When(if!) do breast fed babies sleep longer?

[CrazyAlien06]

hi
I am bf my 4 wk old DD and am fed up with people discouraging me and telling me she will never sleep through the night or go longer than two hours.

Please tell me that this is not true!

I am the only person out of my friends who is or even attempted breastfeeding and me and DD seem to be getting on ok.night times are very tough as she won't settle for hours but I'm sure we ll get there :)

Thanks!

Week dd slept through from 8 weeks, ds is defo not going to manage that one as he's 7 weeks and night time is a bit of a nightmare.

It does feel like it will never end but it will.

Stay strong, try and rest whenever you can and remember even if you changed to ff that doesn't mean they will sleep through. They are tiny and waking up to feed is their job.

Ds is 10 weeks and was an every 1.5-2 hours man for the first 6 weeks. I didn't bother trying to do the bedtime thing either - just let him fall asleep in his own time. Now I feed him and put him down at 8, dream feed at 11, he wakes at 3.30-4 am (hence the posting time!) then goes through till about 7ish. This is much more bearable!

Thanks for your replies :) -oh look I'm back 2hrs after last post haha.
I feel better from reading your replies!
coastgirl when u say u feed and put down your DS at 8- is that in your room? I'm slightly worried I'm not going the whole ' bedtime' thing to help her.
I have the Moses basket with me all day and take it up with me at night.I am currently heading to bed around 8 as shattered ( not able to sleep in daytime) and then feeding on demand (which islets!) untilarounf 1140 then she ll drop off .is it better I get her into 'bed' around 8? Ie put her in my room with a monitor?

Sorry I'm clueless! I'm going to try to get her used to her cot soon as she is getting very long and is a noisy monster when sleeping! Also she loves spreading herself out- when we wake around now I put her on the bed next to me and she spreads right out and falls straight asleep!

I have two dcs. The first was ff and didn't sleep through for a long time. The second was bf and slept through for 12 hours a night from 8 weeks. I don't think it necessarily follows that bf babies wake more often than those who are formula fed. But it is still really early days for you yet. The first few weeks are knackering but they do pass. Hang in there. It will get better.

I just want to tell you that from about 12 weeks DS2 was FF because BF didn't work out. He slept through for the first time at 11 months.

So if anyone suggests to you FF will make them sleep better it's not always true.

Another bf baby who slept through (8pm-6am) from 8 weeks. Still has his moments - hence up now - but this is SO unusual. Mind you, ds1 was also ebf and didn't sleep through reliably until a lot older. It's the baby, not the way you feed them. Formula just takes longer to digest so you might get a slightly longer gap initially, but it's not a given, and won't make them sleep through. I have friends who have found this out the hard way and then really regretted giving up bf'ing as it didn't improve sleep, but meant they were up sterilising bottles and making up formula instead.

Both of mine were feeding as frequently at yours at the same age. It gets better, honestly!

I think I started a bed time routine about 4-6 weeks. Just quiet time with nappy off while waiting for bath to run to start with, bath, feed in bed room with light down low/ off and cd of lullabies on, then later incorpororated a story or three! Even if timings are out a bit day to day, we still do exactly the same every night.

Congrats and well done with the bf'ing - sounds like you're doing a fab job.

Dd started sleeping 8-4/5 ish at 8 weeks, sleeps through at 11 weeks but has off nights of waking for a feed. Yet this week she has a cold so she's been up twice!
Yet she is dd2 and dd1 is a toddler so there's a definate difference of night and day in our house and a routine hth

DD is exclusively BF and started to sleep 9pm-5:30am, dreamfeed and then 5:30am-7am at about 7 weeks. Then at about 12 weeks that changed to 7:30pm-5:30am. Now at 7mo it seems to be changing again, more of 8:30pm-5:30am. If I try to put her down at 7:30pm she is up at between 10pm and midnight. Mainly though I put this down to her reverse cycling hence needing more booby time in the evening and sleeping more in the day as I went back to work a couple of weeks ago.

Personally never bothered with much of a bedtime "routine". From about 5 weeks when we started to notice a difference between night and day, I would dress her in the morning and then at about 8pm I would change her into a clean sleepsuit for bed. A bedtime bath was never an option with her as it was counter productive.

Regarding where your LO sleeps. To begin with DD would sleep in a Moses basket and would stay with me where ever I might be. Actually, as I lived in a cold flat with none functioning heating at the time she stayed constantly in the living room and I slept on the sofa for the first 6 weeks as it was the only room we could warm up. At 8 weeks (end of May) the flat wasn't so cold so she moved to her cot in my room and was put down to bed at 9:30pm after she'd fallen asleep on me. Fortunately we moved before she was 6mo :)

Well done with the BF - I really do prefer it and am glad I preserved though those difficult days. Good luck :)

Mine slept through 10-6 around 12wks. She has been hit hard by sleep regression at 6mo but that's another story. The best sleeper in my NCT group is bf and he does 12 hours a night. He feeds every two hours during the day. But hey I will pay that price for the awesome sleep.

