How heavy was your baby when he/she first slept for 8hours straight?

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My DD is 4.5months old but was 2 months early and small for dates so still only weighs around 10lbs.

She sleeps well but her limit is about 6hours at night. I suspect this is size related. Books and other posts generally talk about ages which is hard to interpret in my case.

How heavy were yours when they could go for a whole night?

Thanks for the help

The posts about twins are interesting. They show children can be very different, even when exposed to the same influences. However, I maintain, that whilst many babies and children will still not sleep 8 hours or all night once beyond 10 to 12lb, there will be only a tiny tiny handful who can sleep all night BEFORE they reach that weight. Weight is a pre-requisite for sleeping longer stretches, but as so many posts have shown here, certainly not a guarantee. The fact that many many people on here had children who did not sleep a long stretch until well beyond this weight, does not mean weight is irrelevant. It just shows that other factors are at play too.

My twins were born 6 weeks early.

Twin1 slept 8 solid hours at 11 weeks (5 weeks corrected), she weighed 10lbs.
Twin2 slept 8 solid hours at 14 weeks (8 weeks corrected), she weighed 11lbs.

the doctors we see over here (states) say not to expect any child to sleep through before age 2, particularly if breastfed. that if they manage before that, great, but not to expect it no matter the weight.

honestly i think in the UK there is a weird myth about sleeping through at 12 lbs etc. one of my boys was nearly 12 lbs at birth (!) and never slept more than 4 hours until he was past 1 yo.

It is not a weird myth. Unless a child is ill, cold or hungry, why on earth would it wake every few hours through the night? Babies love sleep; that's all they want to do (and eat and poo, of course).

Greedy. Have you not seen research? Because most do. Many babiea still feed regularly through the night for a long time.especially bf babies it seems.

Its our expectations they ought to sleep through. They dont know they can't just continue their cycles of.sleeping/feeding.

Greedy, are you deliberately on a wind-up or is it just coming out that way accidentally?

As I said before, illustrated by the example of my own children, not all babies sleep a lot. Mine certainly didn't. It has not held them back in life.

Mine is gluten and dairy intolerant, possibly coeliac. Her sleep issues were probably due to this, but her intolerances were only picked up on when she was around 2 as she had no obvious symptoms (GP/HV dismissive and suggested the usual miracle cure - controlled crying).

I am so glad I listened to my instincts, continued to BF on demand and went to her when she needed me instead of training her while she was in discomfort, causing her frequent wakings.

I am 35 and frequently wake at least once for drink of water. My nutritional needs may be met during the day, but that doesn't mean I don't get thirsty. it doesn't seem rocket science to me to think that that might apply to babies too.

No, I am being perfectly serious. If a baby's nutritional needs are being met between certain hours (ie 7am-7pm), and barring pain or growth spurts, he should not be waking up multiple times during the night. I understand that breastfed babies are particularly prone to waking several times but this is down to unhelpful sleep associations or an inability to self-settle with the breast. I only cracked this problem myself when I limited my baby's daytime naps to 5.5 hrs - then 5, 4.5, 3 etc - and woke her at 7 and put her to bed at 7. It takes huge effort to stick to a routine but it works. It really does.

If your baby is breastfed try tanking him up at 11pm with either a bottle of expressed milk or some formula. If your baby is too sleepy to take a decent amount them change his nappy, let him kick on his mat and have a play.

Penguins, yes babies sometimes get thirsty in the night - but not always for milk. If my baby has taken 6oz of milk during her dreamfeed at 11pm, she is not waking at 3am out of hunger. I will give her some cooled boiled water and she goes straight back to sleep. Keep feeding with milk and the baby learns to expect it; give cooled boiled water and he eventually learns it's not worth waking up for. This, of course, should only ever be tried if you have ruled out genuine hunger and your baby weighs 8lb or more.

Duchesse, I'm unsure why you are prickly; I never said multiple night waking would 'hold back' children. Pain in the arse though, isn't it?

• without the breast.

8lb? Jesus. That would be my kids from birth.

Everything I have read suggests that you can't even begin to rule out hunger in a bf baby until at least 12 months. I am more comfortable with that as an indication.

And water will only not be worth waking for if you aren't thirsty.

Are you a maternity nurse by the way? You have strong views on all babies if the sample size is your own kids. If you are, have any babies ever 'beaten' you?

Yup pidgeon. Mine too.

I seriously hope greedy isn't in a position in rl to advise other mothers.

I tend to agree with GreedyBitch. I think that once babies have got a certain weight it is POSSIBLE to sleep a long stretch. They can do it if hunger is eliminated and they can self settle. I accept that with ebf babies, it is harder to give them enough calories between 7am and 10pm before 6months. However, once babies are onto solids, the hunger thing should be less of an issue.

I think the OP asked the question as she wants her baby to go through the night as soon as possible. Some people are happy to go with the flow and have broken nights for much longer than others. The OP sounds like she asked the question because she isn't happy to do that, but wants the issue dealt with sooner rather than later....that too is fine, and there are approaches that many thousands of mothers verify have helped them and their babies achieve it at a young age. The fact that there are lots of people on here who have babies and children not sleeping a longer stretch until 7 years of age, does not mean the OP will be in that position. I would say to anyone with a baby of 12lb and over 4 months, that sleeping longer COULD be close if the baby is feeding well in daylight hours and self settles, as well as having decent sleeps in the day (the better the sleep in the day, before 2pm, the better the sleep at night).
I was told that when I had young babies and it was very reassuring to me, as someone who barely functions without sleep. So I DONT think we should expect sleepless nights until a child is 2, as the norm.

