Sleeping through the night

I'll go first

Our story:

From about 6 weeks JJ slept through every few days, and since the night before he turned 8 weeks old (which is apparently about when their lil tummies get big enough to take in enough calories to sleep through) he has consistently been sleeping at least 8 hours and up to 10 hours at night, with the exception of a couple of nights where he had a cold and wasn't feeding as efficiently. Of course I'm sure it'll all turn to custard later on but I'm enjoying it while it lasts!

What worked for us:

- First and most importantly, teaching him to self settle day or night, so he can take himself back off to sleep if he wakes up.

- Learning tired signs and putting him down when he's drowsy but still awake (kiwikid mentioned putting her bubs down on the second yawn, it was good advice) so he doesn't freak out due to waking up in his cot when he went to sleep on us.

- Learning hungry signs and his hungry cry so I know when to feed him (harder now that he wants to comfort suck as well, which he does when he's overtired).

- Swaddling him really firmly so he doesn't wake himself up with flailing arms.

- Teaching him the difference between day and night. That means night time feeds done in the dark, with as little talking as possible and no eye contact. When he wakes up during the day I make an effort to talk to him lots and give him my undivided attention during playtime. When he was smaller and still in his bassinet we had it out in the lounge during the day and wheeled it into his room at night which I think helped make a difference.

- Giving in to fussy evenings and cluster feeding. Yeah he's difficult in the evening, but it doesn't seem as big a deal now that I expect it. He feeds and feeds and feeds until it feels like he's sucked me dry but I figure the more he drinks before bedtime the longer he'll sleep, and that's been the case so far. That also means maintaining my supply during the day because since my supply has settled I still have masses of milk in the morning but not so much in the evening - for me that means I need to drink lots of water but there are lots of tips in this thread

- Relaxing! I think babies are like dogs, they can smell your fear

ETA: I found the articles at The Sleep Store website really useful.

Edited by weegee

Well Gabs has been sleeping through since 9 weeks old. She has had the odd night where she wakes every now and then sometimes shes hungry or in pain if teething etc. Here is what we did.

She has always slept in her own cot in her own room from birth.

We never let her sleep on us, unless she is sick.

We learnt her tired signs and put her to bed while still awake and leave her, sometimes she cries a bit but she usually settles within 10 minutes.

We have been routine feeding her since she was 6 weeks old, so she gets enough calories during the day to sleep through the night. I will get her up for a feed even if I have to wake her sometimes, but usually she is waking or awake and waiting for me to come in.

If she wakes in the middle of night I will leave her to resettle for at least 10 minutes unless i think her cry is a pained one. She can resettle herself quite well. In fact I never go in to her when she starts to cry during the day either, I will wait a few minutes first to see what happens as often she will wake after 45 minutes of sleep but will resettle if I leave her to cry for 5-10 minutes.

We used to wrap her when she was younger, but stopped when she was about 4 months old cos she always likes to get her arms out anyway and she likes to suck her thumb to put herself to sleep, its part of her sleep routine.

During night feeds when younger, I would feed her in her room, that was only dimly lit and not really talk to her, but I used to sing to her a little before putting her back to bed, and definitely no play at this time.

So alot of what I did is similar to weegee above.

The differences really are that Gabs is formula fed and never did cluster feedings, not sure if this is cos she is formula fed or not though. But you can see that whether bf or ff we have done much the same things.

We did most of the above as well, but stopped swaddling at about 4 weeks as he hated having his arms in. We started using a safety sleep instead so he felt wrapped. He was in his own room from 6 weeks which helped as I used to wake up before he did and assume he needed to be fed.

We did the dreamfeed thing at 10.30 each night until he was established on solids then dropped it. He slept through till 7-8am with that dreamfeed from 9 weeks and now goes from 7-7 without one. We have had wakings for poo nappies (why would you poo at 5am? ), teething, illnesses etc but otherwise he sleeps well.

Good day sleeps are key, and also noise during the day, quiet at night worked for us.

Isla started regularly sleeping through the night at 21 months.

My biggest piece of advise would be dont feel guilty or like u are doing something wrong if you baby is not sleeping through the night. You are definalty not alone even though at times if feels like your the only one!

I honestly can't remember what I did with Andrew, but he was a good sleeper - still is.

Josh I did a lot of what has already been said. I think what helped him the most was the dream feed.

Cooper slept thru from 7.00pm to 7.00am for the first time last night!!! I was stoked!!!!

I couldn't let him cry, would BF him in the night if he woke as it was quicker than trying to re settle him (5 mins opposed to 30!(probably still will tonight now I've jinked myself!!!).

We tried all the suggestions from people : swaddle, routine, white noise, great day sleeps. Everytime we seemed to be getting somewhere with maybe 6 - 7 hours in a row, he'd get sick or start teething and we'd be back at square one.


But having it finally happen once, I'm a firm believer in they'll do it when they're ready.

My advice to others is try not too stress, go with your baby.

i have treated all my babies the same. they were swaddled, put down awake and left to self settle (normally without crying), not left to cry for longer than 5/10 mins, slept in a bassinette in our room from the start then later transfered to a cot. And they both started sleeping thru from about 4 mths.
HOWEVER... toby soon started night waking after that and even now at 3 yrs old still isnt a good sleeper whereas gabriel, once hes asleep is very rare for him to get up again   ... and eden well she has been sleeping thru more often than not since about 2 weeks since coming home...

so no matter what you do or how some babies just dont "sleep thru".

I think it's a combination of the two. But moreso, the baby.
Hannah sleeps until 5:30/6am. It doesn't matter what time we put her down (most nights 7pm) or how much we feed her. 5:30am seems to be her ingrained "start the day" time and has been for a couple of months.
So 6am is a sleep-in for me

LOL Kellz, that must be an Isla thing because our Miss I won't ever sleep past 6am either.   She usually goes to bed at 7pm and even if she's up later than that it's still 6am or earlier wake up. Sigh.

Luke has always been a great sleeper - he was doing around 8 hours from 4 weeks old and slept 12 hours every night from 4 months. (Coincedentally, when we started solids and formula feeding)  He still now goes down at 6pm and sleeps through unitl around 6.30am.

Every now and then he goes through stages where he will wake at around 5am and not go back to sleep, but we have always left him in his cot until around 6.30am.  He just lies there and talks so we are all happy (but I can't sleep while he does this). 

We put alot of his great sleeps down to routine and us relaxing.  I put him to bed and don't expect anything else otehr than he WILL go to sleep.  And he does.  He has always gone down awake and self settled.  He also has always slept in his own room.

I have great sympathy for people with babies that don't sleep - if we have a bad night (not very often) I am terrible the next day - I have to remind myself that there are people out there who live on less than 6 hours a night all the time...