Sleeping through- how to make it happen?!

Everyone has given great advice, but just remember that even 'normal' babies will often wake for a night feed until they are 6 months or older. I often think that we set ourselves up for failure by expecting young babies to sleep 8+ hours a night - while some do, many or most don't, no matter what you do or don't do as a parent which can be really hard to accept.

It's difficult though, as sleeping through is seen as the holy grail of parenting babies - I know I started to feel a bit inadequate and wonder what I was doing wrong when it seemed 3 out of 4 of my coffee group babies were sleeping through the night by 10 weeks...

My post wasn't directly specifically at anyone so hope I didn't offend, but I know there will be many first time mummies or mummies-to-be reading this and as many who have replied have been fortunate enough to have babies who sleep through early, I wanted to just point out that it won't happen for everyone, and that it is completely normal. Sorry if I got off topic.

Edited by Febgirl

I had a BF baby with moderately bad reflux and she slept through from two months, so it is possible (although it is possible that Clara is just a good sleeper). So just a few tips:

Number 1: a hammock. This is fantastic for helping refluxy babies to sleep. Before we got the hammock she was a terrible sleeper, would only go off to sleep on us, and after finally getting her off to sleep would then wake in obvious pain (this was pre-medication though). The hammock made a big difference.

2: Gina Ford's Contented Baby (I also picked this up because I was clueless and couldn't spot the tired signs). A lot of people hate this book but it worked for us (Clara was sleeping through within 10 days of starting the routine). I just took from it what I wanted - mainly the sleep times, not the feed times (she's always been demand fed, as because of the reflux she could only have small, frequent feeds). Ford tends to restrict daytime sleeps (meaning you'll have to wake your baby, which some people hate doing), to get them sleeping longer at night.

3: Waking her at 10.30pm for a feed. Ford says that newborns are too young for dream feeds, they need to wake up properly or they don't feed well enough. For this feed I gave a bottle of expressed milk, to ensure that she got a good feed (also meant that DH could do this feed and I could get a longer spell of unbroken sleep).

4: Cluster feeding - it depends on your baby but Clara would feed for hours on end in the evenings. Obviously the more milk she gets in the longer she'd sleep.

Good luck - and IKWYM, in those sleep deprived early days I definitely felt on the border of developing PND and, with a history of depression, it was a little frightening and I was determined to get her sleeping through. Though of course all babies are different.

my 19 month old still wakes in the night probably 3 nights out of 7.

its not so bad if she wakes and I am still up but not so good when it is 3am....and freezing.

sometimes I can leave her to go back to sleep but there are a few times when I will give her a BF and that seems to settle her.