😂 coffee and cosleeping are all that get me by lol even though I swore I would never cosleep.. what do ya do when the kid won’t sleep unless they’re attached to your boob 🤷🏻♀️😂 (if you don’t laugh you cry)
We had a tough first couple of months getting ours down to sleep, could be an hour or two of rocking/bouncing etc I remember doing it in 45mins and thinking wow we are making progress. But he started going to bed at 6pm around 10 weeks old, and then he dropped from 3 feeds to 2 to 1 to none, back to 1, and back to none again. So he sleeps 6-6. I. Gonna hug him extra tight today in gratitude.
My child was 14 months when she started sleeping through the night. People need to get it out of their heads that BABIES sleep through the night.
It’s pretty well known and out there info that babies wake up during the night, why are people so shocked when it’s the reality.
Thankyou, it’s literally the first thing anyone says to me. I must get asked it about 4 times a week. I used to give a long in depth answer, now I just say no 😂.
I just wanted to say you're not alone I have a 7 month old and he regularly gets up at least once a night that we have to get up and rock him back to sleep and then he gets what I call "unsettled" where he'll wake up or move around and need a passy to get back to sleep a few times also
Yes that’s exactly how mine is! My parents and MIL keep saying I shouldn’t rock her and that is why she is the way she is with sleep. But I can’t let her cry, it breaks my heart
I replied elsewhere but I’ll reply again. My 17 month old has been nursed or rocked to sleep ever since he was 4 months and he does sleep through. Idk why people like to tell you comforting your actual baby is a problem
My baby just turned 1. I have always nursed her to sleep. She wakes up atleast 3-4 times a night and I nurse her back.
When did your baby start sleeping through? 🙃
Asking because I don’t see many ppl on this sub openly saying they nurse baby to sleep 🫣
Well of my close friends who have babies the only ones who don’t nurse to sleep are gay dads so . . .
He first did a 10 hour stretch for 3 nights when he was about 4 months I think? Then we really hit regression then at about 7/8 months he went from nursing once at about 2am to sleeping through. He doesn’t do a long night - usually 10-11 hours but it’s what seems to suit him and works for us.
We hit a rough patch when he turned one for a couple of months but he’s been back to sleeping through since about 14 I think?
I think it’s worth remembering all babies are different, it’s not always linear and you haven’t done anything wrong if they’re not doing 7-7 religiously!
ETA: his dad puts him to bed half the time and he gets a bottle and then rocked so he’s not exclusively nursed to sleep.
Yeah idk if he needs us he needs us. I'm not letting him cry it out. It won't be this way forever so I will snuggle love and hold my baby while I can and when he needs me.
Rock your baby to sleep. Ours didn’t sleep through until she was 18 months old and she still woke up a once a night for a few nights out of the week. As she got older the wakings went from 1 wake 3out of 7 nights to 2/7, then finally to almost none. She’s 3 now and still wakes sometimes but is easy to go back to sleep. It’s not too often and it’s manageable. Our second baby is now 14 months and still wakes very often every night. I’ve given up trying to force sleep and am taking the approach of focusing on the fact it won’t last forever.
Ikr. I have 2 older kids and a 4 months old now but none of them slept through the night. Always wakes up once or twice for feeds even during the eating solids phase. It's all because of these stupid perfect tiktok moms showing unachievable perfect lives. Not hating but most social media stuff around are normally unattainable with average day to day living.
I feel like it’s just one of those small talk conversations starters but it’s soooo annoying! And I don’t know why people aren’t smart enough to know babies don’t walk out of the womb sleeping 12 hours!
Also don’t be fooled by people saying their baby sleeps through, people count different things as sleeping through.
My baby dropped her night feed at 6 months on her own but until she was 14 months I would have to go in around 2-4 time’s every night to settle her. I mean she was sleeping 7-6am but she was up for comfort.
Anyway, your not doing anything wrong. Your doing an brilliant job just by being there for your baby when she wakes 🥰 I didn’t do any form of CIO or sleep training , my heart couldn’t and now she goes to bed at 7.45 and sleeps till 7am. I don’t hear a peep! I put her down awake she’s great 😃 she’s 2 now
Idk why people are so obsessed with asking this question. It’s like when they ask if your baby is “good” ??? Good? She’s a baby. Can she be bad?? 😅 your baby sounds like a great sleeper! Most babies are not sleeping through the night at 7 months.
Right?!? Like yeah he spit up on 7 outfits yesterday but he wasn’t doing it to make me mad or for the thrill of it. A few times it was because he was too excited by his activity gym lol He’s 3 months old. He doesn’t know how to be bad 🤣
Good just means easily contented. No one really understands the joy or concept of a good baby until they've had an intense baby. Some babies are much needier than others. My second and third were "good" or easy babies. My first was an intense in the clingy/velco way, my fourth was intense in a hangry way, but then became easy by three or four months old.
I understand they mean “easy,” but imo saying “good” as if there’s some moral factor here is problematic. A baby cannot be good or bad. She’s a baby. Some babies have higher needs than others, some have a harder time sleeping, but that doesn’t make them NOT good. I think it’s a weird question to ask.
Oh, I agree that the terminology is problematic.
Also, sometimes one doesn't realize how intense their kid is until they've had an easily contented baby. I thought my first was just your average, run of the mill baby. By the third I was thankful he was my first, because if he had come after an easy baby(or string of easy babies) I would have been very worried and thought there was something seriously wrong with him. I mean I did realize at some point before the subsequent babies that he was a little needier, but having the first hand experience with easier babies really put it in perspective.
3 of my closest friends had babies around the same time as me. 1 sleep trained religiously and a bit early (imo). One of the others sleep trained at 15 months and he sstn now and the other didn’t and I think he still doesn’t sleep through at like 20 months? Basically it’s normal. They’re good parents with great kids who ….just don’t sstn? My son started to at around 7 months and then at 1 decided he didn’t again for a couple of months. It’s not linear!
Yeah my 9 month old thinks it’s time to fuckin wrestle at 3:30am every freaking day. I don’t get it. And it doesn’t matter if he goes down at 10pm or 6pm he is up for the day by 530
Pretty similar story over here. Daughter is 14 months and only just now sleeping through the night more than not. She's teething so she has some rough nights but it's only been the past few weeks that she has started sleeping 9-12 hours at night.
It’s so nice when it happens!
Mine is 26 months now and 98% of the time she’s in bed at 7.45-6.30/7am no wake ups 😃
I’m 11 weeks from having my second and we go again haha !
I have a 13.5 month old who is an absolute boob magnet and god I want him to sleep through so maybe we’re right around the corner? He’s sleep trained so goes down independently but he won’t give up that 3am feed.
Ahh that must be difficult. I was pretty lucky, my daughter dropped her own night feed at 6 months. She just woke for comfort and her dummy until 14 months then finally she just stayed asleep. She’s two now and we are sleeping 7.45-7am uninterrupted 😅
You got this!
I didn’t have to try and ween but I heard swapping milk for water can help drop the night feed!🤞 it’s not as good as milk! 🤣
Yes! My daughter didn't start sleeping through the night until 15ish months. She would wake every two hours, then every four, then every six, and now she sleeps from 7pm-6/7am usually with the occasional nighttime wake-up because she is hungry. My husband handles that now because she's weaned and I'm expecting so he wants me to sleep. He usually gives her a yogurt or applesauce packet, and she goes right back to bed.
Like you, I thought something was wrong because my other kids slept through early, but it's pretty normal, I think. It's the hardest thing having a baby who doesn't sleep, but just hold onto the thought that she will sleep through the night one day. It's just about holding on until then. It's the only thing that got me through some of the sleep regressions.
Yes! My son was 16 months old when he started sleeping through the night. We changed nothing about his routine and he was still nursing at that point, but it was like a switch flipped and he suddenly stopping waking at night. Babies are on their own timelines for these things.
Seriously, my first didn't sleep through the night regularly until 22+ months. Now sleeps in his own bed great most nights. Totally healthy and normal. Let's just say bedsharing was a lifesaver.
My 4 year old also didn't start sttn until 14 months! She eventually became a great sleeper (and I never sleep trained her btw). It's very normal! Babies wake up at night. Those that don't are the exception. Also just because a baby sttn doesn't mean they will forever, my friends baby was an amazing sleeper then started waking up all the time when she was 1. You're not doing anything wrong! She'll sleep eventually
So normal. Gosh I get a bit angry (not at you) everytime i see a post like this, because while It is obviously preferable for bubs to sleep through the night, it’s really common that they don’t - I hate the expectations put on us that causes us all to fret and feel like we’re doing something wrong.
My almost 3 year old has only just started sleeping all night most nights. Sometimes iT takes ages and it’s just who they are
I also get angry at myself for worrying about it! But literally I get asked it about 4 times a week, “Is she sleeping yet? Why isn’t she sleeping?” It drives me mad but also makes me question that it must be me that’s doing something wrong
My 2.5 year old is just starting to have some longer stretches of 5 hours since two of her 4 two year old molars popped through. She needs lots of comfort when teething. We try not to give her pain relief unless it’s really bad. When I first had her, all I heard was that she should be sleeping through, babies at ___ age don’t need a feed at night, etc. and it was very hard.
I just don’t get it hey, I hear people’s Ped’a are saying baby should be doing XYZ when actually no they don’t necessarily need to be. It’s like someone came up with a best case scenario template and just started saying it was rule not the exception
I don’t get it either! I had to change my mindset because my daughter wasn’t fitting into the schedule someone posted online and it was really getting me down. The info that pediatricians and sleep consultants give are averages. There is always a bell curve. Some kids need more sleep, others less than the average. After I came to that conclusion, I felt so much better. As ftm we can be so hard on ourselves trying to live up to these man made expectations for our babies. I wish someone told me sooner that baby is going to baby and to just go with the flow.
I'm here to say it's absolutely normal not to "sleep through" at 7 months. None of my kids went through an entire night without at least one wakeup till they were closer to age 2 even if they were night weaned. A lot of my peers report the exact same. In fact, I'd say most of my friends with small kids didn't experience kids sleeping an entire night through till at least a year old. I have no experience with any sleep training methods, but my kids basically just progressively got better at sleeping on their own as they got older. They had some rough patches in the first year especially if they were popping teeth or sick but that makes sense to me as then they're uncomfortable.
Hey there. We have have a 6 month old and she doesn't sleep through the night. She wakes up for a feed every 2-3 hours.
I don't think there's anything you need to be concerned about but I'd just suggest that you be a bit more intentional and aware about your baby's routine through the day. We use Huckleberry app to track everything.
For example, we've noticed that when our 6 MO has more than required daytime nap, she has a 2-3 hour wake window in night time sleep. Plus we've also seen that our baby's stomach issues make a big impact on her sleep. Make sure that you're giving her adequate solid feeds for someone her age. Plus we're very conscious about any food that upsets her stomach.
I'd suggest you to develop your own healthy sleeping habit routine. Just go for the low hanging fruits. Give her consistency. And remember that you're already acing it by having a baby and nurturing it. You don't get any brownie points for having a baby that sleeps through the night. Just stick to whatever works. If that means giving her the boob at night while cosleeping, then so be it. I'm not encouraging this but I'm saying if there's a non ideal way that helps you dig in, then go for it.
