what counts as 'Sleeping through the night'

[LaundryQueenHatesIroning]

I'm sure this must have been done before but I've been on MN a while and I can't recall seeing it.

DS 12 mo slept from 8.30 to 6.40am when he woke for a feed. He's asleep again now.

But if I'd gone back to sleep would it not have counted as sleeping through the night?

We cosleep and I bf him through the night and I never usually give it a second thought but all the family at Christmas asking the dreaded 'how does he sleep?' And 'is he sleeping through the night' have made me question it!

So please tell me your interpretation on sleeping through the night.

Officially?? 5 straight hours
My definition: me not having to get out of bed between 11pm and 6am. So I guess since DS1 still wakes at 5am every day, he didn't sleep through until he was old enough to read in his own bed

I class it as 7-7(ish, or whenever they're up for the day). What people means varies hugely though, some mwan sleeping through one feed/ sleeping 12-6 etc. I ended up answering any sleep questions very vaguely "not too bad thanks".

Mean!

To me it would be 10pm to 5am because im sleepy by 9pm and 5am wake upis the least i need.
Or.. 11pm to 6am if you yourself sleep that late too.

So yeah, 7 solid hours or more id day.

I think it means you don't have to get up to feed. It is from your own bedtime 10-11.30 pm or whatever to the morning say 6am at the earliest. So a minimum of 7 hours, sleeping long enough to let parents sleep unerupted, sleeping 7pm-6am is sleeping the whole night in baby terms. I personally wouldn't class 5 hours as sleeping all night that is just moving from waking a minimum of twice in the night to once .

Personally I wouldn't count a baby who breastfed throughout the night as sleeping through. But at the same time, as someone whose kid was a lot older than 1 when they finally slept through the night I'm not judging. For me it was when they slept through without feeding or waking for roughly 10-12 hours.

For me it's not having to get up

So for us baby went to bed with us around 11pm after last feed in living room, then slept through until 8am. No feeds between 11pm-8am and that what the time Dh and I slept so not disturbed. Both did this from 8-9weeks old here

Officially it's 5+hrs

Many people seems to think it's 7pm-7am which I think it's unrealistic for a small
Baby

I never usually give it a second thought

and so you shouldn't. Parenting isn't a competition. The only comparison needed is for yourself, so you can see the change in your own child's sleep. In my mind:

"sleeping through"
is the child not waking between going to bed and getting up in the morning. So 8pm-7am ish

"no night wakes"
is different. It means no wake ups when I'm sleeping, so 11pm-6am ish

"No night feeds"
Will mean night wakes ups happen, just being resettled rather than fed.

"Waking Early"
Means any wake up time before 6am, which is still middle of the night to me.

'is he sleeping through the night'

Doesn't need a yes/no answer.
"I usually feed him in the morning and he goes back to sleep for a bit"

For a baby I would say going 11-5 or 6 would be sleeping through, even if they go back to sleep after that feed.

For a child over about 1 I'd say it would be going to bed and not getting up at all until 6 or 7 in the morning.

I read in a research paper it was 6 straight hours with no wake ups that needed parental intervention at least 6 days a week.

Research suggests girls sleep through the night earlier than boys on average

Some research classes it as 5 hours. Both mine slept from last feed at about 10.30 to 7am without waking for a feed from 12 weeks.