Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Lies
Babies sleep through the night.
Damned Lies
“My baby slept through the night at 1 month.” – a smug parent.
Statistics
- 84% of babies do NOT sleep through the night at 6 months. (study)
- At 12 months 55% of babies wake at night. (study)
- 50% of 12-month-olds require parental intervention to get back to sleep. (study)
- Frequent night waking that disturbs parents is common from 4-12 months (12.7% disturb their parents 3 or more times every night). (study)
Stumble it!
and the 529 college savings accounts get a kickback.
May 15th, 2007 11:29
I think these people who’s babies “sleep through the night” have a very different idea of “through the night” than the rest of the world. H functions quite well on 4 or 5 hours of sleep. I can, but it’s not pretty. woe is me…
In any case, let’s find these mythic babies! and wake them up a few times
May 15th, 2007 11:29
Great post!
I have to admit, my younger daughter, A., is still a snuggle-with-her-mama kind of sleeper, and if she’s alone in her own bed will frequently awaken in the night and seek me out. She does not “sleep through the night”. She is Four. Years. Old.
I am sure it’s possible to train her to sleep alone, but this works OK for me, so I don’t mind. Someday she may not be as interested in being with me, so I plan to just enjoy this as a part of her development.
In spite of how things are these days, this same child actually did sleep 6 hours in a row, fairly frequently when she was about 1-3 months old — at about 4 months old the pattern changed and she didn’t sleep through anymore.
Sleeping through the night is a kind of myth, in my humble opinion. I think it’s not even very clearly defined. 5-6 hours is not really “through the night” but I believe that’s the medical definition often used. And most parents I know, would probably take 6 hours gratefully if that could be attained on a regular basis.
May 15th, 2007 11:30
Jayden slept through the night on his third day.
(Said with a smug face).
BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
He STILL gets up probably 1-2 times a night and he’s almost 2!
Hang in there. I hope today is better. And I tagged you, so pony up some personals. Stop by to see what I mean.
May 15th, 2007 12:22
Oh gosh, Stacie- those statistics stink. I can honestly say none of my kids have slept through the night that early on in life. However, I did start sleep training (I’m a tried and true devoted Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child momma) earlier and earlier with each kid.
I was just telling my friend that I think the twins will be in their own room sooner than the other 2 boys were on their own. We’ll see…. I usually hit the wall at 5-6 months (meaning, I can’t take any more sleep deprivation anymore).
Hope you get a little rest soon…
May 15th, 2007 13:32
I would have given anything for these statistics just a month ago. Hang in there, Stacie. Everything changed for us at about 11 months. Hoping the same for you.
Not that they sleep 12 hours straight, like everyone tells me they would if I let them CIO! They sleep 10 hours. I’m still nursing once per night but *I* pick the time, which makes a huge difference. They sometimes wake up one more time, sometimes not at all. If you’ve been dealing with every-90-minutes nights, like you & I have, this will be a piece of cake.
May 15th, 2007 13:53
Damn Straight!
I personally don’t feel that CIO is healthy and that method doesn’t allow the baby anymore sleep… but maybe the parent is sleeping?
Anyway, I am going to link to this post. I helps just a little bit to hear that it’s “normal”
May 15th, 2007 13:56
Great post!
My DS2 didn’t sleep through the night till he was 12 months. BOY was it a long 12 months!
May 15th, 2007 14:09
Nice to know I’m not alone. All of my friends had babies that slept through the night at 3 or 6 weeks. NONE of mine even began trying to sleep for longer than two or three hours at a time until they were 6 months old. By 11 months, all three of them mostly slept through, but still get a little fussy and need to be changed, or need a bottle. And I HATED people telling me how to get them to sleep through. My babies are all big kids, and needed to eat, eat, eat. They wake up for a reason, and I think that too many people think they shouldn’t get hungry, or that you can “train” them out of it. We just figured it would happen eventually, and it has. I can’t sleep when I’m hungry, I never thought my babies could, either.
May 15th, 2007 14:29
I’ve noticed that sleep issues persist through childhood (well, we’re only as high as age 8 in this house, but so far they persist). It’s not like my 8-year-old wakes 3 times a night, but I mean that even after a baby finally DOES sleep through the night, then there’s peace for awhile followed by waking up in the night with nightmares, followed by peace, followed by can’t get to sleep at night, followed by peace, followed by nightmares, followed by peace, followed by bed-wetting, followed by peace, and so on and so on. Parenting is around the clock; I assume it continues, based on how many anecdotes I hear of the parents of teenagers up all night waiting for them to come home.