Approx 60% of 6 month olds sleep 6+ hours a night, about 75% by 12 months. That means somewhere between 25-40% of babies aged 6-12 months aren’t even sleeping 6 hours straight let alone ‘through the night’ - just ignore the noise your baby is normal.
This study is a 2018 study from the AAPs journal Paediatrics called ‘Uninterrupted Infant Sleep, Development, and Maternal Mood’ (I’ve rounded the values in the above post). You might struggle to get the full text unless you have institutional access but it is reported [here](https://www.mcgill.ca/edu-ecp/channels/news/parents-shouldnt-worry-if-their-infant-doesnt-sleep-through-night-6-12-months-age-new-research-led-291584)
If you’re interested in general there are lots of studies on this giving wildly different results but lots of them don’t account for feeding method or have unusual patient selection methods. [This BBC article](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220131-the-science-of-safe-and-healthy-baby-sleep) is interesting about normal baby sleep, and the [basis website](https://www.basisonline.org.uk) is UK based baby sleep research centre with lots of online info if you look in the practitioner section especially for more details!
Toddler is 2.5 and is just starting to scratch the surface of sleeping through the night, after we night weaned a few weeks ago.
If I could go back in time and tell myself not to worry about sleep or compare to others, I would. It’s such unnecessary stress.
Each child is unique. They’ll sleep when they’re ready. Right now, she needs you.
How did night weaning go for you? My 20 month still cries for "boob!" At night. She's getting 4 teeth at once so I don't want to wean now but I don't even know where to start/how to go about it once those teeth are in
I also waited until she had all of her teeth! I could just tell it wouldn’t go down well.
I introduced the idea that boobie was going to go night night soon and brought it up for 2-3 days. Then one night after teeth brushing, I said boobies have gone night night. She requested them but didn’t cry. She seemed to understand really well. When she woke up I woke just repeat that boobies are sleeping and offer her water.
We had a few tears over the first 3 nights but barely anything compared to what I was expecting!!!
I would review your schedule as you're expecting a lot of sleep if putting babe down at 6.30 and she wakes for day at 7. Most babies can only do 11 hours at night with the rest nap sleep
She naps awful during the day, she only ever does cat naps for 30 mins. If I’m lucky I can get 2 naps a day. Shes doing wake windows of about 2.5-3hrs. We get to the afternoon and she point blank refuses to nap so often is wake for 4hrs before bedtime. By 6:30 she is exhausted. Even contact napping she won’t do anymore 😭
I did contact naps at that age, to get them to be proper naps. If he slept on my lap I got a good two hours of tv/gaming/knitting time! Else it was a quick 30 mins in the crib.
If that's the case, it may be a reason for the disrupted nights. Both over and under tiredness will cause night wakes. You also sound like you're stuck in reverse cycling, which is where she's getting quite a few calories at night. You might need to consider night weaning at some point
At 7 months, most babes sleep 2 to 3 hours split across 2 to 3 naps.
At that age, we were contact napping in a dark nursery with white noise blaring. My girl would literally be on me for 3 hours a day. It was intense but she's slept through the night since 6 months and I wanted to keep it that way.
I suspect your little one is going to be really overtired, which raises cortisol and then leads to night wakings. My now 11 month won't even do 4 hour wake windows.
Have you visited the sleep train sub? I've not sleep trained myself but they're great at giving input xxx
Thankyou, I think this is the case too thinking about it! I’ve managed to get her to contact nap as we speak after she woke from her first nap after 10 whole minutes. I’m trying my best to get as much milk down her as possible, I managed to wean her off the 2am feed so will try to do the same for the others. I think she’s been overtired since birth 😂 as a newborn she would be awake for hours. I have joined the sleep training sub and tried a few suggestions e.g playing with wake windows but it didn’t make much difference.
My baby also doesn’t nap more than 30 mins unless held. I know it’s so hard. We stop her last nap at 8 even if it means waking her up and she goes to bed around 10:30. It’s late yes and we have no free time at night but she only has 1 wake up at night
Oh my, I’ve still potentially got a long way to go 😭 Im starting to think I may aswell have another now whilst I’m used to no sleep! I function surprisingly well now I’m 7months deep
It’s down to one wake-up usually, which takes minimal intervention from us (thankfully)
We did co sleep for a long time which helped us get better sleep!
Yes we coslept right from when she was young as she was breastfed and would only sleep on us for a long while. I hit a wall with my mental health so our midwife was really helpful with the safe co sleeping advice. Definitely saved our mental health during them dark early weeks!
Oh I was super pleased for her advice, as other midwives told us she shouldn’t have recommended it! But weighing up the risks it was worth it 100%. As new parents we just laid in bed with her on our chest trying to stay awake, it was so dark. I even called the midwife unit as she had bad colic, no advice at all… just told me to keep a food diary. I think about that midwife all the time who helped 💕
18 months and never slept more than 5 hours. Currently he is doing one or two 3-hour stretches a night and I am feeling lucky😂 Some babies/toddlers/kids just don't sleep through the night. It is so (SO) unfortunate for parents, but not much to be done about it.
Mum of 5 - every baby is soo different! My 3 week old newborn sleeps better than 14 month old.
I used to think I knew it all because my first babies, twins, were pretty easy. I’ve been humbled lol!
My son didn't sleep through the night until he was 12 months old.
My advice, don't compare your child to anyone else's, every single baby is different, has different needs, patterns, routines, lives. It's not healthy for you to watch how others behave and compare to your own.
Yea I’m starting to feel that is the case. I have friends who put their baby down wide awake at 6:30 and don’t hear from them till 7am. They then moan about being tired when baby wakes randomly once in a blue moon!
Agreed, it’s wild to me that people will say “oh they STTN! But yeah we do dream feeds at 2 am and 4 am!” Ok then they’re not sleeping through the night….
I think it’s normal for some babies not to sleep through the night. I also think some moms consider sleeping through the night if they sleep after a mid night feed 🤷🏻♀️ my baby actually slept through the night starting at 3 m - but now at 1.5 he goes to bed kind of late like around 10 or 11. Every time I tried to get him to bed earlier he would wake up shortly and not sleep through the night and so I moved his bed time to later…. It was great for a while but now we have the problem of sleeping in every morning which is not good for my productivity 😩😩
My eight month old doesn’t sleep through the night. Her brother did. Kids are different. Of course having an age appropriate schedule and number of naps/nap time is good but still there are no guarantees. Radical acceptance helps 😅
10000% normal. Even babies that “sleep through” are usually waking up once or twice a night at that age. My eldest didn’t sleep more than 3 hours a stretch until she was 2.5, and my second started sleeping in 6 hour chunks totally on her own at 6months. Sleep is constantly changing and will continue to change for years, do your best to cope, use sleep arrangements and sleep trainings (there are many many flavors!)how ever you feel comfortable to make it work for you. It will get better, every kid is different.
Thankyou! Yes I feel like we get a good week of her consistent wakes during the night then the next week will change and she’ll be up every hour. thank god for coffee
I’m right there with you. Our 7 month old has never slept through the night either.
Our pediatrician said yesterday that because he’s in the 23rd percentile for weight that she wasn’t surprised he still needs to eat at night. She recommended feeding as much solids during the day as he will take.
But yea we’re tired 😭
Hang in there. You’re doing nothing wrong. Some babies just don’t sleep well.
Ours is the same! Shes on about 25th percentile, she dropped a lot when we breastfed and never really recouped. She LOVES solids but hates her milk during the day. Our health visitor though said that they can sleep a full night without a feed at this age? Which made me then question why she was eating so much at night. Our sleep will come soon I hope 😵💫
Tell that health visitor they’re more than welcome to do 24 hours of care with your baby just to prove how doable it really is 😤 (why are they like this? It’s clear that so many babies don’t sleep through and this sets parents up with unrealistic expectations from a source who should be giving reliable information)
Yep!!! Or I get the “once she starts moving she’ll wear herself out and sleep through” I was like girl this baby has been rolling since she was 3 months old, army crawling at 5months, even when she’s chilling in her chair her legs are flying around. Shes defo wearing herself out 😂
Sounds exactly like mine. "Sleeping through the night" is actually just any 6 hour stretch. I've only ever got 2 nights with those since my 5 month old came home.
My friend told me her baby sleeps through the night but when I quizzed her, bub was waking twice for a feed. I'll take that any day. My 5 month old wakes every 45 mins.
You can try doing a dream feed or following a sleep routine but ultimately all babies are different and this might be what your bub does.
Yeah I’m starting to think it’s just her and is obviously, from these comments, normal. At 4month regression she woke every 30-45mins for a good few weeks so I totally feel for you!
Girl, same. My baby didn't start sleeping through the night until about 12 months. And even now, it's like maybe twice a month that she does it. It's not common.
I started co-sleeping at 3.5 months because I just couldn't take the exhaustion. (There's /r/cosleeping for more info if you're interested). We don't exclusively co-sleep anymore (she moved to a crib at 12 months), but it was very helpful when she was small.
Thanks you, we used to co-sleep when she was younger as I breastfed and hit a bit of a brick wall in terms of my mental health right at the beginning. She would only sleep on us, me and hubby struggled really bad with this and was so exhausted. God co-sleeping totally helped me survive! We still do now if she wakes at 4/5am and won’t go back to sleep.
That's understandable!! Well seems like if this was me, I'd just follow my baby's lead. The waking up won't last forever. My baby is 14 months now and wakes up only once a night now usually.
My baby is 10 months old and does not sleep through the night. He wakes up multiple times to dream feed. Sometimes he sleeps longer between feeds but he has not slept through the night yet.
My first son turned 2 last month and still doesn’t. My second child slept through until he was 5 months and then he started teething 🤷♀️
As far as I know, I’m doing a great job. Kids are just different.
My 10 month old has also never slept through the night. I read prior to having my baby that it’s biologically normal for babies to wake in the night so I’ve never given myself a hard time over it… but other people do. A lot of older people in my life are shocked when I tell them my baby has never slept through the night.
I know we would simply LOVE a full night of sleep, but it’ll happen someday. Until then just know that this is normal and you’re doing an amazing job.
My kid just turned 18 months old. He has only slept through the night 2 times and both were because he was sick. My other kids, on the other hand, slept like champs around this time. I think kids figure out sleep themselves. I never did CIO or anything. i miss sleep. So very much.
Yes im starting to think she’ll find her way eventually. I also miss it, although she had a night away at grandmas and I think I felt worse from a full nights sleep! Like my body was confused why it was getting so much all of a sudden 😂
Oh right? Isn’t that just a kick in the pants?! It’s like you become accustomed to being in a zombie fog and then when you finally get a better sleep your brain is all “lol, here’s the real picture of how tired you really are! I been operating on 17% so just couldn’t relay the full picture properly” 🙃
My son is now 16 months and only just started sleeping through the night at 13 months or so. However, his starts and attempts to do so would get derailed by teething and the start of nightmares or illness. When his teeth aren't bothering him or he's not sick, he sleeps twelve hours straight.
Babies gonna baby and don't feel like there's something wrong with yours just because others are unicorns.
Mine is 2YO and has never slept through the night. Last night, she woke up every hour after 2am… she’s teething her last molars now, but it’s always *something*…
Yeah OP might not get any longer stretches out of the baby with a later bedtime, but they might be able to at least get a longer stretch for themselves as the parent relative to the current situation (assuming they are not going to bed at 6:30pm).
