Sleeping through at 5 months- help!!!

[gondolo]

My ds is 20 weeks now, and is still not going through the night. We've got a really good bath time bed time routine and he's reliably asleep by 7pm. He wakes overnight between 2 & 4, feeds and then goes straight back to
Sleep. He's ebf but I have just started giving a bottle of formula occasionally in the evenings. Ive tried a 10pm dream feed but it makes no difference. Im going back to ft work with long commute in 4 weeks and I'm not going to be able to manage on broken sleep constantly. DP is a waste of space so he can't help with night feeds. Any ideas on how to change routine to help him go through the night? Thanks!

Agreed, it's hard but actually that's pretty good going. 7-9 hrs in one stretch is great for a 5 month old. If you find you're not getting enough sleep maybe bring your bedtime earlier to benefit more from the long stretch.

No idea.

DD didn't do what you'd think of as 'sleeping through the night' until she was 14-15 months old.

FF won't make any difference, nor will weaning.

Why can't DP help with the night feeds?

My little one is 5 months and will usualy manage 7 ish hours in one go which I thought was quite good to be honest. Diffrence is DS stays up with us till 11 so then is sleeping through till about 6am. I am hoping to get back my evenings back in the not to distant future but at present I'm happy with this as I get a decent sleep overnight.

5 month olds don't sleep through the night, unless :

You use the medical definition ie 5 hours, which quite frankly I don't know who came up with, but it is of no use to anybody except people who are still being woken every 2 or 3 hours and can only dream of 5.

The baby has been aggressively sleep trained.

Perhaps, you are extremely lucky and get a naturally good sleeper who may do 6-8 hours.

Or, you take "sleeping through" to mean that you co-sleep and baby wakes briefly and slightly, latches themselves on, feeds and goes back to sleep, disturbing you so little that by the morning you have no idea how many times they woke up but you feel refreshed and able to go about your day. (my preferred option)

sounds like you are doing very well when you read the threads people start on their interrupted sleep at 5 months. I don't see how dp could help anyway if you are breastfeeding, so no need to beat yourself up about that, but he could help during the evenings and mornings to make your life a bit easier when you are working fulltime, could you talk with that about him and perhaps work out what your different responsibilities aroudn the house/baby are? Maybe he give baby breakfast when baby is on to solids in a month, do some laundry that sort of thing, get baby up in the morning when you get ready for work etc, if you are doing the bfng in the night. Also baby might feed more in the night when you are back at work, so be prepared for worst. Alternatively pattern could change completely, with babies you never know.
Well done on bedtime routine, that is a very good start for restful sleep.

I think you are feeling a bit low and unsupported with baby in this post, enjoy last month at home and try and talk to your partner about how things might work out when you go back to work, whilst trying not to back him into corner. Make it clear how much you depend on his support, rather than going for the jugular.

I looked back at my diary of my now 10.5mo, ebf, and at 19 weeks he was sleeping 7.30-3.30 feed - 7.30 so pretty similar to your ds. He started sleeping 7-7 at 24 weeks shame he didn't keep it up. He's still a pretty good sleeper now but has decided that he would like to wake up at 5.30am for a BIG feed then back to sleep til 8. Nothing I do changes it sorry, long story short, not a lot you can do about it but it sounds like your ds is actually doing really well and one wake up is pretty good going! Just feed and get back to sleep (you) as quickly as you can (I use ear plugs for this bit)

My ds starting sleeping through from 7pm-6am with a dream feed at 10.30 the week before I went back to work. He was 5.5 months- I was so smug!

Dd is a totally different story, she's currently 6 months and a typical night goes like this.

7pm asleep
9.30pm awake, fed and may go back to sleep straight away or be up for 1-2 hrs
Then up every 1-2hrs until I give up and co sleep when she'll pretty much feed on and off all night. She is teething though.

I'm not so smug now! :o

Bertiebotts - you don't need to 'aggressively' sleep train a baby to have one that sleeps from 7-7pm.

Gondolo - I think your baby is doing just great. When people talk about a baby sleeping through the night, they often mean different things.

Two of my three were happy little things that slept from 7pm - gave dream feed at 11pm and then slept through till 7am but they probably only started doing that at 5 months. From my point of view, your baby sounds like an amazing sleeper!

From 5 months onwards mine started to consolidate their sleep and at 6 months I started weaning. Once weaning was quite established - at around 8 months I took away the dream feed, gently.

One of my babies always slept from 7pm and would wake up once in the night, until they were nearer 18 months.

We have done nothing aggressive - just gently encouragement and routines. Beware the temptation to over feed at bedtime as I do think it can lead to more night waking.

I could have written this post myself and was just about to when I read it. My 5 month old is (was) doing pretty much the same thing until last couple of days when she seems to be waking every couple of hours.
There was a point when she slept through (9-7) for about two weeks from 3.5 months but now back to her nightly feeds.
I love the idea of just letting her latch on in sleep as she is in a co-sleeper anyways but I've never been able to figure out the physical dynamics of this lying down feed and when she cries I worry that I'm bending her arms back or something trying to get her latched on 'sideways'.
My bmf (best mummy friend) has a baby who sleeps through 7-7 so I always feel like I'm not doing something right but feeling reassured reading these responses.
They are so changeable aren't they?

You're lucky! Neither of mine was going longer than 2 hours around the clock at 5 months, so 7pm to 2am is very good indeed. The formula won't make any difference, you just need to ride it out. Sleeping all the way through the night often doesn't happen reliably until sometime after nine months.

Your DP needs to buck his ideas up.

