anyone had a bf baby who sleeps through the night?

[ZeroZeroOne]

I have DD1 who is almost 4 and DD2 at 10 months. Fed DD1 to 20 months and still going with DD2. I don't think that there is a single night where they have slept through whilst I was/am feeding.

With DD1 I co-slept from around 12 weeks but haven't at all this time around (simply because she is happy sleeping alone). However, I am still up a few times a night, albeit for a very short time and it seems that she just wants me for comfort and then goes back into her cot (am talking 5-10 mins).

Am completely used to it and doesn't bother me at all. I just wonder if any other bf-ers manage to get them to do a 11pm-6am type scenario?

I can't remember with my older two but DS2 stopped feeding at night at the age of 9 motnhs. Since then he has slept through from about 8 pm to 7am

Nothing to do with bf ime. Ds never slept - was ff from 3 weeks. He just wasn't a sleeper or a daytime napper. Dd1 was ebf and coslept but was sleeping through by your definition before 3 months. Dd2 is ebf and never naps and is nowhere near sleeping through. I might have blamed the bf if I'd not had the others. Hope you get better sleep soon.

DD only ever woke twice in the night from the day she was born - midnight and 5am. At 5 months she'd dropped both those feeds on her own and slept through from 8-8. she was in a moses basket beside our bed and then a cot beside our bed, our routine was - she screamed, DH got her, I fed her, he changed her, I fed her some more until she was blotto, then put her back in the the basket/cot.

At 9 months however she started waking up again and our co-sleeping days began!

DS1 (bf) slept from 7 till 7 from 13 weeks. DS2 (bf) slept from 7 till 7 from 12 weeks. DD (child number 3 and last one) (bf), first slept through an entire night at 3.9 years....

My 11 month old sleeps 7pm til 5 or 6am at the moment. She has a feed and then goes back to sleep til about 7. My 3 year old was probably the same at that age. How many times is a few? Have you tried leaving her when she wakes and listening to see if she doesn't just put herself back to sleep? I don't mean leave her continuously crying when she needs you, but sometimes mine just wake, give a startled cry, maybe another cry as they realise they are awake, one more as they settle to sleep and then they're done.

dd1 FF
dd2 slept 7-7ish from 5 months old when I realised the 4am was 3 comfort sucks rather than a feed so sush patted her for 2 nights and she just cuddled her bunny instead
dd3 slept 10ish-7ish from 3 weeks (then we had problems for the age of 20 months)
dd4 slept 7 til 7 from 4 weeks old but had started doing so pretty much from a week old , they were big birth weights though and I woke them to feed regularly during the day.

DD was breastfed for a year and slept through at about 10 weeks (about 7pm-7am). The first time she did I woke up before she did and fell out of bed in my rush to go and check on her. I was sure something bad must have happened Also my boobs were like rocks [grins]

However, she certainly didn't sleep through every night after this and was often up once or twice in the night until she was about 2ish.

Yes, DD slept throught at about 9 weeks (from about 7pm til about 6.30am) and was exclusively BF at that point.

DS2 slept through from 4 months, was BF exclusively til 6 months and finally stopped at 14 months.

DS1 was also BF and appalling sleeper, I think it's the luck of the draw!

I bf all three of my babies and all followed a similar pattern. I would feel very smug when at about 10 weeks they started sleeping through the night, only to be brought down to Earth with a bump at around 5 months when they became such light sleepers that the slightest noise would wake them up and they would want feeding back to sleep. Starting solids didn't help and they woke up frequently until in case of DS1 he started crawling and wore himself out and in case of DS2 I went cold turkey on the night feeds at about 14 months and in case of DS3 fairly good most nights since about 13 months.

DS1 7pm-7am by 3 months.
DS2 goes to bed with us whenever, and wakes every 2-3 hours until 5 when it's every hour (but that's improving). He's only 11 wks.

Both Exc. BF. Totally different boys.

DD is ebf and is now 16 weeks (nearly 17). She is in bed from 8.30pm to 8.30am (often later actually - she's got sticky mattress like me....) with one waking at around 4.30am.

all 3 of mine BF and slept/sleep well. though subbed with BM & baby rice @ regression stage whenever that arrived.

DD2 is 5 weeks and generally doesn't wake until 3/4am...

[hollow laugh]

DS self-weaned at 2.3 and still doesn't sleep through at 3.3.

