“Sleeping through the night”

[RegalRita]

DS is 6.5 months and feeds every three hours day and night.

He’s EBF. We’ve introduced two meals a day and I’d say he’s eating a good amount (a few mouthfuls of mush and plays around with a bit of finger food). His weight has followed the same percentile line since he’s been born.

I know there’s no right or wrong, and this isn’t necessarily bad. But I’d really like him to sleep a little longer at night!! He was down to one feed at around 3 months, up to two at about four and a half, and now I usually see him about three times.

Is there anything I can do? He won’t drink from a bottle. He actually won’t really let anyone else settle him at night, even though he’s a big fan of DH during the day! I tried refusing to feed him at 5am and he took a while to console, when he eventually did he woke up in the same state 15 mins later. Plus it broke my heart!

Now that he’s getting active (crawling about trying to touch everything he shouldn’t) it would be beneficial for both of us if I could get a little more sleep!

Any tips please!

(Sorry, long, just wanted to give all the info.)

Sorry, what you describe is perfectly normal if exhausting. On average to properly sleep through your probably looking forwards 2 years.

If you’ve just got the one then try a nap with baby during the day.

Thank you, it’s actually useful to hear “2 years”. I don’t find it daunting, more like something to aim for 😂

I am a strong believer that babies will do this when they're ready, don't know if there's a way to make it happen if they aren't ready.

However, my DD started sleeping through from about 7mo. She was bottle-fed not BF, but started going off her milk quite a bit, so we started giving her some Weetabix made with formula at bedtime as she was refusing her bottles and honestly she's slept through since we started doing that. She was hit and miss before that, some nights she'd sleep through and some she'd wake up really hungry.

I also started giving her a little comforter from about 5 months old in her cot and if she does wake during the night she snuggles this and has her dummy and is able to go back over without me going into her.

Hope you're able to find something that works! :)

All very normal. You should be aware that sleep often gets worse before it gets better. I found 7-12 months particularly difficult with both of mine.

Sleep gets better around 2 ish years. My eldest didn’t sleep through until 3.5 but things were more manageable around 2. Youngest sleeps through now and that started around 22 months. Night weaning helped a lot but obviously a 6 month old is too little for that (I stopped feeding mine at night by around 13 months).

You will manage. I went back to work around a year and was doing 6 hours a day of commuting (yes, you read that right), getting up at 5am to get the train, and I coped fine. It helps when they start eating more too which is usually closer to 9-10 months.

My son is 2.5 years old and wakes at least twice a night, sometimes three times, and only a breast feed will get him back to sleep.

It’s exhausting.

That amount of feeding at 6 months is completely normal so try shifting your goal posts and it might make your current situation more bearable

Mine woke once at 5 months and by 6 or 7 was sleeping through. I breast fed but also expressed and she would have a bottle at night.

I’m not sure there’s much you can do though. It’s luck of the draw.

My DS slept through 7-7 ish from 7 months. Only didn’t sleep when he was ill or dropping naps etc. My DD is 2.3 and is probably up once a night on average 3 nights a week. And that’s a massive improvement that’s only happened in the last few months. It does seem to be completely luck

Just to say same here apart from mine is every 2hrs or more and only does two 30 min naps in the day on me 🤦‍♀️ It’s exhausting!

If you want something to aim for, I would say forget about sleeping through until 18 months at which point there's a good chance you'll get some hit or miss sleeping through. If it helps, it's not linear, so your DS sounds normal in that he's 'regressed' in terms of the number of feeds he wants over night. My DD was at her worst between 9 and 12 months and has gradually improved since then, with other bumps along the way - 4.30 is now waking up time apparently!

Are you feeding to sleep? Do you rock/pat/stroke to sleep? I found my baby woke every 2 hours because he couldn’t transfer into the next sleep cycle without feeding, until he learned to fall asleep by himself. Luckily he took a dummy, so instead of breast feeding for comfort, he would take his dummy. I also reduced feeds by sending DH in to try and settle or I would but I would only feed if it was after 1am then I extended it to 2am/4am etc. Now he sleeps with 4 dummies and if he wakes, he puts himself back to sleep. He has now slept a minimum of 12 hours straight through since he was 7 months old.

Good luck, there’s nothing worse than lack of sleep! Hopefully it won’t last much longer!!

Hey OP

I have a 10 month old who was EBF up until 7.5 months when I weaning him onto formula to give myself a break and also as I was returning to work I did not want to express constantly. Up until he was 9 months old he had me up every 2 hours at night. In the beginning it wasn't so bad as I was so wrapped up in the new baby life but as time went on it was really getting me down and making me frustrated. He started walking when he was 8 months and 5 days and I honestly think that was the turning point. He was exhausting himself so much during the day that he needed the long stretch of sleep. He sometimes tosses and turns but I leave him for a few minutes to see if he will settle himself adlnd he usually does. I used to always dream feed as well and I have stopped that. He now goes down around 6.30pm and that is him until 5.30-6am.

