Can bf babies sleep through the night?

[aamia]

Just wondering. My dad keeps asking if DS is sleeping through, as I was by 6 weeks, but I was ff....

[SquidgersMummy]

My dd is 12 wks - she can do 9 till 1 or 11 till 3 but if she went right through I'd have to wake her anyway as my boobs would explode. Was wondering myself how they'd ever go through .....

[blossombath]

I hear of bf babies that do (sure someone will come along soon to encourage us) but my DS still doesn't at 7.5mo. Having said that my ffing friends also have babies who wake once or twice so I think it's as much about the baby as the milk.

How old is your DS? I find the 'sleeping through' questions very annoying, tbh, I now just lie give a vague answer to most people.

[blossombath]

(sorry that wasn't meant to imply your question is annoying; more that it annoys me when it's one of the first things people ask about a baby, usually because it is often followed by some odd remark or unsolicited advice.)

[dontlaugh]

Mine did! Admittedly the first of three to do so. Slept through from 11 weeks, 9pm to 7am. Then got very sick, in hospital and and now reverted to feeding at all hours and awake most of the night, but only because he's making up for lost time. Just focus on the first part of my post actually!

[FreakyFelixDaSouzArghh]

My Dd was breastfed and slept through from about 4 weeks! It was heaven. She fed really quickly too and was just an easy baby. until 6 months when she became a nightmare!

[Brockle]

Yup they can! DS1 slept through from 10 weeks and DS2 from 8 weeks.

[minicc]

Yes, mine did from about 6/7 weeks but she made up for it in the day though!

[ISeeThreadPeople]

DD was bf and didn't sleep through until 2.4.

DS is bf and slept through from about 4 weeks. Just like Felix's dd, he fed quickly and was a v v easy baby. Until about 5 months... But that was caused by being very poorly indeed and developing crippling separation anxiety. He still slept well though. At 13mo, he still sleeps brilliantly. Separation anxiety is mildly better. Some days. If you squint a bit.

[Bunbaker]

DD didn't sleep through until she was 9 months old. She was a small baby and her stomach simply wasn't big enough to have enough milk to sustain her all night.

I find the sleeping through questions annoying as well.

[daisydoodoo]

they can, ds1 was exclusivley bf and he slept through from a couple of weeks old. No one ever beleived me but he did. He made having a baby easy, except for waking up ith huge solids boobs, but he would feed for a long time and then sleep again.
He was a big baby (10lb4oz) and would feed around 10pm for 30-45 mins, go down in his carrycot and sleep until 6 am ish and then feed for nother 30 mins plus and then sleep through til 10 or 11 am!

I was fooled into thinking this was easy and i was blessed with magic milk. Forward 4 years to ds2 and he was awful, fed very 1 1/2 to 2 hours for ages and then would sleep for an hour and start grumbling again. he was like this for 2 and half years, he was a terrible sleeper and still is at 10 yrs old!

[NotSoSuperMa]

Hmm. IME dads aren't the most accurate reporters of babies' sleeping patterns. I regularly want to kill DH when he wakes up fresh as a daisy & exclaims that our boys have slept through. Umm, no they flippin' well haven't, only you have

[NotSoSuperMa]

Oh, and DS1 slept through by 12w, DS2 not until 11m. Very similar babies in most respects otherwise.

[RightUpMyRue]

I work with mums who BF and with mums who FF. The milk the babies have makes no difference to when they learn to sleep through.

[Blending]

DD ebf and by 3 months we had a routine where she would sleep from 7 until I did a dream feed at 10.30 and then about 2.30 she'd have another feed and sleep until 6.30/7.30.

By 5/6 months she started to drop the middle of the night feed by herself.

[amyboo]

Yep. My friend's DS slept through 10-6/7 from about 2 months old. I was insanely jealous, as my DS had to be forcibly weaned off night feeds at about 9 months old as I went back to work and was knackered!

[LoosingBattle]

Yes, DD did. She was 10 weeks early and was "sleeping through" (7-7) before her due date. She continued to do so, she is now 3 and I think I have been up with her about 2 hours at night in total throughout her life so far. Just letting you know it is possible, not at all smug!

(I on the other hand was also breastfed and didn't sleep more than 4 hours at a time until I was nearly 2! )

[scampidoodle]

Yes, another one here - DS was ebf and slept through (7-7ish) sometime between 4 and 5 months. Before that, once we had a proper bedtime routine with him going to bed at 7ish (from about 9 weeks) he did at some point go down to just one feed in the twelve hours but I can't remember when that happened. My HV always told me not to listen to other people telling me that their babies slept through, as often they meant 12 - 6 or something similar, not really all night (but would never actually admit that to other mums!)

[beginnings]

Another one here. DD (6mos) has slept through since 13 weeks. Took about 10 days before I woke up without really leaky boobs. She's been waking a bit in the last couple of weeks but that's just teeth I think.

[RichManPoorManBeggarmanThief]

DD (3 mo) is pretty good. She goes to bed at 6pm and doesn't wake up until 2 or 3am, feeds for 10 mins and then back to sleep until 6am. I don't do a dream feed/ wake her up before I go to bed as she just got super grumpy about being woken up. I do feed her every 2 hrs in the day (6am to 6pm) as she's a sicky baby and I find frequent smaller feeds minimise this. She also (whispers) self-settles which I found bloody amazing after DS where I needed 3 hands to pin his arms down and hold his dummy in, which was the only way he'd calm down enough to sleep- wouldn't sleep on me/ hated the sling/ hated the cot......basically hated life- he's an amazing sleeper now though..

DS was also bf. I used to dream feed him at 10pm and he was 6mo before he slept past 3am (although I think by then it had become just habit rather than need as it only took me 3 days to knock it on the head when I decided enough was enough)

They're just all different.

[ScrambledSmegsEvilTwin]

Yes they can. I had to set alarms throughout the night so that I could wake up to feed DD. She was the deepest night sleeper, and would feed in her sleep as it was nigh-on impossible to wake her. Brilliant as she didn't even need winding after, I would try but nothing ever came out.

Sadly this phase didn't last. She started waking up in the night at around 6-7 months, when we started weaning her. She still wakes in the night a few times a week and she's 2.7yo now.

Of course, I always suspected that the main reason DD slept so well at night was because she was a bloody non-sleeping nightmare during the day. So you may not want that as the trade off...

[Rachog]

Ds is 15 weeks and sleeps through quite often.
I feed every 2 hours during the day and give him a 6oz bottle of expressed milk about 8. He will sleep then till 7ish by which time my boobs are like cannon balls, I feed him off one side and express his bed time bottle off the other, then back to 2 hour feeds again all day.

[DuelingFanjo]

DS is 22 months, breastfed and has only 'slept through' once.

Maybe ask your dad what he means by 'sleeping through'.

Many people are happy enough to get 11 - 4 am.

[EdgarAllanPond]

Yes. they can.

mine usually start at 6 weeks. then stop again at 12 weeks.

[MrsHoarder]

Ds has from about 6 Weeks. 10-12 hours without waking unless ill like last night. Dh thought he was sleeping through at 4 Weeks though.

No dream feed, just luck.

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Mine sleeps through brilliantly from 7pm until 10:30pm, then from 11pm until about 1:30am, then from 2:00am until 3:30am then he'll go all the way through until 5:30! sometimes