Sleeping through the night

[mommy33]

When do babies sleep through the night? DD is 8 weeks old and I'm looking for a light at the end of the no sleep tunnel.

[JBaxter]

Thats a loaded question...
DS1 17 months
DS2 19 months
DS3 8 weeks ( 6 to 7 hrs)
Ds4 not yet and hes 6 1/2 months He is down to once a night somewhere between 3 and 430

[cdlamis]

It really varies from baby to baby and when they can go that long without eating. Sorry to discourage you but my guess is that *most* babies start around 6-9 months? My 7 week old did sleep through the night once so far but it was a total fluke and not yet repeated.
I read once (probably here) that you should consider a 5-6 hour stretch as "sleeping through the night" and not the 8-9 hours that we are expecting. Reducing your expectations will really help with the frustration level that some new parents (even experienced parents with a new baby) feel at this point.
Hugs! I know how exhausting this is!

[KrisM]

Do you really want to know??

DS1 - 4 years
DD - 9 months
DS2 - 9.5 months and counting...

[sste]

Our DS slept through the night (which we defined as 8-9 hours) at 6 months. We worked up to this gradually starting at four months with a sleep routine (bottle, sleep sack, book, rock and sing, put to bed with mobile on) and limited cry it out (limited to 5-10 minutes) for 1 nap, then both naps a few weeks later, then night-time a month later. We tried to put him to bed sleepy but not asleep and we did not use a pacifier at night or put him to bed with a bottle. We wanted him to start developing self-soothing skills. However, this was all after 3.5 months - - I would not do any cry it out or expect the baby to self-sooth in the first 3 months. As much as I would like to take credit, my guess is that DS was on the easy end of things.

Also, we moved DS to his own room at 3.5 months. For us, this move immediately reduced the number of night time wakenings. 3.5 months was a good time to move him because he didn't really notice the move (4-5 months would have been much harder). If you decide to co-sleep I think that one tradeoff of that is more night time wakenings, esp. if a breastfeeding mom is right there. You can ask co-sleepers on the board what they think about this . . .

[JTsMom]

It really varies a lot, but almost all babies sleep for longer and longer stretches as they grow and can go a little longer between feeding times. Hang in there! It's rough, but before you know it, it will be behind you. You may even kind of miss it- hard to believe, but true. This teeny-tiny, crazy stage is just a blip on the radar when you look at the big picture. :hug:

[stella]

I don't think there's much light at the end of your tunnel right now.
I want to tell you that it's right around the corner, but as the other moms have said: it varies widely and doesn't even necessarily happen within the first year - though it probably will.

I think it's really important that you settle into some long-term strategies to maintain (reclaim?) your sanity. Start a sleep routine for baby - bath, rocking, feeding, bed or something like that. Then she'll start recognizing your signals that it's time for bed and you can learn how to read hers to maximize on her sleepiness.

And I know you didn't ask, but maybe you should go to bed at 8 or 9 when he goes to bed, let dh stay up to handle the first waking, and you can sleep til she next wakes at 3 or 4. this way, you could get some longer stretches in. This really helped me.

Good luck. I know it's hard.

[kijip]

It's all over the map, all I can speak for is my kids.

T was 6ish hours at 4 or so weeks and most often 9 hours by three or four months.

F would have gone 8 hours (and did when we were not waking up in the middle of the night) from a few weeks but due to slow weight gain we kept waking him every 4 hours till he was gaining better. He is 4 months and sleeps from about 9PM-6AM every night. Sometimes I still intentionally wake him to feed him before I go to sleep at 11ish if I feel like he did not nurse enough that day (still nervous about maintaining his weight gains). But he will not rouse for that himself. I tried to wake he up for awhile around 3ish for a milk supply boosting nursing session but once I went on a med for my postpartum mood issues, I realized that in the balance a well rested mother was better for all. As such, I nurse him on both sides first thing in the morning and then again in short clusters throughout the early morning to get him enough and keep my supply going.

There is nothing in this to our credit, it is just how the apple fell from the tree. We don't take any credit for this in the least. It is nice, though at times it was hard to get T to nap as an older toddler, so there are tradeoffs.

[mommyp]

I know families with lots of different stories! With DD, she started sleeping 8 hours at a stretch around 6 months, with a 7:30-8:00pm bedtime, that meant one waking a night around 3-4am. That was our usual until sometime in the month after her 1st birthday, when she started sleeping 12 hours at night. There is really nothing that we did for this, she was just ready to give up the nighttime nursing session (and so was I!)

