When did your DD/DS start STTN?

[cc8]

I know parents' sleep depravation and newborns go hand in hand but I'm hoping that our DD will eventually start STTN.

Question is: When did your DD/DS start STTN and what do you consider STTN?

[lee60657]

DD started STTN at about 2 mths... she was going down around 10 or so and getting b/t 5-6 so I considered that STTN. She has STTN since then, only now she goes down around 7:30 or 8 and sleeps until around 6:30 or 7.

[dana b]

10 months -- sleeping from 9pm to 7am.

[BTB]

I know "books" consider STTN to be 5 or 6 hours, but in my head true STTN is more like 8 hours. :)

DD slept though the night for the first time the night she turned two months old, but then she waited a while to do it again. Right before she turned four months old she started consistently sleeping from 8 pm - 4 or 5 am, nursing, then going back to sleep until 7 or 7:30.

[SiValleySteph]

I'm still waiting and my son is 11 months. :eek:

He did sleep from about 10pm to 5am for about 2 months around 2-3 months old. I considered that STTN. Unfortunately, he started waking up at 3AM on his own and then regressed to even more wake ups. On a good night he will sleep a 5-6 hour stretch, but more typically his longest stretch will be 4 hours.

[SiValleySteph]

I always feel crappy reading these threads because everyone else's kiddos seem to just start STTN and mine still doesn't. :(

Some day...

[Marisa]

Not yet, though he has done it a handful of times. Not at all since starting solids and getting teeth. So I guess it's been a year since the last time he's done it.

He's 19 months.

(Feel better, Steph? :))

[BTB]

FWIW, I should specify she didn't start STTN spontaneously. It was something we worked toward, she wasn't just 'easy' - in fact, she used to be colicky (I always feel bad admitting that, like I'm supposed to have nothing but good things to say about my little girl - so I'll also say she was still the apple of her momma's eye nonetheless.) :)

[dal]

My first started STTN at 6 months when I sleep trained her. She slept 7pm-about 6am.

My second started STTN at around 5 months or 5.5 months. She sleeps from 6:45pm-about 6-6:30am.

[cgmom313]

At about 2mths she was sleeping from 10a -6pm and did that for awhile, and now at 5 mths she is back to waking up at around 3pm or so. I think she is teething. Some days she wakes up and other she doesn't.

Like this past week, she was sleeping from 9p-6a and last night she woke up at 3p and was ready to play. Really didnt want a bottle, didnt seem like her teeth were bothering her, she was just smiling and cooing. I tried not to laugh but I thought is was funny. I didnt think it was so funny when it was still 5a and she wasnt back to sleep.

I think it is a roller coaster ride the first 2 years until they have teethed and been completly broken from the bottle. And of course every kid is different.

Steph - There is hope, my SIL has a 2 year old and she has finally begun sleeping through the night. She woke up at least 2 - 3 times a night until she was one and finally now she hit 2 and is sleeping through the night. My SIL said she never did anything different it just started happening.

[Winter Biscuit]

For us, it was around 7.5 months. She was STTN by the textbook definition, meaning she was sleeping more than 5 hours at a stretch. I don't remember exactly when she started doing that. In my mind, she didn't STTN until I didn't have to wake up to nurse her! ;) I only remember that this occured around 7.5 months because I specifically remember waking up SO engorged because she hadn't woken for a nighttime feeding :eek:

So according to my own definition, DD stopped waking for a feeding during the night around 7.5 months. FWIW, my DD was breastfed on demand, I did not discourage any nighttime feedings, she didn't have solids until after she was 6 months, and we did not use any sleep training at all until after she was 1. Many of my friends who chose to FF their kids reported that their kids were STTN much earlier.

[SiValleySteph]

(Feel better, Steph? :))

Yes.

:p

Okay, we don't do CIO, so maybe that could have something to do with it. Although, we don't have any problem getting DS to go to sleep, so I don't see how CIO would help. Anyways, it doesn't matter because we're not doing that, it's doesn't feel right for us. I think he's having teething pain. He's waking crying (not waking and then crying because he wants attention) and I just can't leave him when he is distraught like that.

