Do babies really sleep through?!

[itsadressinggown]

Do babies really sleep through before the age of 1 without night waking, as in completely sound asleep, no bottle or comfort needed from putting them to bed until the next morning?!

I'm not sure why people say sleeping babies are mythical when people come on and say they have had that experience

Dd1 slept from 7-7 straight through from 8 weeks. She was premature though and for the first 3-4 weeks we had to wake her at night to feed her so there may be something in that. She also only slept in the day for 40 mins every few hours, no long after lunch nap etc

Dd2 was 21 months.

Both breast fed, sleeping bags etc

DD1 did from 7 months, she used to regularly go from 6.30pm until 7am. She was formula fed.

I think she was a good sleeper overall, however until she was 3 we had various phases where she'd take ages to go to bed at night, or wake up super early in the morning, or insist on coming into our bed in the middle of the night!

DD2 is 4 months and I'm fairly certain she's a worse sleeper than DD1 so I don't think it will be the same for her...

As others have said, people have different definitions of sleeping through. I think it's 11-12 hours but I've known people who considered 11pm-5am as "sleeping through".

First child- 12 hours a night after the first few months!
Second child- woke every hour for the first 18 months 😑

DC1 first slept through most of the night (put down at around 9, dream feed around 11, woke for a feed at 5) at 8 weeks. By 4 months slept 8-7 with a dream feed still. Had a few bad nights when teething but apart from that has always slept well.

DC2 woke up every night until she was 6 and a half.

@SummerSazz It's a joke? Obviously I know there are babies who sleep through the night early on.

Depends what you mean by through the night but if you mean where I woke up and baby was still asleep.
Ds1 6 weeks
Dd 2 weeks
Ds2 7ish weeks but then he went on to be a nightmare sleeper until he was 2

Baby 1: slept 10pm - 7am from 12 weeks and 7-7 from 4 months

Baby 2: needed a feed in the night til 6 months but otherwise slept 7-7 from 4 months.

I sleep trained both of them and never ever fed to sleep.

Yes from 8 months every night 7pm-7am. Before that she would wake once for a 4am feed from about 4 months once I dropped the dream feed (breastfed).

I ran my own company and to be a good parent and keep the company going sleep was a priority for me. I started the EASY routine from 8 weeks and it worked for us.

Sleep was also a priority for me, as I was suicidal at one point due to lack of sleep (avoiding death was definitely a priority!). No routine worked for us though, we even paid a sleep consultant for DD1 who admitted defeat after a month and gave us our money back.

Yes, from three months (roughly 10-6 at that age, extending as he got older). But I'm aware I was lucky and mine is unusual. And it's not like he sleeps through every single night - when he's teething or ill, and when we started weaning, we had plenty of broken nights.

At 6 weeks old my now 6 yo was sleeping 10pm - 4am and then going back to sleep until 7.30ish. By 8 weeks she was regularly skipping the 4am feed so doing 10 - 7ish.

Massive sleep regression at 4 months though which was a shock 😫

It really depends on the child. I had one terrible sleeper, one brilliant sleeper, and 1 who generally sleeps fairly well but probably 1 waking most nights and more when ill/teething/growth spurt

Depends on the baby! Some do, some don't. My DD slept pretty reliably without any intervention on our part roughly 8-8 from about...10/11m? She slept 'through the night' say 9-7 from about 6 or 7 months but she would always wake once or more and need help finding her dummy. She slept roughly 10-6 without a feed from being about 10 weeks old but she would wake multiple times a night and need help to find her dummy from around 4 months old. So if you mean without needing any intervention, the turning point for us was when she was big enough to reliably replace her own dummy at almost every wake which wasn't until she was about 10 or 11m.

It really does differ between children: DD1 finally slept through the night the night before she started in Reception, DD2 slept through from 8 weeks. DD1 is still a poor sleeper at 14 - struggles to get to sleep and up early, DD2 loves her sleep and at 3 generally does 7.30pm to 7am.

Yes. Both of mine did.

But it's not all unicorns and rainbows. My eldest screamed pretty much all day every day for the first four months of his life. He never napped longer than half an hour at a time and probably only slept through at night because he was so blood exhausted. He slept through the night from an early age. But he's 7 now, he hates being 'left alone' to sleep since lockdown started. He sits up in bed now until 10pm and wanders into our room looking for us at 4am.

Youngest largely slept through from 3 months. I could count on one hand the amount of times I've had to get up with him in the night and he's five.

Mine has done 7-8pm until 5-6am pretty much every night from 8 months-ish after going into own room and some gentle stay and support sleep training. Previous to that used to wake every 2-3 hours in the night (or sometimes 60-90 mins)!

Mine woke every 3 hours until 6 months, then we moved him into his own room and out of nowhere he started sleeping 7-5.30 some nights (not all). No sleep training.

He's 8 months now and is going through the regression. He generally wakes to feed, but it's only once so I can cope with that. If anyone knows the magical secret to keeping him asleep past 5.30, I'm all ears!

Mine did, 11-7 from 6 weeks. Had a regression about 8 months for a few weeks which was a hell of a shock!

Mine haven't, DS1 is 2.5 and started sleeping trough about 18 months and DS2 is 1 this month and has never slept through

My DS didn’t sleep through til 15 months, and we still have probably 2 nights a week he’s up twice, and he’s a very consistent early riser (5am usually, urgh). I never thought sleeping through would happen, but all of a sudden he just got it. No routine change, no particular prompts... just happened. I think getting into a really consistent daytime routine thanks to lockdown maybe helped but who knows! He had been in a phase of up 3 or 4 times a night at 13 months and i’d given up on ever having decent sleep again

Mine do. 3 babies, all slept through reliably from around 12 weeks. Also only woke once a night before that (though with last feed between 11 pm and 1 am).

Nothing to do with weight either, as DD was 3.9 kg and became massive, DS was 4.3 kg and is normal and little DD was 3.4 kg and is just normal.

All of them just clusterfed before they went up. All of them chose their own bed time and they seem to relish sleeping.

I don't know how I'm so lucky, though.

Mine didn't! Not all the way through to morning until over 1...

Mine never did. 3yo DS still wakes 3/4 nights a week and ends up in our bed 🤷‍♀️

My LO has slept 7.30-6ish with one dream feed when I go to bed since he was 8 weeks old.

He is now 14 weeks and has started waking at 4am

I think it is purely luck. We have a solid nighttime routine and he has his naps in a sling, but plenty of other mums do that and their babies don’t sleep well. So I reckon it’s luck of the draw!

We dropped night feeds and did some self settling support at 4 months and he’s been solid 6.30-6.30 since. He does wake occasionally (once or twice a week) but he just chats in his cot and to his teddy and goes back to sleep himself.
he only needs help in the night when he’s poorly / teething, for cuddles and pain relief, and he does cry when he needs us.
At 6 months he used to wake a couple of times an night for his dummy, but we got through that in a couple of weeks, and he had a regression at 9 months, we stuck to the routine and kept daytime naps the same and we got through it in a week (thank god!)
He’s not perfect but we’re very lucky, defo can’t complain. He’s 14 months now.