When do breastfed babies sleep through the night?

[Ami100]

Hello all,

My son is 7.5 months old and I'm still breastfeeding. He has two or three small meals a day .

Currently he still wakes 3x a night for feeds. When will he start sleeping through? Would be lovely to get more sleep at night

[midnightstar66]

DD1 slept through from 7 weeks, dd2 was about 3/4 years and still woke up wanting a drink long after being weaned. I don't think she had a full nights sleep til she started school. There is no accurate answer to your question I'm afraid

[Toebarb]

It really varies OP. All three of my DC were breastfed and one of them slept right through (7am to 7pm) at 3 months, while for the other two it was over a year.

[namechange202086]

Almost 3 and still up 4+ times a night.

[Ginfordinner]

DD was 9 months

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Dd was 9weeks and Ds 10weeks.

But I think I was the first to have baby sleep through out of all my group who were both bottle and breastfeeding and a mixture of both

[GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal]

Depends on the baby. My DD was 18 months before she managed a 3 hour stretch, and 3 and a half before she slept through. Her little brother slept through from 6 weeks.

[Indoctro]

5 years old was when when child (who was BF for 13 months) finally slept through the night

[OverTheRainbow88]

Eldest about 18 months, youngest still wakes now at 20 Months.

Other friends EBF babies slept through from
About 8 months!

[ChinDiaper]

Both mine were sleeping through (10-6ish) from 3 or 4 months.

[CointreauVersial]

Mine slept through at 7 weeks, 11 weeks and 8 weeks. I don't reckon it has anything to do with how they were fed - I just got lucky on that front.

OP, maybe just offer water when he wakes up.

[Scotinoz]

How long is a piece of string I'm afraid! Friends had babies who slept early on, mine were 3 or 4 before they slept reliably.

3 feeds a night at 7months sounds reasonable in my experience.

And I was told 'sleeping through the night' really meant midnight to 5am, not 7pm to 7am. I got the 5 hour chunk by about 12mths.

[Rubyroost]

1. 5 months, this little terror though I think will be longer, he's 7.5 months

[Rubyroost]

3 feeds a night doesn't sound reasonable to me. I fed mine last night before bed at 10pm then he cried at 11pm and fed him again and then again at 4am and 8.30am. I'd rather he slept from 10pm until 9 am. 😂 If he doesn't do it soon, I will make sure he does. 😂

[ShirleyPhallus]

We’ve done night weaning and DD sleeps 7-7 with a 10pm dream feed

[Ginfordinner]

DD never slept a 12 hour stretch as a baby.

[mindutopia]

It's completely down to the baby. My ebf baby started sleeping through a bit around 3-4 months and then much more consistently from about 14 months. He's nearly 3 now though and does wake once or twice at the moment, though slept through for quite a long time from about 2. My one that was formula fed (dropped all night feeds on her own at 9 months) never really slept through at all until she was about 3.5.

[mrsmonkey14]

When my youngest DD started eating 3 meals a day around 6m old, I moved from on demand BFing that I had done since birth to BFing on a rough schedule through the day (which helped me fit in all the meals and naps!), also made sure she was hungry enough for the meals. I appreciate everyone has different views on this, but she was also waking almost every hour of the night to feed for 1 min back to sleep, and I was not coping at all with that, so we engaged a sleep consultant to do a gentle method of sleep training, and after a couple of days of that she slept through night every night (and still does at age 4). Best money we ever spent. I came back from the brink of not coping and was a much better mum for it and she was happy and content and well rested. Just sharing because it worked for us. (And I don’t judge anyone who does it differently, so no piling on please if you don’t agree!)

I felt comfortable that she didn’t need to feed through the night by that age because my eldest slept through the night from 11 weeks (I know I know very lucky - obvs assumed at the time it was my excellent parenting).

I always see everyone saying you just have to wait for the baby to be ready, but we have to teach babies lots of things, and some babies need help learning how to sleep.

[mrsmonkey14]

Ps. Should clarify that my version of “sleeping through the night” is 7-7.

[Mydarlingsleepthief]

Mines 2.5 years and still feeds throughout the night 😬

[midnightstar66]

Ps. Should clarify that my version of “sleeping through the night” is 7-7.

Oh, then my answer is never - nearly 11 and 7 year olds have never slept that long in all their days!

[Ohalrightthen]

8 months, when i night weaned. They don't need it at night by then, it's just habit. She was waking every 3 hours, I'd had enough, so one night i just didnt feed her when she woke and the next night she slept through. It all goes tits up when she's poorly or teething though, and she often gets a feed in the night if she's very upset in those circumstances.

[ShinyGreenElephant]

My oldest started sleeping through consistently at 9 months of her own accord. My youngest is 22m and sleeps through probably 6/7 nights now but thats taken a lot of work and I've had to night wean. Both breastfed. Honestly noone can predict what an individual baby will do but there are gentle methods you can use to help the process along

[FourPlasticRings]

Yeah, consider what people mean when they say sleeping through. There's a woman in a baby group I'm in who will tell you her two week old slept through the night (slept from 2 a.m. until 7 a.m.). To me, anything less than 10 hours is not sleeping through. But a lot of the people you ask will have their own definition.

[1940s]

16 months old

[WoahHeyThere]

God, these people with 2/3/4/5 year olds that still wake multiple times in the night must be actual walking zombies 😲😲😲