Did sleeping through the night happen all at once?

[Ballina1]

I am a new mummy of a 7 week old baby. Currently suffers from colic. 5pm onwards for at least 3 hours cries and screams. Has a dream feed at 11pm, feed at 1.30/2am then awake again around 5ish(sometimes can settle without a feed). Baby is gaining approx 9oz a week so is gaining weight really well.
I am living in forever hope of my LO starting to sleep longer through the night. Just curious to know when your baby started to sleep through the night did it happen overnight all of a sudden or was it a gradual night by night process.

Think I'm my desperation for sleep is making me obsess over when she will sleep longer. Even tho I know it's no guarantee she will anytime soon!

tia!

Mine slept through from about 12 weeks. He just dropped a wake up at a time, the others shuffled around for a few nights then settled. Then a couple of weeks later another one. I think we had a while of 11, 2 and 4/5 ish wakings. The 1/2 one was last to go (which was s bit of a shock). I don't know if this is typical though. My son was probably the best sleeper in our baby group for overnights so this may be best case sinario.

As you know all babies are different.
By 7 weeks mine would wake only once for a feed. Normally doing about 11 or 12 hours total sleep with the feed inbetween.
I was always up with my DD for an hour though which was a bit of a killer, if not longer! She took a while to get back to sleep.

By 3.5 months she no longer had a nighttime feed but is awake anywhere between 5am-7am.
I have to put her dummy in once in the night when she wakes but that sends her back to sleep.
She has about 9 or 10 hours sleep without a feed.

She is formula fed though

We assumed we would be in it for the long haul and did shifts. Oh did 9pm-12 (expressed milk) which let me get 3-5hours every night undisturbed, he would then bring baby up to me and sleep in so are room. Honestly it was a godsend and would recommend it if your set up allows.

Tbh for only 7 weeks it looks like you are already doing well with only 3 wakings. I know 18mo who won't do much more then an hour in one go overnight. So nicely done/lucky you.

10 months ... colicky baby ... much easier 1-2 night feeds taking 20 mins to 1 hour .... teething = crying and quick resettles every 20- 49 mins last 3 weeks ... hope this passes before I go back to work full time 😬🤞 But it does get easier first 12 weeks would scream and cry for 2 -3 hours after each feed sleep 20-30
Mins be hungry again and repeat ...but he does try to sleep bless him and he can get off ok just can’t stay asleep for love or money x x

My 7 month old still wakes in the night. Not for milk, she just likes to keep me on my toes! ☺️

My 8 month old still only sleeps 3 hours max at a time and that’s a good night. Usually does 1 or 2 hours. Does resettle easily though. All of my others have gradually dropped their wakings down to one before starting to sleep through. Between 4-10 months I basically accept I’m not going to ever sleep again though!

With ds1 I was waking him every 4 hours for his feeds including night times. When he was 5 weeks old I had to stay in hospital, dh didn't wake him for his feed and he stretched to 7 hours so we just went from there.

Ds2 had the same issue with colic 5pm to 8.30ish. He would feed every 2 hours during the day but when he was around 5 weeks old he started stretching a little bit longer at night. He would sleep from 8.30 to 1 or 2, then wake every 2-3 hours after that. He's a big baby and I knew he was starving, the anti colic formula wasn't filling him, so I introduced food at 3 months and within a week was sleeping from 9 til 7

My 6.5 month old wakes only four times on a good night... Six on a bad night

Well DD is 14 months old and I'm sorry to tell you that she wakes every 2/3 hours of the night.

No one can tell you when your baby is going to sleep through. They all do it on their own terms.

My one slept through at 4 years old and woke every 2 hours until 3 years. she had horrendous colic which turned out to be cmpa, but even off dairy and soya woke all through the night

It did happen all at once, but I had to wait until she was 3.5! 😔

Thanks for all the responses. I realise all babies are different, just wondered if anyone did anything different to kick start the sleeping longer or it just happened.

My lo has been on c&g comfort formula for the past 2 weeks and seemed to help a bit with her wind (not the crying tho!). One response has me thinking it's maybe not filling her enough? Sometimes struggle to get more than 100ml into her at the 11pm feed as she falls asleep (is on a year size 3 so it's not that she can't suck quick enough) and think this could not be helping waking up too quickly during the night. Thought with upping her feeding she would have started to sleep a bit longer during the night.

Doesn't help that I have m.e. (chronic fatigue syndrome) and so lack of sleep is really a struggle for me. Oh does alot but he works full time in a stressful job so try to do at least 1 night feed but it's tough!

Also o hope bad sleeping isn't genetic as I was horrendous as a baby and didn't sleep through the night until I was about 5....hopefully she'll take after daddy!

Eek OP I didn’t have terrible sleepers particularly but sleeping through the night (by which I mean between 10 - 12hrs a night) 80% of the time didn’t happen till either child was about 2 years old. Up until then it was a merrigo round of varying amounts of sleeplessness. Teeth, growth spurts, illness, more illness, more teeth, just awake for no particular reason.... And even now (kids are 7 and 5yrs) we still have wakings for various reasons although it’s much less than when they were little. Settle in for the long haul OP it is HARD. But it won’t last.

DS slept though 7-7 at 11 weeks
DD slept though 7-6 at 8 weeks

Yes, but they were 14 months old and it lasted about a fortnight. My twins even now at 3 seem miraculously able to be awake while the other sleeps.

I hope you’re lucky and have a good sleeper. I’ve found that the only way through intense sleep deprivation is to accept the fact that sleep isn’t likely - i get so much more frustrated when I’m expecting to sleep, when I accept it’s not going to happen I’m much calmer.

White noise, blackout blinds etc help but taking turns with DH and sleeping when I can has prevented me going completely insane... mostly.

You might need to hang in there a bit. Mine didn't sleep through til 16 months, but went through better and worse periods in the transition towards that. Our expectations of baby sleep are often out of whack with reality - it's totally normal for them to wake loads and it protects them from SIDs. Weirdly, you do adjust. Good luck x

Ah just seen your update. I didn’t do anything magical to help the sleeping. It just happened when it happened. Little babies are bloody hard work, I did not enjoy it one bit and felt very guilty about that! No one tells you how shit it can be, everyone just says ‘enjoy every minute’ well I didn’t and sleep deprivation played a huge part in that. Good luck!

If its my comment above that makes you think she is hungry, mine is on the c&g comfort formula aswell. It helped with his colic and constipation but he wouldn't have any more than 5 ounces at a time and then was starving again 2 hours later. He would do one stretch of 4-5 hours but other than that it was every 2-3 hours. Then I introduced solids and he is so happy and content and even though he is teething he is sleeping 9 til 7.

Yes it did. Always responded to cries with whatever necessary. Slept through at 16 months. Quite late. But worth it to me.

My baby is 8 weeks and for two weeks she has slept from 9pm to 3am (Feed and change) then 3:45 until 7 then feed then 7:30 until 10.

I keep all lights off bar two clip on low light lights I bought from amazon (one in nursery for feed and one on her next to me crib) she goes straight down after her 3am feed. We use Ewan the dream sheep for white noise and a dummy only at 3am.

My DS is 6 months old. At around 6 weeks he was waking 3 times a night, then by 3 months old it dropped to 2 times a night, then when he was 4.5 months he was sleeping through. He’s now waking in the night again for a feed, so even when they start sleeping through it won’t necessarily stay that way!

I have an adult family member who claims she has never slept through even once. She eventually got better at self settling and it became less of her DMs problem