Who's the OLDEST Child You Know Who Still Doesn't Sleep Through the Night?

I think the age you are guaranteed a good night sleep is when they are teenagers, at least that is what my SIL tells me. She can't get them out of bed. My 7 yo still has phases where she is up frequently in the night.

My 9 yr old didn't sleep through the night not once until she was 3 yrs old , and she still gets up today sometimes, She's also ADHD and no sleep is a characteristic of ADHD.

My friend has a 20 month old who doesn't sleep through the night. I guess that's the oldest I've met. I think the age, is different for every baby. Some kids just aren't good sleepers and some are. Some are higher needs and some are really laid back.

Not what you want to hear, but my son will be 5 in January, and he still often wakes through the night. Sometimes more than once.

We all wake through the night, in truth. It's our ability to put ourselves back to sleep that matters. My son will sometimes lay himself back down and drift back to sleep. Sometimes he wants a drink. Sometimes he wants me to lay next to him to soothe him back to sleep. So in our case, the bottom line is that my son is not very good at putting himself back to sleep. It has gotten easier, though. At 18 months, he was still waking 5, 6 times a night wanting a bottle - yikes - so I'm quite used to no sleep. So much so, that the interrupted sleep I get now feels wonderful. :/

Ok, and I have to say this... there is such a thing as a high needs baby, and often, those babies are - by nature - poor sleepers. My son was most certainly a high needs baby. Some babies are much easier to sleep train than others. Not every mold works for every child.

I have 2 kids, that are now 4 & 8 years old.
For both of them, they both started to sleep ALL night, from about 2-3 years old. Naturally.
My first child was very hard... to put to sleep or naps as a baby.
My 2nd child, was very easy to put to naps and sleep.
But both... would still wake during the night.... until they hit about 2-3 years old. THEN they slept all night.
It was a natural progression... and biological maturity. I never, did any sleep "training" on them. As babies, I woke when they woke or needed feedings. On-demand. It just was, for me. Then they naturally started to sleep all night, per a certain age.

So, despite both my kids having differing sleep/nap dispositions as babies... they BOTH, from 2-3 years old, started to just sleep all night.

But still to this day, as a Mom... whenever I hears noises at night, and it is them, I hear them and wake. But I know their noises... and what it means by now.

And then, once a child starts to sleep all night (like an adult), then, once they hit potty/bathroom age... then you need to wake too.... because when young they need help with the toilet or they get scared or you need to help them wipe or pull up their pants or change them or they have pee accidents. So.... PER age-stages.... and what they are going through, you still "wake" for a child's needs.....It just is.

AND, at a certain age, from about 2 years old... developmentally... a child starts to develop night-time 'fears' and night-mares or night-terrors. These are cognitive... .developmental phases. Normal. So you wake for those too.....

But again, at my kids' current ages, they sleep well. Despite their sleep dispositions as babies. It is just age maturity/and developmental maturity etc.

Waking at night... does not 'end.' With a child, or as a Mom.
Nothing with sleep, is finite nor static.
Even myself, I wake once a night... then I check on my kids. Just because. Or I put their blankets back on them.

all the best,
Susan

Hmmm... Let's see... my ADHD 8yo just came downstairs to give me a hug and sing a song he's had stuck in his head (passing it along, now it's stuck in mine) and to thank me for being the "best mom ever" and went back upstairs to bed (I'm either best mom ever, or worst mom ever depending on how "in favor" I am at any given moment. I can be both in the same 5 minutes). Ostentatiously he needed to pee. He did. There was just "bonus" tonight.

But he was sleeping 5 hours in a row at a few weeks old... and (barring the "Aaaaargh, shoot me now" phases -teething, illness, nightmares, growing pains, cluster feeding at growth spurts) only woke me up once a night from a few months old. He'd wake at *generally* 9 or 10, 12 or 1, 5 or 6 and 8 or 9 until well after 1yo... but since I didn't go to BED until 2am generally... he only woke me once.

I was GUARNATEED 1 good night's worth of sleep from 9mo on as long as my husband was in town. That's when I pitched a fit and demanded that my husband and I split the weekend. He got one day to sleep in and so, darnit, did I.

I doubt I'll be guaranteed 7 nights of good sleep until kiddo is a teenager. And then, of course, I'll probably be stressed out worrying about him when he moves out. My mum still occasionally calls to "see if I'm breathing" in the middle of the night when she wakes up from a nightmare and I'm in my 30's with a child of my own.

But more "grey area"... starting about a year ago... I get to sleep in almost every morning. Kiddo gets up, takes a shower, makes himself breakfast, does his chores, and plays games until I get up over an hour later and then I *usually* get a leisurely hour to "wake up" (coffee/ shower/ etc.).

Sleep is relative.

you are never guaranteed a good nights sleep after birth. I havent had a good nights sleep in 14 years. But when they sleep through the night all kids are different try night lights, stuffed animals nightly routine a warm bath and warm milk might help.

