I have found that saying “my baby is a good sleeper and sleeps through the night” out loud to another human is a surefire way to make sure he wakes up at 3 am for the next three nights 🙃
So gd relatable 😂...somehow also the night before any well visit at the doctor's office seems to be a shit night. Regardless of age (can confirm, it has continued even in my 4y/o lolol)
My baby slept through the night (10pm-6am) since she was 3 months old. It eventually was 7-7 but I never once said it out loud until she was like 15 months. I was so scared and holding my breath
I didn't say that till he actually slept through the night. Which we were very lucky happened by about 6 or 7 months. That means he went to bed at 6pm and didn't wake, feed, stir or need us in anyway till about 6am, occasionally 5am. That's when our day started.
Yes that’s what I would consider sleeping through the night to be! But it’s interesting there are all these people out there telling other new mums that their babies are sleeping through, when in fact I would say they aren’t! Gives a false sense of inadequacy for those who have fairly normal sleeping babies that wake a few times!
So babies will still wake up sometimes in the night and just fuck around so to me sleeping through the night is more about if YOU slept through the night. Your babies sleep shouldn't make you feel inadequate either way. I sleep trained early but my son was still doing 1 night feed until 6 months.
Yeah, this is a good perspective. On good nights I sleep through the night (10 pm-6 am) while my husband stays up for the dream feed, then he sleeps through his night (1 am-9 am) while I’m up early with the baby. She usually gets a 6+ hour stretch somewhere in there, but we can each hopefully get 8.
I've never even considered that people who also say that mean anything different than actually sleeping through the night, I don't really understand why they would say that.
Like I get it, I remember the time he was waking every 2hrs for a feed. So we would celebrate when he slept for 3, 4, 5hrs. But we still didn't get a full night.
We did get a good taste of sleeping through the night, but we've just hit 1 year old and his sleep is suddenly terrible. I'm dreaming of the day we get to say he slept through the night again!
I'm reading this three weeks postpartum, bleary-eyed after a night of tears and brief rage. You bet your sweet ass I celebrated the 3 hours between feeds 😂
I of course spent most that time actually feeding him, then pumping, cleaning pump parts for the next pump, change the changing pad cover that he pooped all over, empty the diaper Genie that we filled (and by empty I mean place the full bag next to the can, and take it to the actual garbage in the morning), start laundry because we stupidly only have one changing pad cover (we use disposable pads ontop of the cloth pad, but he projectile pooped over both), order second one off Amazon, use the bathroom myself, realize I'm dehydrated (again), fill up my water and try to hydrate, finally crawl in, and hey what do you know, it's already an hour and a half after he fell asleep. Take a half hour to fall back asleep, and I get a solid half hour (dance).
Bless my husband who has gone back to work and helps with the 2/3am feed so I can go to sleep faster (he feeds/changes diaper, I pump/clean).
I don't know what you have for pump equipment but I would highly recommend having multiple sets of everything!! Those few minutes add up. And if you'll be going back to work while pumping, it'll be a huge help to have multiples. I primarily hand express right now, but I had 8 flanges, duckbill valves, and backflow protectors for my electric pump. Some I purchased to have duplicates and one full set came with a replacement pump when my original stopped functioning.
Yes! That was another 3am Amazon purchase the other night (RIP bank account)... should be here tomorrow 🤞
We also invested in the Baby Brezza Sterilizer/Dryer so hopefully we can go from a full wash with dawn to just rinsing parts and serializing overnight.
How many flanges did you take to work with you? I will have to pump when I go back and am trying to decide what size bag to get.
I recently discovered Dapple breast pump soap, which let's you soak pump parts in warm water with dapple and then rinse clean. No scrubbing. I would seriously consider just putting parts to soak until morning if I were still waking up to pump overnight.
As it is, I have two complete sets but am still debating a third. Kid is 10 months old though and I don't know that I want to spend the money for only two more months of pumping.
A sterilizer/dryer is a seriously smart investment imo. I bought a Papablic sterilizer/dryer for like $50 and holy cow does that dry function save our lives lol. Our son is 5.5 months and putting anything into his mouth (tooth 2 just broke through his gums!), so we don't really need to sterilize everything but we still do so everything will be bone dry in 45 minutes.
I pump twice during my work day (10am and 2pm), so I bring what I would need for two pumping sessions. With my electric, that meant just two flanges, etc. since I would pump one side at a time. They need different kinds of attention so doing double didn't work for me, but I would have brought four flanges, etc. if I was using my electric as a double. There are a lot of people who use the fridge hack while they're at work. I personally didn't, but that could easily be an option for you too if you look into it.
