My Baby Isn’t Sleeping Through The Night - Am I Doing Something Wrong?
I share a lot about my personal experience when it comes to sleep training. I was not (still not) a mother who could function as a “mom-bie” on little-to-no sleep. Sleep has alwayyyyys been a thing for me, so I knew I needed to make it a thing for my son.
That being said, sleep IS possible for everyone, but everyone is not on the same timeline.
Let me say that one more time, not everyone is on the same timeline.
I was up labouring with Drake all night long, and gave birth by 9:30am. I was a mother for 1 minute before I felt like I already needed a nap. This is the kind of sleepy person I’m talking about here.
Sleep is not for the weak over here people. Sleep is for the smart. Lol.
I love having my Question Box open for your sleep questions every Tuesday, but sometimes I’m sad at the common question I get in there. The question that says “My baby is x month’s old. Why aren’t they sleeping through the night yet?”
Even though I am the number 1 advocate on getting a full night’s sleep, I want you to know that developmentally, some babies are not capable of sleeping 12-hours through the night until they’re closer to 1 year old.
Earlier this year, I worked with a beautiful Indian client who was adopted by a Canadian Family. She had no schedule and they were really struggling with sleep. When her mother reached out to me, she was 13 months old. At 13 months old, this little girl was only 12lbs. Covid restrictions had just set in and thankfully they had made it to Canada before boarders had shut down. But, because of the massive restrictions, going IN to see a family doctor or a Paediatrician was not feasible at this time. I told the mom that I didn’t want to pull night feedings for her daughter because of her weight. She understood and agreed and we based our sleep method on developing love and trust between them.
And guess what? Baby girl dropped her OWN feedings after 2 weeks.
I recently worked with a 12-week old baby girl who was waking every 1-2 hours throughout the night for feedings, and who also only cat-napped during the day (think 20 min naps all day long). I wrote a sleep plan that included 0-2 night feedings in for her, and mom and dad were on board. The reason we had the variation, was because:
#1 she is YOUNG.
#2 she is a little thing.
#3 eating through the night at this age is 100% normal.
What happened with this baby girl? She has been consistently sleeping 12-14 hours THROUGH the night without waking.
So why am I bringing these clients up? Because we are all in various stages of development, your babies are learning new and different things, and there is not a single “cookie-cutter” approach that works for every single child. If there was, I wouldn’t have a job.
I want you to know that if your 9-month old isn’t sleeping through the night, or your 5-month old IS sleeping through the night - it’s okay. If you feel like they “should” be sleeping through the night, let’s set up a call to talk about some realistic expectations and see if working to get your baby sleeping better (and through the night) is something that would make sense for your family.
Although I love seeing happy clients get their babies to sleep 12 hours a night, I realize that this isn’t possible for everyone, but making a plan to meet our sleep goals is a great stepping stone.
