How to get 12 week old baby to sleep through?

[Belle723]

Just looking for some advice. Im a first time mum and haven’t got much of a clue about how to do things. I’m generally winging it most days (as I think many do). I’ve always let me baby bottle fed on demand and she generally goes 3-4 hours between feeds throughout the day but when I put her down at night she’s starting to do some 6-7 hour stints between her last feed to the first morning one which is obviously amazing - but it’s very inconsistent and I’d like to try and get a bit more routine out of her.

On a good day she will feed around 4am, 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm then 8pm then go to bed around 9ish. She takes approx 6oz at each feed - sometimes she doesn’t always finish the bottle.

However sometimes she wakes up at midnight/1am for a feed and I’m not sure what I’m doing differently? The only thing I can think of is actually putting her to bed later? But I like to have an hour in the evenings to tidy the house etc and actually have a hot cup of tea!

We’ve always had a relaxed routine and a baby every other day and get changed into her sleepsuits in the evening. We use white noise and she has a dummy to help soothe her for sleep.

How do i get her to sleep more consistently? Am I doing anything wrong?

Your baby sounds very much like my 12 week old. I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong- in fact I think we are very lucky to have little babies who only wake once in the night. I don’t think babies at this stage are meant to sleep through. Mine can do a 10 hour stint of no milk but that might be from 6pm- she will refuse a bottle at bedtime and then still get up at 4ish for one. I tried dreamfeeding at 11 but it actually made very little difference.

She’s a baby, and still a very little one. Some babies wake up a lot some babies don’t. The majority of babies this age will not be sleeping through the night. Most will be waking more than once.
You’re not doing anything wrong.

12 week old babies shouldn’t be trained to sleep through the night, it increases the risk of SIDS. They wake for a reason, it’s normal.

My baby is 9 months and is still sometimes up 6 times a night... Totally normal.

Wait a couple of years (sorry) and then they might have improved. In the meantime relax me don’t blame yourself/try a gazillion different methods. It will be much less stressful to just go with it.

Thank you everyone!
I thought I had a relatively good sleeper anyone but everyone keeps asking does she sleep through the night yet - it just makes you question yourself!

A good sleeper anyway**

It’s everyone’s favourite question isn’t it!

I tried the dream feeding thing too! Didn’t work! Only made her more sick! I’ll let her do her own thing still and tell everyone who asks if she sleeps that she’s still only tiny! thank you again everyone!

Keep in mind that the amount your baby sleeps is not a reflection of your parenting ability.
Sleep is a hot topic at all the mums groups I’ve attended. With Dd1 I thought that those whose lo slept more than mine were somehow better than me. Dd2 I know this is not the case! Makes the constant tiredness easier to deal with.

Please just take any nonsense about “sleeping through” with a pinch of salt.

A 12 week old baby sleeping through is the exception rather than the rule. Your baby sounds like she’s doing brilliantly

I have four month old twins. One sleeps through and the other wakes up to BF a couple of times a night. All babies are different and your baby will sleep through when they are good and ready.

There’s some useful advice on this page about dream feeding sarahockwell-smith.com/2014/09/16/ten-common-baby-parenting-myths-you-might-believe-and-why-you-shouldnt/

Sarah Ockwell Smith is my hero though

Wtf with people asking you if she sleeps through? At 12 blimmin' weeks?! As it happens, my DD did, but I know that's unusual. DS woke up once a night until about 10 months, and that was fine, never felt like I was 'supposed' to get him to sleep through.

Mine both did sleep through the night early (11 weeks for the first and 16 weeks for the second once the CMPA allergy was diagnosed) but at baby groups they were the exceptions. It's not normal at all at this age. (It was definitely hereditary as me and my siblings were from a few weeks old as were my sister's 3, in fact my mum and sister sympathised with me having to wait so long .

It sounds to me like you've got a great sleeper if you're already getting 6/7 hour stints! Count yourself lucky!

Yep- your DD is doing really well.

Parenting is a bit of a headfuck isn't it?

My impression was that every time you thought you'd figured some sort of routine, they moved on to something new and it all changed ... Agree that 12 weeks is still very early days. You sound well in touch with her, well done.

My three month old still wakes every two hours every single night, so count yourself lucky 😂 don’t listen to anyone telling you you’re doing it wrong, it sounds like it’s all going well to me!

My 11 month old is still it sleeping through.
He did for a few nights to make me believe we’d cracked it, but is now back to waking and wanting to bed share. Apart from being totally knackered, I’m not worried. He’s my3rd and they all get there in the end!

Not, not ‘it’!

I found people’s definition of “sleeping through” differed wildly. After constantly being got at by MIL on the umpteen things I was doing wrong from bf to using slings, she let slip once that DH didnt in fact sleep from 7-7 as she led me to believe. In fact, if he slept from midnight to 5am she classed that as sleeping through!

When you have a baby, everyone has an opinion, and they don’t seem shy about sharing it neither! All babies are different, some sleep some don’t. Neither of mine are good sleepers, but I’ve had 7 years of shit sleep and at this stage anyone offering their opinion on it gets pretty short shrift!

I think very few babies sleep through at 12 weeks. It sounds like yours is doing pretty well.
My ds very rarely slept though until he was 3.

My Ds2 didn't sleep through until he was 2 it was brutal as ds1 slept through from 8 weeks (well until the 4 month regression anyway). 12 week olds should be waking don't worry about what others are telling you is normal

I found people’s definition of “sleeping through” differed wildly. After constantly being got at by MIL on the umpteen things I was doing wrong from bf to using slings, she let slip once that DH didnt in fact sleep from 7-7 as she led me to believe. In fact, if he slept from midnight to 5am she classed that as sleeping through!

Yes, it turned out the woman in my baby group whose baby 'slept through' really early meant 'apart from waking up for feeds'! She thought that because her DC went straight back to sleep after feeding that was 'sleeping through the night'

Our society is in such a rush to force our babies to be independent. And we as parents have learned that as the normal expectations. But babies are babies and should be near their mother and needed to feel close. I have a 12 week old too who wakes 4 times a night roughly. The best thing I've read so far is the Beyond Sleep Training Project page on Facebook. It totally reassured me! Those of my friends whose babies are sleeping well as this stage are very lucky, but it might not last. It's exhausting but the sheer love gets us through doesn't it?

Sounds like you & baby are both doing really well. My sprog is 14 weeks and I too am very keen for him to sleep consistently & for long stretches.

Do you have a regular bath and bed time in place? As I found that helped him to sleep easily with no wake-ups (until about midnight, when he had another feed) from quite early on. They do respond to routine. I would try and structure a 7am - 7pm day, because a baby needs to get enough calories in the day to go through at night. Make sure you're offering decent amounts of milk at the bedtime feed, and at 7am. Feed whenever he wants overnight, but once you notice him being less interested in the 7am feed that's when you could start reducing the night feeds gradually until he doesn't have any. That's what I've done. For a few nights after this my baby woke up at 4am anyway out of habit, and faffed around, and grizzled a bit, but we stopped going to him and now he sleeps through til 7.
Don't force a baby who seems hungry to go without food, obviously, but if you know he can go for long stretches without milk that's great, and it's just a case of structuring those feeds properly. Good luck!