I do figure he'll sleep through the night at some point. College maybe? :)

[Marisa]

My mom always said that you're either complaining b/c you can't get the kid to sleep, or you're complaining that you can't wake the kid up. :)

We didn't do any CIO either, and regardless of whether I believe in it or not, I don't think it'd be right for us either. Joey does go to sleep fine, he just wakes at night 2-3 times. If he cuddles up to nurse he goes right back to sleep, but if we try to talk to him/pat his back/etc, he's up and wide awake. I feel that if we tried to use CIO in the middle of the night at this point, he'd just work himself into a fury, which seems counterproductive. So we've decided not to fight it, we all get more sleep this way. :)

[RileyMom]

Steph - Mine didn't start STTN until a few months before her 2nd birthday. She still cries out in the night occasionally. Usually I go soothe her and end up falling asleep in her bed with her (which DH has been on my case about) :o But generally she sleeps from 8:00pm to 6:30 am.

[Littlelamb11]

The textbook STTN-5 hours straight she hit around 6 months when she dropped herself down to only one feeding at night. (DD was small and ate in very small quantities. she truly was hungry at night.) The straight through 8pm-7:30am started at 10 months.

oh also, we're non-CIOers. :)

[BTB]

We don't CIO either. I just can't stomach it.

DD's first STTN - the one at 2 months - actually, that was spontaneous, so I take that part back. She hates the car, and had screamed most of the way home from Grandma's (even with me in the backseat with her). It's a 2-hr trip, so I think she was just utterly exhausted. :( But when she picked it back up again about a month ago, that was after almost a couple weeks of gentle 'work'.

A week after she turned 2 months, we had a well-baby visit, and her pediatrician asked me if she was taking naps. I just stared at the doc - in mom/baby world at that time, life was all occurring in 3-hr cycles, and the concept of "nap" just did not compute as it would've required a differentiation between day and night, an organized sleep stretch and then little 'satellite' sleeps.

Right after she turned 3 months we instituted a bedtime routine, got better at watching for signs of readiness, consistently put her down in her crib (though I was a bit sad to give up co-sleeping, not much of the sleeping part was occurring anyway), got her up and active and in bright light first thing in the AM once she woke up on her own, and gently worked on feeding intervals during the day so that more of her daily food needs would be met during waking hours. It was kind of a hodgepodge of sleep guru techniques, fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants based on what was working, but never with any CIO. If she cries at all, we pick up and re-soothe. Just as assurance for all those sleepy moms of young babes out there, that you can "sleep-train" without crying (the baby, or you). ;)

I know she's young, and we have a long way to go, and many hurdles to mount. I like 'night' so much now I'm always a little worried we'll go back to random 3-hr cycles! But actually accomplishing a parenting goal once gave me some confidence I might be able to do it again, and that's priceless for a mom of a colicky babe when for a good stretch there n-o-t-h-i-n-g we did seemed to make one bit of difference. :o

[ellybelle]

At 21 mos, my DD still wakes up once a night. One of us brings her into the bed, and I nurse her until she's drowsy (about 5-10 minutes, and then put her back in her crib.
We didn't do any CIO either, and regardless of whether I believe in it or not, I don't think it'd be right for us either. Joey does go to sleep fine, he just wakes at night 2-3 times. If he cuddles up to nurse he goes right back to sleep, but if we try to talk to him/pat his back/etc, he's up and wide awake. I feel that if we tried to use CIO in the middle of the night at this point, he'd just work himself into a fury, which seems counterproductive. So we've decided not to fight it, we all get more sleep this way. :)

We tried a few approaches as well (including CIO) , and none of them worked to get DD to go back to sleep. This works for us for now. If she's still waking up at night when she gets older and can understand sleep rules, I'll try using stickers and such.

[MrsT]

My DS did the textbook 5-6 hours at 10 weeks (spontaneously) and continued doing that until about 14-15 weeks when he started teething. He now goes for the longest stretch about 4 hrs at 6 months. To be honest, I haven't felt sleep deprived since about 10 weeks (when we got good at side-lying) because we co-sleep and I don't even REALLY wake up when he does. He goes for about 12 hours at night though (just not straight through) and since I SAH, I get to be in bed for those 12 hours too (this helps with sleep deprivation :))

[emschwar]

Noah's 16.5 months and not STTN yet. He's done it a handful of times. (FWIW, I consider STTN sleeping from bedtime to morning without me having to go into him.) We've done CIO, but not in the middle of the night. It's just too hard to sit there and listen to it then, when I could go in with some milk and get him back to sleep.