Sounds like your baby is doing well, to me! Our DS was waking up at least once right until about 8 or 9 months. At this point we knew he was happily on solids and really didn't need any milk in the night, so we had try other ways of getting him to self-settle, and from about 10 months he was happily up to 12 hours. For us, the gap just gradually got bigger and bigger. If your baby is only waking up once, that is good thing!

(P.S. Did you know the scientific definition of "sleeping through the night" is 5 consecutive hours? People's idea of what constitutes sleeping through the night seems to vary widely)

The term 'sleeping through' is often taken to mean 'sleeping through the night' but it actually refers to sleeping through a feed - that's why it's only 5-6 hours. Feeds are usually 2-3 hours apart, hence the timespan.

Loads of babies do sleep through at around the 6 month mark. Ours did, without any 'aggressive' sleep training (whatever that means), just a later feed and being in her own bedroom.
I bf and also gave formula at c 8pm, she then slept til at least 7. Was prepared for controlled crying but not needed as she slept after about 15 minutes anyway. Good luck.

Greygardens did you find putting them in their own room helped? How? I've been told to do that but thinking it will just make it more inconvenient when I have to tread over to her room then feed her in the cold/dark chair rather than our comfy bed. By the time I get there she's fully awake whereas if I leave her next to me I can often just reach over and shush her back to sleep.

I don't know, 6 one hand, half dozen on the other.....
We really like having her in our room anyways, but have started wondering if it might be keeping her up.

Hi Sprite, yes it did help us, but she didn't need feeding in the night at that stage so it all coincided - it might not be for everyone. For some reason at 6 months own room + top up formula feed all worked and she was happy to sleep through (still does aged 5 I'm happy to report) - we're all MUCH happier as a result.
Trickier if you're still feeding at night though. I couldn't sleep when she was in my room anyway - her snuffling kept me awake!

Thanks everyone! He's been in his own room since birth, and has always seemed happy & relaxed in there. You're right, I am feeling a little low at the moment. My mum keeps making me feel guilty for 'putting my career first' and my dh just isn't very domesticated so I'm a bit down...
The good news is I gave baby a really long bf at about 11pm last night and he's still asleep!! never underestimate to power of a good nights sleep! Thanks everyone for your kind words!

Sounds like your DS is doing really well. Just some advice about the dreamfeed thing - we did it when I went back to work when DS was about 5 months old. You really have to stick at it for a few nights before seeing if it works or not. The first few nights it made no difference at all for us, but then after about 4/5 nights DS suddenly started sleeping through till 6am! It worked really well for us, and we then managed to gradually wean him off it at around 9 months (well, he basically gave up wanting it). It doesn't work for everyone, but I'd recommend giving it a week of trying before giving up!
FWIW, my DH never helped with night feeds either, even though he's super domesticated and does most of the cooking, etc. It just worked better for us with me doing it and I didn't mind too much anyway....

I am sorry but having a 5month old that sleeps 7-7 does NOT mean that they have been aggressively sleep trained, how very dare you Bertie!

But, I do agree that your baby's sleep' is on the better end of the normal spectrum OP.

You could try and offer a bottle of water and see if after a couple of nights they decide it isn't worth waking up for. I did this at 5 months but decided at the outset if it didn't work then fine, back to night feeds. I only did it because DD went from sleeping through to waking up loads and stopped bfing in the day due to renewed night feeds- it worked, with no upset

Both my DCs have slept much better when in their own rooms, but the SIDs advice is in with you for 6 months, do that is a decision only you can make

Hi Sprite21 I found moving DS to his room helped us both. Having him right next to me made him really reliant on me and he ended up waking every 45 mins ish at its worst. It wasn't a miraculous cure when we moved him don't get me wrong - but we saw a gradual improvement. It was too easy to just put my arm out and shush/pat/stroke him when he made the slightest whimper....now (6.5mo) he is in his own cot in his own room and we have the monitor on quietly in our room - so I can't hear every tiny little noise he makes. Works better for us....even though he still wakes in the night I leave him for a couple of minutes - sometimes he gets himself back to sleep before I get to him or he may play in his cot for a bit before going back to sleep. Other times he will kick off and I know that he needs me. I've got high hopes for the future. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

Actualy Bertie said aggressively sleep trained or natrualy good sleepers (at lest that's how I read it)

Acutaly the SID's advice in the UK is a bit outdated the WHO acutaly recomends baby's stay in the same room as you for 12months. I expect we'll change our recomendations at some point to come into line with this. This also means all sleep in the same room as an adult even during the day for naps.

And i agree with just about everyone else she's actualy doing really well on the sleep front. There is no reasarch to prove that giving formula or soldis helps baby's sleep through, in fact a resent study suggest that formula fed mum's get less sleep. Also intorducing solids can often make baby's wake more not less I'm afraid.

Appreciate that's the guidelines MigGril and in an ideal world wouldn't that be wonderful!! However it's not always practical.....in the real world. My ds woke with every sniff, cough, twist and turn made by me and dh....so we were keeping him awake as much as he was waking up himself. So perhaps according to the WHO I am wrong and need a public flogging....but hey....I can sleep easy (when possible! ;-)) knowing we did what We felt was right for us at the time.

Just had to add that I tried GreyGardens' advice (moving 5mo to cot in her own room) and only had to get up and feed/settle her once last night as opposed to the six times previously required. I feel like a new woman.
So WHO guidelines aside, I am keeping her in her own room. Thanks for the tip GG.

Fantastic sprite! That's great news. Long may it continue.