About the bedtime thing - until ds was 8 weeks we just kept him downstairs sleeping on us in the early evening, then I would go to bed with my laptop while he slept (or didn't sleep!) in hid moses basket. He would only drop off properly once we'd switched the lights off and gone to sleep ourselves, and sometimes that was 11pm.

At 8 weeks I started to think this wasn't the best for him, so we got video monitor with sensor mat and started putting him in his basket on his own in the evening after bath and feed. I am slightly worried that this I'd against SIDS guidelines but the movement sensor is reassuring and, after two or three nights of running up and down stairs to resettle him, now he sleeps well before we go to bed. I do make sure he is at least 90% asleep on me before I put him down - I believe he's too little to send himself to sleep.

As for the noisy sleeping, ds sounded like a dinosaur for the first few weeks, but now he's relatively quiet, so I wouldn't use that as a reason to move him out.

Btw I really recommend Elizabeth Pantley's no cry sleep solution. She explains how the first 4 months as newborn sleep and you shouldn't expect night day distinction kind of thing. But obviously they all develop at a different rate. I didn't bother with bed routine until DD sleeps through. She was up so often that I was knackered!

All of mine were bf.

One slept through at around 6 months, next at around 6 weeks, last one at 14 months!

My dd is almost 12 weeks now. I really fretted at the beginning about what I should be doing to get her to go to sleep and into a routine. I realised that if I put her down before she was ready she just wouldn't sleep and would cry to be picked up. Over the weeks she has naturally started falling asleep earlier and earlier, and now is going to bed at about 7.30 - 8pm and sleeps through 'til 5. I'm sure this will change again soon.

My advice would be to stop worrying and just go with what your baby is telling you - it's not worth the stress to try and get them into a pattern they're not ready for. It's so early at four weeks, things will change. I couldn't imagine getting my evenings back and in just a few weeks I have.

Oh and dd is ebf and is sleeping for 9 hours before waking me for a feed so I hope that reassured you. People are trying to help with their advice but every baby is different and I don't think it's true that a breast fed baby will never sleep through the night because they are breast fed. If you are happy to keep feeding in this way then carry on. Personally I'd rather get up 3 times in a night, stagger into the nursery and put her on my breast than go downstairs to make and sterilise bottles just once, but that's my personal choice and you must do what's right for you. Listen to others but ultimately listen to your own instincts

Cosleep, learn to feed lying down. This becomes easier around 12 weeks. If you do this you will soon master the art of sleeping through feeds and your LO will be able to help themselves. This is the way that nature designed us to be. It's only modern living that puts children in separate beds and causes all sorts of potential problems and less sleep for parents.

An independent study which used motion monitors rather than guesswork and what people thought they were doing, actually showed that breastfeeding mums get, on average, 20 minutes more sleep than ff mums. So it has actually been proven in a scientific manner that ff mums getting more sleep is a myth.

You will also find that because you don't have to actively 'wake up' to feed your child, your quality of sleep is improved. If you had to get up to do a bottle you would actually rouse yourself from sleep. If you bf you only need to switch to a light doze.

I think it has alot to do with weight rather than age. DS is 9 weeks and a porker at nearly 15lbs. He sleeps from 9-1 then 1-6 which isn't bad. Sometimes he even misses out the 1 feed (wooooh!)
My friends baby girl is a tiny thing and only started sleeping through at 6 months when she started solids.

I didn't find co-sleeping helped. Feeding DS lying down meant he was sick all over me every time I did it, and had to get up at 1am to change all the damn bedding. I find it just as easy to keep him in his moses basket and pull him into bed when he needs feeding and then pop him back. I found it hard to relax knowing DS was there aswell so don't be bullied into co-sleeping!

Hiss42 - I don't think it's weight either. DD1 was a porker, and didn't sleep through until 11 months. She had friends who were much smaller and slept through much earlier. They are all different. Sadly the main factor in having a baby who sleeps through early seems to be you and your partner having been babies who slept through early!

Co-sleeping doesn't suit everyone, but I think the reason it is suggested is because some people find it very helpful.

