How to get baby to sleep through the night

[TiredMommy93]

My DS is 10 1/2 weeks old and I've read that some babies sleep from 11pm to 6am already at 3 months. Which would be wonderful!
Mine sleeps at 10pm, wakes for feeds at 1-2am, 4am and 6-7am.
He weighs 14 pounds already and I doubt he needs that much milk at night!

Any tips?
How did you get your baby to sleep through the night?

@restedbutexhausted babies fed any way will feed for comfort. Maybe more so with breastfed babies but suckling is comforting, warm milk is comforting, being close with and held by a caregiver is comforting

Your baby's still a newborn OP!

Congratulations btw ❤️.

Honestly enjoy the time they are small, i know it's hard but try not to wish it away, you don't get the time back and it really does fly by.

My youngest is now one. She fed every 3 hours day and night until around 3 months. She then went a bit longer at night eg 4/5 hour stretches.

At around 6 months she was reliably sleeping through apart from illness.

I find once they're doing more eg rolling over, sitting up they tend to sleep better.

Sleep is child dependant!

DD1 got into a routine from about 4 weeks old! Bath and milk around 7pm, slept til midnight, bottle and sleep til 4am, bottle and sleep til 7am

DD2 (12 weeks today) does whatever she fancies when it comes to feeding and sleeping! The past 2 nights she's gone up to 4 hrs sleeping with the odd 1 or 2 oz of milk between sleeps and very few naps, but had been sleeping no longer than an hour before screaming for milk (which she then barely drank!)

There's no rhyme or reason to it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Massively adjust your expectations.

Having a baby is hard. The sleep deprivation is hard.

Sometimes we think we know how hard it will be. We don't.

Your baby will sleep through in their own time. In the meantime, feed on demand whilst he is still so small. Ignore friends whose babies 'sleep through.' They could be lying, they could be telling the truth, but sleep isn't linear and just because they sleep well now, it doesn't mean they will in a few months time.

For what it's worth, I was you, once. Friends babies sleeping massive stretches at night whereas I saw every hour some nights. As their babies got older, their sleep went to shit. They still struggle now, some nights. My DC sleep all night, every night, aside from the odd toilet trip here at there.

Hang in there! You are doing a great job.

Thanks! I hear this all the time from everyone. Even strangers in the grocery store? Babies are granny magnets...
"Don't wish it away, it flies by so fast."
But the last weeks went by so slowly, I felt stuck in a time warp. And newborns are boring too. He does nothing but stare at me and fling his arms around when I put him on his play mat. I get a smile every now and then, but rarely.
I hope my baby will sleep 4-5 hour stretches too, soon. It would give me so much more energy during the day.

I’m still waiting for my youngest of 3 DCs to sleep through the night and she’ll be 3 in September 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️
The way I look at it, they do it when they are ready. I don’t sleep train - doesn’t sit right with me. I did try with DC1 on the advice of family members, but it just felt so wrong and against every instinct I had, so it stopped as quickly as it started.
She naturally started sleeping through consistently of her own accord at around 18m.
DC2 didn’t sleep through until he was 4, and is still a bit hit and miss at almost 6.
DC3 has never slept through the night and she’ll be 3 soon.
It will come.

Time is the only thing that works. 5 years, in my ds's case 😴

Once I accepted that he was almost definitely going to need me for one reason or another during the night, it was much easier to just get on with it.

Babies can sleep through that young but if they do that’s just luck. You cannot and certainly should not try to sleep train a 10 week old baby.

I did absolutely everything by every book.

Routine, wake windows, feeding, bathtime, wind down, white noise, sleep associations, plenty of daylight/outside time.

DS2 woke hourly from 3months to 6months!

But I kept going and kept going. Last night, at 7m he did an 8h stretch (granted that was from 7pm, but I’ll take it).

The term "my baby sleeps through the night" varies hugely. To me, a baby sleeping through is 7pm until a normal time to start the day 5.30/6am at the earliest. My mother spouted the whole "all mine slept through from 8 weeks"shite, in reality she meant her kids slept 7-7 but would be woken at 10 and 2 for a dream feed and a quick feed at 5 then ignored for 2 hours.