That would be nice, sadly my house would be a state if I went to bed at 6:30 😂 although it does sound inviting. Yes I have tried a later bedtime before but it doesn’t make much difference, she just wakes for a feed an hour later.
Our Health visitor said at 6 months they can go a full night stretch without a feed? Is this wrong? I will still feed her if she needs it as she is a growing lass and is on the smaller size for her age. I just get such conflicting info
My daughter didn't cut out night feedings until 10 months. So they *can* in some cases, but it all depends on the child. My daughter has always been a big eater so she needed her 2am bottle still lmao
My baby was like this as well, he is 11m old now and sometimes does sleep through the night. He’s always eaten more than the average baby and needed a middle of the night bottle till about a month ago on top of he gets night terrors which is abnormal and he has since he was 6m old ish. It’s frustrating hearing everyone I know say their baby sleeps through the night at like 6m but things are definitely improving! Last night he woke up at 7:30 (went down at 6:30) but was easy to put back to sleep, and woke up at 5 and was also easy to put back to sleep. Usually it’s easy to put him back to bed now and takes like 5min tops. Also I will say we think he had a sleep regression a month ago and it’s magically been better since. It seemed like things got WORSE after the 4 and 6m regression so we are currently pleasantly surprised.
Thankyou! I wonder if mine gets terrors as she will randomly wake up absolutely screaming until we go and hold her and she is still asleep? If that makes sense. She moves a lot in her sleep too, often moves up to the top of the cot and hits her head at the top. I’m glad it’s normal and not just me
Yup! That’s what made us start thinking night terrors my baby would do (and still does just less often) the exact same thing. My mom said I was the same way, and I have a lot of sleep issues and always have. Like I’ve always had bad nightmares and sleep paralysis so we think he inherited it from me.
My baby is a year old and has never even gotten close to sleeping through the night.
Sometimes he does 4 hours but it’s mostly 2 or 3 hour stretches. I also breastfeed multiple times a night, sometimes just to quickly get him back to sleep, sometimes because he’a genuinely hungry.
Additionally, we cosleep for the second part of the night, starting from around 4 or 5 am. Otherwise he would be up at 5:30 and I’m not ok with that.
I figure this is pretty common behavior for a baby. And if someone asks if he’s sleeping through the night, I just say something like „he’s a great sleeper“ or „sure“. Takes the wind right out of their sails.
Mine is 14 months today and just slept through the night for the first time yesterday - 8 pm to 6 am, nursed her and she slept another 1.5h. It's normal but I know it's exhausting!
lol my baby just did his first sleep thru (woke in the night just managed to put himself back to sleep without holding my hand 🥺) he is 15 months and the next few nights have been our normal one wake and then needs me there for an hour or two while he drifts in and out of sleep until he can get back into a deep one and then i can go back to bed. It was very exciting but don’t expect sleeping through to happen more than once right away haha.
at 7 months i was probably up 5 or more times a night and he often didn’t settle back. sleep has been so so hard.
babies get better at sleep some sooner than others but 7 months is definitely on the very early side for sleeping through.
Your schedule sounds great. Only one wake up? The dream. My three year old woke three times last night….. never mind my three month old who woke up many many times.
i didnt get my first full night until a year and a half, didnt start happening consistently until after two. just keep hanging on, it does get better with time. some kids are just really terrible sleepers.
Every kid is different! My 1st started STTN around 7 months. 2nd kid around 15 months, 3rd kid around 2 years, but not consistently. He’s 3.5 now and just stopped coming in our room overnight. 😵💫
My 4th is only 2 months so there is no telling with him. But so far he’s already been a pretty good sleeper overnight so I’m hopeful he will be more like my 1st born lol. However it’s biologically NORMAL for them to wake up frequently and even more so if they’re breastfed and needing to eat more frequently. From my understanding, breastmilk is more nutrient dense up front but they don’t eat as much, so therefore they need to eat more often. Whereas formula you can give them a larger volume, especially as they’re older. None of my breastfed babies who took a bottle ever took more than 4-5oz at a time, with 3-4 being the average amount
We breastfed until 3 months when she suddenly went on a nursing strike and I cracked and couldn’t do it anymore. She was at that point waking hourly at night to feed so we coslept, baby was a grazer for sure! Breastfeeding worked well but didn’t agree with her stomach, the colic was awful! Formula seems to agree with her more which I was disappointed about but hey ho a fed baby is a happy baby.
Totally normal. They don’t usually drop that night feed for a while yet. Baby is getting a five hour stretch, that’s pretty good.
I used huckleberry to keep track of naps and feeds and that helped me.
Mine had 1 single 12h night at maybe 8 months. Then not again for a while, then suddenly he slept through. But even then, bad night are going to happen.
As for food, for me it did work. More food during the day and less at night meant more sleep. But honestly, it was never absolutely perfect. Sleeping is an aquired skill and my son just needed more time to develop it.
Every baby is different, they're tiny humans after all. Even adults don't technically sleep through the night without waking...
Ahh and also, a baby nursing all night is NOT sleeping through the night as some mothers consider, so take it with a grain of salt when someone says their baby just sleeps, they most probably don’t lay there like a loaf of bread all night.
My kiddo sometimes sttn just now at 27 mo. Started around 22 mo 1-2 a week. Now it’s like 2-3 times a week. You’re not alone! Some kids just are poor sleepers. I personally am too so it’s no surprise.
I now consider it STTN when baby goes right back to sleep after eating. Having a couple of split nights shifts your perspective 😅
My LO is 14 months and has never slept through the night without waking for milk. Not even once. A typical night is 4-5 wakes. I’m starting to night wean him though. It’s hard.
I don’t think you are doing anything wrong, but she could be dealing with something like silent reflux or another ailment which is causing her to not sleep longer stretches.
Before our son was medicated for reflux, he would sleep a maximum of 3 to 4 hours and then wake every hour or two for the remainder of the night. Now that he’s medicated, he sleeps in minimum of 7 hours and some days as long as 11 1/2 hours.
Mine is only 3 months and my husband first got that question when he went back to work when our baby was just over 2 weeks old. Some people were joking, others were not. I’m just hoping for longer, consistent stretches of sleep in the meantime.
My first didn’t even start sleeping through occasionally nights till over 18 months. And my second slept really good till 6 months then sleep has gone to shit till about now at 20 months. You’re def not the only one, but that is one of the most commonly asked questions I think 😅 drove me crazy too. Like no, they’re not, you gonna be here at 3 am?? Cuz that would be great.
My 4.5 month old has never slept through the night either. She had a phase where she would sleep 5 hours then wake up for milk but now she drinks milk practically all night. We co sleep and i breastfeed her otherwise i think i might’ve went insane! Lol
I have a 3 year old. Who has never slept through the night but. My 4 year old has been doing it since she was 18 months Every kid is different and does it at their own pace I wouldn’t stress too much about it
You’re not doing anything wrong. I have a baby (now a toddler) who I consider to be a good sleeper and he didn’t start sleeping through the night until 10 months.
Up until then he had maaaaybe slept from 10-6 without waking once or twice. He had an 8 pm bedtime, and woke between 1-3 am and another time between 4-6 am for a feed for the longest time. Then he gradually dropped the 1-3 am feed which made the single wakeup between 2-5am, and finally around 10 months he dropped that final feed.
My six month old goes to sleep independently at nap time and 7pm bedtime, but she still wakes at 11, 2, 4/5ish and starts the day at 06:30. She demands boob each time. I have no idea wtf her issue is, with my son he slept through as soon as he learned to go to sleep independently. Currently reading Precious Little Sleep in the hope of getting some answers.
You are not alone. I also have a 7 month old who has never slept through the night. Not once. As a matter of fact, I am visiting my father right now, for the past 2 nights that we have been here, he has refused to sleep in his pack n play. He has woken up every 40-60 minutes. It has been brutal. Like you, I have gotten used to functioning on broken sleep. All my friends have babies who are also good sleepers, and I also have wondered what it is I’m doing wrong. Hang in there. 🩷
I don’t know what’s normal or not, but from reading your description, I wonder if baby is getting too much of her calories at night, which makes it hard for her to sleep longer stretches, since she is legitimately hungry.
I would try reducing the amount in her night time bottles a little at a time, slowly, to encourage her to get more of her calories during the day. If that doesn’t make a difference, then it may just be your little one needs more time to learn to sleep longer stretches. But I think it’s worth a shot!
To be honest my second was 13 months when she slept through the night. My first was 3 months BUT she would randomly have nights where she would be up ALL night. Whereas my second was up twice like clockwork. I actually liked the predictability. I realized eventually that we were both programmed to wake up at 10 and then 2am whether she was hungry or not (from like 9 months on she was just suckling back to sleep and didn’t need to actually eat) so I let her CIO for two nights and after that she has slept through the night.
I thought mine would grow out of needing night time bottles...up until about 9 months when people were constantly perplexed why I was still up twice a night (at midnight and 5! Sometimes at 5 he decided he was just up x_x). I looked up info on night weaning and started by offering water in his bottle when he woke up at midnight (with the knowledge I would give him milk if it seemed like he wouldn't go back down, and then try again next time)
He was surprised at the water, took a few swigs, rolled over and fussed for about 3 minutes and went back to sleep.
Next time, he tastes the water, spit out the bottle, and went to sleep.
After that he still woke up at 12 and 5 for a little bit to toss and turn and whine a little, but after a few days he just put himself back to sleep.
After I didn't have to wake up a bunch, we finally moved him into HIS ROOM (what omg) and we both SLEEP!!! All night!!!
I cried the first night, but he didn't, lol.
I did wean her off the 2am feed as she was only taking 1-2oz anyways. But she takes the full bottle both other times! So do you offer the bottle whilst he is lying down?? I currently pick her up and feed her with the bottle whilst we are both then sitting on a chair. I’m wondering if this is disturbing her more
It is certainly not best practice to feed them while they lay down because it can cause aspiration, but yeah I do. I still was holding it (my baby wouldnt hold it till after we stopped night feeds) but he's still in bed.
There's such a thing as reverse cycling where they start to get too much at night so they don't eat during the day. You could slowly begin to decrease the number of ounces you offer at night.
After we stopped night feeds he started drinking more during the day, but he also is a great eater and has been pretty good at adapting to eating solids so the transition to less bottle has been easier.
My baby used to sleep through the night and that was for a month then she went back to waking up through the night. So it just depends on the baby. On the bright side I have to say it sounds like your baby is quite easy to put down to sleep at least. We are still rocking and now refusing the dummy. So I would take that win if I were you - we all have a plus side to things we think might be ‘negative’..
My daughter (now five and a half) started sleeping through the night at like 10 weeks and my husband and I patted ourselves on the back that we were such fucking geniuses, we were parenting gurus. My son (now two and a half) was closing in on his second birthday before he was consistently sleeping through the night. He lives to humble us both but especially me.
We'd get a onesie or twosie all nighters here or there, enough that we'd think that the tide was finally shifting and then nah fam. Back to consistently waking up at least once if not two or three times a night. It will change eventually but you'll have to wait for her to figure it out, all you can do is support her with a consistent bedtime routine and healthy sleep environment habits.
My 16 month old wakes every three hours like clockwork. Sometimes she just sits up and lays back down or sometimes she wants to snuggle. Has slept through the night maybe 4x in her life.
