Usenet Writings

When Do Babies Sleep Through the Night?

And Hints To Make It Sooner!

©1995 Beth Weiss, Posted to misc.kids Usenet newsgroup, December 9, 1995

I wrote this in response to several new moms wondering if they'd ever get any sleep. I'd emailed it to a few people, and then posted it, just in case there were any other sleep deprived parents who could benefit from my wisdom (wisdom?? :-)

The answer to "When do babies sleep through the night?" is that there isn't an answer--every baby, every child is different, and you can't really "expect" it at any given time.  I've heard a few rules to go by, but they're not universal.  (11 pounds, 13 pounds, 5 months, 6 weeks, 6 months).  According to Richard Ferber's book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, "by three or four months they will get most of their sleep at night, usually in a continuous episode of five to nine hours".  He suggests that this is the point at which you try to stabilize your baby's routine.

Some babies don't sleep.  This is very hard on the parents.  Some babies outgrow that and start to sleep better as they get older (my second did).  Other babies never really sleep very well.  (I don't know how their parents cope)

Some people say that feeding cereal helps babies sleep through the night.  Giving solids to a baby who isn't ready for them (and babies are generally not ready at 2 months) is probably not a good idea.  I'd definitely check with your pediatrician before taking that step.

The doctors I've talked to all recommend waiting until at least 4 months for solids, and some think 6 months is even better.  Someone once told me that she'd read that early feeding of solids can lead to digestive problems later in life (no,  sources for that factoid; this is definitely a "I heard" anecdote :-).

Of course, we have to define "sleeping through"--is it an adult sleep pattern or an infant sleep pattern?

I think of sleeping through as 10:00 p.m. - 6:00 a.m.  Some children do it early, and some don't.

My firstborn slept through the night at 6 weeks.  (Slept through the night defined as 9-6 most nights, which is pretty much a full night's sleep for mom!  During growth spurts, he'd wake up one time to nurse.  We had some sleep problems when he was 6 months old, but that was after he'd been sleeping through for months.  I think my second is my payback for thinking my firstborn's good sleep habits were somehow the result of something I did right.    :-(

I'm pretty convinced by things I've read that indicate that children need quality sleep as much as adults do--and that includes more sleep than adult sleep patterns would give them.  My 3.5 year old sleeps from about 8:00 at night until 6:00 or so in the morning.  He occasionally gets up at night, but it's not a constant or consistent thing.

Lack of sleep sure is tough--it can make a sane person crazy, and has been considered an effective method of torture in the past. Having said that, here are some ideas, which may or may not work for your family.

First off, repeat the misc.kids mantra over and over again: This too shall pass.  This too shall pass.  It will, honest.

Go to bed when the baby goes to bed at night--even if it's only 9:00 pm.  You're tired, you will sleep--adjust to the baby's schedule, rather than trying to get the baby to adjust to yours.  (Although later, s/he will adjust to yours).

When my first was about that age, he went to sleep around 9:00 every night--and so did I--and then when he didn't wake until 2:00, I'd gotten my five hours of sleep.  As time went on, that 2:00 waking got later and later--3:00, then 4:00, etc. until it reached 5:00, which was only 30 minutes before "morning" anyway. 

Some people suggest waking the child before you go to bed, feeding, and then all of you going to bed.  I don't like that method, because it doesn't allow the child to get into his or her natural rhythm of long night sleep.  However, some parents swear by it.

If your partner is there at night, have him get up and get the baby, change the diaper and bring him to you.  Plug him on, feed him, and then have your partner put him back.  You still have the nursing part (which can be tough those first few weeks), but it helped me not to have to get out of bed.  We tried to give each other a "night off" where it wasn't necessary to get out of bed at least every once in a while.

Normally, I put the baby back in his bassinet after nursing, but when I got too beat, I asked the dad to do it, and that let me feel as if I was being pampered.

Some people swear by a night bottle of formula or a night bottle of pumped milk given by Daddy, but I didn't want to risk nipple confusion at that early age.

According to Ferber's "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems", "by three or four months they will get most of their sleep at night, usually in a continuous episode of five to nine hours".  He suggests that this is the point at which you try to stabilize your baby's routine.

One specific suggestion he makes is to try and keep your baby on as regular a schedule as possible.  Have meals (nursing or bottles) at the same time every day.  Have bathtime at the same time (on bath days :-).  Have naps at the same time.  This allows the child to get into a routine and develop a regular sleep pattern.

Some people say that breast-fed babies may not sleep through the night until they start solids; I didn't find that to be true.  My first born didn't get solids until 5.5 months, and I didn't supplement with formula at all until after that--but he started sleeping through the night (6-8 hours without waking) at about 6 weeks.

I can tell you what we did to encourage this.  Obviously, your mileage may vary and all babies are different, etc. etc. etc. :-)

• Starting at about 4-5 weeks, we didn't pick him up and feed him in the middle of the night unless he was crying.  A whimper didn't do it, and just waking wasn't enough to get us out of bed.  At this point, he was in a bassinet in our room.  So, when he woke and moved at all, I also woke.  But I didn't get up (or nudge my husband to get up and bring him to me) unless he started to cry.  Sometimes he just whimpered a little bit and went back to sleep.
• At the same point, we stopped changing his diaper in the middle of the night unless it was absolutely necessary.  We figured the less stimulation the better :-)
• No lights, no noise, no laughter, no smiles, no games during night feedings.  At all middle of the night feedings, we were strictly business.  Diaper if needed, nursing, back to bed.  These were functional feedings.  This was absolutely the opposite of daytime feedings, when I would talk to him, sing to him, we'd laugh and play games during diaper changes.  I wanted him to feel a difference between night and day.  We pretty much did this from the 2nd night home from the hospital.  (The first night I got mad at his dad for playing with him at 2:00 am.  Upon careful reflection, he agreed that 2:00 am playing was not a habit he wished to encourage. :-)
• No long daytime naps.  If he slept three hours during the day (or three and a half if I was sleeping :-), I woke him up to change, feed, and play.  I wanted his longest chunk of sleep to be at night!!
• Different sleep conditions at night.  During naps, we didn't turn off the lights or make any attempt to be quiet.  During night sleep, we closed shades, turned off lights and were quiet.

I don't know which of these (if any) or what combination of them helped Jordan to lengthen his sleep time at night, but by three months, he wasn't waking to nurse anymore.  As I recall, the first nights he slept through, I didn't.  I woke up, heard him moving around, leaked milk all over the bed--but since he didn't come awake completely enough to cry for food, I didn't give him any--and within three nights, we were all sleeping through the night, and I stopped leaking at 4:00 am.

Anyway, all babies are different, and although there are things you can do to encourage your baby to sleep better, there aren't any guarantees.

Good luck!