[cc8]

OMG there is a HUGE variance re: when babies start STTN. Oy vey. Hopefully our DD will start STTN sooner rather than later. Thanks for your input!

PS: Is CIO "cry it out"?

[carolc]

About 9 or 10 months, I think, by my definition. (Goes to bed before I go to bed and doesn't wake up till we're up for the day.) Much earlier than that *on occasion* by the "medical" definition--5 hours at a stretch. But dude, when those 5 hours are between 10 pm-3 am, that's not "through the night" in my book.

We used CIO after nursing (as in, she had been nursed and just wanted to be up, and would not go down without an hour or so of singing and rocking in the middle of the night) at around 5-6 months, I think. It took about 3-5 nights. 10 months was when we used CIO to night-wean, although I hesitate to even call it CIO. She was waking once for a 5 am quick nurse then, and she barely would nurse. I didn't go into her for a few nights, she whined and complained for about 5 minutes, and then that was the end of it and she just nursed when she woke up.

I was always fine with nursing once, twice, or three times in the night. What I wasn't fine with was the extended dance remix of "get the baby back to sleep."

[lee60657]

Yes, CIO means Crying It Out...at least that is what I have always thought! Speaking of CIO, not to get off topic too much or start a heated debate, but what exactly do you consider to be CIO? I am curious. I do let DD (who is 6 mths) fuss and cry for no more then 5 minutes when going down for her naps ( I don't do this at bedtime, b/c she always goes down w/o crying...for whatever reason naps are harder!) if she does not stop crying by about 5 min I go to her, soothe and pick her up. Is the CIO?

[vjel]

my dd started technically STTN (5-6hr stretches) around 4mos. that's when we decided to put her in her own room and crib since I only had to get up once a night to BF. As soon as we did that, she REALLY started to STTN from roughly 6-6.

personally, I consider CIO when dd is SCREAMING bloody murder for more than 10min. If she fusses or does a weak/whiny cry, for 5-10min. I don't consider that CIO.

[twinnyme]

When did your DD/DS start STTN?, DD started spontaneously STTN at about 8 weeks (about 10 hours a night). Then she started to wake up in the middle of the night and we fed her on demand (FF). She didn't STTN again until 5.5 months - July 1st - and ever since. We did do some sleep training. We're going on two months tomorrow (with the exception of a couple of bad teething nights, and one week of the stomach flu), and I thank my lucky stars for it. She typically goes to bed between 6 and 8 and typically sleeps until 5 or 6 (lately, sometimes, 6:30!). So between 11 and 12 hours a night total.

[gizzyntaz]

Never. DS is 8 months. I don't anticipate him doing it until AT LEAST 18 months or so. I'm willing to wait for him to do it in his own time. I think before this last round of teething began I got a night with a 6 hour stretch. I'm usually happy with some 3 hour stretches. When he's teething I get nowhere near that. It's okay (as long as I know he's teething ;) ).

We cosleep and don't CIO.

[BTB]

what exactly do you consider to be CIO?

That's a really good question - I've wondered too, where the line is. DD will make little noises, and then they become little fusses, and I don't want to rush in and reinforce the idea that fussing means a rescue, but I don't want her to cry either. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's a whine, and what's a cry, so I try to err on the side of caution. If I feel at all bad listening to her, I go get her.

[catmom]

Hmmm... it's so hard to remember. DD has almost always had a 4-5 hour stretch, even as a newborn. My memory (and this is hazy) is that she started sleeping 8-9 hours at around 3 or 4 months, and now (5.5 months), she sleeps a long stretch of 9-12 hours (though she went 13.5 once!) However, since she goes to be super early (tonight at 4:30, usually between 5-6), I still have to get up once with her most nights, but it is very unusual for her to wake up more than once at night. Although the last few nights she's been up for 1-2 hours in the middle of the night, but I think that may be teething-related.


eta: I see people are talking about CIO... I usually nurse her to sleep, and if she doesn't fall asleep I try putting her in her crib. Frequently she will just thrash around and talk to herself for 15 or 20 minutes and then go to sleep. She has a very specific "come get me" noise (we call it a "quack"), and if she does that I figure she isn't tired enough to go to bed and we wait half an hour and then try again. Since I know she CAN fall asleep on her own if she's tired enough, if she's having trouble I assume she just isn't sleepy enough for bed. Of course we run into real trouble if we wait to long and she's overtired.

