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I agree with you angelbebe.. but I am a SAHM... I don't know how anxious I'd be to get my lo to sleep through the night if I was working. But I also have been extremely lucky with my DS. He only wakes between 4 and 6 am to eat. If he wanted to wake up more, I wouldn't mind it. My dd would sometimes wake up every two hours for feedings. What ever they need. :)

Exactly. I am a SAHM too, so this is an easier statement for us to make. Plus, yeah, my dd will wake around
3:30-4, sometimes earlier for a quick feed and by then I've already had 6 hours of sleep and can go back to bed afterwards.

I am a working mom. I dont' "Push" my dd to sleep through the night. I am happy if she does, but if she gets up, then she needed something. Most of the time it is to be fed. I breastfeed and they say that breastfed babies dont sleep as well as formula ones, but my dd is 4 1/2 mos and she only gets up once if at all. She sleeps through tow or three times a week and then gets up once to eat the rest of the time. I am cool with that since it is alone time I get with jsut her. It had to get that during the day as I also have a two year old. Just an opinion from a working mom (who would rather be a stay at home mom, but we like liing indoors.....ha, ha.! I envy those who get to stay home, and also praise you for not going completely insane!)

my dd has never been a "good" sleeper, for 7 months she has gotten up 3 times a night at the very least for cuddle and breast feed. I did try CIO for three days but I ended up with a cranky, fearful (soo clingy), unhappy baby that instead of waking every few hours was up every hour crying so that didnt work. I since then have come to terms with my not so great sleeper and began to enjoy our time together at night then recently she started to sleep through the night on her own and at almost 8 months she sleeps from 9:15 - 5:30 (she eats at 5:30) and then she'll sleep again until 7:30. I wish I had known all along her sleep habits would work themselves out because I woul dhave spent less time worrying about the situation and more time just enjoying the time at night, now that its gone I enjoy my sleep but I miss the cuddles!

i'm with you, harmony...you know i let lexi eat/sleep whenever she wants. :D i 've noticed that too, moms wanting to know how to get babies to sleep through the night. i personally think they do it when they are ready and no longer need night feedings. i guess the question that stands out in my mind is " how do you define WHEN they no longer need night feedings?" i mean, if a baby wakes up and acts hungry, then he/she IS hungry..does that ever really go away? i know i wake up hungry sometimes in the middle of the night, so why wouldn't an infant with a WAY smaller tummy. and especially with breastfeeding , she digests it so fast. i don't mind getting up. i stay at home now , even though i am going to school part time, but even when i had carter and worked all the time, i was the exact same way. being a mom is a hard, exhausting, unpredictable job.. but we will get to sleep through the night again, it's just a matter of time!

Yeah, Emily-I shouldn't have used the word "push". No one here I'm sure would consider themselves to "push" anything on their babies (well, maybe some! : ) ). And I agree, Heather, about all the worrying...we all want to do everything "right". I actually enjoy the night feeding. She is so cute when I come get her out of bed and she smiles and smiles and I can tell more than anything she really just wants a good snuggle, but she always eats a full feeding too.

I certainly don't believe in pushing, but if a baby is napping for 4 hours at a time during the day and only sleeps for 2 hours at a time at night, I think some schedule tweeking is in order. As a mom of a preemie, I would never force my baby to sleep thru hunger. However, at some point the longest "nap" of the day should occur during nightime hours.

Meh, I'm in no hurry either. James wakes up about 4 times at night for a small feed. I believe he is truly hungry for most of them, because he snacks throughout the day, never had a huge feed. Breastfed also. My mom thinks I should just let him "starve" until he's hungry enough to eat a big meal so that his tummy stays full longer, but that's not my style. Though reading through my own babybook and seeing I slept throught he night from 1 month on.. gets a little depressing, but she was feeding me things I wouldn't even think of feeding James. Grits, ice cream, cows milk at 3 months, chocolate chip cookies... it's strange really because my breastfed son who eats very little solids weighs way more than I ever did as a baby. Oh well, I'm sure Jamesw ill sleep trhough one of these days, hopefully before he's in college, but in the meantime, I'm not worried about it.

