I'd have to argue with these stats. Uninterrupted sleep is sort of a false statistic, I mean, I'm a 6 weeks new parent, and I too get maybe 3-4 hours of uninterrupted sleep. But after feeding or changing, I get another 3-4 hours (ok, last night was 2).

Don't get me wrong, I don't sleep like I used to, but 6 months worth of sleep in two years? Iffy.

I'd have to disagree as well. Maybe if your dealing with a colicky baby, this might be correct. Every child is different. We were pleasantly surprised at the amount of sleep we DID get after our son was born. It was far more than we imagined we would be getting!

Six months seems like a lot on the face of it, but I wasn't able to compensate for lost sleep by going to bed earlier (due to work commitments) and I had a very difficult time getting back to sleep once woken so I would guess this estimate is pretty close in my case. But, as, melling says, every child is different and my son was not the best sleeper.

Carrie

I have to disagree as well. My daughter was very colicy, so getting her to sleep was always an issue. Once we were in bed though, we stayed in bed together for 12 hours every night. She did wake up to eat every couple of hours, but after 5-10 minutes she was back to sleep. Eventually when she was sleeping through the night I always knew to go to bed by midnight because she'd be awake at precisely 8am.

Guess it's only unbelievable until you've been there! I can't tell you how many times I inwardly cringe when a new mom tell me that it took 4 WHOLE MONTHS for their little one to sleep through the night. My son was waking 7 times a night at 9 months. We tried every method of gentle sleep training we could, and nothing worked. Believe me, I would have paid good money for a solution I hadn't tried. I broke down (mentally and emotionally) and let him cry. And eventually his sleeping has improved, though he still wakes in the middle of the night inconsolable at 20 months.

Let's not even talk about my 3 year old who never put herself to sleep until she was 2.5!

6 months sounds like a lot, but for some, it's completely believable--if not surprisingly low:)

And then they become teenagers and you don't sleep until they get home at night.

I had no idea how important this was until I was reading "NurtureShock" recently. In studies performed on adults who were averaging about 6 hours of sleep a night it showed they performed the same on tests as people who had not slept in 24 hours! I never realized how important it is to get the full 8 hours until now! I was also amazed to read how important it is for teenagers to get enough sleep. You can read more on that here. http://tandemteaching.com/what-every-teenager-wants-their-parent-to-know/

But you know this before the baby arrives, and you try to work out a wake/sleep schedule with someone else. I didn't like it when my husband went back to work after two weeks off, but we worked on a help-each-other schedule, and by four months things were a lot better (and we had zero outside help).

With 2 hopeless sleepers (4.5 years and 16 months), I can believe it!

Having a newborn is awful. That's right, I said it and I'll say it again. While I am so thankful for our beautiful toddler, I look back to those first few months in horror and fear that I'll have to do it again at some point with #2.

http://pearlsandgreentea.blogspot.com/

I'm resisting the urge to not get upset at the comment about how you expect this before-hand and you figure something out.

I also completely relate to the person who said she inwardly cringes when people think FOUR MONTHS was a long time.

There's never a moment when I regret bringing my daughter into this world, but I will say that those first couple of years included some of the darkest days of my life.

It's not because I didn't work out the right kind of sleep schedule. It's because my daughter struggled to nurse, was extremely colicky, hardly ever slept (sure is hard to sleep with a screaming baby in the background, even if you're not the one in charge), and so on and so forth. After awhile I was too sleep-deprived to think straight.

I definitely think I was on the extreme side, but 6 whole months of sleep seems about right to me ... if not on the low side.

When you consider that 6 months worth of sleep out of 2 years is 1/4 - getting 25% less sleep over 2 years seems low now that I really think about it.

But congrats to parents with good sleepers!

Carrie

Sounds low to me, at least with our first. I co-slept with the second in a king bed and my husband slept elsewhere. We ALL got a lot more sleep.

Our second is due in three months, and these comments are beginning to remind me to a frightening extent just how awful those sleepless nights really were. Sure, my 2.5 year old sleeps a zillion hours a day NOW, but those first five to nine months were horrid! *keep stress at bay, keep stress at bay*

I haven't slept in 8 months! I am awakened every 1-3 hours. What is REM? The article is accurate. For those of you that have a hard time believing it, well you are experiencing the joys I felt with my first baby the sleeper!

anning - I don't care what it costs, I'd buy an insta-back-to-sleep model! ha!

Carrie

No wonder I'm so darn tired!

My teenage stepson sleeps til noon everyday. I can't wait for my toddler to get to that stage so I can catch a few Zs.

word up yo