Sleeping through the night? When?

[Firsttimemum777]

Sick of family members sounding shocked that my 8 month old still doesn’t sleep through the night when asked over the festive period. Makes me feel like there is something wrong with him. I know most of the babies in my family were formula fed and slept through quite early on.

My 8 month old is breastfed and doesn’t take in that much solids, and still wakes 1-2 times a night. But I see no improvement anymore.

What % of babies slept through by 8 months or a year old, does anyone know? I am one of the unlucky few as it feels that way.

11 month here and still up once or twice a night to feed. She is formula fed.

I’ve got a 6 year old, a 3 year old and an 11 month old. The 6 year old was about 2.5 when he slept through, the 3 year old was 14 months old and the 11 month old was up twice last night!

23 months here and still waiting

www.dur.ac.uk/resources/isis.online/ISIS_normal_2015.pdf

My eldest was 2.5 when reliably slept through. My youngest is nearly 9 Months. Last night he was up at 10, 11.30, 1am, 3am, 4.30am and up for the day at 6. We’re nowhere near sleeping through here!!

Dd is 5 and doesn't sleep through the night . All children are dofferent. Ignore other people it's none of their business.

Ps it's absolutely normal for breast fed babies to wake at night for a feed. I do slept after going back to work so that I wasn't up several times a night.

No 1 was 16 months before he slept 11/12 hours at night. No2 was 7 weeks. No 3 was 10 weeks, no 4 was 14 weeks. We learnt from our mistakes ....

Is it normal for formula fed babies to still wake?

DD1 slept through at 23 months, still waiting for DD2 to do more than 2-3hrs in one go -she's 10 months. Both ebf to 6 months and bf after 6 months, no bottles or formula.

@firsttimemum777 yes of course, they are babies not robots. There are many factors that contribute to night wakings and feeding. My ff DD for example is a terrible weaner, so doesn't take in much food. This isn't the sole reason for still night feeding, but it's not something I worry about, she will sleep through when she is rwady, as will yours.

It is if you still offer them food! Why wouldn't they? It's a normal mealtime.

The only way you can really hope to do it is by replacing the feed with the dummy and a bit of cuddling.

Even then don't expect miracles as they have a fair amount of developmental leaps coming up and teething of course. But when you take food out of the equation it's one less issue. And they do start to eat more during the day.

Yes ff babies can still wake - my first woke reliably every night whereas no 2 and 3 were bf and slept beautifully from early on. It was more to do with how we approached bedtimes and dealt with wakings/night feedings etc I think. And maybe a bit of luck, but we definitely did many things wrong with no 1.

1-2 times a night at 8 months sounds pretty good. Mine has only very recently started sleeping 11 solid hours a night at 12 months.

My formula fed baby still wakes at 8 months; she doesn’t always feed (maybe only couple of times a week) but she wakes up currently once or twice a night to be resettled. I think people forget how long it took their children to sleep through when they look back as I get a lot of that from people with older children but I know only a couple of people whose babies consistently sleep through

My nearly 2 year old still wakes up now and has been like this since birth. My 4 month old so far has slept through from 7 weeks. Both were/are formula fed.

Just to add 2 of my friend's babies are still waking every 2 hours at 11 months old. All babies are different but they'll get there in their own time.

My first child slept through st 3 months, second took til he was 3 to sleep through .... it's luck of the draw I'm afraid nothing you're doing wrong (unless they're not fed enough during the day ) but I'm sure they are, it's just luck

@elspeth "It is if you still offer them food! Why wouldn't they? It's a normal mealtime"

This isn't really accurate, some babies still need food during the night, my 11 month old ff being one of them. It's genuine hunger.

Joe I'm intrigued what you did so differently with number 1 to the others

But if they don't take much during the day of course it's genuine hunger. But if they have a feed during the night they won't take as much during the day. Sooner or later you have to pull the plaster off.

DS is 14 months.

No sleep training, no dummies, no formula.

Just before 1 he started occasionally sleeping through. Now he does most nights. If he doesn't there is usually a reassign, away from home, not enough dinner etc.

So there is light at the end of the tunnel without you having to change anything

2 of mine were 9 months.

@elspeth completely disagree...she's a baby not a foie gras...I'm not going to force feed her during the day just because it's inconvenient for me at night.

If you are in the camp that sleeping through is food related then that's your choice, I personally don't agree with night weaning and have always fed on demand.

Have you tried offering water instead of milk? How much solid food is he eating during the day?