Nearly 6 months and never STTN - tips please!

[hmmmyeah]

Hello everyone, long time lurker but would love some advice re sleeping (appears to be a favourite subject amongst new parents).
My 5 month old has never really slept longer than 3/4 hours on a good night. He’s EBF and started teething at 2 months, first teeth by 4 months, and top teeth now giving him some issues. He sleeps in a chicco next to me, and loves to get into bed with me for comfort (or I fall asleep while feeding and he stays where he is!). I’m keen to get him sleeping better but not sure what to do. He’s always keen to go to bed at 7, but wakes up to feed/cuddle on average every 2 hours. Once he has what he wants (boob/mummy) he is straight back to sleep - I’ve never walked the floor with him which is great. Sometimes I can soothe him with his dummy but he’s got smart to that recently. He’s happy to get himself to sleep and is still asleep now (8am). Sometimes I can even change all his clothes and bum and he won’t wake up. Sorry, V LONG POST. Guess my question is: if I have no trouble getting him to bed and he wakes but goes straight back to sleep what can I do to get him to sleep for longer stretches? I started him on solids around 3 weeks ago and he loves it. He won’t take a bottle so the “formula will help them sleep” won’t work. I’ve tried holding off feeding him but when he’s hungry, boy does he get mad not to feed. And each feed is a full emptying of my boob so not snacking, PHEW, sorry - I wanted to offer all the facts. Any thoughts? Glimmers of hope?! TIA!

Hello,

You'll get a lot of different opinions here but mine is that your baby is absolutely normal and actually sleeping "well" because he goes back to sleep easily with nursing. Waking up regularly at this age and WELL beyond is normal and possibly protective against SIDS.

My glimmer of hope to offer you is that you're doing a brilliant job already, and to just stick to being responsive. Being woken every two hours is hard to get used to and the prospect of it going on for another 6 months or even a year might not be fun to contemplate, but that's a different thing to worrying about whether the baby is ok and normal, which he is.
Having had two children with sleep patterns like that, I was massively less bothered by it all the second time because I simply accepted it would be like that and chilled out. I genuinely didn't feel as tired because I stopped clock-watching and just went with it. If you're coping alright (I mean, not feeling depressed or dangerously exhausted), then I'd advise feeling good about the power of the boob to help him get back to sleep soundly next to you.
Good luck

My breastfed baby first slept through the night (6.30pm to 6.30am without waking up) at 7 months so there’s the glimmer of hope for you! Tonight could be the night...

Sounds like everything is normal. I tried formula before bed a couple of times to see if it made my baby sleep for longer but it had zero effect. They sleep longer as they get older in my (limited) experience. Hang on in there!

DD2 is 15 months and still never sttn. DD1 got there at 23 months. Sorry.

My son is over 3 and has never sttn, you're asking a lot at 5/6 months!

I agree that this is normal, although it's not fun at all. My older DS slept through at 9 months and my younger (8months) is still on hourly wake ups 😫

The best thing you can do in all honesty is try not to stress about it. I genuinely think babies will sleep through when they are ready. Try not to worry or get anxious about it, I know it's hard.

I'm not sure there is much you can do to get him sleeping longer stretches (but I'm not a fan of any "sleep training" techniques so others might feel differently.)
I'd echo a PP and say that your baby is perfectly normal and it's great that breastfeeding gets him back to sleep so quickly. That's how it is meant to work. If you can accept that, I would just roll with it for a bit longer.

In my experience (only DS1) things were improving from about 6-8 months when started sleeping say 6-7 hours, then feed then back to sleep. It all went massively pear-shaped from 9-11 months (sleep regression, starting nursery, back to work, teeth etc) and has picked again up since 12 months. He sleeps through (6:30pm-5:30am) pretty consistently now at nearly 15 months though now I've said that he'll be awake all night.

Hang on in there, it does get better!

Thank you so much everyone! It warms my heart that people are so positive and always good to hear I’m not doing anything wrong. I try to really just go with it and am super grateful that he can get to sleep fairly easy. I got sucked into the age old trap of comparing my baby to other babies - silly mummy! Back to thinking positive... “tonight is the night he will do 4 hours”. My partner is currently soothing him back to sleep while I watch the new Ali Wong - perfect antidote to a day of parenting.

Sounds totally normal to me! My ds is 2.7y and still has never sttn. Some babies just don't.