On my Ask Ellie 5.0 post, one of you asked how Little Buddy sleeps. He started sleeping through the night at about two months, which was amazing, but he has gone through several sleep regressions. He went through a big regression at around five months old that lasted quite a while, but when he overcame that, he slept through the night for about a year.
Just before he turned two, we transitioned him out of our room. Until that point, he had been in a pack and play in the corner and was sleeping wonderfully, but we knew it was time for him to be in a full-sized crib in his own space. For a while after that transition, we kept the pack and play set up in our room because he would often wake up in the middle of the night and request to come sleep in his “little bed.”
We let that slide for a few months and tried to brainstorm how to break the habit. One day, my mother-in-law suggested removing the pack and play so he would stop asking to sleep in it. I didn’t expect it to be that simple, but it was.
A few months later, when Little Buddy was about two-and-a-half, he started waking up most nights, sometimes a couple times, and that has continued. I would say he only sleeps through the night about 25-30% of the time. Thankfully we don’t usually have trouble getting him back to sleep in his own bed. He often just wants to be tucked back in.
Littlest Buddy also started sleeping through the night at around two months old, although his stretches have always been shorter than his older brother’s were. For the past couple months, Littlest Buddy has been waking up every couple hours, but he usually goes right back to sleep after I put his pacifier in. Every once in a while I have to feed him in the middle of the night, but most nights he goes about seven hours without eating.
The photo shoes Littlest Buddy’s setup in our room. It’s a pack and play that has the mattress raised up (helps save my back when I have to reach in multiple times a night to replace the pacifier) and a changing table above.
If you have kids, did/do they sleep through the night in their toddler years?
Anonymous
I kept a bassinet in the master bedroom for the first few months but after that, it was straight to a crib in another bedroom, then a toddler bed there. There was no question or debate about where you (the child) were supposed to sleep. I adjusted or eliminated naps and pushed the bedtime til later. So when it was time to get in your crib or bed, that was it, no restlessness or sleepless nights. I don’t understand how your setup pictured allows for proper air circulation necessary to avoid SIDS. You have half that mattress covered over with something. It’s like that all night? It doesn’t seem safe.
Ellie
So the changing table is clipped on a foot above the mattress. It’s a really awesome pack and play setup from Graco. The pattern is the pack and play mattress. It’s a breathable material. The striped blanket is just a cover for the changing pad.
Anonymous
Amazing that your infants sleep long stretches! Any advice you could share?? My 3 year old slept fantastically between 12 months and 2.5 years. I don’t think she ever once woke in the night during that time. But, she started waking after that point. Someone suggested for me to put her in an adult sized bed with a comfortable mattress and normal bedding…totally fixed the problem. I was happily surprised. My 2 year old has never once slept through the night and still breastfeeds every 3-4 hours during sleep hours.
Ellie
I’m definitely not an expert, and I think every child is different. 🙂 I found some helpful tips about feeding schedules in the “Babywise” method. Maybe others could chime in with some advice?
Anonymous
Both my kids slept started sleeping through the night at three weeks old. They slept in a crib in our bedroom only for the first week or so. They then slept in their own bedrooms, which were the rooms next to us. We had a baby monitor next to our bed so we were comfortable doing that. As toddlers they rarely woke up during the night. We would have our bedtime routine (bath, book, prayers), and then it was time to sleep. We explained that we sleep so we have energy to do fun things the next day. If they needed us, they should call out to us, not get out of bed. We had a small house so we would be able to hear them.
Anne
So sweet Little Buddy just wants to be tucked in again. I don’t know if Littlest Buddy is big enough to put a paci in himself, but when he gets to that stage it might be helpful to have a lot of pacifiers in the crib at night! My seventeen month old sleeps with about 7 every night, mostly glow in the dark. I found the Taking Cara Babies sleep program immensely helpful! She has a blog and Instagram with lots of tips.
Ellie
That’s a great point! He’s not old enough yet, but maybe soon. I also love glow in the dark pacifiers. And one of my sisters in law did the Taking Cara Babies course and had been sharing some tips. What are your favorite tips from it?
Anne
The multiple pacifiers in the bed was a great tip, the sound machines and how to use them, difference between nap sleeps and night sleeps, the different developmental stages and a PLAN to implement each night were all so useful! Having a framework in my head for when I was woken up in the middle of the night helped immensely. I appreciated how the course was adaptable to my decision to continue night feedings until I felt they should end (over 1 year). It is seriously worth its weight in gold! A couple friends recommended Babywise to me and I picked up a copy at a used bookstore. I think I loosely followed some of it with my first; I don’t remember what prompted me to look up the author online but I’m glad I did. It made some things from my childhood make sense; my parents had implemented some of his teachings. I wish I had Taking Cara Babies at the very beginning, my first one was and still is difficult lol.
Ann
I never put my kid in my room when she was born. Brought her home from hospital put her in her room in a crib. My husband’s would get up to feed her. Sometime I would. She sleep through the night after 1 month.
At 2 years old she sleeps throught the night. She is in a twin bed.
Anonymous
I totally agree with you, my daughter was never in our room either. Parents need privacy!
Trudy
Babies are biologically designed to sleep next to their mothers. This is to facilitate breastfeeding and survival. Would a cave mother have put her baby in a separate cave to sleep in? Of course not, the baby would likely die. It’s only very recently and mostly only in western cultures that babies have been placed in a separate room to sleep. Infant safe sleep guidelines state that having baby sleep in parents room for the first 12 months reduces their risk of SIDS
Anonymous
Years ago, I had twin boys that slept in the same crib. When they outgrew the crib, I seperated them. They would cry and cry, so I pushed the two cribs together, and they would reach out and touch each other and sleep.
Ellie
That is SO sweet! Are they good friends today?
Anonymous
Yes, they are. They even served at the same AF base together, but one recently got out after 6 yrs while the other wants to retire from the AF. But they still live within 30 min of each other until my dil leaves the AF in Nov. They just had a baby, my 1st grandchild, so their son is their priority now. I’m going to see him in 2 weeks; they across the country from me.
Anonymous
My daughter started sleeping through the night at 11 weeks. We’d put her down at 8:00, and she’d sleep until 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. However, I doubt she would have done that if she’d been in our room. She slept in her own room in her crib from day one. I can’t imagine why an almost two year old would need to sleep in his parents room??
Ellie
Wow that’s great! He was sleeping so well at that point (through the night every night), so we didn’t want to make a change that would hurt his sleep.
Elizabeth
My kids also have gone in waves of sleeping.. my four year old right now is in the nightmare stage.
We have a strict “ no kids in our bed” rule by personal choice. It would be extremely hard to break that habit with the personalities of our kids.
However, we also want our kids to know that when they are scared they can come to us. Our compromise is that we kept my child’s old crib mattress and it lives in the corner of our room, so when they are scared they can quietly come and curl up in mom and dads room.
You think the sleep deprivation ends after infancy but we are 4+ years in and have seasons/days of kids 12 hours of sleeping, and seasons of not even close!
Anonymous
Wow! I can’t even imagine not having my babies in the room with me when they were newborns. All three of our children were in a bassinet in our room until they were too big for it. I did put them in their cribs in their own room for naps to get them used to it. Then as they outgrew the bassinet, we moved them to their rooms. By then, they were sleeping through the night for the most part. I didn’t use any kind of program for sleep training. Once they were about two months old, I would give them a pacifier when they woke up. Then the next time that they woke up, I would feed them, so they learned to go longer between feedings. Eventually they would sleep through the night without getting hungry. Every child is different, so do what works for you and for them.