Basically what I am trying to say is that it will get better. Just hang in there. They all do things at different times and that includes 'sleeping through the night'. If I am honest I don't feel any better off getting the long stretch of sleep... My body seems to function better on not as much sleep. As I type this I am on my first day back at work and extremely upset and anxious. Its all change all the time with babies but the good outweighs the bad everytime xxx

www.llli.org/the-safe-sleep-seven/

Have you looked into safe bedsharing?
My lo is 8 months (ebf too) and we now bed share. I've come to love having her next to me. Some nights she will go to 5am without a feed, but if she is teething or poorly it's back to every few hours again. I feel like I had enough sleep deprivation in the first few months, I refuse to go back to that 🙈😂. I'll put her in her own room at some point but I dont want to be a yo yo whilst she is still feeding 😬

(Sleep safe seven link above 😊😘)

DD1 started sleeping through the night properly when I stopped bf entirely at 1 year old! By this point she was eating solid food at every meal and I suppose she felt she was being fed enough so didn’t need breast feeding. I didn’t force her to stop the night feed she naturally stopped as soon as I introduced all solid foods

My DS was EBFand stil BF to sleep. No one else can settle him, and he's coming up to 22months. He also still wakes anywhere from 2 to 6 times during the night (bed at 7pm and he's usually up by 6am) and the only way he goes back to sleep is BF.
We now co-sleep (tbh have done this now for at least half the night since he was 6 months) so that at least I can function during the day on what little sleep I can get. I work full time so if we didn't do this I don't know how I'd cope!! It works for us though, and DS weight was a concern for a little while, so I'm not too keen to stop feeding during the night. I know it's a catch 22, but for now, we're happy 😊

My DC stopped waking at approx 18 months when he stopped breastfeeding. That said he didn't do it reliably until 2 years old. He's now 2yr 3 months and thanks to the arrival of DC 2 was recently put in a big boy bed which means he now takes a few attempts to get down at night and can sometimes wake multiple times to come into our room... Its unrelenting as they go through so many changes. My best advice, and this is from me who BEGGED for DS to sleep 😂 is to take what you can when you can and try to stay calm when it doesn't happen. I think sometimes when I was up for the eleventy billionth time I got so wound up my anxiety only fed DS to keep going. Easier said than done though. Best of luck OP, I hope you get some rest.

I also think Co sleeping to survive is not to be frowned on..

It took just over a year for my EBF DS to sleep through the night.
They're all different and some sleep through the night sooner, some later. He'll get there eventually although it feels like it's never going to happen at some points.

All very normal and I think babies sleep through when they want to. DS slept through from very early on so I've been very surprised and exhausted that DD is now 16 months and has only just started sleeping through for the past 10 days. Absolutely nothing would encourage her to sleep through before. We had to just see it through and I'm keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that this is it now. She tricked us just after her 1st birthday when we got two nights in a row and I thought, "Yes this is it" but no, I celebrated too soon

First sleep through was around 21 mo and it's still not guaranteed by any means at 30 mo- I saw DS 3 times last night until I gave up and got in bed with him!

2-2.5 years is pretty reasonable as an expectation IME too. Don't forget, it doesn't happen all at once - it gets much more managable before you get to the point of tucking them in and not seeing them until morning. Good milestones for me have been when I could have an evening without being interrupted every hour or two (we are about here with DS2, 17mo), and then when the main wake up happened around the time I went to bed (11ish) and the second one was early morning so it was just a "Quick - breastfeed that child to get a lie in out of him!" DS2 not quite here as he prefers to get up instead.

The next milestone I liked was when DS1 could get out of bed by himself and walk through to our room rather than me needing to wake up and go to him. And then even better was when I could have a little conversation with him in the middle of the night and explain that he could only stay in our bed if he didn't wriggle around or talk, and if he wanted to do those things he could do them in his own bed, and he would decide and either stay quietly or I'd take him back to his room (and after a while he would even walk back by himself :))

Also, the first year is just crap and frustrating if you are expecting sleep to make any sense or progress. It all goes to pot every time they have another physical or mental milestone, which happens a lot. Once they have walking down, I find you tend to "keep" any improvements that you get, which is nice. They might temporarily disappear e.g. illness, teething, unsettling experience, but they tend to come back.

Sarah Ockwell Smith's website is good if you are the type of person to be reassured by ideas like 2 years is a good estimate :) sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/07/24/the-rollercoaster-of-real-baby-sleep/