I agree with pp, moving her to her crib in her own room around 3 months and establishing a bedtime routine for the early evening helped I think. Then when she woke up to nurse in the night it was quiet and dark and she didn't really wake up, just nurse and back to bed, so most of the wake ups were short and the time between them just started to lengthen out between 4-6 months, until we were down to 1 waking instead of 3.

I know it's exhausting! :hug: Good luck!!

[AngelaS]

Mine all slept thru by 4 or 5 months. :)

[klwa]

Last night! WOOHOO! (DD is 8 months old) She's slept through a time or two in the past, but never for a long period of time. DS started sleeping through by about 7 1/2 months. BUT, we put them to bed EARLY (6-7pm), so they're really sleeping a long time to sleep the whole way through the night.

[WatchingThemGrow]

DD - CIO 5.5 mo - best thing ever for us
DS - 8 weeks

DH said last night, "Can you imagine being able to lay down and sleep for 11 hours like our kids do? My body would just hurt!" I had to laugh :)

[SnuggleBuggles]

Well, ds1 slept through starting around 7 weeks. However, that didn't last. At 6m he started waking up a bunch and that continued till he was 19 months. I was pretty smug when he slept through so early. There are so many physical and emotional milestones plus teething and illness that will inevitably throw off sleep for the 1st year+.

Ds2 is now 17m and just started sleeping through the night. There have been a few nights here and there in his life but he has been pretty consistent the past month.

Enjoy whatever sleep you can get and don't try to compare your baby to someone elses'.

Beth

[JdrKuhnert]

DS1 starting sleeping longer stretches around 8 months, but I didn't sleep through the night until he was 14months old and broke the baby monitor. Then I didn't hear every little squeak, etc. that he made.

DS2 starting sleeping longer stretches around 6 months, but didn't sleep through until 12months.

I weaned both boys at a about a year and that really seemed to lead to sleeping through. Until they were weaned they would wake up once a night for a feeding, which I think was more of a comfort feeding than a hunger feeding.

[amldaley]

I have to agree with most of the pp's....it totally depends on the child.

DD slept through the night when she was just a couple of weeks old and did so until she was about 5 or 5 1/2 months and now doesn't...at all....not even close.

It depends on if baby is formula fed v breastfed, how often baby eats during the non-sleeping hours, how bed time routine is set up, if you are co-sleeping, etc.

There are, as others have said, a number of ways to encourage baby to sleep including "tanking up" before bedtime to keep lo fuller for longer and setting up a nighttime routine that encourages a peaceful slumber.

[pb&j]

DS - 12 weeks. The first time he ever slept more than 3 hours at a time was when he was 6 weeks, but he was still up a couple of times at night until 12 weeks. And now he's three and doesn't sleep through the night any more, b/c he wakes up every night to go potty, or b/c he has a bad dream, or whatever.

DD - 10 weeks. But she's been a little inconsistent lately (at 5.5 mos). She was up last night at 2am for quite a while.

And by sleep through the night, I mean 7pm - 7am. People have different definitions.

[Tondi G]

totally depends on the child! One thing I found made a huge difference for me and for a few of my neighbors.... get the baby in their own room! We moved DS#1 when he was around 4 months and he went from being up every 2 hours to at least giving me 3 or 4 hour stretches. With #2 we moved him to the crib at 8 weeks and wouldn't you know it, he slept 8 hours that night! I kept thinking "ok, there is something wrong with him or the other shoes is gonna drop and he's gonna turn into a monster or something". He was just a better sleeper.

[soontobe]

And I know you didn't ask, but maybe you should go to bed at 8 or 9 when he goes to bed, let dh stay up to handle the first waking, and you can sleep til she next wakes at 3 or 4. this way, you could get some longer stretches in. This really helped .[/QUOTE]

:yeahthat:my dh was amazing about that and it made a world of a difference for me!

[wellyes]

8 weeks is tough, I remember that! But try not to focus too much on STTN. Mine started STTN at 3 months, then *stopped* doing it 5-6 weeks later and didn't again until 8 months. Gotta follow baby's cues when she's still so little.

Some parents focus so exclusively on STTN that it's unhealthy (IMO). You can make a baby STTN pretty young, but in my experience I don't think most babies are really ready to go that long without food and comfort until they're past the rolling over / sitting up milestones.