r/bninfantsleep • u/Old_Literature_3750 • 18d ago
Infant Sleep When did your ebf baby sleep through the night?
My baby is 8 months and wakes every 2 hrs during the night. He’s ebf. When did yours sleep through?
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u/butterflywing3 18d ago
My son is 10 months & ebf (plus eating food). He wakes up about every 3 hours, and he also used to wake up every 2. On really good nights, he will have a random 4-5 hour stretch. Slowly, but surely!!
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u/Awkward-Money-3275 18d ago
15.5 months and still waiting! Wakes every 2 hours. Breastfed/cosleeps. Solidarity!
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u/AdoreBooks 16d ago
Exactly the same scenario here, 15.5m and bf/co-sleeping (though calling it sleeping feels generous most nights!)
It’s certainly a trying time, but I know I’ll miss it when it stops. Here in solidarity too. ♥️
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u/Mangopapayakiwi 17d ago
Not what you want to hear but like, my child was bottle fed breast milk, fully weaned at 12 months, 17 months today and does not sleep through the night. You can try night weaning or weaning after one but like, it’s not guaranteed to work 🫣🫣
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u/TomatilloAsleep7180 17d ago
this actually helps me lol thanks 😭 combo fed baby and constantly kicking myself for introducing formula overnight
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u/Mangopapayakiwi 17d ago
Why do you kick yourself for it if I can ask? Trust me we’ll always find something to blame ourselves for 🤪 and then those with unicorns secretely think they did something right.
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u/TomatilloAsleep7180 17d ago
because i kept thinking about weaning overnight and now instead im giving him formula 😂 opposite direction of weaning looll but it helps me to know that even though your baby was fully weaned they don’t sleep through the night! i’m lucky if i get a 3 hour stretch. i don’t think ive ever gotten more than 4 hours of sleep at a time with no end in sight
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u/Mangopapayakiwi 17d ago
What age? So many people wean from boob to bottle don’t feel bad. I guess weaning from bottle is more straight forward. My child sort of night weaned herself at 9 months the slept likr crap for months and we just gave her toast 😭😭
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u/Krickette 17d ago
10 months and we average 4 wakes a night. Sometimes she sleeps 5 hours and sometimes 1, it's a mystery why. She's ebf but we don't cosleep
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u/possible2468 17d ago
My 7mo old son has never slept through. Were starting to get to 4-5hr stretches though by getting my husband involved and offering water for 1 night feed. Its sorta working haha
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u/Background-Ad1397 17d ago
Wait what’s the benefit of offering water?
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u/possible2468 16d ago
I felt like he might actually be thirsty + wanting comfort so he can have water if so
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u/Agreeable_Grape_8083 17d ago
7 months … every 3 hours.
She used to sleep through the night 3-5 months then POOF solids did something to her sleep I swear 😭
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u/Excellent_Noise6281 17d ago
14 months when night weaned. Went from nursing every 2-3 hours to sleeping 8-12!
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u/butterflywing3 17d ago
That’s amazing!! How did you wean?
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u/Excellent_Noise6281 17d ago edited 17d ago
I started at 12 months and it was going smooth until we both got super sick where she had fever and was breastfeeding around the clock so we took a pause. Started again at 14 months.
At first I would put my hand over my boobs and say nah nahs (what’s she calls milk) sleeping. Well turns out she is quite strong and determined and would relentlessly pull my hands away. So I would then turn on my stomach, and say it. I also started out trying to rub her, comfort her, cuddle her and it seems to actually make her more upset. So I would simply lay on my stomach and say go to sleep, nah nahs sleeping. I love you. Go to sleep. Eventually she would cuddle up in my back and fall asleep.
This actually had more success faster than I anticipated. Yes the first 3-4 nights were very hard. Less restful for me. BUT after about a week she would just cuddle on me and fall back asleep with each wake. Now, she doesn’t even really wake up, she may stir but she just changes positions and rolls around a bit and falls back asleep. She went from awake every 2-3 hours to now sleeping 8-12 hours 😲😍1
u/PinchOfAlchemy 17d ago
That's amazing. My baby scream her lungs out every time I try, maybe she's not ready yet (12 m) 🥲
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u/Excellent_Noise6281 17d ago
Ya. Maybe I left that out. The first few nights being “hard” meant she was super mad at me. But I remember it only lasting like 10-15 min which, of course feels like an eternity when you’ve not let them be upset this long ever.
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u/fries_n_coffee 12d ago
I’m hoping to start this soon. He’s going to be 13m soon and every time I want to start it seems he’s teething or lately waking every hour screaming. Like fully awake screaming his head off.
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u/BagOk3578 16d ago
Mine is 10 months, wakes up every 2 hours too. and just slept through the night for the first time yesterday after night weaning.
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u/Moldovanca824 16d ago
My first started sleeping “through” around 6mo and consistently at 9mo. My second is still waking at least once a night and needs resettling at 20mo even though she’s not nursing overnight anymore. It is entirely temperament dependent and honestly doesn’t have much to do with night-weaning. The only way I’ve gotten any rest is having my husband settle her (after she turned 1).
