when do babies start to sleep through the whole night?

Love - posted on 05/26/2012

Make sure you are putting him to bed nice and early, around 6-7pm. If a child is put to bed too late, they will have a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep. Also make sure he is napping at least twice a day around 9am and 1pm for at least an hour. The more sleep he gets, the better he will sleep.

Terina - posted on 05/08/2012

hun , they all differ sorry to say my son was 2 before he slept through, nd my daughter slept through by 4 or 5 months but a few months later started waking again shes now 2 and stll wakes 4 out of 7 nights, i think my problem was i was and still not any good at letting them cry it out, id rather be awake than hear them crying, for a 20 minuite cry out in the day is fine it seems like an hour of crying at night as your lying there listening to it.i take my hat off to any mother than dosent go whe hteir child wakes in the night ! . one thing that did work a little i.e gave me an extra hour before my son woke was a night time milk by hipp and its called bedtime milk its much thicker so you will need variflo teats on the bottle if he has one failing that put some baby rice in the last feed to thicken it . what works for one baby wont work for another.
and another thing i found all those freinds and family members whose babies all slept through by 3 months, well as time goes on you find tht actually they didnt somones deffination of a ababy sleeping through is keeping him/her asleep for 5 or 6 hours ! im only saying this as i had all of that where a certain persons babies all slept through by 3 months and had the fantastic abiltiy to make it soind like its you dojng something wrong. like i say my son was before he had his full nights sleep with, and even then he woke 3 out of 7 still it wasnt ubtil he was 3 and we moved house he slept through every night. maybe he was a directional sleeper who knows . he got to certain age where he understood its bedtime go to sleep !i dont know if this is your 1st baby but try not to let the preasure of whose baby sleeps through by 3 months or not i mean that in the nicest way,you dont get a medal for it they do so try not to stress too much and the more real mums you talk to the more real it is that babies just dont sleep that well so god knows where that saying sleeping like a baby come from cos its a load of bull ! lol ,but dont get me wrong id love a full nights sleep on a regular basis but mums have a great ability to go into auto piolot too . i had advice of the making the milk thicker , giving the feed later, make it really boring t,ry proper routines etc but eventually he just got it he just slept through although it took a while we got there in the end . good luck :-)

Aimee - posted on 05/02/2012

Generally just right before you're ready to go bonkers!!! This is YOUR baby - not everybody else's baby. Maybe he's hungry, lonely, scared, missing you. Is he eating well during the day - and at night? Hungry. Just plays with the nipple/bottle - lonely. Either way - when you respond to your child's discomfort in the middle of the night you are teaching him that the world is a safe place where he will always find love, comfort, - and a good meal from mom :-)

Ania - posted on 04/29/2012

depends on a baby. My son is 22 years old and still wakes up sometimes. he started sleeping about 6-8 h straight at 12 months

Catalina - posted on 04/25/2012

My son is 11 months and sleeps in our bed, I think he nurses twice most nights but I sleep through the whole thing! When he's 3 we will move him to his own room! Until then I let him be a baby.

I would try leaving your son when he wakes, there is no reason he should be eating so when he wake up give him some time to fall back to sleep, unless he's screaming.

Ginger - posted on 04/21/2012

My baby's doc said they can sleep 5 hours strait when they can drink a 5 ounce bottle. They can sleep through the night when they are getting enough milk and are ready. So providing they are getting the milk they need and are not underwieght and the doc has no problem with him sleeping through the night. Go read the section on weinging your baby off night bottles in What to Expect the First Year. It saved my sanity. Basically keeping the lights on during the day and dark at night will help them learn the differance between night and day. I gave my boy two bottles before bed. I started with one bottle a night for a month then we worked on it. Read that section in the book. It goes into magor detail on how to succesfully wien a baby off night bottles when medically exceptable.

Rachel - posted on 02/29/2012

Mine was 6 weeks, but we sleep trained him and put him in his own room. He has always been an excellent sleeper. I'm guessing your little one is just hungry! nothing wrong with that!

Rebecca - posted on 10/04/2011

a 5month old child will still expect to be fed in the middle of the night! 6months should around the right time, but all babies are different, unfortunately some babies never sleep all night but they will do eventually when he or she is ready. xx

Melinda - posted on 09/27/2011

My daughter is 2.5 years old and still wakes up at night. In phases. She goes through short phases of sleeping all night and short phases of waking up every night. At least she doesn't wake up EVERY night.

Jessica - posted on 01/11/2010

I'm one of the lucky ones! My son has been sleeping through the night since about 2 months. He sleeps from about 7:30-8 pm until 6am and sometimes as late as 9am on the weekends when no one is up and around to wake him.

Ashley - posted on 01/11/2010

My daughter is 4 months and she usually sleeps through the night. She started that around 2 1/2 months. Sometimes, there are nights when she just doesn't want to go to sleep and will stay awake for another feeding around 3 am or so....sometimes..she'll go to bed at 11 pm and stay that way until 9 or 10 am the next morning.

Kasey-Louise - posted on 01/11/2010

my son is 5 moths and he is similar. he sleeps thro sometimes and wakes for nappy and/or feed sometimes. i was told that they wake sometimes until as late as 12 months.

Lori - posted on 01/10/2010

Don't know if anyone as any tips even though I'm probably just cursed but my youngest now 4.5 months wakes up at least once and is different every night. If we let him just cry it out he will get up on his hands an knees and rock his crib. Its like one big tantrum. He will eat anywhere from 2 to 8 oz depending on the night. I dont' know whether to stop feeding him or not. He has cereal and fruit in the morning and before he goes to bed. In the day he sleeps maybe 1 to 2 hours in 10 to 30 min. shots. - IF we are lucky. Where does he get his energy because my hubby and I are running out with both of us working full time. We do our nightly bath and routine every night so I'm at a loss for what to do next. Any suggestions?