The next one's part-baked - I'll feed this one until self-weaning too, all being well, but it better be more of a sleeper than its big brother or I'll go maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad

co-sleeping is what stops them sleeping through, not breastfeeding, IMHO. Why not have a comforting little snack when it's close at hand?

Mine were BF and only slept through at six or seven months--a shortish night.

Dd started sleeping through at around 8 months, 3 days after we put her into her own room. Felt very guilty to begin with that we'd been waking her up in the night - and to be fair dh does snore very loudly sometimes. But I now think that it was coincidence and actually a developmental thing.

Ironically our BF-sleep link is probably the opposite to what you're thinking. I ebf dd until I went back to work at six months. I expressed for a couple of weeks, but failed miserably at it and she was then given formula when I was away from her for 5 days a week and bf at the weekends when I was home. Obviously she was also having some solids at this point. Anyway I'm a teacher so I was only back at work for half a term so she only had four weeks of formula before I around all day and we went back to just bf. On formula and also before I went back to work she woke regularly during the night and was always bf back to sleep. 3 weeks into the holidays she started to sleep through and although she doesn't do it every night (she always wakes when she has a cold or is teething, just for a snuggle really) she is pretty good at going 7.30pm - 7.00am

None of my DC have slept in our room after 6 weeks.

My DS2 is 5 months old & EBF. He slept all night (well 10pm-7am) from 8 weeks to 16 weeks. From 16 - 18 weeks 2 night wakings, now either one of none.

DD is now 6. She slept though (10-7) from 10 weeks - sucking her thumb to soothe. Started waking up again in night at 5 months so weaned her after a week of night wake ups and as soon as weaned slept through night again. By 7 months had stopped BFing and cut out 10pm feed. She still slept through night.

DS1 slept though night most nights from 12-16 weeks and then became a nightmare refusing to fed if the milk wasn't fast, waking countless times in the night. At 20 weeks had enough moved him onto formula and he slept all night.

DS2 is 14 months and has been sleeping through (ish - til about 5.30am) for about a month - I still bfeed but only morning and bedtime, and he still sleeps in our room.
We decided that to night wean dh would get up and comfort him in the night since he was still waking up once or twice, feeding for 2 or 3 minutes then going back to bed. It only took a few nights for him to get the message, and with no screaming rages, so he was obviously ready. At 10 months he was still feeding a couple of times a night and fairly keenly.

Both my DCs (now 6yo and 11mo) were exclusively BF and slept through the night from 11-7ish from 8/9 weeks old. We dropped the dream feed around 6 months with both at which point they slept 7-7. Obviously we have since had short periods of waking due to illness, teething etc but they have always slept through again once well.

FWIW I don't think BF/FF has anything to do with how well they sleep. Nor does the size of the baby have anything to do with it (I had one 75%ile baby and one 25%ile one, and their sleep has been almost identical). I think that some babies 'get' the concept of settling themselves back to sleep at the end of a sleep cycle very early, some don't. I was lucky, and both mine 'got' the concept early with absolutely no help required - I always demand fed during the night, and they simply went longer and longer after their 10pm feed until they were sleeping through.

BUT having said that I do think there is some truth in what other posters have written i.e. if they are in your room/bed for an extended period of time (beyond six months) it's possible - though not inevitable - that wakeups are caused by parents disturbing baby. Both mine had to go into their own room at 4 months (they outgrew the moses basket, and no room for the big cot in our room) and perhaps that helped in terms of their sleep. Certainly if we ever have to share a room with DS2, he wakes through the night even now, and looks for milk. Give him a nice quiet cot and a room on his own, though, and he does 7-7 no problem, doesn't make a peep, and doesn't look for milk till we go in to get him.

It's a generalisation, obviously (I am sure plenty of children do co-sleep/share their parents room well beyond six months and sleep through no problem) but I think there is a link in some cases.

DS is exclusively BF and slept through from about 12 weeks - used to stuff himself stupid before bed then not wake until 6am. It only lasted for a few months though - we're now back to waking a couple of times a night - I blame the teeth!

From my very unscientific study of people-i-know, the feeding method doesn't make any odds.

As a mum to one fab sleepewr and one rubbish sleeper, i think sleepers are born, not made.

Hmm. Not sure. Personally I think not having them in your bed after they are very, very little makes a difference. We all just kept waking one another up.