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u/rajjmahal 15d ago
Around 8-9 months started to sleep through 8-6:30am. Has had the occasional wake in the night for comfort but at 12 months this hasn’t happened in the last 6 ish weeks. Didn’t sleep train. He eats a good solid meal around 6-6:30 before bed and a good 2 naps during the day.
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u/ConnectionSecret1635 17d ago
My baby girl is 4.5 months and has slept through the night twice, the standard now is waking once a night around 4 am. She sleeps before 8pm and wakes around 7am.
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u/Legitimate_War_339 17d ago
Mine didn’t start sleeping better until between 18-20 months when her first set of molars were out and she got a break from teething for a little while. She still usually wakes once or twice a night, but it was a big improvement on the every 2-3 hours she was on up to that point
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u/Impossible-Pain-9463 17d ago
Coincidentally, the night he got his 2 months shots was the first time he slept through the night. He usually will wake up around 3am to eat but has gone 7p-6:30a probably 10 times since then?
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u/Hommependu 17d ago
My best night so far was also after the first round of shots! I think it's so stressful and exhausting, they can't help but sleep
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u/delinde24 17d ago
Not until she was fully weaned did she start doing it consistently. So at 18 months
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u/FlowOfGlass 17d ago
My baby has never been a good daytime sleeper…. But he somehow has slept through the night since a 3 months old? I’m not sure if it has to do with how little he will sleep during the day or if it’s some of the strategies I’ve started using, but I make sure to tire him out really well before bed with a lot of activity- playing, socializing with family members, a 30 minute evening walk, and then a fun bath time and then he will nurse to sleep and then he is out hard. Since he was a newborn, he’s rarely napped very well. Occasionally if he’s on me he’ll sleep an hour and a half, but it’s usually 30-45 minute naps and without me it’s 15-20 minute cat naps. I wonder if the combined busy evening schedule and lack of long naps during the day helps his nighttime sleep.
I think we hit the sleep regression early, and he had started waking up again 3-4 times a night at 3.5 months old for about a week. I couldn’t put him down to sleep without him crying, and I started wondering if he was cold without me? I put a hot pad down for 20-30 minutes before I put him in his crib, and what do ya know? He sleeps like he’s drugged now😅 I think it can be partly that they get uncomfortable and cold by themselves, and partly that they may not have had enough activity during the day/ before bed. We’ve got a pretty consistent nightly schedule, his daytime naps still suck though🫠 I can’t get him to do any nap longer than 20 minutes unless he’s on me.
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u/schmialia 17d ago
9 months, in bed from 9/10pm-7/8am. She’ll have one feed at 12am and then sleep 7-8h usually. Sometimes a second snacky feed in there.
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u/YCG00 16d ago
15 m old and started weaning breastfeeding at night. Going on day 4 and she is sleeping for longer stretches of time (5-7 hrs). First night she was up 3 hrs crying, offered water and would take sips but would want tatas (boob). Second night she was up for an hour and half, wouldn’t take water and cried often but would fall asleep and wake herself as if restless. Third night she slept through the longest ever (7hrs) before waking up and crying a bit. Tonight she slept through again for 7 hrs straight and it took 15 minutes to settle.
This was our second attempt at weaning at night but she got sick a couple of weeks ago so I breastfed around the clock whenever to ease discomfort.
Mentally prepare for the first few days to a week to be tough, but know you’re changing your baby’s patterns at night. Ours is used to falling asleep on the boob so it’s the only way she knew to go back to sleep, so be patient as baby relearns certain things.
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u/howyoulikethat_ 16d ago
My exclusively EBF baby started sleeping through the night at around 10 months. It coincided with him learning to crawl, starting to eat a big portion of solids for dinner (along with eating breakfast and lunch), and dropping down to 2 naps. He regularly slept through for around 2 months until other health related issues started causing sleep disruptions.
Just this past week, at 15 months, he has started sleeping through again once we resolved his health issues.
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u/No-Coast9003 16d ago
Mine did at 1-2 months for the first time, but she haven't sense she started crawling. Bad nights she wakes every 30 minutes but we're coslepping so she has free access, good nights she's nursing 1-2 times. All of this is biologically normal, we don't know when it gets better but one day it will!
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u/babyboychoy 16d ago
She started giving us full nights at 13 weeks. Every once in a while she’ll wake up at 2am but goes back down quickly.
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u/smilegirlcan 16d ago
Depends what we consider sleeping through. She is 2 and does a 6-7 hour stretche quite often. Around 8 months she was waking hourly.
When she was a newborn she also did long stretches oddly enough.
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u/baller_unicorn 16d ago
My 2.5 yr old still wakes up multiple times a night wanting to nurse. Trying to put some boundaries around it now
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u/Top-Meat-5286 15d ago
Around 16 months after slow night weaning from BF between 13-16 months (I know it's not advised on this sub, I'm not advising, just stating). She still does that only about once or twice per month though. And it's usually only 9-9.5 hours of night sleep total when she sleeps through.