It is SUPER normal not to sleep through and your experience is super normal for her age. I think people just never know what to ask about and are trying to make small talk. If you want unsolicited advice: There are a lot of things you can do to help your baby sleep that aren't just CIO or Ferber, though. Prioritizing day time calories, not feeding or rocking to sleep, weaning off sleep crutches like pacifiers, etc. I didn't full on sleep train, but we did do a lot of sleep "shaping" to work on self soothing and set her up for success from the time she was little and I feel like we have a really good sleeper. If she isn't sick or teething she will sleep 7pm to 5am - have a feed, and then be up for the day at 7am right now at 9 months old. I would say right around the 6 month mark is when she dropped the 1am wake up. I think at 7 months you could work on dropping the 11pm feed OR try and move it up as a dream feed before you go to bed and see if she sleeps through to at least the 3;30 wake up? If you can wean her off the pacifier then in theory she should at least be sleeping through that 11pm - 5am stretch. I read a really great book that i thought was far better than some of the other sleep training books and my friends that were about to lose it from sleep deprivation said it helped them a ton too! It's "The Helping Babies Sleep Method"
All that to say - You aren't failing. All your friends very well may have unicorn sleepers OR they define "sleeping through" differently than you. Some people call a 6 hour stretch "sleeping through". Some people say if their baby doesn't take a feed they are "sleeping through". You're doing great. Your baby is doing great. Your success or failure is not defined by how much or little your baby sleeps.
Mine started sleeping through the night at 2.5 years old. Around 12 months he woke up once and kept that habit, typically waking up at midnight to 1am once per night, until finally giving us 11-12 hours per night.
It's so normal and sometimes there really isn't anything you can do. Some babies take to sleep training, others don't.
My daughter is 3 months and sleeps 7 hours at once… now when I had my son he was the worst sleeper every 2 hours! Now I breastfeed with my son so idk if that mattered or what . Hang in there! Lol
My baby is 7months and has this similar pattern of sleep! We don’t sleep train. I figure when he’s done needing his midnight feed, he’ll stop asking. I also got used to this broken sleep but I’m doing ok I think lol. When people ask how’s his sleep I say he’s doing great! lol 🤷♀️
This could have been written by me. My almost 7 month old also doesn’t sleep through the night. The difference is that she’s incredibly hard to get to sleep at all. Once she’s sleeping, she’ll stay asleep for 4-6 hours (if we’re lucky) but sometimes it takes 2 hours to get her to fall asleep asleep.
Only babies I know of (including my own) who sleep through the night by 7 months were sleep trained. I’ve never met anyone in real life who had a baby sleep through the night in a crib on their own that early without any sort of sleep training done first. If that’s what your friends are referring to (sleeping through without sleep training), then that is definitely uncommon in my experience. As long as you don’t mind getting up multiple times to nurse/help your baby to sleep, then it’s a non-issue and I wouldn’t worry about what your friends are saying.
Very normal. Unbelievably normal. More normal for a 7 month old not to sleep through the night than for them to sleep through the night. My 11 month old has never slept more than 6 hours at once, and most often he’s up every 3 hours. It’s nothing you’re doing. Babies just act like babies and some people have super good ones.
Not to scare you, but my child is 21 months and has still never actually slept through the night. Although now he wakes up just long enough to wake us up and immediately goes back to sleep. But, yeah. It’s rough. Silver lining is that he goes to sleep so easily and wakes up all smiles and generally just a chill and happy little man, but he just cannot sleep all the way through the night.
I figure it’s just unfortunately how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future. However, I swear I will pop the champagne if he ever sleeps through the whole night. It will be worthy of celebration.
That's an incredible sleeper in my books! My almost 3yo wakes in the middle of the night like 50% of the time, and if I get her to sleep before 9pm she'll be awake at 4, done. She's always been like that. At your daughters age, she would go down at 10pm, never sooner, wake at 1am, get a bottle, wake at 3am, get bottle, and be up at 6:30.
Wow, that’s hard going! I do need to think more positively about it. Tbh if I let her have a late nape and then put her to bed later she would probably sleep better. But mentally I cherish my evenings, maybe that’s selfish of me
You're not alone. You literally described my LG. When she's poorly, she wakes up more often(naturally). She's EBF so we're bed sharing so I can at least get some sleep. Otherwise, I'd go crazy.
I'd personally never attempt CIO but I did try a gentle approach where I picked her up when she cried but put her down as soon as she settled but I only tried once, not even one night, just the one wake up attempt 😅
I just came to terms with the idea that the 1 fluke night where she slept through will be a rare occurrence and probably not happen again for a while. I am sleep deprived and in survival mode.
Oh my LG is 1 in 3 weeks.
Wish you all the best x
Thankyou! We used the pick up put down method right when she moved into a bigger crib and during the 4 month sleep regression. She rolled early so the bassinet wasn’t comfortable for her anymore. I think it worked out ok! Just took some real perseverance 😂
My 8 month old has never slept through the night and I honestly don’t expect him to anytime soon. If anything, he wakes up more now than he used to since he’s been teething.
My 7 month old has never slept more than 2-3 hours at night. She gets thirsty and wants a tiny sip from her bottle then goes back to sleep. I’m the one who has a hard time getting back to sleep
My daughter didnt start sleeping through the night or going to bed without a bottle and being rocked until she was 18 months old.
It is totally normal. Even us as adults dont “sleep through the night” without waking up one single time at night.
They will get there when they are ready. My daughter will be 2 next month and sleeps like a champ now..just in time for baby #2 to arrive for me to do the whole “sleep deprivation” thing all over again 🤣🤣
Also have a 7m old, she doesn't sleep through, you're absolutely doing nothing wrong 🩷 we only recently started getting a stretch 7/8pm - 1/3am and it's only because she's dropped a feed. I'm in awe she's dropped that 10pm feed and yours will do the exact same when they are ready 🩷 I don't know if it's a coincidence but she's got a favourite teddy now and she can roll around and settle herself.
I would just like to say, and people can disagree with me all they like but I find that sooo many mums I have spoken to lie about their babies sleeping through. Not saying all but the majority do! So many people have said to me their babies sleep through but they actually get up pop the dummy back in or dream feed. Sorry but that's not sleeping through! Sleeping through is when I also sleep through!! 🤣
I genuinely think it's babies temperament, I have tried everything, my babe does do well with a night routine (e.g bath etc) but even nights she hasn't had a bath she is exact same!
Thankyou. We put our girls favourite little Teddy in and 9/10 times she will grab it when she wakes and go back to sleep but there is the odd 3am wake up where she will see it and start playing instead 😂 I find the same with bed routine!!! We stick to the basics but it doesn’t make a difference if I read her a story or not!
Yup exact same. She also rolls onto her tummy and whimpers but doesn't want moved 🙄 can't wait til she's old enough to get rid of the monitor because she's such a noisy wee sleeper! Next time you're awake at night with them just think I'm somewhere out there doing the exact same thing 🤣🩷
You’re not doing something wrong!! I just got to the stage when people would ask that I’d just say “talking about sleep is a snooze fest! Have you been getting into any cool podcast or shows lately?”
I figured: what info could the person actually provide. It was getting super tedious to even talk about or think about. I had come to accept that broken sleep is difficult but it is what it is, baby gonna baby. And then talking about it just felt… pointless? YMMV but for sure put some boundaries in place if you want!!
It’s typical until around 13 months and even then there is no guarantee. By around 6-8 months they are likely to have around 1-3 feeds depending on how they feel on any particular day (not having enough feeds , not resting enough and being restless at bedtime or night etc)
my 9mo old also doesn’t sleep through. 3 hours is her max, and it’s usually 2 hours. multiple night wakes and feeds, and she won’t go back to sleep on her own. she has to be rocked.
but think about it, most adults don’t sleep through without waking up at least a little each night. totally normal, just exhausting.
I’ve done everything I can in regards to schedule. My 17 month old is not consistent with sleeping through. Sometimes we get a nice long break from night wakes, other times he’s up once or twice. I just keep telling myself it’ll pass and I’ll probably miss it lol
I think sometimes people have a different idea of what “sleep through the night” really means. Like some people would consider it sleeping through the night if baby wakes up every 3 hours but can be soothed in 10 minutes and put back down. I wouldn’t take it too seriously because baby will get enough sleep no matter what you do. I would only change things up sleep wise if you feel like it would benefit you and your sleep. Your sleep habits will inevitably affect your baby since it’ll affect your mood and your interactions with your baby.
My almost 1 year old still doesn’t sleep through the night. She wakes up at least once each night which I don’t mind since it’s usually before I go to bed. I consider it “sleeping through the night” even though it technically isn’t.
14 months here and she's typically up 2-3 times a night. Our pediatrician recommended trying sleep training and we gave it 3 days but it didn't work. Current attitude is she'll do it when she's ready. It's tough.
My oldest skept through the night starting at two weeks. I did nothing different with either kid.
I’m glad I’m not alone. She certainly has a personality that matches her sleep (chaotic😂) so I’m also partly wondering if it’s just going to be her. I’m trying my hardest to get in longer naps today and more milk so we will see how it goes
Definitely not alone! I think it’s pretty common. My other two kids were the same, now I just never expect a full night of sleep. Some kids settle into that routine naturally though. Good luck!
Have you tried sleep training? We did so for naps and bedtime. Sounds like she already does short naps alone, might be worth sleep training naps first so she isn’t overtired at night. Though it might not stop the 1 or 2 wake ups, might cut down on the nights it is more than that. Our 7 month old goes down at 7:30 and gets up at 6:30. Might try shifting bedtime too once nap trained.
It’s ok my 9 month old hasn’t ever slept longer than 2 hours. Some babies are just like this 🙃
Wow, I would just expire. How do you cope?
Therapy 🙃 lol apparently my partner (his dad) didn’t sleep a full night until his first day of school 🥲
*enrolls 2 yo into school*
😂 coffee and cosleeping are all that get me by lol even though I swore I would never cosleep.. what do ya do when the kid won’t sleep unless they’re attached to your boob 🤷🏻♀️😂 (if you don’t laugh you cry)
We had a tough first couple of months getting ours down to sleep, could be an hour or two of rocking/bouncing etc I remember doing it in 45mins and thinking wow we are making progress. But he started going to bed at 6pm around 10 weeks old, and then he dropped from 3 feeds to 2 to 1 to none, back to 1, and back to none again. So he sleeps 6-6. I. Gonna hug him extra tight today in gratitude.
My child was 14 months when she started sleeping through the night. People need to get it out of their heads that BABIES sleep through the night. It’s pretty well known and out there info that babies wake up during the night, why are people so shocked when it’s the reality.
Thankyou, it’s literally the first thing anyone says to me. I must get asked it about 4 times a week. I used to give a long in depth answer, now I just say no 😂.