My husband is 28 and still can't and struggles with falling asleep. His parents have mentioned that as a kid he always struggled with this and he was on meds from high school until a few years ago (they learned to let him turn a lamp on and read). Unfortunately, we're never "guaranteed" a nights' sleep with kids. :(

My 4-year-old will sometimes wake up screeching for no apparent reason but is usually a great sleeper. Even my 2 year old sleeps really well at night but sometimes wakes up two or three times in a night (usually a night when I'm completely fried) and needs mommy to snuggle.

Um, 63. I've had disturbed sleep since infancy – I live in a very uncomfortable, excitable body. I did apparently learn to keep my troubles to myself by the age of 2 or so, because there was hell to pay if she had to come to me during the night. But a sister 2 years younger than me disturbed my mom's nights for quite a few years, so most of my childhood I lived with a crabby, short-tempered mom and very unhappy sister.

Based solely on my own experience and research that I have sought out, I don't think you can "train" anybody to sleep. You can optimize conditions that will allow sleep, and you can teach a child to cope with his own issues during the night. But some people of any age don't sleep well.

My grandson began sleeping pretty reliably at around 2.5 years.

If you mean that at a certain age that they never wake up in the middle of the night again? I'm not sure that there is an age. My 2.5 year old though is pretty good. He will whimper sometimes, but doesn't seem to wake himself up, but if he is sick, we will most likely have to go to him.

I have a 5 year old that wakes up almost every night wanting to crawl into bed with me :(

I think it depends on the kids. My brother is 27, and I think he could probably count on two hands the number of nights he has slept through the night. He is just an extremely restless person, and my parents say he was that way from Day 1. He used to climb into bed with them every single night. My son, age 22 months, sleeps through the night sometimes, but mostly not.

But before you despair, I think the key is not getting them to sleep through the night, per se, but getting them to be comfortable waking up and then going back to sleep without calling you. That's where we are with my son - he has a couple of books and stuffed animals in his crib, and so when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he entertains himself and then goes back to sleep. He rarely calls for us (and when he does, he needs us). I think if you make that your goal, you might have more luck. In any case, good luck! I know it's so hard going without enough sleep!

My son for sure was sleeping throught the night at age 2.

I've known quite a few children to be near 3 and still be waking up quite often. In fact, I've known a few 4 year olds that get up at night too.

My friend's kids are 9 and 6 and they still wake up at least once a night, mostly several times, and go to their parents' room.

Well my kids use the nebulizer on a fairly regular basis so they dont sleep throught the night that often.

Also my middle one is 6 1/2 yrs and we are trying to figure out what he is getting hives on a regular basis. It always seems to be at night when he gets it usually around 3-5 am.
I am tired.

My niece is 3 1/2 and still gets up two or three times a night to go lay down with my brother or just to wander around. My DD has been sleeping through "most" nights since she was about 5 months old, but of course we have our nights when she is sick or has a bad dream and she needs me.

My daughter sarted to sleep throught he night around a year and a half. However every shild is different my sister has a almost 2 year old little boy that still gives her trouble from time to time during the night. Your son will start sleeping through the night at sometime. I also always gave my daughter a bath at night which seemed to relax her. And then I took her straight to bed she got used to the routine and have had no sleeping troubles since. I hope this helps!

My cousin is almost 13 and she still has problems with sleep.
My almost 2 year old goes through cycles of sleeping good, sleeping great, not sleeping very well.

Our son was a terrible sleeper as a baby. He was up 6-8 times till he was about 1.5. Then he was up 2-3 times till he was about 2. I think our son was about 3 or 4 when he actually slept through the night every night. He's now 6 and there are nights where he wakes up due to a bad dream or having to go to the bathroom or whatever.

My friends son was 3 and still refused to sleep at night, but she let him be like that. Our babies will do what they are trained to do. If we train them to get up and eat at night, that is what they will do. I trained mine to sleep at night, and all of my children slept through the night by 2 months and have been great sleepers ever since.

my son turned 2 the end of sept and still doesnt sleep the night through. he wakes up once or twice and comes into our room. I think i have only slept the night through a handful of times in my life. but by the time i was 4 i knew to just go to the bathroom or roll over and get comfy and go back to sleep. i still dont sleep the night through. regardless of my son.

I have a 10 year old niece who still wakes up every night to get into her parents' bed .... and takes about an hour to get back to sleep -- yes, she has circles under her eyes every day!

My oldest is 6 and while we never "taught her" to get up in the middle of the night, she's never been a good sleeper. We didn't do anything much different with my younger daughter and she's been a much much better sleeper for some reason. I think by 18 months it's fair to expect to not be woken up "most" nights. But until they're 9 or 10, I think there will be issues that come up periodically such as nightmares so I don't think you can be guaranteed a good night every night before that. My 6 year old went through the nightmare stage not too long ago. Before that she'd wake up sometimes etc. I think you're looking for when you can figure at least 75%-85% of the time you get to sleep through and I think by age 2 or so that should be the case. If not, you may have to do things some people wouldn't approve of. For instance, our 6 year old now sleeps on a mattress on the floor in our room. She's just scared so often otherwise. I think she'll eventually grow out of it and in the meantime, we get some rest!