May 15th, 2007 14:41
good to know we are normal *&*%!
May 15th, 2007 15:55
I can’t remember which book I read it in, but there was a definition of “sleep through the night”. The author claimed that sleeping more than 5 hours was “through the night”. If that’s true, yeah, MJ does that… occasionally. More often though she’s up every hour or so. Most of the time now she can put herself back to sleep, but I wake up every time she even chirps. I have to go in there usually once every 4 to 5 hours to feed and/or change a diaper. We have had the miracle night of 8-10 straight hours in the past, but those are nights I fantasize about the rest of the month when I’m bouncing like a mad fiend on an exercise ball to get her to calm back down. (The exercise ball is *the only* thing that works.)
Maybe there are some babies out there who sleep 10-12 hour stretches from the time they are 3 weeks old. I’ve never met one. I can only assume that any baby who does that is rather small, i.e. doesn’t need to eat as often. Either that or the parents just don’t hear it when the kid wakes up. *shrug*
May 15th, 2007 16:28
Perhaps the mothers of these mystical babies have made use of some mystical potion that their grannies have past down
May 15th, 2007 22:12
I always thought people were totally full of shit until my kid magically started sleeping at 11 months. Now at 14 months he’s hit several rough patches- molars, current sprained ankle, and just plain obstinacy- but he does pretty much sleep most nights now. I hope tonight’s one of them.
May 16th, 2007 00:25
Sleeping through the night is sometimes a relative term used. My daughter stopped her midnight feed after about a month and a half – and for me that felt like sleeping through the night.
Night waking for her after year – was 4am – getting into our bed. Which some parents think is the worse thing ever.
We consciously decided to share our bed with her- move over to her own room was amazingingly painless (we had really prepared ourselves for the worse – like a few days of sleepless nights- personally I think we just got really lucky)- she stills tries to talk/negotiate her back into our bed – ha-ha.
May 16th, 2007 07:04
It’s so good to know I am not alone in the whole lacking sleep thing. I only have one (7 months old), so I can’t imagine what it’s like with two babies! I have heard that sleeping through the night actually means about 5 hours for a baby. 5 hours of straight sleep sounds like heaven to me Crying it out does not work for me- I can’t take it and she will not go to sleep that way.
It will get better…. it HAS to!
May 16th, 2007 10:11
I have the mythical good sleepers, who started sleeping for 10 hours straight at about 12 weeks. Even so, it’s not uncommon for me to get woken in the middle of the night, especially in the last couple of weeks. I was up at 2:30 with Claire, and Katherine was up at 4 and 6 the previous night, and so on.
If asked, I would certainly say that they sleep through the night, and you may all hate me for it, but we do still have plenty of sleep regressions. (And just so you know that there is justice in the universe, they are crappy nappers.)
May 16th, 2007 10:18
My Little girl was one of those mythical ones who slept through the night early. By 8 weeks, she’d sleep from 10-8. She did this til she was about 9 or 10 months old. Then she got her first cold and the night-waking started. She didn’t start sleeping through again until she was about 15 months and now at almost 19, we still have some issues. Honestly I hope my next doesn’t sleep through early on because it’s so awful to have something so good and lose it!
May 17th, 2007 15:04
My guys STILL wake me up all night. (not to scare you…) I don’t really notice too much and I do get loads of sleep, but it seems like they’re latched on all night long. Luckily, though they get a solid 12 hours per night so I do wake up rested. But, yeah, if I didn’t co-sleep I’d be a wreck. I shudder to think of having to actually leave bed to go nurse someone.
May 21st, 2007 00:47
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May 23rd, 2007 19:13
Fellow AP mom of twins here – saw your link to your blog on the AP Multiples listserv… Thanks for the stats. I quoted your post on my blog. Mine are 2+ now and just getting in the habit of sleeping through the night.
It gets better.
August 8th, 2007 13:35
Thanks for the stats. Where did they come from? I think so much of the stress about babies and sleep is feeling that they ’should’ be sleeping longer than they are, and that we as parents are doing something wrong, or failing to do something right, if they wake up after a certain age. Add those feelings of inadequacy to sleep deprivation and you get one stressed out parent! Knowing that most babies will wake up at night, and that this is normal, can go a long way toward making the first couple of years go much more smoothly.
August 9th, 2007 07:19
If you click on the link marked (study) after each statistic it will take you to the source material.
August 9th, 2007 08:26
OK, that was obvious. See what sleep deprivation will do!