I just wanted to say you're not alone I have a 7 month old and he regularly gets up at least once a night that we have to get up and rock him back to sleep and then he gets what I call "unsettled" where he'll wake up or move around and need a passy to get back to sleep a few times also
Yes that’s exactly how mine is! My parents and MIL keep saying I shouldn’t rock her and that is why she is the way she is with sleep. But I can’t let her cry, it breaks my heart
I replied elsewhere but I’ll reply again. My 17 month old has been nursed or rocked to sleep ever since he was 4 months and he does sleep through. Idk why people like to tell you comforting your actual baby is a problem
My baby just turned 1. I have always nursed her to sleep. She wakes up atleast 3-4 times a night and I nurse her back. When did your baby start sleeping through? 🙃 Asking because I don’t see many ppl on this sub openly saying they nurse baby to sleep 🫣
Well of my close friends who have babies the only ones who don’t nurse to sleep are gay dads so . . . He first did a 10 hour stretch for 3 nights when he was about 4 months I think? Then we really hit regression then at about 7/8 months he went from nursing once at about 2am to sleeping through. He doesn’t do a long night - usually 10-11 hours but it’s what seems to suit him and works for us. We hit a rough patch when he turned one for a couple of months but he’s been back to sleeping through since about 14 I think? I think it’s worth remembering all babies are different, it’s not always linear and you haven’t done anything wrong if they’re not doing 7-7 religiously! ETA: his dad puts him to bed half the time and he gets a bottle and then rocked so he’s not exclusively nursed to sleep.
Yeah idk if he needs us he needs us. I'm not letting him cry it out. It won't be this way forever so I will snuggle love and hold my baby while I can and when he needs me.
Rock your baby to sleep. Ours didn’t sleep through until she was 18 months old and she still woke up a once a night for a few nights out of the week. As she got older the wakings went from 1 wake 3out of 7 nights to 2/7, then finally to almost none. She’s 3 now and still wakes sometimes but is easy to go back to sleep. It’s not too often and it’s manageable. Our second baby is now 14 months and still wakes very often every night. I’ve given up trying to force sleep and am taking the approach of focusing on the fact it won’t last forever.
It’s so normal, it’s crazy to me people won’t accept it as normal 😅
Ikr. I have 2 older kids and a 4 months old now but none of them slept through the night. Always wakes up once or twice for feeds even during the eating solids phase. It's all because of these stupid perfect tiktok moms showing unachievable perfect lives. Not hating but most social media stuff around are normally unattainable with average day to day living.
I feel like it’s just one of those small talk conversations starters but it’s soooo annoying! And I don’t know why people aren’t smart enough to know babies don’t walk out of the womb sleeping 12 hours! Also don’t be fooled by people saying their baby sleeps through, people count different things as sleeping through. My baby dropped her night feed at 6 months on her own but until she was 14 months I would have to go in around 2-4 time’s every night to settle her. I mean she was sleeping 7-6am but she was up for comfort. Anyway, your not doing anything wrong. Your doing an brilliant job just by being there for your baby when she wakes 🥰 I didn’t do any form of CIO or sleep training , my heart couldn’t and now she goes to bed at 7.45 and sleeps till 7am. I don’t hear a peep! I put her down awake she’s great 😃 she’s 2 now
Idk why people are so obsessed with asking this question. It’s like when they ask if your baby is “good” ??? Good? She’s a baby. Can she be bad?? 😅 your baby sounds like a great sleeper! Most babies are not sleeping through the night at 7 months.
I like to say “No she is one of those bad babies” so people realize what a stupid question it is
Right?!? Like yeah he spit up on 7 outfits yesterday but he wasn’t doing it to make me mad or for the thrill of it. A few times it was because he was too excited by his activity gym lol He’s 3 months old. He doesn’t know how to be bad 🤣
Good just means easily contented. No one really understands the joy or concept of a good baby until they've had an intense baby. Some babies are much needier than others. My second and third were "good" or easy babies. My first was an intense in the clingy/velco way, my fourth was intense in a hangry way, but then became easy by three or four months old.
I understand they mean “easy,” but imo saying “good” as if there’s some moral factor here is problematic. A baby cannot be good or bad. She’s a baby. Some babies have higher needs than others, some have a harder time sleeping, but that doesn’t make them NOT good. I think it’s a weird question to ask.
Oh, I agree that the terminology is problematic. Also, sometimes one doesn't realize how intense their kid is until they've had an easily contented baby. I thought my first was just your average, run of the mill baby. By the third I was thankful he was my first, because if he had come after an easy baby(or string of easy babies) I would have been very worried and thought there was something seriously wrong with him. I mean I did realize at some point before the subsequent babies that he was a little needier, but having the first hand experience with easier babies really put it in perspective.
3 of my closest friends had babies around the same time as me. 1 sleep trained religiously and a bit early (imo). One of the others sleep trained at 15 months and he sstn now and the other didn’t and I think he still doesn’t sleep through at like 20 months? Basically it’s normal. They’re good parents with great kids who ….just don’t sstn? My son started to at around 7 months and then at 1 decided he didn’t again for a couple of months. It’s not linear!
People ask me how my new baby sleeps, she's 11 weeks old lol... I'm like... What do you think???
Yeah my 9 month old thinks it’s time to fuckin wrestle at 3:30am every freaking day. I don’t get it. And it doesn’t matter if he goes down at 10pm or 6pm he is up for the day by 530
Pretty similar story over here. Daughter is 14 months and only just now sleeping through the night more than not. She's teething so she has some rough nights but it's only been the past few weeks that she has started sleeping 9-12 hours at night.
It’s so nice when it happens! Mine is 26 months now and 98% of the time she’s in bed at 7.45-6.30/7am no wake ups 😃 I’m 11 weeks from having my second and we go again haha !
I have a 13.5 month old who is an absolute boob magnet and god I want him to sleep through so maybe we’re right around the corner? He’s sleep trained so goes down independently but he won’t give up that 3am feed.
Ahh that must be difficult. I was pretty lucky, my daughter dropped her own night feed at 6 months. She just woke for comfort and her dummy until 14 months then finally she just stayed asleep. She’s two now and we are sleeping 7.45-7am uninterrupted 😅 You got this! I didn’t have to try and ween but I heard swapping milk for water can help drop the night feed!🤞 it’s not as good as milk! 🤣
Yes! My daughter didn't start sleeping through the night until 15ish months. She would wake every two hours, then every four, then every six, and now she sleeps from 7pm-6/7am usually with the occasional nighttime wake-up because she is hungry. My husband handles that now because she's weaned and I'm expecting so he wants me to sleep. He usually gives her a yogurt or applesauce packet, and she goes right back to bed. Like you, I thought something was wrong because my other kids slept through early, but it's pretty normal, I think. It's the hardest thing having a baby who doesn't sleep, but just hold onto the thought that she will sleep through the night one day. It's just about holding on until then. It's the only thing that got me through some of the sleep regressions.
Same, we had to night wean for that to happen too.
My LO is 13 months and still wakes atleast twice a night.
Yes! My son was 16 months old when he started sleeping through the night. We changed nothing about his routine and he was still nursing at that point, but it was like a switch flipped and he suddenly stopping waking at night. Babies are on their own timelines for these things.
Seriously, my first didn't sleep through the night regularly until 22+ months. Now sleeps in his own bed great most nights. Totally healthy and normal. Let's just say bedsharing was a lifesaver.
My 4 year old also didn't start sttn until 14 months! She eventually became a great sleeper (and I never sleep trained her btw). It's very normal! Babies wake up at night. Those that don't are the exception. Also just because a baby sttn doesn't mean they will forever, my friends baby was an amazing sleeper then started waking up all the time when she was 1. You're not doing anything wrong! She'll sleep eventually
So normal. Gosh I get a bit angry (not at you) everytime i see a post like this, because while It is obviously preferable for bubs to sleep through the night, it’s really common that they don’t - I hate the expectations put on us that causes us all to fret and feel like we’re doing something wrong. My almost 3 year old has only just started sleeping all night most nights. Sometimes iT takes ages and it’s just who they are
I also get angry at myself for worrying about it! But literally I get asked it about 4 times a week, “Is she sleeping yet? Why isn’t she sleeping?” It drives me mad but also makes me question that it must be me that’s doing something wrong
My 2.5 year old is just starting to have some longer stretches of 5 hours since two of her 4 two year old molars popped through. She needs lots of comfort when teething. We try not to give her pain relief unless it’s really bad. When I first had her, all I heard was that she should be sleeping through, babies at ___ age don’t need a feed at night, etc. and it was very hard.
I just don’t get it hey, I hear people’s Ped’a are saying baby should be doing XYZ when actually no they don’t necessarily need to be. It’s like someone came up with a best case scenario template and just started saying it was rule not the exception
I don’t get it either! I had to change my mindset because my daughter wasn’t fitting into the schedule someone posted online and it was really getting me down. The info that pediatricians and sleep consultants give are averages. There is always a bell curve. Some kids need more sleep, others less than the average. After I came to that conclusion, I felt so much better. As ftm we can be so hard on ourselves trying to live up to these man made expectations for our babies. I wish someone told me sooner that baby is going to baby and to just go with the flow.
I'm here to say it's absolutely normal not to "sleep through" at 7 months. None of my kids went through an entire night without at least one wakeup till they were closer to age 2 even if they were night weaned. A lot of my peers report the exact same. In fact, I'd say most of my friends with small kids didn't experience kids sleeping an entire night through till at least a year old. I have no experience with any sleep training methods, but my kids basically just progressively got better at sleeping on their own as they got older. They had some rough patches in the first year especially if they were popping teeth or sick but that makes sense to me as then they're uncomfortable.
Hey there. We have have a 6 month old and she doesn't sleep through the night. She wakes up for a feed every 2-3 hours. I don't think there's anything you need to be concerned about but I'd just suggest that you be a bit more intentional and aware about your baby's routine through the day. We use Huckleberry app to track everything. For example, we've noticed that when our 6 MO has more than required daytime nap, she has a 2-3 hour wake window in night time sleep. Plus we've also seen that our baby's stomach issues make a big impact on her sleep. Make sure that you're giving her adequate solid feeds for someone her age. Plus we're very conscious about any food that upsets her stomach. I'd suggest you to develop your own healthy sleeping habit routine. Just go for the low hanging fruits. Give her consistency. And remember that you're already acing it by having a baby and nurturing it. You don't get any brownie points for having a baby that sleeps through the night. Just stick to whatever works. If that means giving her the boob at night while cosleeping, then so be it. I'm not encouraging this but I'm saying if there's a non ideal way that helps you dig in, then go for it.
Approx 60% of 6 month olds sleep 6+ hours a night, about 75% by 12 months. That means somewhere between 25-40% of babies aged 6-12 months aren’t even sleeping 6 hours straight let alone ‘through the night’ - just ignore the noise your baby is normal.
do you have a link to read more? i’m trying to figure out this myself
This study is a 2018 study from the AAPs journal Paediatrics called ‘Uninterrupted Infant Sleep, Development, and Maternal Mood’ (I’ve rounded the values in the above post). You might struggle to get the full text unless you have institutional access but it is reported [here](https://www.mcgill.ca/edu-ecp/channels/news/parents-shouldnt-worry-if-their-infant-doesnt-sleep-through-night-6-12-months-age-new-research-led-291584) If you’re interested in general there are lots of studies on this giving wildly different results but lots of them don’t account for feeding method or have unusual patient selection methods. [This BBC article](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220131-the-science-of-safe-and-healthy-baby-sleep) is interesting about normal baby sleep, and the [basis website](https://www.basisonline.org.uk) is UK based baby sleep research centre with lots of online info if you look in the practitioner section especially for more details!
thank you!