I’ve found what people call “sleeping through the night” varies too. Some people count it as sleeping through even if they feed. So for example my 10 week old sleeps from 9pm - 2, ish, feed, then 2.20 - 5 ish, feed, then 5.20-7.30 ish and some would count that as sleeping 9pm - 7.30am as she is straight back to sleep after her feed, some would count that as up three times a night.

At that age sounds very normal, ours was 5 months when she started “sleeping through” she’s 8 months and will wake around 5ish sometimes for a feed then back to sleep. They still have tiny tummies and so need to feed regularly.

in terms of what we did to help her sleep:

1. sorted out day sleep


2. all naps (unless out) in her cot


3. moved to own room - we would wake her up


4. removed dummy replaced with comforter


5. blacked out her room as the slightest bit of light will wake her up


6. bought a white noise machine from Amazon that’s on all night, cost about £20


7. if she wakes we leave her to it but if she’s crying we go in to do a resettle i.e hand on chest, say phrase and leave - keep your resettles the same every time babies like consistencies, we never leave her longer than two mins to cry (same length of time as it takes us to heat up a bottle)

honestly soak up those nighttime feeds, they won’t last long, you’ll miss those cuddles!

5 and 2 year old here, neither has ever slept through.

Do you sleep through the night? Or do you wake and turn over and go back to sleep? Or get up for a wee? To adjust the covers? Because you are having a crazy dream? To get a drink of water?

Babies wake for many reasons not just food. Though your baby is still tiny and still needs night feeds. Where you can sort yourself out and go back to sleep, your baby needs you to help them get settled and comfy again.

Lots of very good sleep studies show that actually, lots and lots of babies wake at night, as do lots of toddlers. It doesn't even make a difference what we feed them. Bottle fed wake at night too, they just don't always feed when they wake. This night be because they are not hungry and bf are or it could also be because bf mums will often use the breast to settle them (such a useful parenting tool!).

It feels really hard, especially if everybody else at baby group or on Instagram is portraying a perfect life and perfect baby and you feel like the only one swimming through treacle but you are not alone. They may throw lots of suggestions at you about sleep positioners, hungry baby milk etc but remember, for a baby regular waking is about survival, it is built in to their dna and anything that makes them sleep longer and more deeply actually increases their risk of sids.

Basis online, the baby sleep information source has lots of great information about sleep and their info can help you to understand why your baby sleeps the way they do. Sometimes that helps to cope with it if we understand it better. If nothing else, the statistics on how often babies wake at night helps you to know you've got company or there at 4am.

OP in the kindest way possible I think you need to lower your expectations.

get rid of every baby book/website you look on and just trust your own instincts. Just trust them

you have a 10 week old. Sorry to say but some babies don’t sleep through the night until they’re 2/3. I have a 10 month old and it’s 50/50. sometimes he does sometimes he doesn’t, yes I’m tired some days but I chose to have a baby and this is what comes with it

by now means am I saying you have to suck it up and can’t complain - I’m saying you need help and support. Please don’t sleep train, some people will try and justify it to you buts neglect and abuse.

your baby is still a newborn. Their needs do not stop just because it’s night time. There’s more to looking after a baby than feeding and changing them, sometimes they want some comfort, they may be scared, too cold, too hot, uncomfortable, wind. There’s literally so many reasons why your baby is waking up but they are all equally deserving of a response. Despite what we are lead to believe, most babies do not sleep through. They aren’t meant to! Babies are meant to wake up often to keep themselves alive. Not one single human being sleeps through the night, anybody with a Fitbit can tell you that. We toss and turn, we move around and move the duvet. Sometimes we need a wee. Sometimes we just can’t sleep , so why would a baby be any different?

in the nicest way possible, you need to accept you probably aren’t going to get any decent sleep for a very very long time and if you do then it’s a bonus. But please don’t expect your baby to sleep through.

