When did your EBF baby sleep for longer?

[Teaandcrumpets95]

I'm asking more out of curiosity than anything, I'm not too fussed what my baby is doing currently. Definitely not expecting the elusive 7-7 for a very long time ha 😅

4 month old baby (20 weeks) goes down around 7/730pm then either wakes or has a dream feed around 11pm and then wakes for feeds another 2 times before 6 (around 130 and 430 but times vary).

If your baby was ebf when did they start sleeping for longer at night?
I guess when did they start dropping some night feeds?

Ta x

Dc2 was 3.5.. years that is.

DD slept six hours each night from a couple of months old. She was an angel - until the nine month sleep regression. We never really got over that and she's 10 now....

DS Co slept and latched himself on and off all night, so he didn't wake me. I highly recommend it for that reason alone!

10 months. We night weaned - he didn’t do it by himself.

8 weeks ... she slept 10 to 5 fairly consistently.... she was a unicorn though.

Bed at 7ish and sleep to 11pm when I woke her for a nappy change and feed then sleep through to c7am. This was from 7 weeks for DD1 and 11weeks for DD2. Having big babies with big tummies help.

Mine slept pretty well from the start but teething at 6 months meant he was feeding constantly through out the night, we coslept so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. He gradually started sleeping better at around 10 months and by a year he was in a cot in a room with his brother as he slept through most of the time. I did have to nurse him to sleep through by climbing in with him then use ninja moves to escape!

@tushywush wow! Well done for feeding that long, I'm impressed. Were they still feeding multiple times a night at that age?

When we did sleep training at 10m

@AliceW89 stupid question- did you just stop offering the boob at night then? Or wean completely?

@MolliciousIntent may I ask what method you used? And how'd you find it?

It’s a long time ago, but as soon as DD could move herself she would sleep next to me and help herself, barely waking me, so I slept through even if she didn’t.

@Cotswoldmama this gives me hope! But haha don't think I'm capable of those kinda moves 😂

We did Ferber, it took one night, she cried for an hour at bedtime and then an hour in the night but the next night she slept 7-7. Previously had been waking hourly since birth.

My youngest is now 21 months and still breastfed. He has only started to consistently go from 7-7 in the last few weeks! Prior to that he would be up usually about 1.30am for a quick feed. Time was the only thing that helped us, sleep training made no difference.

We did a kind of ‘gradual retreat’ night wean as I couldn’t hack proper cry based sleep training (no issue with others doing it though). Initially we stopped feeding to sleep for naps, then we stopped feeding to sleep at bedtime, then we stopped overnight night feeds relatively gradually. Basically the Jay Gordon Method (Google it). The longest and hardest bit was stopping feeding to sleep for naps. That took a week or so and a few tears with DH or I cuddling or shh-patting DS. Once that was sorted, the nights fell into place really quite quickly with no tears…probably another couple of weeks tops. DS went from waking multiple (5+ times a night) to sleeping through.

Id personally say 4 months is far too young to consider this though. We did it at 10 months because I was imminently about to start night shifts - I’m sure some would say even 10 months is too young to night wean.

We carried on breastfeeding to 16 months, but really DS had lost interest by about 12 months.

Sorry, posted too hastily.

DC2 woke every hour for about the first year. Then would wake multiple times and we all played musical beds every night for years.

DC1, from about 12 weeks, only ever work once in the night and would sleep until 9am.

I bf’d both until 18 months (ebf until 6mths when we did BLW).

No rhyme or reason. No patterns. No logic. Just pot luck IMVHO as to how good your kids sleep.

8 weeks dd was sleeping 8 hours, by 12 weeks she was doing at least 12 hours consistently. No sleep training other than we would count to 30 before picking her up. No dream feeds etc.

She also completely weaned herself though, at 11 months she just didn’t want the boob any more and reduced her day time feeds significantly before then.

DD is 7.5mo. EBF, has always refused a bottle, has never slept through. Best case she wakes twice. I dream feed at 10pm as that helped my son sleep a bit longer, but I worry now that it's not helping her learn to connect her sleep cycles. Last night woke maybe 5 times and could only be got back to sleep with BF. I need to do something about it but I am beyond exhausted and unable to think clearly. She will now drink water from a cup during the day so I might try that at night. Should grasp the nettle and sleep train but not sure I can bear her crying for an hour as a PP said.

About 8 months old he started to just wake up twice in the night.
Slept through at 1yo once I'd made all the day feeds out of tomiee tippie sippy cups.

Mine both did long stints when they were 6 weeks + (8pm-5/6am) then slept until 8 ish after a feed but started waking up more at 5 months. Then we'd go between 1/2 2/3am feeds. My eldest went straight through at 12 months the youngest took a bit longer. I find night sleep always gets better after it settles down after dropping naps

One of mine slept 7 till 7 from 6 months (2 wakes per night from 4-6 months) The other woke hourly until 6 months when I cracked and sleep trained him using controlled crying. Not pleasant but after that he mostly only woke for 1 or 2 feeds until about 10 months when he started sleeping 7 till 5. That was actually worse. Getting up at 5 every day was a killer. Especially as the 2 year old slept in till 9 am! Now he's 1 and usually sleeps 8 till 6.30. sometimes still has one feed in the night. They are very different temperaments.

I've just done controlled crying with my EBF 7 month old for night feeds and she didn't cry that much or that badly, I was so surprised as it was worse with my son, plus with my daughter I was previously co-sleeping with her on the boob every hour or so, so was prepared for it to be harder. She is now sleeping 7 to 3 or 4am in her cot when I feed her (think she still needs one night feed) then back in cot for a couple of hours, then wakes at 6ish and come into bed with me for a couple of hours of boob/snuggles. This is ideal, as I didn't want to lose the co-sleeping altogether but wanted to get sleep. Only took two nights.

One of my EBF babies was EBF until 6 months and then started having solids, but had milk several times during the day and night until around 18months, when we night weaned as sleep was consistently atrocious (waking every hour minimum)
Turns out, breastfeeding was actually the only way to get that child to go to sleep and we gave it up. It took another 5 and a 1/2 years for them to sleep a full night (about 9-6 - age 10 now and never has slept 7-7)

My other EBF baby slept through 7-7 by 15 months, and my mix fed baby did 11-7 by 9 months so I never felt quite deprived with them and it’s not like we didn’t know “how” to do it (It’s nice to have a control group)

Once teething began, he started using it as a dummy and never wanted to let go. Many battles over this. Ended up cosleeping.

Night weaned at age 2, he was very upset.

First slept through the night age 3.

😬