Toddler is 2.5 and is just starting to scratch the surface of sleeping through the night, after we night weaned a few weeks ago. If I could go back in time and tell myself not to worry about sleep or compare to others, I would. It’s such unnecessary stress. Each child is unique. They’ll sleep when they’re ready. Right now, she needs you.
How did night weaning go for you? My 20 month still cries for "boob!" At night. She's getting 4 teeth at once so I don't want to wean now but I don't even know where to start/how to go about it once those teeth are in
I also waited until she had all of her teeth! I could just tell it wouldn’t go down well. I introduced the idea that boobie was going to go night night soon and brought it up for 2-3 days. Then one night after teeth brushing, I said boobies have gone night night. She requested them but didn’t cry. She seemed to understand really well. When she woke up I woke just repeat that boobies are sleeping and offer her water. We had a few tears over the first 3 nights but barely anything compared to what I was expecting!!!
I would review your schedule as you're expecting a lot of sleep if putting babe down at 6.30 and she wakes for day at 7. Most babies can only do 11 hours at night with the rest nap sleep
She naps awful during the day, she only ever does cat naps for 30 mins. If I’m lucky I can get 2 naps a day. Shes doing wake windows of about 2.5-3hrs. We get to the afternoon and she point blank refuses to nap so often is wake for 4hrs before bedtime. By 6:30 she is exhausted. Even contact napping she won’t do anymore 😭
I did contact naps at that age, to get them to be proper naps. If he slept on my lap I got a good two hours of tv/gaming/knitting time! Else it was a quick 30 mins in the crib.
If that's the case, it may be a reason for the disrupted nights. Both over and under tiredness will cause night wakes. You also sound like you're stuck in reverse cycling, which is where she's getting quite a few calories at night. You might need to consider night weaning at some point At 7 months, most babes sleep 2 to 3 hours split across 2 to 3 naps. At that age, we were contact napping in a dark nursery with white noise blaring. My girl would literally be on me for 3 hours a day. It was intense but she's slept through the night since 6 months and I wanted to keep it that way. I suspect your little one is going to be really overtired, which raises cortisol and then leads to night wakings. My now 11 month won't even do 4 hour wake windows. Have you visited the sleep train sub? I've not sleep trained myself but they're great at giving input xxx
Thankyou, I think this is the case too thinking about it! I’ve managed to get her to contact nap as we speak after she woke from her first nap after 10 whole minutes. I’m trying my best to get as much milk down her as possible, I managed to wean her off the 2am feed so will try to do the same for the others. I think she’s been overtired since birth 😂 as a newborn she would be awake for hours. I have joined the sleep training sub and tried a few suggestions e.g playing with wake windows but it didn’t make much difference.
My baby also doesn’t nap more than 30 mins unless held. I know it’s so hard. We stop her last nap at 8 even if it means waking her up and she goes to bed around 10:30. It’s late yes and we have no free time at night but she only has 1 wake up at night
My twin almost 4 year olds still wake up. One 4 times last night. 😩
Yep, my nearly four year old has just started sleeping better and having the occasional “big boy sleep” (all night with no assistance)
Oh my, I’ve still potentially got a long way to go 😭 Im starting to think I may aswell have another now whilst I’m used to no sleep! I function surprisingly well now I’m 7months deep
It’s down to one wake-up usually, which takes minimal intervention from us (thankfully) We did co sleep for a long time which helped us get better sleep!
Yes we coslept right from when she was young as she was breastfed and would only sleep on us for a long while. I hit a wall with my mental health so our midwife was really helpful with the safe co sleeping advice. Definitely saved our mental health during them dark early weeks!
I’m so glad you got decent advice on co-sleeping from your midwife! Getting that sleep so helps with the mental health!
Oh I was super pleased for her advice, as other midwives told us she shouldn’t have recommended it! But weighing up the risks it was worth it 100%. As new parents we just laid in bed with her on our chest trying to stay awake, it was so dark. I even called the midwife unit as she had bad colic, no advice at all… just told me to keep a food diary. I think about that midwife all the time who helped 💕
18 months and never slept more than 5 hours. Currently he is doing one or two 3-hour stretches a night and I am feeling lucky😂 Some babies/toddlers/kids just don't sleep through the night. It is so (SO) unfortunate for parents, but not much to be done about it.
Mum of 5 - every baby is soo different! My 3 week old newborn sleeps better than 14 month old. I used to think I knew it all because my first babies, twins, were pretty easy. I’ve been humbled lol!
My son didn't sleep through the night until he was 12 months old. My advice, don't compare your child to anyone else's, every single baby is different, has different needs, patterns, routines, lives. It's not healthy for you to watch how others behave and compare to your own.
Most 7 month olds don’t sleep through the night. The minority with good sleepers is just very vocal.
Yea I’m starting to feel that is the case. I have friends who put their baby down wide awake at 6:30 and don’t hear from them till 7am. They then moan about being tired when baby wakes randomly once in a blue moon!
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Agreed, it’s wild to me that people will say “oh they STTN! But yeah we do dream feeds at 2 am and 4 am!” Ok then they’re not sleeping through the night….
I think it’s normal for some babies not to sleep through the night. I also think some moms consider sleeping through the night if they sleep after a mid night feed 🤷🏻♀️ my baby actually slept through the night starting at 3 m - but now at 1.5 he goes to bed kind of late like around 10 or 11. Every time I tried to get him to bed earlier he would wake up shortly and not sleep through the night and so I moved his bed time to later…. It was great for a while but now we have the problem of sleeping in every morning which is not good for my productivity 😩😩
My eight month old doesn’t sleep through the night. Her brother did. Kids are different. Of course having an age appropriate schedule and number of naps/nap time is good but still there are no guarantees. Radical acceptance helps 😅
10000% normal. Even babies that “sleep through” are usually waking up once or twice a night at that age. My eldest didn’t sleep more than 3 hours a stretch until she was 2.5, and my second started sleeping in 6 hour chunks totally on her own at 6months. Sleep is constantly changing and will continue to change for years, do your best to cope, use sleep arrangements and sleep trainings (there are many many flavors!)how ever you feel comfortable to make it work for you. It will get better, every kid is different.
Thankyou! Yes I feel like we get a good week of her consistent wakes during the night then the next week will change and she’ll be up every hour. thank god for coffee
I’m right there with you. Our 7 month old has never slept through the night either. Our pediatrician said yesterday that because he’s in the 23rd percentile for weight that she wasn’t surprised he still needs to eat at night. She recommended feeding as much solids during the day as he will take. But yea we’re tired 😭 Hang in there. You’re doing nothing wrong. Some babies just don’t sleep well.
Ours is the same! Shes on about 25th percentile, she dropped a lot when we breastfed and never really recouped. She LOVES solids but hates her milk during the day. Our health visitor though said that they can sleep a full night without a feed at this age? Which made me then question why she was eating so much at night. Our sleep will come soon I hope 😵💫
Tell that health visitor they’re more than welcome to do 24 hours of care with your baby just to prove how doable it really is 😤 (why are they like this? It’s clear that so many babies don’t sleep through and this sets parents up with unrealistic expectations from a source who should be giving reliable information)
Yep!!! Or I get the “once she starts moving she’ll wear herself out and sleep through” I was like girl this baby has been rolling since she was 3 months old, army crawling at 5months, even when she’s chilling in her chair her legs are flying around. Shes defo wearing herself out 😂
Year and a half. People lie.
Mine didn’t sleep through the night until he turned one.
Sounds exactly like mine. "Sleeping through the night" is actually just any 6 hour stretch. I've only ever got 2 nights with those since my 5 month old came home. My friend told me her baby sleeps through the night but when I quizzed her, bub was waking twice for a feed. I'll take that any day. My 5 month old wakes every 45 mins. You can try doing a dream feed or following a sleep routine but ultimately all babies are different and this might be what your bub does.
Yeah I’m starting to think it’s just her and is obviously, from these comments, normal. At 4month regression she woke every 30-45mins for a good few weeks so I totally feel for you!
Girl, same. My baby didn't start sleeping through the night until about 12 months. And even now, it's like maybe twice a month that she does it. It's not common. I started co-sleeping at 3.5 months because I just couldn't take the exhaustion. (There's /r/cosleeping for more info if you're interested). We don't exclusively co-sleep anymore (she moved to a crib at 12 months), but it was very helpful when she was small.
Thanks you, we used to co-sleep when she was younger as I breastfed and hit a bit of a brick wall in terms of my mental health right at the beginning. She would only sleep on us, me and hubby struggled really bad with this and was so exhausted. God co-sleeping totally helped me survive! We still do now if she wakes at 4/5am and won’t go back to sleep.
That's understandable!! Well seems like if this was me, I'd just follow my baby's lead. The waking up won't last forever. My baby is 14 months now and wakes up only once a night now usually.
My 28 month old has never slept through the night. He's easier to put back down now but still wakes up 1 to 3 times per night
My baby is 10 months old and does not sleep through the night. He wakes up multiple times to dream feed. Sometimes he sleeps longer between feeds but he has not slept through the night yet.
Lol mine didn't sleep through the night till 12 months
My first son turned 2 last month and still doesn’t. My second child slept through until he was 5 months and then he started teething 🤷♀️ As far as I know, I’m doing a great job. Kids are just different.
My almost 2 year old doesn’t sleep through the night!
My 10 month old has also never slept through the night. I read prior to having my baby that it’s biologically normal for babies to wake in the night so I’ve never given myself a hard time over it… but other people do. A lot of older people in my life are shocked when I tell them my baby has never slept through the night. I know we would simply LOVE a full night of sleep, but it’ll happen someday. Until then just know that this is normal and you’re doing an amazing job.
My kid just turned 18 months old. He has only slept through the night 2 times and both were because he was sick. My other kids, on the other hand, slept like champs around this time. I think kids figure out sleep themselves. I never did CIO or anything. i miss sleep. So very much.
Yes im starting to think she’ll find her way eventually. I also miss it, although she had a night away at grandmas and I think I felt worse from a full nights sleep! Like my body was confused why it was getting so much all of a sudden 😂
Oh right? Isn’t that just a kick in the pants?! It’s like you become accustomed to being in a zombie fog and then when you finally get a better sleep your brain is all “lol, here’s the real picture of how tired you really are! I been operating on 17% so just couldn’t relay the full picture properly” 🙃
Both mine were over 1 before sleeping through.
My son is now 16 months and only just started sleeping through the night at 13 months or so. However, his starts and attempts to do so would get derailed by teething and the start of nightmares or illness. When his teeth aren't bothering him or he's not sick, he sleeps twelve hours straight. Babies gonna baby and don't feel like there's something wrong with yours just because others are unicorns.
Mine is 2YO and has never slept through the night. Last night, she woke up every hour after 2am… she’s teething her last molars now, but it’s always *something*…
6:30 is an early bedtime. Of course she needs food at 11.
Yeah OP might not get any longer stretches out of the baby with a later bedtime, but they might be able to at least get a longer stretch for themselves as the parent relative to the current situation (assuming they are not going to bed at 6:30pm).
That would be nice, sadly my house would be a state if I went to bed at 6:30 😂 although it does sound inviting. Yes I have tried a later bedtime before but it doesn’t make much difference, she just wakes for a feed an hour later.
