instead she "snacked" all day long and woke in the night- I found these 2 reasons to be other reasons for nws as well.

[Nikki~Nathanamp;Danielle]

And I'm just going to say - having two children who have both been EASYed from the start, my ds slept through "like the book says" by 3mths and my dd, well she only slept through the night at 12mths despite doing all the same stuff like not feeding to sleep, napping well etc etc - I just couldn't believe it - a lot of it comes down to different children as well as the "skills" the book provides. So in saying that, please don't think that BW is superior to her way - we all make different parenting choices (and sometimes we just fall into doing something and it may work or it may not work either) we live and we learn. It's not that her way is bad or that she should automatically have a crapper sleeper because of it. And as another poster said, she may still have the worst to come (or may not...). I found the best thing I did when dd just wasn't sleeping through with using all the "right" techniques was to just accept her as she is and know that when the time was right she was going to sleep through - I found letting it go and going with the flow the best thing for my own head.

If your friend did BW I suspect you would still feel put out that she got it to work and you didn't (don't worry, I'm not being nasty, because I've had to try my best not to compare dd who wasn't the good sleeper with ds who was even with the same techniques being used kwim?). But yes, it still stinks! 

[daisymelan]

I can only offer more

{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}

It isn't fair.  I struggled for ages to get my little guy to go down at nights.  For months literally.  I just didn't understand why he could do naps so well, but night sleep was such a struggle for him to enter.  I eventually accepted it and countered it in my mind by recognizing his great disposition and all the other wonderful things he does.  They each have their little quirks.... wish I could help you tank up your dd.  The time will come though.

[deb]

Oh, {{{{HUGS}}}} to you! It's normal to be jealous when you've gone through all the work and feel like you haven't got the prize (sleeping through) to show for it. Try not to let it consume you, though; normal or not, it's just not constructive, just eats away at you. All you can do is raise and love the child God gave you. I try to look at it as being given opportunities to learn things about my kids and myself that I didn't before, and that usually helps. (that and the Paxil  )

Josie didn't sleep through (except when she was extra-tired) till OVER a year old, but Nat's been sleeping through since what, 5-6 months? (except when she's sick or now when she gets so thirsty in the hot summer) She was MUCH MUCH harder to get to fall asleep on her own, though, and she still needs more help than Josie did at the same age. She's a total chow-hound during the day; she HAS to be burning calories right and left, which would also make a difference. The two girls just are so different in many many ways, and your LO and hers are each going to be their own people too.

I'd look at it this way: having gone through all the sleep training, you know your LO so very very well. You know a lot more of her quirks, what makes her "tick," and SHE knows YOU better too! Sleep training can be SO SO HARD, but hey, it IS "quality time" and you and DD have already gotten it in spades!

Does that help?

[linfran]

The other way of looking at it is think what things could be like if you DIDN'T follow EASY!

[tiki_mama]

I'm cringing now that i've reread my post, but thanks for all your lovely replies 

Last week was really tough for us all. DD had a bad ear infection and now the dentist has confirmed she has 3 teeth coming in at the top!!!
 
I was low most of the time and in tears a lot!  It appears however that it wasn't just all of my lo's tears of pain and night wakings that were making me feel bad...yesterday I got my first period for over a year and a half (had ivf to get pregnant so periods stopped when that started!)!!!

I guess this is relevant to the B/F forum cause I thought I wouldn't get a period til I stopped B/F my DD but it seems that 7 months is a common time to start, as my friend (the one I was so horrible about!) got hers at the same time in her DS's 7th month!

Anyway, I fee a whole lot better and I am more determined than ever to stick to EASY to make my lo's teething seem less traumatic   

[daisymelan]

 

[linfran]

You've no need whatsoever to cringe!

Sometimes it just seems like one thing after another, it gets to you after a while.