that GT kids DO sleep through the night .... eventually .... well before college....

By 'through the night' I mean solid 10/12 hours, not just the official 5/6 hours.

Please, reasure me.

My dd has always slept through the night. Does that help? Although she stopped taking naps at about 1 year old and hasn't taken one since! My ds is 3 and is following in his sisters footsteps. No Naps for him either! UGH!

Isa-

My kids don't routinely sleep through the night (and I would count 7-8 hours as through the night) until they are 4 or 5. My seven year old still wakes in the middle of the night about once a week and needs reassurance from me or Dad before she goes back to sleep.

If they ever slept ten hours, I would have to keep checking to make sure that they were still breathing!

Sorry, no reassurance here, but plenty of sympathy.

Oh no dear!
many of them need the sleep - but needing it and getting it are two different things.

My mom used to tell me that in order to rest well, one needed to expend a certain amount of physical energy and a certain amount of mental energy. In my case it was always a matter of getting up from studying in high school and runnning around, but for our little ones, it's more a matter of needing to have a reasonable amount of mental stimulation (again with the Goldilocks - not too hot, not too cold) during the day is the first problema.

Problema dose, is the difficulty in winding down that intellecutal energy. It's litterally difficult to turn those brains off.

Problema tres is the imbalance between emotional normal maturity with intellectual awareness of things way, way outside the norm. So how can I sleep with Global Warming hoovering over me? Try your best to block and protect, but the best you will be able to do is 'filter.'

And some kids really don't need that many hours.

Lately we've been really really strict with the 8:45 bedtime, quiet lying down with one parent for 30 minutes, the other parent for the rest of the job...usually means dosing off and then creeping back into the real bed later. DS11 just doesn't have the same sleeping equipment as other kids. He could be breathing deeply, slowly and rythmically, for 20 minutes, when the parent tries to disentangle. Often he'll come to full alert status with the first step on the floor. What seems to help is to keep him on the same schedual even on the weekends! When we get him to bed on time on the weekends, he will sleep until 9 or 10 am, but if we let him stay up late (because we aren't disiplined enought to give up on the fun and do the work) he's up at 5am. Does he need more sleep than he's getting? I believe he does.

((shrugs))
Grinity

Just to add: My son (3) didn't sleep through the night the entire first year of his life. Not one single night. I was a walking zombie. However we don't know if ds is GT like his big sis.

Also my dd never slept the amount of hours suggested for her age. Early on when they are said to get about 14hrs of sleep, dd would only get 10. Now that she's older Im not sure what is common but she sleeps about 9 hours.

I completely understand! DS did not sleep through the night - ever - until he was four and a half. And the global warming thing absolutely! But for us it's that asteroid out there somewhere that may collide with the Earth... And even now, it's rare that he can sleep through the night. And why did we ever buy a house where he's upstairs by himself? If only I had known...

DD is 4.2 yr old and she has no trouble falling sleep because I still nurse her !
Otherwise, just forget it, except from time to time when she collapses in front of the TV.

She goes to bed around 7ish, which is great!

And then she awakes around ... midnight and then 3 or 5 am...

After midnight DH goes and bring her to our bed. By that time DS is as well with me in the big bed and I feel like a sandwich.

I love to cosleep with DD or DS but not with DD AND DS.

I agree with Trinity that both mental and physical challenge are the key, and I will not speak to her about global warming yet.

I'm *so* sorry for those of you with sleepless nights! That's my idea of H-E-double-toothpicks right there!

Happily my kids take after me: they eat well and they sleep well, and always have. The first slept 6+ hours at 6 weeks, the 2nd at 8 weeks. (My pediatrician told me not to tell that to other mothers though, since it will make me despised. Sorry all!)

Truly, though, I think it's a survival mechanism for them. It's likely they wouldn't have survived this long if they didn't let Mom get her sleep!

My son has always been a wonderful sleeper. It seems our problem now is that he has a hard time settling down at night. His brain keep running and he constantly needs questions answered or reassurance that a problem he is working on in his head is indeed correct. He also likes to listen to the sports games on the radio which tends to keep him up a little later than I would like.

Welllll....
One has to successfully initiate the desired state, then
One has to maintain that state.
And if interrupted, one must quickly regain that desired state.

Some kids find all three tough, other just have trouble with one or two.
Grinity

DD7 has a hard time getting to sleep. I sent her to bed at 8:30 with a book. She is still up there reading at 10:20. Most nights aren't like this, but she had reported that some nights she will stare at the ceiling for hours and cannot get to sleep.
DD5 woke up at around 3:00a.m. almost every night until she was 3. She still wakes up at this time sometimes.
Neither of them were good nappers as babies. I was so tired and looked at all the other sleeping, peaceful babies. I used to just not understand why my babies never seemed to sleep.
DD7 was collicky and I used to put her in her car seat on top of the dryer and sit next to her. That was the only way she would sleep during the day.
I'm still tired.

Incog

DS has always been a very sound sleeper once he gets to sleep--he can sleep through anything. When he's going to sleep he has trouble getting the wheels to stop turning in his head.

Our main problem is that he does not need much sleep and never has. At 12, he needs less sleep than either his father or I do and even when he was younger 9 hours was about all he needed and I need at least 8. So we get him tucked in and then go to sleep, so I can be awake for a half hour or so before I have to deal with him in the morning--I like to be alone in the a.m. Often one of us goes to bed before him so we are rested enough to get up with him in the morning. The one with tucking in duty gets to "sleep in". Now I think I see the real reason why we only have the one child....

DS7 was a horrible sleeper until we laid down the law when I was pregnant with #2 when he was 3 1/2. We trained him to stay in his bed and call for his dad! Hahaha! He still does it! He was never much of a napper. He's very high energy and does not need a ton of sleep.

DD3 is climbing to our bed almost every night. She's driving me crazy right now. She was actually a fairly good sleeper as an infant though (compared to DS anyway). I think the stimulation of her older brother helped. She just gave up all naps fairly recently, although it has been on and off for at least 6 months. People regularly comment on how "high energy" they both are.

Anyway - misery loves company! Last night I ended up on the couch because when DD ends up in our bed she usually ends up pushing me out.

kimck - my DS6 slept through the night until he was about 3 and he started coming into our room every night too. I put a sleeping bag at the foot of our bed and he got used to just coming in there, not even waking us up, climbing into the sleeping bag and sleeping there the rest of the night. Eventually he gave this up as he got older. It really helped me because I need my sleep!!!! :-)