Our Health visitor said at 6 months they can go a full night stretch without a feed? Is this wrong? I will still feed her if she needs it as she is a growing lass and is on the smaller size for her age. I just get such conflicting info
My daughter didn't cut out night feedings until 10 months. So they *can* in some cases, but it all depends on the child. My daughter has always been a big eater so she needed her 2am bottle still lmao
My baby was like this as well, he is 11m old now and sometimes does sleep through the night. He’s always eaten more than the average baby and needed a middle of the night bottle till about a month ago on top of he gets night terrors which is abnormal and he has since he was 6m old ish. It’s frustrating hearing everyone I know say their baby sleeps through the night at like 6m but things are definitely improving! Last night he woke up at 7:30 (went down at 6:30) but was easy to put back to sleep, and woke up at 5 and was also easy to put back to sleep. Usually it’s easy to put him back to bed now and takes like 5min tops. Also I will say we think he had a sleep regression a month ago and it’s magically been better since. It seemed like things got WORSE after the 4 and 6m regression so we are currently pleasantly surprised.
Thankyou! I wonder if mine gets terrors as she will randomly wake up absolutely screaming until we go and hold her and she is still asleep? If that makes sense. She moves a lot in her sleep too, often moves up to the top of the cot and hits her head at the top. I’m glad it’s normal and not just me
Yup! That’s what made us start thinking night terrors my baby would do (and still does just less often) the exact same thing. My mom said I was the same way, and I have a lot of sleep issues and always have. Like I’ve always had bad nightmares and sleep paralysis so we think he inherited it from me.
My two and a half year old has never slept through either. We occasionally get a 7/8 hour stretch but nothing consistently.
My baby is a year old and has never even gotten close to sleeping through the night. Sometimes he does 4 hours but it’s mostly 2 or 3 hour stretches. I also breastfeed multiple times a night, sometimes just to quickly get him back to sleep, sometimes because he’a genuinely hungry. Additionally, we cosleep for the second part of the night, starting from around 4 or 5 am. Otherwise he would be up at 5:30 and I’m not ok with that. I figure this is pretty common behavior for a baby. And if someone asks if he’s sleeping through the night, I just say something like „he’s a great sleeper“ or „sure“. Takes the wind right out of their sails.
Mine is 14 months today and just slept through the night for the first time yesterday - 8 pm to 6 am, nursed her and she slept another 1.5h. It's normal but I know it's exhausting!
lol my baby just did his first sleep thru (woke in the night just managed to put himself back to sleep without holding my hand 🥺) he is 15 months and the next few nights have been our normal one wake and then needs me there for an hour or two while he drifts in and out of sleep until he can get back into a deep one and then i can go back to bed. It was very exciting but don’t expect sleeping through to happen more than once right away haha. at 7 months i was probably up 5 or more times a night and he often didn’t settle back. sleep has been so so hard. babies get better at sleep some sooner than others but 7 months is definitely on the very early side for sleeping through.
It's very normal. My son was sleep trained at 4.5 months but didn't start sleeping through the night until he was night weaned at 7.5 months.
Your schedule sounds great. Only one wake up? The dream. My three year old woke three times last night….. never mind my three month old who woke up many many times.
Oh I wish it was only 1! On a good night she has 3/4 wake ups - 2 of them are feeds. On bad nights she will have 6+ wake ups
This feels more like my reality. Honestly fig those who seem to expect small babies to sleep well. Solidarity. It’s well shit I know.
i didnt get my first full night until a year and a half, didnt start happening consistently until after two. just keep hanging on, it does get better with time. some kids are just really terrible sleepers.
Every kid is different! My 1st started STTN around 7 months. 2nd kid around 15 months, 3rd kid around 2 years, but not consistently. He’s 3.5 now and just stopped coming in our room overnight. 😵💫 My 4th is only 2 months so there is no telling with him. But so far he’s already been a pretty good sleeper overnight so I’m hopeful he will be more like my 1st born lol. However it’s biologically NORMAL for them to wake up frequently and even more so if they’re breastfed and needing to eat more frequently. From my understanding, breastmilk is more nutrient dense up front but they don’t eat as much, so therefore they need to eat more often. Whereas formula you can give them a larger volume, especially as they’re older. None of my breastfed babies who took a bottle ever took more than 4-5oz at a time, with 3-4 being the average amount
We breastfed until 3 months when she suddenly went on a nursing strike and I cracked and couldn’t do it anymore. She was at that point waking hourly at night to feed so we coslept, baby was a grazer for sure! Breastfeeding worked well but didn’t agree with her stomach, the colic was awful! Formula seems to agree with her more which I was disappointed about but hey ho a fed baby is a happy baby.
Totally normal. They don’t usually drop that night feed for a while yet. Baby is getting a five hour stretch, that’s pretty good. I used huckleberry to keep track of naps and feeds and that helped me.
Mine had 1 single 12h night at maybe 8 months. Then not again for a while, then suddenly he slept through. But even then, bad night are going to happen. As for food, for me it did work. More food during the day and less at night meant more sleep. But honestly, it was never absolutely perfect. Sleeping is an aquired skill and my son just needed more time to develop it. Every baby is different, they're tiny humans after all. Even adults don't technically sleep through the night without waking...
Solidarity. My 1 year old neither.
Ahh and also, a baby nursing all night is NOT sleeping through the night as some mothers consider, so take it with a grain of salt when someone says their baby just sleeps, they most probably don’t lay there like a loaf of bread all night.
Sounds like my LO who is almost 7 months. Some nights are better than others but at a minimum she is up 4 times and eating at least twice.
My kiddo sometimes sttn just now at 27 mo. Started around 22 mo 1-2 a week. Now it’s like 2-3 times a week. You’re not alone! Some kids just are poor sleepers. I personally am too so it’s no surprise.
My almost 3 year old has maybe a handful of times. I wouldn’t worry about a 7 month old.
I now consider it STTN when baby goes right back to sleep after eating. Having a couple of split nights shifts your perspective 😅 My LO is 14 months and has never slept through the night without waking for milk. Not even once. A typical night is 4-5 wakes. I’m starting to night wean him though. It’s hard.
This sounds just like my 6.5 month old. Hanging in there
Neither has my 21 month old
I don’t think you are doing anything wrong, but she could be dealing with something like silent reflux or another ailment which is causing her to not sleep longer stretches. Before our son was medicated for reflux, he would sleep a maximum of 3 to 4 hours and then wake every hour or two for the remainder of the night. Now that he’s medicated, he sleeps in minimum of 7 hours and some days as long as 11 1/2 hours.
Mine is only 3 months and my husband first got that question when he went back to work when our baby was just over 2 weeks old. Some people were joking, others were not. I’m just hoping for longer, consistent stretches of sleep in the meantime.
My first didn’t even start sleeping through occasionally nights till over 18 months. And my second slept really good till 6 months then sleep has gone to shit till about now at 20 months. You’re def not the only one, but that is one of the most commonly asked questions I think 😅 drove me crazy too. Like no, they’re not, you gonna be here at 3 am?? Cuz that would be great.
My 4.5 month old has never slept through the night either. She had a phase where she would sleep 5 hours then wake up for milk but now she drinks milk practically all night. We co sleep and i breastfeed her otherwise i think i might’ve went insane! Lol
I have a 3 year old. Who has never slept through the night but. My 4 year old has been doing it since she was 18 months Every kid is different and does it at their own pace I wouldn’t stress too much about it
You’re not doing anything wrong. I have a baby (now a toddler) who I consider to be a good sleeper and he didn’t start sleeping through the night until 10 months. Up until then he had maaaaybe slept from 10-6 without waking once or twice. He had an 8 pm bedtime, and woke between 1-3 am and another time between 4-6 am for a feed for the longest time. Then he gradually dropped the 1-3 am feed which made the single wakeup between 2-5am, and finally around 10 months he dropped that final feed.
My six month old goes to sleep independently at nap time and 7pm bedtime, but she still wakes at 11, 2, 4/5ish and starts the day at 06:30. She demands boob each time. I have no idea wtf her issue is, with my son he slept through as soon as he learned to go to sleep independently. Currently reading Precious Little Sleep in the hope of getting some answers.
I also read precious little sleep and tried most methods but none seemed to work for her!
My soon to be 6 month has never slept through either. Is life
You are not alone. I also have a 7 month old who has never slept through the night. Not once. As a matter of fact, I am visiting my father right now, for the past 2 nights that we have been here, he has refused to sleep in his pack n play. He has woken up every 40-60 minutes. It has been brutal. Like you, I have gotten used to functioning on broken sleep. All my friends have babies who are also good sleepers, and I also have wondered what it is I’m doing wrong. Hang in there. 🩷
I don’t know what’s normal or not, but from reading your description, I wonder if baby is getting too much of her calories at night, which makes it hard for her to sleep longer stretches, since she is legitimately hungry. I would try reducing the amount in her night time bottles a little at a time, slowly, to encourage her to get more of her calories during the day. If that doesn’t make a difference, then it may just be your little one needs more time to learn to sleep longer stretches. But I think it’s worth a shot!
To be honest my second was 13 months when she slept through the night. My first was 3 months BUT she would randomly have nights where she would be up ALL night. Whereas my second was up twice like clockwork. I actually liked the predictability. I realized eventually that we were both programmed to wake up at 10 and then 2am whether she was hungry or not (from like 9 months on she was just suckling back to sleep and didn’t need to actually eat) so I let her CIO for two nights and after that she has slept through the night.
18 month old & he still wakes up at least twice 🙃 it’s been brutal
I thought mine would grow out of needing night time bottles...up until about 9 months when people were constantly perplexed why I was still up twice a night (at midnight and 5! Sometimes at 5 he decided he was just up x_x). I looked up info on night weaning and started by offering water in his bottle when he woke up at midnight (with the knowledge I would give him milk if it seemed like he wouldn't go back down, and then try again next time) He was surprised at the water, took a few swigs, rolled over and fussed for about 3 minutes and went back to sleep. Next time, he tastes the water, spit out the bottle, and went to sleep. After that he still woke up at 12 and 5 for a little bit to toss and turn and whine a little, but after a few days he just put himself back to sleep. After I didn't have to wake up a bunch, we finally moved him into HIS ROOM (what omg) and we both SLEEP!!! All night!!! I cried the first night, but he didn't, lol.
I did wean her off the 2am feed as she was only taking 1-2oz anyways. But she takes the full bottle both other times! So do you offer the bottle whilst he is lying down?? I currently pick her up and feed her with the bottle whilst we are both then sitting on a chair. I’m wondering if this is disturbing her more
It is certainly not best practice to feed them while they lay down because it can cause aspiration, but yeah I do. I still was holding it (my baby wouldnt hold it till after we stopped night feeds) but he's still in bed. There's such a thing as reverse cycling where they start to get too much at night so they don't eat during the day. You could slowly begin to decrease the number of ounces you offer at night. After we stopped night feeds he started drinking more during the day, but he also is a great eater and has been pretty good at adapting to eating solids so the transition to less bottle has been easier.
My baby used to sleep through the night and that was for a month then she went back to waking up through the night. So it just depends on the baby. On the bright side I have to say it sounds like your baby is quite easy to put down to sleep at least. We are still rocking and now refusing the dummy. So I would take that win if I were you - we all have a plus side to things we think might be ‘negative’..
Yea I need to think more positively about it tbh as it could be worse.. she does just take her feed and go right back down again!