I'm honestly fine with my situation. Sleeping from 10pm to 7am with 3 feedings isn't too bad at all!
I was just a bit jealous of one of my friends who said her baby slept 7 hours in a row at 3 months and it got me wondering if I'm doing something wrong.
I'll just wait and see but I get enough sleep compared to the first few weeks especially. I don't feel like a zombie anymore.
Oh and that friend just admitted she still fed 2 times in that 7 hour period. So... Not uninterrupted.. As she made it out to be.
Thanks for your answers though. I have a great night time routine that helped him sort his day and night and got him to sleep longer.

After our routine and dream feed I put him in his own crib and he sleeps without my help. Guess I'm lucky! But the routine definitely helps. That's already very very gentle sleep training in my opinion.

Feed, Cuddle, Swaddle, White noise, repeat!

I used to watch tv series/dramas when I did the night feeds in those early days to stop myself from drifting off.

DS slept long periods from early on (9 or 10 weeks or so) after a big bottle of expressed and the swaddle routine. He is now a solid 7-7 sleeper at 9 months.

Your baby is too young to sleep train but when the time comes go for it! The challenge of doing it is so short lived that it's totally worth it. Sleep training teaches them to soothe themselves and when they do wake in the middle of the night like all humans do they just make a few fussy noises or the odd whimper and go back over...it's life changing!

Check out huckleberry website for nap info and awake windows. But don't get too hung up on them, it can take a long time for babies to get into a routine.

Totally disagree that your baby is too young to sleep train. I've got 2 children, 4 year old & 12 week old. Followed the same gentle "training" with them both. Both great sleepers. First slept 7pm to around 6.30am from 6 weeks for about 80% of the time, then solidly from about 9weeks old (we did a dream feed). He had regressions but overall was good.

This one started hustling us with 50% of week sleeping through from 7 weeks, and the last 2 weeks has slept 7pm to 7am most nights, no dream feed for her as it made her wake more due to reflux. Last night 7pm to woke 6.30am, she wakes in the night once or twice, and within a few minutes she settles herself. It may not continue, but we'll enjoy it whilst it lasts!

It can't be magic they both sleep well, it's taken effort but doing it young has meant no crying

Also, when they do start to 'sleepthrough' and you think yes, cracked it...just remember that sleep regression is never far behind...

How do you sleep train?

Totally agree with @Minster2012 . We started gently guiding ours in the right direction from the first few weeks. No CIO to speak of. Just good sleep hygiene from the start. Both still excellent sleepers now. Think you'd be mad not to try to get them into good habits from the start. Not all children a terrible sleepers and who knows, maybe your child I one of the ones capable of doing 12hrs undisturbed. We never fed or rocked to sleep. Never. Always put them down sleepy but awake. We never let them sleep on us unless poorly. Dummies are your friend.

Yep exactly what @Franca123 says, good routine

@MyNameIsMarya I follow a programme called "little ones" based on a 7am to 7pm day which explains how much sleep a baby /toddler needs each day broken into weeks & the ideal times of day & "awake periods" they need in between to get the optimum amount of "sleep pressure" up to get them through the night. I first used it because it worked for my SIL & I wanted a routine I could try to follow to be able to do things like walk my active dogs so I dog walk twice a day for her morning & afternoon nap

So atm she's 12 weeks but it works on corrected age so 9 weeks it's wake at 7 (if not awake) then nap 9 til 9.45 or 10 (I dog walk) then long lunch nap 11.45 to 2.10 then afternoon nap 4.10-5pm, bed asleep for 7.

The lunch nap takes a lot of work to link sleep cycles & my baby often does less than the morning & afternoon naps but I've worked out as long as she doesn't sleep MORE than suggested then she'll sleep through. Less is more for her but then I have to work to keep her awake

I have gone out of my way to avoid feeding to sleep, no rocking, using settling techniques like placing down & bum patting they suggest.

White noise & full blackout

Doing from early has meant I literally place her down in her cot, kiss her night, tell her I love her and she falls asleep by herself. Also means other ppl can put them to bed easy

Is 10pm to 7am good for a 11 week old? With 2 feeds in between.
10pm, ~2am, ~4am, ~7am

Yep @MyNameIsMarya that's still pretty good, maybe look to do "bedtime" at 7pm and do a dream feed at 10?