If you breastfed, how long until you got a decent nights sleep?

[Melittlebee]

My baby is only a week old and I'm breastfeeding but the tiredness is painful!
I'm getting about 4 hours sleep and that's broken so not a full stretch.
He's feeding well so no problems there.

My question is how long was it until you started getting better nights sleep? I'm not sure I've got what it takes to do this 3 months let alone 6.

Congratulations! God that exhaustion...just makes me shudder remembering it!

Around 8-10 weeks babies tend to go for longer stretches...they start to differentiate between night and day..so that's nice!

Mine woke 2-3 times a night, sometimes 1 if very lucky, until 8 months. That was much better, as I could rely on some rest at night. But not good enough so at 8 months we sleep trained and he started doing 10-12 hours. Not for everyone obviously.

Yeah, I'd say it was about 8 weeks and then he started going for 6/7/8 hour stretches. I asked my husband when he returned to work that no matter the time, to make me a cup of tea and some toast before he left. It. Was so simple, but helped so much to make me feel taken care of when the exhaustion was at its peak.

We got some decent sleep after about two months, he would often sleep 11-6 which was perfect. He would feed a LOT during the day to make up for it though. It went out the window at four months with the sleep regression but at least we had had a good stretch of sleep before we had to deal with that. Just bear in mind all babies are different and get as much rest (and cake) as you can during the day

19 months to get a proper block of 3 hours

My DD starting sleeping longer at night at around 9 weeks. Hang in there!

Around 8 weeks, but from speaking to many friends it honestly doesn't matter how they are fed. You either get a good sleeper or one that takes a long time to settle.

Don't forget they don't know the difference between night and day at this stage. So making day time different from night time can help. Oh and they also don't know they are separate from you either so often need a lot of comfort.

It got much better at 7–8 weeks and he slept through at 13.

Mine slept through from 10 weeks but she was on a strict routine and we did a dreamfeed or expressed milk at 10pm

I'm mix feeding and DS is only 6 weeks and in getting 4-5 hours of broken sleep a night. I occasionally manage a nap in the day. I'm hoping what PP have said is right and we get longer stretches here soon too. Good luck op and congrats

Dc1 - by about 10 months would occasionally sleep 5 hours (first time they did it I woke and assumed the worst I just couldn't believe I'd finally had some sleep). Slept through from 15 months

Dc2 - had a good patch from 6 weeks to 4 months where I'd often get 6 hours. Then from 11 months would occasionally sleep through but more often wake 2 x per night. Somehow seems more manageable the 2nd time.

Good luck, but as someone else said you either get a sleeper or you don't, friends with ff babies also had bad sleepers!

Two and a half years.

The first three weeks is the hardest. I have always hit a really low point in the middle of the night somewhere in week two, cried and said 'I can't go on like this'...but I've woken up feeling better afterwards.

My BF DDs sleep was awful for the first year. It got better around 8 weeks and then awful again from 4 months. I switched to FF from 6 months and it made no difference. Unfortunately some babies are not great sleepers and it doesn’t really matter how they are fed.
It feels like forever while you’re in the thick of it but it doesn’t last forever and you get used to running on no sleep. Have you got family and friends local who you can ask round to look after your baby for a few hours while you nap. Does your baby sleep at all during the day. I used to go to bed stupidly early at 7/8pm because DD used to sleep from 7-10ish so at least I was guaranteed that block of sleep even if I was then up in the middle of the night.

Do try to get them out into the midday light as much as possible after the first couple of weeks. I’m positive that exposure to bright exterior light helps speed the process of understanding the day-night distinction. Easier said than done at this time of year though - but at least get the curtains opened and sit them in the brightest naturally lit room. Daylight is so much brighter than even a 100W lightbulb that the latter feels like perpetual twilight to your internal system.

Dd,mixed fed, 2 years, night weaned at 18 months, she still needed me at night.
Ds, ebf, by a year ish? He's nearly two and feeds a couple of times a night. I get 6 hours straight a several times a week which is fine and almost always a 4 hour chunck every night. Dd is 5 and wakes at least once every few nights. Dh wakes me at least once every few nights. The children I can forgive, a grow man should know better!

I breastfed both of mine till they were 3.5 years old.

DD was a terrible sleeper and didn't sleep through till 3, DS was a brilliant sleeper and slept through at a few weeks old.

I think it depends on the child - and from what I've been told, plenty of bottle-fed babies are dreadful sleepers.

She's 7.months now and still doesn't go.longer than 2 hours max

I'm not going to answer your question because DD2 is a terrible sleeper and you won't want to hear it, but your baby is only a week old. One week old babies don't usually sleep for long stretches whether breast or formula fed, so I don't think the sleep deprivation is due to breastfeeding. Hope things get better soon. I remember it all feeling completely impossible at that point but you can survive it.

Mine fairly quickly starting doing longer stretches then by a couple of months walking once and by 6 months sleeping through.

I also started expressing after a few weeks and my husband would then do the night feed so I slept right through.

Can you partner help now so you can get more sleep ie take baby for an hour walk or something?

Learn to feed lying down and set up for proper co sleeping. The thing that killed me was the getting up and out of bed. I nailed feeding lying down second time around and felt more refreshed despite the broken sleep.

At about 7 weeks I was getting 6 hours a night in two blocks of 3 hours. It all felt much better at that point.

My son was a dreadful sleeper for his first year. For the first 4 months we got 20-30 mins at a time. The occasional hour was a miracle He's 4 and still not reliably sleeping all night. But what I will say, to give you hope, is that you kind of get used to the lack of sleep in a way. So it does get better in that respect. Many people here are saying 8 - 10 weeks. That wasn't the case for us. So don't feel that something is wrong if your baby doesn't magically start sleeping well at that time.

Longer stretches after 6-8 weeks with a fairly predictable wake up schedule.

So at about 3 months, I started expressing in the day then husband would wait up / doze on the sofa until the midnight wake then he would do that feed.

So I could reliably have 9pm - 3am or even 4am then a couple more hours after which was very doable until they did all night. That didn’t come for us until we sleep trained at about a year.

If I had my time again, I’d ditch the expressing though, and use formula for the night feed. It shouldn’t make a difference to your supply once you’re established - as long as you feed on demand at all other times - and it would have made a BIG difference to my sanity.

Dd is 6 weeks. Ive had nights where she has slept for 6 hours straight and nights where she's been up all night eating.

She's just starting to go sleep at 1030 and wake every 3 and half hours for food, but is still hit and miss.