What age did your baby start to sleep through the night?

[Jadelr]

Hi,

my boy is nearly 8 months old now and for a while now he doesn’t sleep very well. He usually has around a total of 2-3 hours nap time a day which I’ve been advised is normal and then I will take him up to bed around 7:30 he then has a bath before bed and usually falls asleep around 8:30/9 o’clock. He falls asleep fine but then wakes every couple of hours I thought he would have outgrew this by now but maybe I’m just being naive.

Is there anything you found helped your baby sleep better? I have also spoken to my health visitor about this and she said maybe he might just be a baby who doesn’t need a lot of sleep. The lack of sleep is really getting to me at the minute, any advice is appreciated 😊

Ds1 didn’t sleep well until he was 1 then was fine after that apart from when he was teething or regression etc.

Ds2 slept through from 6 weeks until 1 year then didn’t sleep through again until he was around 3.

Mine wasn’t sleeping through at 10-11 months - would go to sleep fine, then wake up at 1am and 4am. They weren’t feeding in the night by this point as I’d stopped offering. We went to sleep train, but didn’t really have to sleep train properly. She cried once for about 30 seconds, settled and has since slept through unless ill.
I realised that when she woke up I immediately responded even if she wasn’t upset and never gave her the chance to self settle in the night. I think with hindsight I was worried she’d get more and more upset and then never go back to sleep.

My little one was an awful sleeper from the get go. He started sleeping through at 15 months but it wasn't anything I did that caused it. His body obviously wanted to sleep better 😅

They were only five weeks old which I appreciate is incredibly young.

Aged about 5-6 years.

almost 2.5 and still waking 1-3 times a night here…

ds 1 was about 3 years old
ds 2 was about 18 months old
ds 3 when he was in reception so about 5 years old

One of mine was 6 weeks. The other was more like 6 months and wasn't totally reliable until 1. Pretty sure I did everything the same but babies are individuals!

I closed the nighttime milk bar at 6 months for the first and seven months for the second baby.

What does the rest of your baby’s routine look like. I wonder if you put him to bed earlier he would sleep better.

When they dropped their nap, so shortly after turning 3 (years not months, sorry).

2.5 year old here and she’s never slept through

Controlled crying just isn’t for us

Currently 20 months and probably wakes up 1 in 2 nights. Normally only once.

My daughter was 2 when she first slept through the night and still doesn't do it reliably at nearly 5!
Her sleep is quite sensitive so if nothing is bothering her she can sleep through the night every night for weeks and months. She has reflux and food allergies and of these play up or she has a cold or a bit of hayfever she then goes back to waking up frequently.
It takes time to then get her back to sleeping through. We have to make sure her needs are being met and then we can start increasing her independence with sleep.
Her reflux has meant she has needed a lot of comfort for sleep for a long time lying down in bed caused her pain. She's also like me and is a night owl and does struggle to get to sleep at night. It takes a bit of time for the day to melt away for us and to fall asleep.

All of mine were about 4 months (4 dc). As soon as they could coordinate their hands to suck a finger or a thumb I encouraged them to do so in the day time and then if they woke in the night, I would go in and not pick them up but encourage them to put their thumb in and self sooth. It took about a week of broken nights but worked very effectively. I was doing a dream feed at 11ish, and that would get them through to 7am. Some dc you have to teach how to self soothe so that they dont rely on someone else to get them back to sleep everytime they stir in the night

Child 1
Weeks 6-15
Then for a few weeks around a year.
Then from 3-4
Now at 8 it's about 75% of the time, though we do have 2 hour bedtimes still. And she probably had ADHD

Child 2
For 6 weeks when she was 2.
Then from 2-5, roughly 50-50 sleeping through.
5-6 (now), most nights sleeps through as long as she's in bed with me 🙄

Most friends of mine with babies, they didn't slay through till gone 1. At least half it was 2-3, and a few join my club of 'maybe eventually'.

Child 2 woke every 45-60 minutes at your baby's age.shudder.

5-6 yrs. Never slept well but I did insist on him not disturbing everyone else, read or play quietly. He's well suited to shift work.

DD is nearly 5 so hoping it will be soon 😑

6 weeks and then went through a phase at 2 to 3 of walking about 3am. Didn't drop both morning and afternoon naps until nearly 4. Just needed her sleep.

My baby is a few months older, but was sleeping well at 8 months. Yes, LO would wake 2-3 fingers per night, but not too be fed, and not normally for more than 2-3 minutes. Half the time they would self settled, the rest one of us would go in and soothe for two to three minutes. As baby has got older, we intervene less and baby self settles more. Sometimes I am half way up the stairs or across the landing, and they go back to sleep.

At 11 months, my friend's baby is still waking six times a night. Lots of variation!

While I was still breastfeeding, I found my baby would NOT settle at night for me without a feed, but would for my partner - so he would do any night wakes before a set time (which for us would be 2am and 5am), and I would only feed at those times. We were pretty confident baby wasn't hungry and only needed comfort.

What kind of night wakings are you getting - split nights, false starts, very upset, hungry? Babies wake for lots of different reasons, some of them just need time but some you can help with.

2.5 - 3 years.

8 weeks, 6 weeks & 6 weeks for mine. They were Gina babies.

I would've done controlled crying when older if a strict routine didn't work as it did.

More babies wake in the night than don’t up to 2. The first year in particular sleep is usually very up and down with growth and development etc. So yes your expectations probably do need to adjust.
DS started sleeping through around 20 months but not all the time. Reliably sleeping through all the time at 3. DD just started sleeping through at about 27 months.

Are you genuinely saying all 3 of your babies slept through the night from that age all the time (bar illness I assume) because routine or not that’s extremely unlikely statistically. Did they never learn any new skills or have growth spurts or need a cuddle in the night?

Even the best sleeping babies I know had ups and downs when learning to crawl or having a growth spurt.

3 months, but since 9 months she's been having split nights most nights. Normally wakes 2-3 times in a night. Now 15 months. Sleep is not linear.

Except for illness or teething. Of course they learned new skills, it just never impacted their sleep at night and they never needed bottles in the night after sleeping through, if they wanted more milk then it happened during the day.