[AlisonCO]

5-6 hours = 6 months (1 stretch per night then waking after 2-3 hours)
8-10 hours = 11 months

No CIO here which for us meant fussing, moving, talking etc was fine but no actual crying.

[Natrat80]

My DD is 2.5 months and she has been sleeping for 5 or 6 hour stretches for a few weeks now. Last night she slept for 8 hours! :eek: I couldn't believe it! That was the first night I haven't had to get up and feed her during my sleep time.

FWIW I maximize my sleep time by doing a dream feed. If DD goes down around 8, then at 11pm I will pick her up and nurse her (she never wakes up) and then lay her back down. That buys me a few more hours of uninterrupted sleep. When I first heard about dream feeds I thought it wouldn't work, that she'd wake up and be up, but one night I tried it and she slept through the whole thing. I've been doing it ever since! Hope that helps!

[BooeyJ2]

DD started sleeping through the night (more than 6 1/2 hours) at about 6 weeks old. Of course not every single night after that was solid STTN, but majority was. Even as a newborn she never woke up more than twice a night (meaning after 10:00pm and before 7:00am). We got super lucky. At 2 month old we started having her sleep in her crib and then she REALLY started sleeping through the night (9+ hours). I think she slept better because she didn't hear us moving around, getting up to go pee or hearing the TV, ect.

My nephew didn't STTN *ONCE* until he was 8 months old. My sister was up every 2-4 hours EVERY night with him. I can't imagine :(

[maggieb]

My definition of STTN is goes to bed at bedtime and doesn't wake up and/or need help getting back to sleep until morning.

My definition of CIO is hard crying for more than 20 minutes until they go to sleep.

Helena didn't STTN until she was 10 mos old and we did use CIO to help her. Just like carol I didn't mind getting up to nurse her, but what I did mind was the inordinate amount of time it was taking to get her back to sleep afte nursing her.

Marisa is almost 8 weeks old and has slept one 5hr stretch and one 6hr stretch at night. No consistency just yet, but I'm hoping that I learned from my mistakes with Helena and that Marisa will STTN earlier than 10 mos.

[Allegra]

I'm still waiting and my son is 11 months. :eek:

.

Hahahahahaha... snort. snicker.

sorry. I'm right there with you. That was the hysterical laughter of a totally sleep deprived wedding photographer. bleah.

Typical night-day goes thusly:

down around 8 PM in her crib
up around midnight (nursed back to sleep in rocker recliner or co sleep in bed)
up around 5-6 AM - wants to play. Dad takes over. brings her back to bed when he has to leave (around 7:30 AM) nurse her to sleep
get up around 8:30-9
play
nurse/nap 11ish til 12
play
2-3 nap
play
5-6 nap
play

I think perhaps she's getting too much sleep during the day but when we try to drop a nap - man she turns into a crank.

So.

FWIW.

You're not alone.

Marisol is 9 months old next week BTW. We've started a modified CIO program this week because it's been impossible to put her down at night. She'll go to sleep, so we KNOW she's tired, but the minute I put her down, she wakes right back up and HOWLS. sigh. I'm not happy about it but I'm kind of at my wits end. We need the couple time. My hubby had two crying ladies in the house the first time this week - I was bawling. We only let her cry 10 minutes this week and then go in. So far within ten minutes, she's gone to sleep once and the other two times, we've gone in to reassure her/nurse again. There is a definate tone to her cries that we can tell whether she's just being fussy or she's really panicing. Not sure if we'll keep this up but I agreed to try it for two weeks. We'll see.

Allegra

[Wilsmom]

DS didn't STTN until he was 20 months, which also happened to be when I weaned him. Until then, he had never slept more than 3-4 hours straight. We are also non-CIO.

[amom]

My son started sleeping through the night consistently at 5 months.

My daughter started at 4 weeks -- I swear. She was sleeping up to 12 or 13 hours a night from 4 weeks until she turned 6 months. Unfortunately she's now 11 months (almost) and hasn't slept through the night in 5 months.

[knzbound]

We had some good luck in the beginning and DD slept through the night or nearly at around 2 months. She went to bed around 6:30, was up to nurse around 4am and back down until 6 or 7. Unfortunately, that only lasted months 2-6, then she started night waking two to three times per night until we ST'd at 9 months.