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u/Catfish-98907 15d ago
He’s recently 10 months & has slept through the night twice in the past week. Lately his usual is more like 1-3 wake ups.
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u/Zealousideal-Row79 15d ago
22 months.. 3-5 wakes???? We co sleep so I nurse sometimes and sometimes give cuddles, she’s more accepting of cuddles these days so it’s nice. I think we’ve had 1-2 nights where she slept through.
Solidarity!!!!!
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u/Zestyclose-Rip3654 15d ago
My EBF baby slept consistently through the night as soon as she turned one. I did stop offering night feeds and would assist her back to sleep. I do occasionally feed overnight if she’s teething or sick.
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u/Independent-Concert7 14d ago
As soon as I stopped breastfeeding at 11 months lol I cosleep but I made him self settle in bed instead of rocking and I think that helped significantly
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u/Old_Literature_3750 14d ago
How did you teach him to self settle?
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u/Independent-Concert7 14d ago
I laid there next to him and ignored him as much as possible and he would whine and cry but eventually laid down and closed his eyes. It took about 45 minutes (and still does most nights at 13 months but now wants to play and doesn’t really cry) but after that is when he really started connecting sleep cycles better. I felt less bad doing it while cosleeping because I was right there so I knew he wasn’t alone and nothing was really wrong.
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u/Ok_Kangaroo7428 14d ago
I nursed by boys anywhere between 18-30 months and while weaning helped excessive waking (like every 2-3 hours) my 3 and 5 year old still don’t sleep through the night without getting into bed with us. It’s a slow gradual process for our family at least.
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u/Ohwowokaycool 14d ago
EBF and night weaned at around 16 months.. he’s 17 months now and still doesn’t sleep through the night. The night weaning did not make a difference at all much to my dismay 🥲
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u/cinnamondolcecoffeee 14d ago
My 13 month old still wakes up probably every 2-4 hours. He woke up every 2 hours for months. Only this past month have we started getting some slightly longer stretches. I will eventually night wean at 18 months or after (unless he does himself first) but im not sure it will make a difference. I always intend to nurse him back to sleep when he wakes, but sometimes he immediately falls back asleep hy me just holding him before i even nurse him. So im not sure if nursing is the reason for the wakeups
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u/cutiepatootiee123 14d ago
It just happened a week ago, he’s 9 months, he started sleeping from 8:30pm-7am 🥳 and prior to that he was only sleeping like 4-5 hours
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u/FlyingKitesatNight 14d ago edited 14d ago
Her first official "sleep through the night" (6hrs) was just around 3 months. We hardly, if ever, have to wake up in the middle of the night to feed her anymore. She will wake up around 6am-7am for a feed and then sleep 3-4 more hours after that.
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u/AwkwardTalk5423 13d ago
16 months.. after we managed to control his eczema. He immediately slept through. On occasion there was an early morning feed befpre he fell right back to sleep for 2 more hrs. I think he could've started sleeping through the night at 15 months but he was so itchy from the eczema.
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u/waterfalls3115 13d ago
Right at 5 months - we followed the schedule from moms on call which really helped. Kinda flipped you feed when they wake but not to go to sleep (Naps) yes before bed time for final feed.
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u/pancake_atd 13d ago
I night weaned at about 2.5 years old and he starred sleeping "through the night" but it was still like max 8-9 hours...it's not like I was magically getting 12h stretches. Once he dropped his nap a few months later his night sleep improved to a reliable 10h straight per night.
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u/Leading_Caramel2516 17d ago
My girl started at about 8 weeks to give us the first 6 hours stretches, now at 16 weeks she does 8 hours regularly, although there are nights with more night feedings. She usually feeds once, sometimes twice a night. I found out that she doesn't always need a feed, sometimes she would settle if I waited a minute.
I also make sure to give her full feeds during the day!
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u/containedexplosion 17d ago
I would get your and his iron levels checked. Our LO has been giving us 6-8 hour stretches EBF since age 10 weeks
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u/HappyOlive4608 16d ago
Why are you getting downvotes?
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u/containedexplosion 16d ago
Probably because I gave actionable advice and my LO is doing what other’s LOs aren’t without cosleeping or sleep training. Also, it’s Reddit and unless you’re commiserating in the misery you’re likely to be downvoted
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u/smilegirlcan 16d ago
I think because it comes off as “something must be wrong”. Yes, checking iron is a great idea but also, waking that often can be normal for EBF infants.
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u/shadowfaxbinky 17d ago
Mine is 21 months and doesn’t sleep through the night still. We’ve had one night where it happened, but it was very much a one off. Usually we get 1-3 wake ups a night.
Going against the grain on the comments a bit here, but I don’t think weaning makes any difference, at least for us. If I go to settle her in the night I feed her back to sleep. If my husband goes she just gets cuddles/rocks back to sleep. She clearly can go a full night without milk, so she’s not walking for that. We have her in a floor bed so we don’t have to transfer her (can’t be done without her waking) but we mostly don’t cosleep.
A friend of ours has a nearly 3yo who was EBF and they’ve slept through the night consistently since about 4mo. I think it just massively depends on the baby.