can bf babies sleep through the night

[robinredbreast]

if so
1 how do you get them to do it
2 what age

thanks

[indiasmum]

um, you wont like it, but my dd slept through from 5 weeks old, totally bf. my 2 ds slept through from about 10 weeks, they were bf too. i didnt force them or drug them they just did it lol!

[hana]

yes! my middle child was a great sleeper from about 11 weeks - fully breastfed (from about 8 til 6) Still is a great sleeper at 2.6

no idea what I did as her older and younger siblings are fairly crap at sleeping at 5 and 1

[lulumama]

i think it is less to do with how they take their milk, and how much they drink, and more to do with their personalities and their temperament...

i know plenty of FF babies who have not slept through the night for a loooooong time

[CarGirl]

I'm talking about 7pm - 7am

dd2 = 4 months (from 14 days once a night only)
dd3 = 15 days (95% of the time)
dd4 = 5 days (98% of the time)


I woke them up regularly during the day from 48 hours old, I "taught" them to fall asleep in the cot rather than being cuddled/fed to sleep.

Think a big part was luck & because they were big birth weight babies (bigger tummies to hold more milk)

Mine pretty much slept solid for the first 6 weeks, woke for a feed max they ever stayed awake was an hour before they nodded off again! Think that helped ingrain the pattern from very early days IYSWIM

[ConnorTraceptive]

yes ds was about 6 weeks, but like lulu said i think it was down to his temprement he loved his sleep from day one. used to go 5/6 hours between feeds

[tassisssss]

mine didn't do 7-7 till about 8 months

i'm ok with that

[prettybird]

Mine was trying to do it form about 2 weeks old - not a good idea, espcailly when he wasn't gaining weight very fast!

Think we eventually let him do it from aobut 8 weeks.

Agree with the others - it is very much about temperament - he was always a good sleeper.

[SachaF]

Yes - eventually!
I agree with the temperment comments - as a newborn ds was demanding, needing entertaining apart from feeds and changes!
At 8 months I'm still in the (generally) 1 waking a night category - so he goes 8 - 4am (8 hours) then has a feed. He did drop it at 6 1/2 months with a bit of controlled crying and daddy going in rather than mummy but then we ended up going on holiday and had far too much excitement in our lives! So I just started feeding him to sleep on hols.
I'm planning on dropping the feed at 9 months if he doesn't do it by himself (but as he is going to 4am it looks like it may happen soon).

[daisyandbabybootoo]

my BF DS started sleeping 6 hours at 2 weeks old and by 8 weeks was doing 10 hours. He didn't do a full 12 hours until he was about 6 mo IIRC, and he was FF by that time.

My DD, twelve weeks did her first 10 hour stretch three weeks ago and is pretty consistent with it

Not sure I did anything, they both have found their own sleeping pattern.

[SachaF]

BTW The controlled crying was to get him to drop down to only 1 feed at night from 2-3, it just happened that after doing that to drop the first feed of the night he seemed to want to drop the 2nd as well - sleep begats sleep or something?

[ChristmasPud]

Yes,

1. just let him do his own thing, but would do serious cluster feeding from about 4:30 in the afternoon. He'd have lots of cluster feeds throguh the evening and then go to sleep at about 8pm.
   
2. from about 12 weeks but would sometimes wake for 1 feed. From 5 months had a growth spurt and this got him into a habit of waking to feed 3-4 times a night. When he was 6 months did 3 nights of me sleeping in another room and him just having DH to settle him back to sleep. Now if Ds wakes in the night Dh settles him as if he gets a wiff of me there's not chance of him going back to sleep. This is only recommended after 6 months old though.

[sweetkitty]

DD1 8-8 from 12 weeks

DD2 erm 13 months

both fed and treated the exact same, I would second the some do some don't school of thought

[yomellamoHelly]

Our first did from about 5.5 months (1.5 months after started weaning him on purees).
Our second did from 5 weeks (though had already done so a number of times before this, just not regularly) 'til he was 5.5 months. Waited 'til 7 months to start BLW and it's a slow process so he's still waking atm. (8 months now.) I live in hope!

[horrifiedmum]

yes

first from 11 months
second from 7 months
third from 11 weeks

Don't know how, don't think sleeping through is solely connected to breastmilk. Sure environment, routine etc is a factor in it too.

Can't think that there is much you can do at all to get a baby to sleep through, more luck than anything I think

[terramum]

Sleeping thru is really down to the baby themselves ime. One of my friends first baby didn't sleep at all...literally & she was exhausted for a couple of years...then she had her second & she sleeps like a dream...no difference in parenting at all...just different babies.

My own DS started sleeping 8 hours straight at night when he was 8 weeks old. He just did it all on his own...we didn't even notice for a few nights & then it dawned on us that he hadn't woken for his feed LOL. He kept on with that only waking in the night if he was teething or having a growth spurt. He is now 37 months & for the last few months has woken pretty much every night...not for a feed...but more for a cuddle I think...I guess he just needs to be close to us atm.

[maxbear]

dd slept through while fully bf at 4 months, had only been waking once a night for sometime before that.
ds slept through fully bf at 3.5 months, for one week only before he started waking every 2 -3 hours to feed. I then weaned him and now (almost 6 months) he sleeps about 6.30 - 7am every night. He improved about a week after I started weaning, but did not get back to 12 hour sleeps until recently.
I too believe that some people are just lucky, and I do reckon that it might be genetic as some people have good sleepers and some not such good sleepers. I might of course eat my words if I have another one and it never sleeps!