No, Jacob is not sleeping through the night.

This is my answer to the question that I get a lot. Is Jacob sleeping through the night? NO! Can you sense my frustration?

I realize that many babies sleep through the night by the time they are 8 months old, but mine does not. My girls slept through the night at 5 and 6 months, and I assumed that Jacob would be sleeping through the night by now. But he's not:) Before Jacob, I had a pretty strong opinion about babies and sleeping, and now I have had to humbly change the way I think.

We did the sleep training thing with the girls. We let them cry for several nights and each night the crying got less and less. By the fourth night, they were sleeping all night. We thought we were awesome parents! We read the books, followed their advice, and poof! our kids did what the book said they would do. We have done the same things with Jacob but there is no poof. Just crying and screaming and sleeplessness.

We have let Jacob cry for hours, and he doesn't give up. I have talked to my pediatrician many times and she says that many people think that all babies should just sleep for 12 hours and that's that. But she says that 5-6 hours is really sleeping through the night. And that if he wakes up and is hungry that I should feed him. So I do. I followed that advice. He was waking up once per night and sleeping for a total of 10-12 hours.

But now, he's changed the game. He's waking up two times a night. Uggggh. I think it's due to teething, but he very well may be manipulating me. I'm not sure which one it is yet.

So I have resigned myself to the fact that I still have to parent at night (thanks for the advice Dr. Sears) and that I am just going to feed him when he's hungry and encourage him to fall back asleep. Part of me feels like I've failed in the sleeping department with this kid, but I also know that all kids are different and I was so naive to think that he would follow in his sisters' footsteps.

So, NO, Jacob is not sleeping through the night and if you ask me I might cry. I look forward to those incredible days when I can sleep for a full 8 hours again, but until then, I'll be hanging out with the cutest 8 month old redhead at night.