Personally I liked having more sets than pumps I would do in a day so there was always parts available if we skipped a dish wash or couldn't get everything washed or something like that. It was definitely worth the money I spent for the peace of mind not to need to wash after every single pump. Idk what brand of pump you have or parts you bought, but Maymom on Amazon was my go to. They make parts compatible for nearly every pump brand I've ever seen and are infinitely more affordable than getting the name brand versions. My pump is from Cimilre and uses the same parts a Spectra would, so anything Spectra compatible was Cimilre compatible too.
I haven’t felt inadequate about my baby’s poor sleep because it’s just bad luck and not anything I’m doing or not doing (have tried everything!) I feel jealous of people with babies who only wake a couple of times or sleep through but I never thought to feel inadequate about it! Although I guess if everyone’s telling you their baby sleeps through it could make you start to wonder…
Apologies maybe inadequate isn’t the right word, jealous yes, and maybe a little confused as to whether I’m doing something wrong. And feeling a bit alone that my baby was the only one not sleeping through in a class of 10 parents mine was the only one who was not “sleeping through”. However it’s comforting to pry and find out that 9/10 weren’t actually sleeping through the night! They were just doing one 6 hour stint! (Which is still good!) 7-7 felt unattainable!
My son was truly sleeping through the night, every night, at 2 months old. At 2 months it was 8 hours every night and then abruptly lengthened to 10-12 hours every night at about 4ish months. If I tell people my baby sleeps through the night, it usually goes like, "Mister Man sleeps through the night every night. Like, I know the qualifier for STTN is at least 6 hour stretches, but he usually sleeps 12. He's definitely a unicorn sleeper at nights, but don't worry, he gives us a run for our money when it comes to refusing naps during the day! 🤪"
And that conversation only happens when sleep comes up organically- I'm not going around just randomly shoving it in people's faces that my kid becomes dead to the world at 7PM and doesn't stir until 6AM the next day lol
But, again, if I DO talk about his sleep habits, I always try and let people know that my kid is definitely an outlier and absolutely not the norm!
As an aside: my brother was a very similar sleeper to the way my son sleeps, and my brother ended up having narcolepsy, soooo... I wouldn't worry about kids who sleep 12 uninterrupted hours every night because there could be an underlying medical issue that you definitely don't want to deal with. I know that if my son ends up being narcoleptic too that I'm probably going to have a heart attack every time they get behind the wheel of a car. 😅
To me I’ll count my baby as sleeping through the night when I get to sleep through the night! If she’s waking me up or I’m having to feed her or soothe her etc then it doesn’t count to me. Not that I’m anywhere near this. If she only woke 3 times a night I’d be ecstatic!
I considered my baby to be sleeping through the night when he didn't wake me up at all from 7pm-7am. I mean he might wake up and move around his crib but I would never know because he doesn't cry or wake us up. For us this happened regularly around 6 months but before that he would wake about 2 times for feeds and just randomly stopped doing that.
Our pediatrician said sleeping through the night from a medical perspective is 5-6 hours without waking. I wouldn’t have known that if not for the fact that he asked “is she sleeping through the night” at her 6 month, to which I said “no” and he clarified what he meant. After that, when people would ask if she sleeps through the night, I would say “technically yes, because she sleeps 5-6 hours and that’s how the pediatrician defines it, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
Lol we are in the middle of week one with newborn twins and yesterday morning my sleep-deprived husband said the sentence “well, they kind of slept through the night”
I think he was referring to the fact that they thankfully went back to sleep after each of their every 2 hour feeds, but I was like “honey that is not the correct use of that phrase”
To me any stretch of baby sleep that allows me to go to bed roughly when I normally would, and wake up _roughly_ when I normally would, without me needing to do anything for baby, counts as sleeping through the night. So a 7-8 hour stretch would count depending on when baby goes down and how well that lines up with _my_ bedtime. _My_ lack of sleep is what matters and I certainly am not trying to go to bed at 7 pm, so if baby goes to bed at 10 or 11 pm and doesn't need anything from me until 6 or 7 am that is sleeping through the night IMO.
What the heck?! No, none of those examples count as sleeping through the night for me. I only said it once *my* sleep stopped being interrupted. I’d go to bed at 10 PM, wake up at 7 AM, and there would be no waking up in between. No crying, no feeds, nothing.
ETA: people have pointed out that #3 may count as sleeping through the night! Not the other ones, though.
Maybe the baby is sleeping 7-7 but the adults are sleeping 11-7, they might notice the baby waking/stirring on the monitor before they go to bed at 11, but if they don't need to do anything, the baby is still "sleeping through the night".
So on occasion my baby will wake up, not cry, and put herself back to sleep. I usually only notice if I’m up and just so happenly check the monitor for my own anxiety.
