When did your breastfed baby sleep longer stretches?

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My baby is 6 weeks and exclusively breastfed. He feeds every 1-2 hours roughly. More on the 1 hour side in the day at the moment. He doesn't nap much in the day, around 30 mins max at a time. He wakes every 1 to 2 hours on average at night to feed. He feeds anywhere between 5 mins - 20 mins at a time.
Will the stretches of sleep increase? We're so tired! Everyone is telling us it will get better..when will this be? 😣Do breastfed babies sleep through the night? Everyone I know in person who's babies slept through formula feed.
Thank you in advance!

I think at this age you feed on demand regardless of bottles of formula or breastfeeding so if you weren't bf you'd be up making lots of bottles!

6 weeks is sooo tiny, everything will change. Do they know night from day yet? If not that will happen in the next few weeks.

Perhaps google Sarah Ockwell baby sleep is not linear that will give you a fair overview of what you might expect over the next year

But you will get some longer stretches soon and in a few months you will be able to do some gentle bits to nudge them to longer sleep too

3 bf babies and, whilst each was slightly different, by 8/9 weeks they all went from midnight until 6am -ish.

As their stomach gets larger they can take on board more milk and therefore feel full longer. However, at this age they will be doing a huge amount of growing so will still need to feed lots.

You can try cluster feeding in the evening so you might get a decent stretch after. I had one bf baby who from 3 months would do 11 - 5. The other one would manage 11 - 3. By 6_ 7 months the first dc was sleeping 8 - 5. The second dc took a lot longer but was probably only waking once or twice a night by a year. It really depends on the baby and so many other factors but it does get much easier.

Another thing that might help is to make sure they get the hind milk which has a higher fat content and will fill them up for longer and help them grow. Do this by feeding only on one side rather than short feeds on both sides where they just get the watery hind milk. Encourage them to feed for longer by waking up, cool them off a bit or change a napog then pop them back on. Feed more in the day so they feed less at night.

Mine didn’t sleep through the night until 3 years old but this wasn’t guarenteed but her ff older sister was the same.

She started sleeping longer when we started night weaning at 7 months. I started sleeping longer when my DH started giving her one bottle of formula at night so I could stay asleep - at four weeks!

Both mine had a great period of sleep from about 12/13 weeks until 18ish weeks. DS in particular slept 8-4 and then 4-7ish after a feed. It then got worse again at 18ish weeks and DS starting waking loads again. DD wasn't so bad and woke twice a night. Fingers crossed for some sleep soon!

It goes up and down, it’s not linear from worse to better, every growth spurt, developmental leap, illness will affect them. Be prepared for change. Often they sleep really well by 10-12 weeks then it changes again. My first slept really well at 10 weeks then didn’t sleep longer than 2-3 hours until he was nearly one. He slept through the night (8pm-6am ish) at 20 months, my second didn’t until 2 but she was probably actually a better sleeper on average.

I think formula fed babies tend to sleep longer in between feeds. It really depends on the baby. My eldest found his thumb and was sleeping through the night at 17 weeks (breastfed) 🙌. When I had my daughter I was hoping for the same but unfortunately it was more like a year 🫩

Thank you!

@Alwaystired2023 I relate to your username! 😅 He wakes up around 7am everyday, so I do wonder if he can tell night from day now. Thank you, I will definitely have a look at that.

@LocalHobo that's amazing!

@WonderingWanda thank you for your reply! I've read somewhere about feeding more in the afternoon/evening, but wasn't sure if it would work. I offer one side per feed, unless he's only on around 6 minutes or less. In which case I'll offer the same side the next time too. Does that sound about right? How long does it take to get the the hind milk?

At around 2 weeks two of my three slept from 10/11 to 6, the first one slept from earlier so woke earlier. This was all before the sleep regressions though!

I found no difference in sleep/wakings/time between feedings between all the formula and breastfed babies I’ve known. At least I was rested from not having to move out of bed!

Sounds like you’re doing great!