DS is now 17 weeks and ebf. Weeks 1 to 8 he was feed around every 2 hours at night, 8 to 12 he would go a wee bit longer, maybe 3 hours, then suddenly he went from 11 to 3 a few nights then back to every 3 hours. Now at 17 weeks he is sleeping 11 to 5.30 most nights and feeding every 2 to 3 hours in the day.
I did find that growthspurts and vaccinations messed the sleeping up for a few nights but he settled after 1 or 2 nights of nearly hourly feeding/comforting.

My twins slept 10-12 hours from about 12 weeks until 20 weeks. They were ebf so it is down to the baby not the food. They erm aren't now but that's a different regression/growth spurt/teething story. As sunshineoutdoors said though, I can bf them back to sleep in 10 minutes with no faffing. Well done for bfing - especially if you are feeling isolated.

DS has slept through on and off - he did 8 hours a night by about 8 weeks, and does 10-11 a night now a 14 months, but in between he has had periods of waking once, twice up to about 10 times a night

Mine is ebf 16 weeks and sleeps from 7.30 till around midnight and then up for a quick feed. Then up again around 2.30 for another quick feed and then sometimes he is up again for a third feed around 5. He wakes up around 7.30-8am.

I think he is just thirsty as he feeds very fast and goes straight back to sleep. I think he takes takes after me as I have always had to get up to get water in the night.

This is my DC all have been EBF none if the other 3 slept throu until at least six months, this one has been a fantastic sleeper. He has slept 9pm till 7-8am small feed back to sleep till 10am for the last 3 nights ( he is 11 weeks) before this he was waking once at 3am fit a dream feed.
Personally I think the difference is that he has a proper pram and has learnt to self settle really early. Or maybe it's just luck of the draw don't think ff would have helped the other sleep earlier they have to learn to settle themselves back to sleep .

Thanks everyone for all your fantastic replies :)
I don't fancy re co sleeping as I won't sleep through worrying I'll squish her!
Also I don't know how u can feed half asleep? What about sorting their wind out???
A usual night for her is :- feeding every 30 mins from 8-1130pm approx. Then will eventually settle in Moses basket after a few monsters of crying.then sh wakes about 2-3, then takes about an hr to settle back down! Then up at 5 , 7 so she has her own pattern already. If I take away the hour of settling her we d be sorted. For some reason she is wide awake at that time! Even with lights low etc she is wide awake looking around or windy/grizzly.

Today has been a fantastic day though :D my first experience of bf in public!! I was so nervous but when it actually got to it I felt so proud that I'm giving my DD the best :-)

Babies don't always need winding after a feed. If your DD is uncomfortable you will know. She'll be stretching and arcing back and whining. My DD rarely needs winding if she has fed lay down but on the odd occasion she does, it really is no big deal.

And, you won't squish her - co-sleeping is very natural. Assuming ofc you follow the safety guidelines and all. I admit though, I am more confident cosleeping now she is 7mo as I know she isn't so easily squishable

Co-sleeping seems to activate natural instincts which really do stop you from rolling on the baby. I'm a wriggler usually (and I know others have said this too) and I didn't move at all when sleeping with DS. I woke up with a sore hip from lying in the same position all night! It's the same instinct which stops you from falling out of bed, apparently.

What we did though was converted DS' cot into a 3-sided one and pushed it up alongside our bed to extend the space and act as a bed guard. I'd normally sleep with him snuggled right up to me (using my boob as a pillow :)) but as he got a bit older I would scoot him over into the cot once he was asleep so I could then either cuddle with DP or sleep on my front (oh how I missed that!!) or just generally shuffle around etc.

DS didn't seem to need winding at night but if he did I just held him to my tummy and rolled onto my back so he was on top of me, tummy-to-tummy, and rubbed his back which usually either made him fart or soothed him to sleep anyway.

If he had a wide awake time during the night I just put him back on the bed next to me, he'd be happy enough knowing I was right there to lie down and look around in the dark(!) and I'd feel safe knowing he wasn't going anywhere. Actually it's funny because you end up doing this thing where you are almost asleep but you open one eye to see what they are doing, and they are closing their eyes to copy you (or actually dropping off) but then sneaking a quick look to check you're still there too I'm actually convinced that him being close but being able to see we were sleeping helped him learn the difference between day and night way more than anything else we might have done by accident. I tended to just keep him downstairs until we went to bed, at least until he started crawling. He wasn't a burden on our evenings until then - he was mainly cluster feeding anyway.

(I love "after a few monsters of crying" ) Yay about the bf in public!

I don't wind after the dreamfeed.

My guess is that babies just do what they're going to do! My 7.5 week old is sleeping from 11.30pm till 7/8 am, occasionally waking once for a feed but mostly right through. I have tried to have a nighttime routine (and posted elsewhere for you about this) but it could all just be that he takes after me -i've always slept really well, deep sleep for more like 10 hours rather than the average 8.