I will be the black sheep and say I am READy for my dd to sleep thru!! She will be 10 mos on the 23rd of this month, and has slept thru quite a bit, but she will go one week sleeping thru, another week waking once, and another week up every hour. I jsut dont' know what I am doing wrong/ different. I am a working mom, so it is hard not getting much sleep and having to give 100% everyday to everyone at work after getting 2-3 hrs sleep ( if you total up every 1/2 hr at a time!)

I think its hardest when they are switching back and forth. you get used to getting up and it becomes a routine but when they flip flop its hard.

The only reason I want my dd to sleep as long as she can at night is because she is very tired and cranky in the morning if she doesn't get enough sleep. Sometimes she has trouble getting back to sleep if she wakes up at 4 or 5 in the morning even though she is clearly very tired still. I think some babies need a little "push" in the right direction for their own well-being. =) I do see your point though, and I am not offended. I am a sahm also.

I agree Em. I get spoiled when she sleeps good for a week or so straignt. I start thinking FINALLY!!! Then, the next week, she is back up again!! I just dont' get it!!

As a SAHM I didn't really push my son to sleep through the night, but my biggest reason in desperately wanting him to was so that his two sisters would quit waking up when he did. At ages 7 and 4, one or the other would come and crawl into my side of the bed while I was up feeding him. I'd put him back down and have another to coerce back to bed! LOL!!! What is odd is I don't remember them ever waking up and getting up on the same night! They just decided I guess to take turns. My 7 year is in school all day so that became an issue with her waking up some at on random nights.

oh i tell you, i dont know what i think about this topic anymore, i flip flop so much! my dd is nearly 9 months and we had a good run between 4-6 months where she slept really well, but for the past couple months her sleep has been a disaster. Of course alot has been going on, learning to crawl, teeth emerging, her first cold/ear infection etc. But i go from wanting to be there and rock her whenever she needs me, to thinking she needs some sleep training. I am SAHM but wow do i get tired sometimes. I have historically been anti-CIO, mostly b/c I am just not up for it, not b/c I think it is a fundamentally bad technique. Like Heather F. I am trying to come to terms that my dd just isnt the greateast sleeper and that;s just the way it is. I myself slept through the night when I was one week old and I was a thumbsucker so I could self soothe, but my dd is a highstrung baby and a whole different ball of wax! It is frustrating how all over the map she is with her sleeping, but she 's my sweetie and i love everything about her, even when she gets me up 4 times a night!

The only reason I have ever had for my ds to sleep all night is so I could sleep myself sounds selfish I know but I work and it is hard to get up and go if I don't get to sleep....I have not had a tough time w/ my ds sleeping thru the night though guess I am lucky but I did not force him too he just does...and if he wakes up I check him and do whatever he needs to get him back to sleep.

I think it depends on the situation and the child. With Mason, we heavily "pushed" him to sleep through the night, and at a very young age as well (though he was more than large enough). Of course we did this on the urging of both the pediatrician and his GI doctor he sees for tummy issues. Am I happy we did it? Oh YES! But there is good and bad to it. Mason goes to sleep happily. I lay him down, give him his paci and his little lovey blanket, and he rolls right into it and goes to sleep. Never a fuss. He wakes up happily playing and so excited to see us. For Mason, it was the right choice. Prior to CIO his sleep habits were all out of whack from his tummy issues and when he does not get a good sleep he is one cranky baby! I too was worried about him being hungry at night but I was reassured many times over by his GI...and since that is her area I guess she would know. ;).................On the flip side, recently he got a bad tummy virus. I was afraid for him to sleep alone so we coslept for a few days and oh how I enjoyed that so much. :) It was so special to sleep with him. :) I would LVE to continue it, but the reality for me is that we both need our sleep and I would rather keep him with his good habits. The only downside of cosleeping or gettign up throughout the night past the small infant stage...is that at some point you may have no choice but to enforce the issue (unless you want to be on Super Nanny because you cosleep with your 4 year old, lol). I think it is harder to enforce it when they are older. So I guess it just really depends on your situation. I do not think either way ir right or wrong...and since all the "experts" can't seem to agree either, lol, I'd say to just use your mommy intuition.