I can see that. But, for me, hearing that was hard. it made me feel hard done by and a failure. DD1 couldn't self settle. I did all the right things. she just couldn't. I tried night weaning at about 8 months after taking bad advice and the result was a baby who forgot how to feed back to sleep and, for the next four months, was up for at least a 2 hour stretch every night.

DD2 was similar. But we rolled with it and missed far less sleep as a result. She was waking, but it was ok. Do-able.

I wasn't trying to say don't value sleep. I was trying to say that lots of babies don't and adjusting your expectations can make that easier to deal with.

Completely agree. Ireally need sleep and desperately tried to get my bf baby to sleep longer.

It helped me to see that most babies don't sleep through early (durham study?). It was still hard but people who assume that because their baby slept everyone elses should can really make mothers who are already exhausted feel even worse.

I'm sorry if I've made anyone feel rubbish; I came here to offer help to the OP and to quash the advice that says it is not normal for babies to sleep decent stretches. There are things you can implement to change how your baby sleeps and for how long. I have already suggested some of them, but the most significant change you can make is to wake your baby at 7am and structure his feeds and naps throughout the day (ChocolateWombat is right: Sleep begets sleep) so that he is ready for bed at 7pm. A late feed at 11pm, if successful, will eventually lead to a sated baby through the night.

Babies under twelve weeks have a very strong Moro reflex and if they have learned to only re-settle on the breast or by being rocked/shushed/patted you will be busy throughout the night. As baby gets older - and hasn't learned to self-settle - he will rely on all the sleep associations you have taught him in order to drift off. It's a vicious circle and takes nerves of steel as, eventually, you will have to let him cry it out (unless you are happy with a co-sleeping baby who requires the breast to settle).

Greedy... just so you know... you can kill a small baby by giving it water to drink instead of milk or formula. babies need minerals and sugars in the fluids they take in or they can get water intoxication shockingly quickly.

some babies might be fine to take water at a fairly early age, but there is no one size fits all and you'll only know the child has been water-intoxicated once they're quite ill.

the actual guideline (not the random gina ford/save our sleep guideline) is no water before 6 months of age at an absolute minimum, unless told otherwise by a doctor. otherwise, 12 months of age, or when the child is eating solids well, is when you can give water with regularity.

the fact that you read some gina ford doesn't actually make you a healthcare professional. please be very careful, you are actually saying things that are dangerous.

also self-soothing is a great thing. until you have a baby born preterm and they CAN'T soothe themselves since they're not even meant to be born yet. those babies have to be held, and you've got to expect sleep problems, it is what it is.

there is very little actual research on baby sleep. it's all old wives' tales and conjecture. the only piece of hard evidence i've seen is that women who cosleep and breastfeed are the one who actually get the most sleep...

No water before 6months is the official guideline.
Crying it out and "self settling" are red flags.

How utterly preposterous. What have you all been giving your babies to drink in this heat? I am not advocating anything that would imperil a baby who is above 8lbs in weight (if you would read my posts properly you would see I have already said this) and for whom genuine hunger had already been ruled out. A baby who wakes frequently through the night is not having its nutritional needs met during the day - it really is that simple. And in order to rectify that you would have to begin a routine whereby naps are limited and feeding times are scheduled.

Cooled boiled water should never be used on tiny babies and nor should it be used as a substitute for meals. But you'd have to be really stupid to do that..wouldn't you?

Crying it out and self-settling are red flags

Until, that is, you are driving down the motorway with a screaming baby strapped in the back. What do you do under those kind of circumstances, Beatrice? Stop on the hard shoulder and rock your baby to sleep?

I have no babies atm but all my babies were breastfed when they were thirsty, heat or no. that is what every hcp i have ever spoken to has advised... again... the fact that Gina Ford may think differently has no bearing on reality.

babies lose minerals through their sweat, as well as water... giving them water to replace the lost fluid, instead of milk as advised, means those minerals aren't replaced and you're putting them in danger of water intoxication.

same reason you don't give a baby (or toddler, or child, or adult) with D&V plain water. you give them either breastmilk, formula or a rehydration solution. have you really never heard of that before?

the weight of a baby has nothing to do with how well it can avoid water intoxication... the fact is that real, peer-reviewed, official guidelines given by doctors (not people who play doctors on the internet, or Gina Ford) are not to give a baby under 6 months anything to drink except bm or formula. that the actual guideline based on real medical information.

no other mammals on earth limit their young to feed only in the daytime... why would human babies follow completely different rules and be able to go without milk for 8-12 hours out of every 24? makes no sense

www.reuters.com/article/2008/05/21/us-water-babies-idUSCOL16728820080521

quote: "Babies younger than six months old should never be given water to drink, physicians at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore remind parents. Consuming too much water can put babies at risk of a potentially life-threatening condition known as water intoxication."

kellymom.com/nutrition/starting-solids/baby-water/

quote: "A number of research studies investigating the need for water in exclusively breastfed babies were done in various locations (both humid and dry) at temperatures ranging from 22-41°C (71.6-105.8°F) and 9-96% relative humidity [see references below]; these studies concluded that exclusive breastfeeding provides all the fluids needed."