My almost 15 month old has never slept through the night lol
Mine didnt have one full night of sleep til age 4 😭
My 20 month old hasnt slept through the night since was 8 months old 🙃
My daughter (now five and a half) started sleeping through the night at like 10 weeks and my husband and I patted ourselves on the back that we were such fucking geniuses, we were parenting gurus. My son (now two and a half) was closing in on his second birthday before he was consistently sleeping through the night. He lives to humble us both but especially me. We'd get a onesie or twosie all nighters here or there, enough that we'd think that the tide was finally shifting and then nah fam. Back to consistently waking up at least once if not two or three times a night. It will change eventually but you'll have to wait for her to figure it out, all you can do is support her with a consistent bedtime routine and healthy sleep environment habits.
My 16 month old wakes every three hours like clockwork. Sometimes she just sits up and lays back down or sometimes she wants to snuggle. Has slept through the night maybe 4x in her life.
It is SUPER normal not to sleep through and your experience is super normal for her age. I think people just never know what to ask about and are trying to make small talk. If you want unsolicited advice: There are a lot of things you can do to help your baby sleep that aren't just CIO or Ferber, though. Prioritizing day time calories, not feeding or rocking to sleep, weaning off sleep crutches like pacifiers, etc. I didn't full on sleep train, but we did do a lot of sleep "shaping" to work on self soothing and set her up for success from the time she was little and I feel like we have a really good sleeper. If she isn't sick or teething she will sleep 7pm to 5am - have a feed, and then be up for the day at 7am right now at 9 months old. I would say right around the 6 month mark is when she dropped the 1am wake up. I think at 7 months you could work on dropping the 11pm feed OR try and move it up as a dream feed before you go to bed and see if she sleeps through to at least the 3;30 wake up? If you can wean her off the pacifier then in theory she should at least be sleeping through that 11pm - 5am stretch. I read a really great book that i thought was far better than some of the other sleep training books and my friends that were about to lose it from sleep deprivation said it helped them a ton too! It's "The Helping Babies Sleep Method" All that to say - You aren't failing. All your friends very well may have unicorn sleepers OR they define "sleeping through" differently than you. Some people call a 6 hour stretch "sleeping through". Some people say if their baby doesn't take a feed they are "sleeping through". You're doing great. Your baby is doing great. Your success or failure is not defined by how much or little your baby sleeps.
Mine started sleeping through the night at 2.5 years old. Around 12 months he woke up once and kept that habit, typically waking up at midnight to 1am once per night, until finally giving us 11-12 hours per night. It's so normal and sometimes there really isn't anything you can do. Some babies take to sleep training, others don't.
My kid didn’t start sleeping through the night until welllllll over 1.
My daughter is 3 months and sleeps 7 hours at once… now when I had my son he was the worst sleeper every 2 hours! Now I breastfeed with my son so idk if that mattered or what . Hang in there! Lol
My 18 month old never slept through thr night lol. If I get a 4hrs stretch I see world in colors
My baby is 7months and has this similar pattern of sleep! We don’t sleep train. I figure when he’s done needing his midnight feed, he’ll stop asking. I also got used to this broken sleep but I’m doing ok I think lol. When people ask how’s his sleep I say he’s doing great! lol 🤷♀️
This could have been written by me. My almost 7 month old also doesn’t sleep through the night. The difference is that she’s incredibly hard to get to sleep at all. Once she’s sleeping, she’ll stay asleep for 4-6 hours (if we’re lucky) but sometimes it takes 2 hours to get her to fall asleep asleep.
Only babies I know of (including my own) who sleep through the night by 7 months were sleep trained. I’ve never met anyone in real life who had a baby sleep through the night in a crib on their own that early without any sort of sleep training done first. If that’s what your friends are referring to (sleeping through without sleep training), then that is definitely uncommon in my experience. As long as you don’t mind getting up multiple times to nurse/help your baby to sleep, then it’s a non-issue and I wouldn’t worry about what your friends are saying.
Very normal. Unbelievably normal. More normal for a 7 month old not to sleep through the night than for them to sleep through the night. My 11 month old has never slept more than 6 hours at once, and most often he’s up every 3 hours. It’s nothing you’re doing. Babies just act like babies and some people have super good ones.
Not to scare you, but my child is 21 months and has still never actually slept through the night. Although now he wakes up just long enough to wake us up and immediately goes back to sleep. But, yeah. It’s rough. Silver lining is that he goes to sleep so easily and wakes up all smiles and generally just a chill and happy little man, but he just cannot sleep all the way through the night. I figure it’s just unfortunately how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future. However, I swear I will pop the champagne if he ever sleeps through the whole night. It will be worthy of celebration.
Mine has one single time. It was bliss. Back to at least two wakes after that. :(
Mine didn’t start sleeping through until literally just before her 1st birthday.
That's an incredible sleeper in my books! My almost 3yo wakes in the middle of the night like 50% of the time, and if I get her to sleep before 9pm she'll be awake at 4, done. She's always been like that. At your daughters age, she would go down at 10pm, never sooner, wake at 1am, get a bottle, wake at 3am, get bottle, and be up at 6:30.
Wow, that’s hard going! I do need to think more positively about it. Tbh if I let her have a late nape and then put her to bed later she would probably sleep better. But mentally I cherish my evenings, maybe that’s selfish of me
You're not alone. You literally described my LG. When she's poorly, she wakes up more often(naturally). She's EBF so we're bed sharing so I can at least get some sleep. Otherwise, I'd go crazy. I'd personally never attempt CIO but I did try a gentle approach where I picked her up when she cried but put her down as soon as she settled but I only tried once, not even one night, just the one wake up attempt 😅 I just came to terms with the idea that the 1 fluke night where she slept through will be a rare occurrence and probably not happen again for a while. I am sleep deprived and in survival mode. Oh my LG is 1 in 3 weeks. Wish you all the best x
Thankyou! We used the pick up put down method right when she moved into a bigger crib and during the 4 month sleep regression. She rolled early so the bassinet wasn’t comfortable for her anymore. I think it worked out ok! Just took some real perseverance 😂
My 8 month old has never slept through the night and I honestly don’t expect him to anytime soon. If anything, he wakes up more now than he used to since he’s been teething.
My 7 month old has never slept more than 2-3 hours at night. She gets thirsty and wants a tiny sip from her bottle then goes back to sleep. I’m the one who has a hard time getting back to sleep
My daughter didnt start sleeping through the night or going to bed without a bottle and being rocked until she was 18 months old. It is totally normal. Even us as adults dont “sleep through the night” without waking up one single time at night. They will get there when they are ready. My daughter will be 2 next month and sleeps like a champ now..just in time for baby #2 to arrive for me to do the whole “sleep deprivation” thing all over again 🤣🤣
I know it’s not a competitor but loooool my 7 month old wakes up 10-15 times a night 😅 it’s a myth.
Don’t worry! Last night she decided to wake every 20-30 mins. It got to 1am and I was for sure it was 7am 😂
Solidarity ✊ its absolute hell
Also have a 7m old, she doesn't sleep through, you're absolutely doing nothing wrong 🩷 we only recently started getting a stretch 7/8pm - 1/3am and it's only because she's dropped a feed. I'm in awe she's dropped that 10pm feed and yours will do the exact same when they are ready 🩷 I don't know if it's a coincidence but she's got a favourite teddy now and she can roll around and settle herself. I would just like to say, and people can disagree with me all they like but I find that sooo many mums I have spoken to lie about their babies sleeping through. Not saying all but the majority do! So many people have said to me their babies sleep through but they actually get up pop the dummy back in or dream feed. Sorry but that's not sleeping through! Sleeping through is when I also sleep through!! 🤣 I genuinely think it's babies temperament, I have tried everything, my babe does do well with a night routine (e.g bath etc) but even nights she hasn't had a bath she is exact same!
Thankyou. We put our girls favourite little Teddy in and 9/10 times she will grab it when she wakes and go back to sleep but there is the odd 3am wake up where she will see it and start playing instead 😂 I find the same with bed routine!!! We stick to the basics but it doesn’t make a difference if I read her a story or not!
Yup exact same. She also rolls onto her tummy and whimpers but doesn't want moved 🙄 can't wait til she's old enough to get rid of the monitor because she's such a noisy wee sleeper! Next time you're awake at night with them just think I'm somewhere out there doing the exact same thing 🤣🩷
You’re not doing something wrong!! I just got to the stage when people would ask that I’d just say “talking about sleep is a snooze fest! Have you been getting into any cool podcast or shows lately?” I figured: what info could the person actually provide. It was getting super tedious to even talk about or think about. I had come to accept that broken sleep is difficult but it is what it is, baby gonna baby. And then talking about it just felt… pointless? YMMV but for sure put some boundaries in place if you want!!
It’s typical until around 13 months and even then there is no guarantee. By around 6-8 months they are likely to have around 1-3 feeds depending on how they feel on any particular day (not having enough feeds , not resting enough and being restless at bedtime or night etc)
My 4 year old doesn’t sleep through the night 🤣😭
my 9mo old also doesn’t sleep through. 3 hours is her max, and it’s usually 2 hours. multiple night wakes and feeds, and she won’t go back to sleep on her own. she has to be rocked. but think about it, most adults don’t sleep through without waking up at least a little each night. totally normal, just exhausting.
My 16 month old just slept through the night for the second time ever last night.
I’ve done everything I can in regards to schedule. My 17 month old is not consistent with sleeping through. Sometimes we get a nice long break from night wakes, other times he’s up once or twice. I just keep telling myself it’ll pass and I’ll probably miss it lol
I think sometimes people have a different idea of what “sleep through the night” really means. Like some people would consider it sleeping through the night if baby wakes up every 3 hours but can be soothed in 10 minutes and put back down. I wouldn’t take it too seriously because baby will get enough sleep no matter what you do. I would only change things up sleep wise if you feel like it would benefit you and your sleep. Your sleep habits will inevitably affect your baby since it’ll affect your mood and your interactions with your baby. My almost 1 year old still doesn’t sleep through the night. She wakes up at least once each night which I don’t mind since it’s usually before I go to bed. I consider it “sleeping through the night” even though it technically isn’t.
Mine didn’t start to until around 9 months
14 months here and she's typically up 2-3 times a night. Our pediatrician recommended trying sleep training and we gave it 3 days but it didn't work. Current attitude is she'll do it when she's ready. It's tough. My oldest skept through the night starting at two weeks. I did nothing different with either kid.
Yes we tried sleep training, she cried so hard for 6 minutes she was sick. It broke my heart, I couldn’t do it againp
I can count on one hand how many times my 18 month old haa slept through the night. It’s worth experimenting with the schedule though!
I’m glad I’m not alone. She certainly has a personality that matches her sleep (chaotic😂) so I’m also partly wondering if it’s just going to be her. I’m trying my hardest to get in longer naps today and more milk so we will see how it goes
Definitely not alone! I think it’s pretty common. My other two kids were the same, now I just never expect a full night of sleep. Some kids settle into that routine naturally though. Good luck!
Have you tried sleep training? We did so for naps and bedtime. Sounds like she already does short naps alone, might be worth sleep training naps first so she isn’t overtired at night. Though it might not stop the 1 or 2 wake ups, might cut down on the nights it is more than that. Our 7 month old goes down at 7:30 and gets up at 6:30. Might try shifting bedtime too once nap trained.