What does “sleeping through the night” mean?

[HarryHarry]

I have a 20 month old boy and a 2 month old girl. My son, who goes to bed around 7 and gets up around 5:30, has never once slept through the entire night (though we are now down to only 1 wake up and he goes back to sleep pretty easily afterwards). My daughter is still too young to have a routine but she already sleeps quite well in comparison to her brother at the same age, waking every 4-5 hours for a feed then going straight back to sleep afterwards. Someone told me this counts as sleeping through the night. But is it? I mean, I’m grateful for even a 4-hour stretch of sleep - that’s much more than I got with my son - but obviously 8 hours would be even better!

What do you consider sleeping through the night? How old were your babies when they started to do it for real? And how can I get mine to do it?!

I remain ever hopeful that my babies will eventually REALLY sleep through the night - preferably sooner rather than later - but I have a feeling I have at least another 18 months of sleeping deprivation to go!

I counted sleeping through the night as not waking me up.

In a young baby (under 6 months) I'd count sleeping when the parent does eg 11pm-6/7am without waking as 'sleeping through'.

After 6 months though it's really baby bedtime 7/8pm through til the morning 6/7am without waking.

I used to mean from my bedtime to 6/7am, so around 11pm-6am.

Although I’d include being woken up at any time after about five I guess.

I think it ttts focusing something like 5 hours but if they go sleep at 7 and wake up at midnight and 5 am in not sure that actually counts

Mine slept 11-7 from about 6 weeks to 4 months.

Then slept through mostly from about 9 months but with lots of regressions for colds, teething etc

Slept through solidly/reliably from about 2 or 2.5 - waking only exceptionally for illness or nightmares, wet beds.

Not waking up from when they go to bed until the morning, so 6.30pm-7am or similar. I had a friend who said her baby slept through the night other than for feeds...

Oh and both mine were about 7 months.

To me sleeping through means no night feeds and an uninterrupted night for you! I guess really it’s when they’re doing a full 12 hours (for us that was at 4 months) but I sort of considered DD to be sleeping through when she did 10pm-7am which she did from 6 weeks without us really doing anything except not jumping up immediately as soon as she started fussing overnight- she eventually just started going back to sleep on her own without a feed.

Yes that’s what I thought too - not waking up from bedtime until about 6 or 7 in the morning.

Ah I wish I could be that lucky! But I fear she is going to be just like her brother, still waking up 20 months later!

Midnight to 5am according to the paediatrician (dc3 didn't do that until he was 3 years old).

For me, it's sleeping 7pm-7am without waking. DD first did this at 12 weeks but then only very occasionally for months after and from 6 months had at hideous regression. At about 11 months just as I was tearing my hair out and contemplating starting CIO she suddenly started sleeping through every night. I didn't do anything different, it's just like she suddenly twigged it. I'm waiting for the toddler regression now though with trepidation

Ps. I should add she does still wake if she has a cold, teething etc. But I think that's probably normal right?

I would consider it from bedtime until wake up - 6.30pm-6/6.30am here although it differs obviously. Mine does that about 5 out of 7 nights and he’ll have a couple of nights where he wedges on the cot bars and needs a little shuffle. If I’ve had to get out of bed to sort him out it’s sort of sleeping through for him but not for me lol.

This is why there’s so much pressure because so many people say their babies are sleeping through the night when they’re not. I think it’s far more usual for babies to wake up than not.

I always meant from them being put to bed at 7ish until morning (any time after 5.30am). I had friends who counted it from 11ish/midnight to ring, even if that meant their DC had been put to bed at 7 then woken at 10 and taken an hour to go back to sleep,

DS used to go 7pm to 3am, then need a feed, then wake again at say 6ish. So he wasn’t sleeping through but friends reckoned their babies were when they were doing exactly the same stretch but switched round (7pm-10pm, waking at 10pm, then 11pm to 6am)

I thought official 11 to 5.

Properly sleeping through the night and not needing us about 3 but she still sometimes needs us. Nearly 6 month old still feeds every 3 hours from the start one feed to start of the next, sometimes more often. At one point she was down to one feed a night.

My twins slept 6pm- 6am from 5 months, that’s what I classed as through the night.

I think it’s 12pm-5am uninterrupted. Not 7pm-7am because a lot of babies never do that.

My DS is 14 months and he started sleeping through maybe 4 nights in 7 around 11 months. Had lots of setbacks due to illness and was unsettled when I went back to work. But now he sleeps through every night, waking around 5.30 and for one blissful week even woke between 6 and 7.

I say 12- 5.30 ish, because that's enough sleep for me. It really means dropping the middle of the night feed. I never put my babies to bed at 7pm, I put them in their cot for the night when I went to bed, then after a few months they dropped their last feed.

I counted it as 12 hours straight sleep. Some friends counted it as 5 hours.

Mine were 10 weeks and 12 weeks sleeping through.

I'm sure my HV said they considered anything beyond 6 hours to be "sleeping through". 6 hours doesn't seem much does it for a baby?

6 hours continously.

I. E. This enables me to function correctly!

I always thought it was removing the night feed so 11/midnight til 6/7am.

I've never heard sleeping through meaning 10/12 hours of uninterrupted sleep for babies.