to think my baby should be sleeping through the night

[Confused19831983]

My baby is around eight months old and his bed time is roughly 6.30pm.

He wakes for a feed (he is bottle fed) at around 10.30pm, 2.30am and 6.30am.

The above times are very rough. Sometimes he will wake at 1am and then again at 5am but usually won't sleep for much more than four hours at a time.

His schedule is not too bad to manage between DP and myself but AIBU to think he should be sleeping for longer periods by this age?

He is our first baby.

I had one that slept very easily and one that didn’t my DD slept so easily and quickly that I thought DS was the very devil himself but now realise he wasn’t that bad. I did controlled crying which makes me akin to Cruelka De Ville or the evil stepmother in Snow White on here. DS was 7 months old. He is 22 and totally fine, we get on well, he did well at school, fine with relationships.

My 17 month old has never slept through. We're still on 3 hourly wake ups. Some kids do, some kids don't.

There's no right or wrong, normal or abnormal, just what's normal and works for you and your family.

If you are struggling with the wake ups and want to get baby sleeping through, I highly recommend the sensational baby sleep plan by Alison Scott-Wright. Just loosely following this my LO has been sleeping 11+ hrs from 10wks old, is gaining weight, happy and thriving. It's not too abrasive, you still respond to baby rather than let them CIO but you just assess whether their cry is only a grumble or if they actually need you. If you want to start sleep training the sooner you do it the easier and quicker it will be as "bad habits" aren't as ingrained.

However if you are happy with things and managing ok then carry on as you are, it really is personal choice and you should do what works for your family. He will start sleeping through eventually, every child has their own timescale, it's not like he's gonna be 16 and crying out for you to bring him milk at 1am, unless maybe he's drunk 😂

Thank you so much everyone for the replies. It's reassuring to hear that our boy seems to be displaying typical behaviour for an eight month old! Also, feel lucky that it's not any worse! It's not actually too bad managing the feeds between us but I suppose I had a nagging feeling in the back of my head I should be DOING something to help stop him waking up so often. I will definitely try feeding him more food in the day to see if that makes a difference. Will be interesting to see how well he sleeps tonight as he's eaten like a horse today!

You've had good advice so far but I just want to echo people saying it's very normal which I realise isn't helpful in the thick of it. I remember reading somewhere that birth to age 5 isn't consistent for sleep and thinking it was a load of rubbish but actually I've found that very accurate for my two.

My DS1 wasn't a great sleeper for the first year but was great from age 1, until he was 3 then regressed a bit, regressed again age 4 but has been pretty good ever since - although he's nearly 9 and sometimes sneaks into my bed!
DS2 was amazing from 6 weeks till age 1 then was a nightmare from age 1-2, got a bit better from then and noticeably better from age 3. He still comes into my bed every night and he's nearly 6. It's just me he wants to be with, he doesn't get into his dad's bed (we are divorced) on his weekends.

I wish I'd put less expectations on my babies and also myself, to give myself a break if I'd had a crap night.

Sympathies, it's shit when you're in the middle of it.

All babies are different. His sleep doesn't sound too bad to me.

As far as I can see he's only having one wake up between your bedtime and a reasonable morning wake up time so it really isn't too shabby IMO but I appreciate it doesn't always feel that easy when you're in the thick of it!

No worries OP! I definitely noticed an improvement in sleep when she was munching through solids like no tomorrow lol. My little one is like that with strawberries funnily enough! She's disgusted by them but any other fruit, veg etc she can't get enough of. X

There's no rule. He will sleep through when he's ready. One of mine slept through consistently at 3 months, another was almost 3 years.