Kimberly - posted on 01/09/2010

I truly believe every baby is different as well. This is our first child and she is sleeping thru the night since 3 months, but that is also when I started supplementing a formula bottle for the last night feeding. With breastmilk and nursing, she wasnt' sleeping thru the night.

Hannah - posted on 01/09/2010

when do babies sleep through the night?

how long is a piece of string? lol :)

Eleonore - posted on 01/09/2010

hi girls! i am new here! and it is very interesting for me to read the same problems! my baby is 19 weeks and he still wakes up 1-2 time per night! first he was hungry , so i feed him but now he wakes up just to be in hands i think! because just i take him he close eyes and after 10 minutes he continue to sleep. i tried just to talk to him, but it doesnt work, he starts to cry more and more. i dont know when he gonna sleep all night! i think i am dreaming of it!lol!
thanks to you i have understood that my baby is not only one who do that:)

Mariah - posted on 01/08/2010

For about two weeks when dylan was 4mo he would sleep for 9 hours straight. Then now for the past two weeks he sleeps maybe 2.5 hours straight. Hopefully he will figure out how to do that again :)

Saundra - posted on 01/06/2010

I was spoiled my first son slept through the night the day I brought him home. Bless him...My second son goes down about 9-10pm wakes around 1 or 2 and then about every 1-2 hours after that. We give him a bottle and he will take a couple drinks and go back to sleep but only for short spurts...I'm still waiting for my 5-6 hour stretch of blissful sleep...

Leanne - posted on 01/03/2010

my son slept frm 11 till 6 in mrnin at 6 wks nw he is 19 wks+1 and nw sleeps frm 8-9 in mrnin! but i feed him when he wants it he is gettin half rusk in mrnin wiv bottle, thenbottle then his dinnerwiv bottle , then a bottle then half a rusk n bottle then bed

Belinda - posted on 01/03/2010

The person that told you your son would be sleeping through the night at 3 months old was being unfair to you and your son. The fact is that over 50% of babies still require 1-2 night feeds until the age of around 9 months and then a whole lot of those babies still wake in the night for comfort. This is normal!!! It’s really hard for us mothers that have babies that wake at night. We’re sleep deprived, we feel like it is never going to get better and then we have to listen to mothers telling us that their babies sleep really long hours from an early age – tough stuff.



Be strong and hang in there. Use gentle techniques to encourage your baby to sleep. This way, your son WILL learn to sleep through the night (when he is good and ready – eventually), and he will have also had a life long lesson in patience, trust and unconditional love. :)

Kathy - posted on 01/02/2010

Sleeping through the night for a baby is 5 straight hours. My daughter wakes up at least twice to nurse also, but her first stretch is usually close to 5 hours, so I don't worry. My third son would wake up every 3 hours or so to nurse for almost a year. I actually love when she wakes up. It's our little time to just be in the peace and quiet. I can just stare at her and hold her while she nurses with out having to worry about the other kids. I don't even know what our pediatrician would say to that. If your baby is hungry, I would feed him. I don't believe in letting my kids be hungry just to convenience me. They will out grow this stage. Just don't force your son to "grow up" before he's ready. Cherish the special time with him, even if it is in the middle of the night. I also never let my kids cry to sleep, I don't believe in that, I think it's cruel, and they all do just fine getting to sleep on their own now. So, it will happen. Just have patience and know that, as long as you're not the one waking him up to eat, he'll sleep through the whole night when his body is ready to not need the nourishment at night.

Tiffany - posted on 01/02/2010

All babies are different. I have been lucky and my little one started sleeping through the night around 10 weeks. However my cousin gave birth to her son 10 days before me and he is still waking 1-2 times a night. Also my sisters son was 10 weeks prem. He is almost 11 months (corrected age - 8 months) and she has had a terrible time trying to get him to sleep at night (or during the day for that matter). He still wakes up every 2 hours!
I have heard around 6 months is when you can start weaning them off their night feeds, although I'm not 100% sure. I think if they're hungry let them eat! If they are not hungry and haven't learnt to self settle then maybe once they hit this age it is time to teach them? But once again, they are all so different. They will do it when they're ready!

Karen - posted on 01/02/2010

Nely, at our daughter's 4 month appt, our pediatrician asked me how she was sleeping. I said, "Great...she only wakes up once a night to eat. She takes 6oz." He said, "Okay..how about NO ounces!" HUH?! lol He said that she probably doesn't need that bottle. He told us that, "When we were ready...", when she wakes up at 2 or 3am, we can walk to her crib, say "there there, mommy/daddy's here...it isn't time to wake up. I love you, night night", and walk out. He told me not to spend more than a minute in there. If she cries, let her cry for 5 minutes, then go in and repeat. Next time, 10 minutes and repeat. Next time, 15 minutes and repeat... He said that the first two or three nights could be rough, but she should sleep through the night after that. Sure enough, the first two nights were a little rough, but now she is sleeping!!! She goes down between 8-9pm and is getting up around 5:30 or 6 every morning. She *does* wake up to "talk" for about 5 minutes in the middle of the night, but then she gets herself back to sleep.

I totally agree with Emily though - every baby is different. My God-daughter didn't sleep through the night until she was over a year old. It just depends on the baby.

I would run this topic past your pediatrician and see what he/she says. Best of luck!

Emily - posted on 01/01/2010

Every baby is different. Your baby will do it when he is ready. There is no set age when all babies do this. My first child slept through at around 11 months.. this one at around 3 months. And I know moms whose kids went until almost 2 years before their kids slept through. Truly every child is different.

Hannah - posted on 01/09/2010

when do babies sleep through the night?

how long is a piece of string? lol :)