[jewamese]

My definition of STTN is no wake ups from the time you put your baby down 'til time to get up (9.5-12 hours). My DD averages about 10.5 hours now.

My DD woke a gajillion times from birth to 9 mos.--when we had her CIO. It took 3 nights. First night, she cried for 45 mins. I know you guys are probably sick to your stomach, but she cried pretty much all day & all night (she was colicky & has a very persistent personality). We were really proud of her that it was only 45 mins. Second night, she cried for less than 5. And, the last night, she let out one protest cry and was out in a few seconds. After having her CIO, she went from waking almost every 1.5 hours and staying awake for a couple of hours to only waking once or twice. I didn't do anything about those wake ups bc she did go down easily after having a bottle. And, after 9 mos of no sleep and being a zombie, I could totally deal with 1 or 2 quick wake ups.

She continued 1 or 2 wake ups until she was about 14-14.5 mos with intermittent STTN. She dropped her wakings on her own--slowly. :p

FWIW, the only reason we used CIO was that at 8 mos, she started to pull-up and try to get out of our bed. We had to start having her sleep in her crib bc it was too dangerous to leave her on a queen-sized bed (my DD and I were in the guest bedroom bc I didn't think both my husband and I should be sleep deprived).

CIO was the best thing that happened to all of us. Just sayin'.

[gizzyntaz]

Allegra - Could Marisol be teething? She sounds like what Alan is when he's teething...

- Alison :)

[jki]

DS slept 8 hour stretches at 8 weeks old and 12 hours at 12 weeks old. I always remember distinctly because the number of hours coincided with the number of weeks old. We never had to try CIO (though I am a proponent of it) - he just started STTN on his own. He continues to sleep 10-13 hours per night. I can count the number of times he's woken up in the middle of the night due to illness or teething on one hand. We followed Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and I think that helped tremendously.

[LIZNKEITH]

At about 6 weeks she began sleeping about 5-6 hours at night. At 11 weeks, she is still around 6 hours, but has had a couple of 7-9 hour stretches. I'm hoping to see a few more of those. ;) We also haven't practiced CIO. She just does it on her own. If she stirs, I do a 5-10 minute test. If she starts to cry, I get up. usually she just needs to be changed or needs a little night cap and she's back down for another 3-4 hours.

[Allegra]

Allegra - Could Marisol be teething? She sounds like what Alan is when he's teething...

- Alison :)

We thought it might be that initially so I was quite willing to wait it out but this past couple of weeks, it's pretty obvious that she just wants us there ALL THE TIME. If we leave, then the wailing and mouth/hand stuffing happens. If we're there, she's perfectly fine and content and in no apparent pain. I've really come to believe that she's working us a bit. She's a VERY smart little girl. rolls eyes. Anyway. We'll see how it goes. I told him I would give it a couple of weeks and then we would readdress.

Allegra

[Sarah]

I think DD woke up once until she was about a year old. She woke up twice or so until she was about 6 months, IIRC. It wasn't a big deal- I just got up when she cried, nursed her, fell back asleep.

[marchfamily]

First night - 6.5 months old. Been on and off since....for the last month.

[kmmommy]

DS started STTN at 5 weeks. He would go down around 10pm and sleep until 5:30-6am. He regressed for about a month when I went back to work (12 weeks) but has STTN almost every day since then unless he's sick or is going through a growth spurt and wakes hungry. Both total only a handful of times.

[Phen]

By around 4.5 months, the boys were only waking up once each night to eat, and we noticed that they were really mostly playing and not eating that one time. So around 5 months, we tried to see if they were ready to STTN...and they were (yes, we CIO, but they cried for 10 minutes at the most; I don't think their hearts were in the crying)! They didn't have it down pat for a few weeks, but by 5.5 months, they were champs at it, and still are.

They sleep from 6:30 p.m. 'til 7 the next morning.

~ Phen

[ButterflyJen]

DD didn't start STTN till she was about 10-1/2 months old. (Coincidentally right after we moved into a new place. Don't know what that's about.) And when I say STTN, I mean slept from 8PM till about 5AM, nursed, then went back down for at least a couple of hours. Now she's weaned, and at 12-1/2 mos, she FINALLY sleeps 12 hours at a stretch.