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!

Mine were always pretty good sleepers ( sorry) I think bottle fed babies are tbh.
But they never went to bed at half six or seven o clock.
More like 8 half past. Then slept round to seven ish from about three months or so.
Except my third he was 18 months or so but he just used to grizzle and go back off.

I class it as not having to disturb my sleep. So from about 10pm-6am. I also had spring babies, so I judged it on whether or not they got up in the dark! Mine were doing that from 9-11 weeks. By six months, they were going right through 7-6.

Neither were big nappers though.

my 7 week old was sleeping 11pm-7am and I classed that as sleeping through. She's done 7-7 too, and now doing 9pm-8am despite the 4 month sleep regression. Her naps have gone horrific though

My two were bottle fed, I think that’s why they did 12 hours from 5 months.

I counted it from the time I could sleep continuously till I woke up feeling rested. On average I always only needed 6hr of sleep so it was nice when my children managed 6hr continually sleep. Other people need 8hr, so I assume for them sleeping through for them would be 8hr continually.

Mine are bottle fed too but they don’t sleep through. Can I ask you how much you give them and how often? I’ve often wondered if we’re not feeding her enough during the day and that’s what wakes her up at night.

I can’t remember how much as it was nine years ago, they both had large bottles before bed though. Then I’d stick them in the same cot and they would sooth each other to sleep! And always listened to the braveheart soundtrack 🤣.

Well it’s probably all different now but whatever they weighed they would have half of that. So 8 pounds would have 4 ounces etc. But like I say it was a long time ago.

But I’ve just re read your op. At 20 months I don’t think they would having much milk in the way of food. They’d be having meals surely.
And two months is early to go all night.

I'd say 6 hours without waking up when they're babies as a toddler I'd say from bedtime until a decent hour when we're willing to get up and stay up so... till 5-6am?

The toddler doesn’t drink much milk anymore. The 2 (almost 3) month old has about 140ml 6 times a day.

Ped calls it a min of 6 hours and told me not to do it with my 4 wk old if I wanted to maintain my milk supply and so I am deliberately waking him every 3-4 hours,

HarryHarry that sounds like a a lot of milk for an almost 2 year old. How much food does your lo have?

I think it’s the baby that’s having the milk @Selfsettling3.

I’ve just googled and it looks like 140ml is about 5 ounces in old money. So if they’re about ten pounds should be ok milk wise.

Sorry. I blame sleep deprivation for misreading it.