DS would regularly go 7-2 or midnight- 6 at 8 or 9 weeks. Dd was going 11-5 by a similar age. Both breast fed.

If you have instagram Olivia the Lactation Consultant is amazing, hind milk is a bit of a myth

@Neurodiversitydoctor that's such a good stretch of sleep, I'm hoping we see something similar soon.

Thanks for all the replies, I'm finding it interesting reading everyone's experiences. I was told breastfed babies never sleep through, which was a little disheartening, so it's given me some hope that that's not necessarily true.

Mine used to feed every 2 hours, and did this for months and months. I think it stretched to 4 hours at night from about 6 months, but she was still waking in the night at 11 months old. I had night weaned by this point, and ended up doing a version of sleep training.

Both my bf babies slept through the night from 6 weeks old. One fed every 3 hours during the day and the other every four hours.

my formula fed nephews were 8 months and 4 years old respectively when they slept through

baby will sleep when ready. It doesn’t matter how they are fed.

Forgot to say, all were fully breastfed.

Not very helpful when you’re looking for light at the end of the tunnel, but I think it just depends on the baby! All of mine have been EBF, and so far there is no real pattern.

Eldest used to feed infrequently but for aaaages at a time. Was waking twice a night at 6 weeks old (I know for certain, as it’s all gainfully logged on the Huckleberry app for my PFB). This was pretty good compared to all the other babies in our antenatal group. But he never stopped the wake-ups, and is the worst sleeper of the group now. Weaned at 15 months. Still wakes up once every night now, aged almost 4!

Middle was very similar initially, although anlways ante quite quickly. Slept through from about 8pm to 6am from about 6 weeks to 4 months. After that lovely surprise, they then took to waking up a lot more than the eldest had done - maybe three or four times (funnily enough, no Huckleberry data for the second child 😂), but I co-slept so barely noticed. Weaned around 14 months. Now aged 2 and wakes once or twice.

Youngest is currently 6 weeks old. Feeds about every 4h during the day. For the past week, has been tending to cluster feed a bit in the early evening, around 8-9. Wakes again at 2 or 3 and again at 5 or 6, then up at about half 7.

the FF babies sleep through and BF babies don’t is bs. Babies will sleep longer stretches in their own time regardless of how they are fed.

my FF baby didn’t sleep through a night until 3 years old, BF baby was mostly sleeping through from 4-5 months, or at least learned to shimmy over and help himself (cosleeper) if he got hungry so I didn’t have to wake up properly.

day time naps were mostly contact naps for both of them, in a sling if I needed to be doing anything, as it was the only way they would stay asleep for longer than half an hour. Good naps usually meant a better night.
i vividly remember the early days though. You’ll come out the other end and find blissful
sleep again.

Is there a reason you are only feeding on one side OP? General NHS recommendation is offering both sides every feed. (It's a few paragraphs down in this article.) https://www.nhs.uk/baby/breastfeeding-and-bottle-feeding/breastfeeding-problems/enough-milk/

If baby is getting two breasts-worth in one go, that might fill their tummy and keep them sleeping for longer.

Similar to previous poster, I've also had health visitors advice to wait a couple of minutes and then have another go. Essentially to see if they stopped because they were stopping because of drowsiness rather than actually being full. There was a few weeks early on where DS clearly was getting more milk from this repeated feed, so I continued this until there was a couple of days where he was continuously doing full breast drains the first time round. So for that earlier period I was switching breast 4 times per feed (e.g. L/R/L/R).

Baby is 10 months and has done her.first couple of 11pm-5am this past week or so! It's been bliss 😊

I'm a bit jealous about all those babies who have been doing 5/6 hours since a couple of months old!

@Happyasarainbow I was advised in my antenatal classes to only offer one per feed. I've read the article and you're right, I didn't know this before. 😥 I'm now feeling bad I haven't been offering both per feed! My baby always seems satisfied and has never lost any weight, only ever put it on. But I will offer both from now on, thank you for pointing that out!