when did your baby sleep longer during the night?

[bigboydiditandranaway]

baby 5wks old and currently wants feeding every 2hrs from 12-5ish, has a long stint from 6/7pm till 11/12pm and generally feeds every 2/3hrs during the day.(at the most 5oz, sometimes 3/4oz)

When will the nights be better

Umm well DD started sleeping reliably for more than two hours at eight months. So you have it easy really! Sorry, but it depends entirely on the child. My new DS sleeps more than she did before she was a year old!

With both my children i found at around 10-12 weeks they were both sleeping through. By this i mean went down around 7pm and up around 7am.

I think after around 8 weeks the feeds started to drop from 2-3 a night to 1-2 then eventually tailed off.

Lots of people say how lucky i am to have 2 great sleepers but i have found most of my friends and work collegues have all said this was the case with them, or there abouts.

Keep your chin up.

Some advice i was given from Midwife's, health visitors and friends. Always feed your baby in the dark (i know its sometimes challenging), no noise at all, try changing the nappy if your baby is falling asleep on you, have a set bedtime and stick to it.

Hope some of this helps, i'm sure you prob are doing the above.

Remember it will get better with time. xx

how long is a piece of string?

sorry, seeing what i've just written looks like it could look differently to what i've intended. i'll elaborate. i was just trying to say that you'll get such different answers from different mums.

some children sleep through from 8 weeks ish, some don't sleep well until they get to toddler years or beyond.

i know that probably isn't what you want to hear at all, but they are so very different. and then, once they are sleeping through, they start teething!

i did read somewhere that babies over the age of 6 months don't need food physically, although many sleep through prior to this.

good luck x

DD slept through regularly from 9 mo and stoped waking at 5 am at 1 yr. I really thought - surely it must get better after 6 mo??? It was totally knackering.

Hopefully yours will aquire this very desirable skill sooner. Among my mommy friends it did vary a great deal.

Bloody hell love, DS is 20 months and doesn't sleep that long in one go.

3.5 years !!

I don't know! DD is 13 months and a nightmare! She had 3 good nights last week but has gone back to a ridiculous number of wake ups. Sorry I can't be more positive!

Both DC's were about 3 months.

In healthy sleep haibts healthy child (great book) it says no point establishing a routine until 4/5 months, but if you put your baby down after 2 hours of awake time it'll be easier to get them into a routine later. I think what you need are some tips to help with your exhustion until baby can get into a routine and sleep through (btw-all babies can by 9 months, most by 6 months if parents are disiplined about it. Are you breastfeeding or bottle feeding? Is there someone else, ie-your partner or mum who can give a bottle of formula or EBM for you so you can get some extra sleep? I would feed our DS at around 9/9.30pm and then go to bed, and my DH would feed him a bottle of EBM whenever he next woke up, often allowing me to sleep till 2.30/3am. Can you get someone to help with cleaning, friend or paid help so you can sleep when baby sleeps during the day? It will get better, and by 5-6months you can be down to once a night, in the dark, then straight back to sleep. Until then, early nights and sleep when you can. Feel good x

DS1 didn't sleep through till 2, Ds2 started reliably sleeping through at about 11 months - but I think I've been particularly unlucky!

thanks, middle of the night feeds in darkness from now on!

Fingers crossed for 8wks time, i think ds took 12/14 wks so we'll see.