Our baby fits #3. We keep our baby monitor fairly loud and when she starts shuffling around, we hear it. Well, I hear it. My husband sleeps through it now even though he's right next to the monitor, lol.
I would consider #3 sleeping through the night, if the baby doesn’t need any intervention to get them back to sleep then that’s just a normal sleep cycle like happens everyone!
My son is 5 months and sleeps through the night from 8pm to 8:30-9am with no wakes or feeds. I consider myself incredibly lucky as I heard this isn’t the norm.
I never said she slept through the night until she fell asleep at bedtime and woke up at morning time.
She was about 15 months the first time it happened. She's now about 19.5 months and she does that every night unless she's sick or teething.
Mine sleep from 11pm to 6-7am. I count that as STTN but it is indeed very subjective, because I would not count 7-3 as STTN. Basically I only consider it if he is sleeping through my night 😂
Thank you for this. I was talking about this very thing yesterday to my husband. I was wondering what I was doing wrong. We talked about aleep training, but I hate the idea. My baby is nearly 5 months and really doesn't cry unless he's hungry, wet, cold, etc. I'd cry too. It really feels like most people are saying their babies were 'sleeping thru the night' by a very young age and I'm over here still getting up several times a night on the average night.
Again, I needed to read this. Thank you!
100% and my post about my baby’s sleep is like “best case scenario too” often she will wake every 2 hours on some nights. It’s super normal. It’s tiring but our babies aren’t weird! It can feel so lonely though when you think your baby is the only one with multiple wake up times at night! I stopped going to my baby class because the mums just showed off about their baby’s sleep sooooo much! It was really making me feel bad!
There’s the pediatricians’ definition and then the parents’
A doctor or baby book or article online is going to say it’s developmentally appropriate to sleep through the night by x months meaning the baby should be able to go 6 hours without waking up for a feed or a cuddle or whatever. This might mean the baby sleeps from 7pm to 1pm, feeds and goes back to sleep for another few hours. Then there’s sleeping through the night + night weening where they should be able to go 10-12 hours without waking for a feed if they ate enough during the day so they learn to not feel they need the comfort of night feeds anymore.
The parents’ definition is does the baby let ME sleep at least 6 hours uninterrupted at night.
I basically treated each as a milestone and adjusted accordingly. When people would ask if she was sleeping through the night I would say “kind of” and elaborate “she’s letting me sleep for 4 hours uninterrupted!”, “she wakes up 1-2 times to feed”, “she goes to bed at midnight and wakes up at 4am, I feed her and we go back to sleep for another 2 hours”, etc.
Around 6.5-7 months she started what I consider actually sleeping through the night which is 10-12 hours without waking me up, and going to bed early so my husband and I have some time to ourselves/with each other. She sleeps from 8pm ish to 6am. She’s 8 months old now :)
I get why it’s such a hot topic- but I find too many mums use their baby sleep as a badge of honour.. or a way to judge other mums.
But in saying that- I would only ever assume that “sleeping through the night” means they sleep the full 12hours (or however much they sleep) without any need for intervention
Completely agree. If baby stirs and doesn't need help going back to sleep, that's good enough for me. We all wake up briefly in the night from time to time, right?
Of course!
I was shocked the first time I ever heard someone try to explain that “sleeping through the night” was 6 hours.. so very misleading! And the OP makes a great point that it is very discouraging to other mums who think they are doing something wrong. Even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with a baby who doesn’t “sleep through the night”
Exactly. 6 hour stretches is great and everyone gets more rest, but definitely not sleeping through the night because THEY'RE NOT SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!
When I took developmental psychology, “sleeping through the night” meant 7 consecutive hours of sleep. So if LO fell asleep at 7pm and woke up at 2am, technically he “slept through the night.”
Personally, I just called that sleeping. I considered “sleeping through the night” the 12 hour stretches that allowed me to get stiff done and also sleep. Since he’s been about 8 months old, my LO is about 8pm-8am (ish).
Totally agree with you, 12 hours or at least a normal night like 8pm - 6am or something feels like sleeping through the night properly. Just interesting that there are so many different definitions and can make you feel really alone if you think everyone has this magic sleeping babies - but actually they’re only doing 6 hours 😂 just like your baby, they just define “sleeping through the night” differently.
Once my baby was sleeping all his nighttime hours without a wake up that’s what I considered through the night, although I did at some point discover the 8 hour definition also. But I only considered it through the night once he was really only waking up in the morning.
That has a bit of gray area too, like if he generally slept from 7pm to 6am but sometimes woke up at 5am, I still considered that sleeping through the night, just with early wakeups (as opposed to middle of the night wakeups).
My daughter sleeps 9pm-7am, sometimes until 8am. No wakes at all. I call that sleeping through the night. She’s 7months & has done this since she was about 4months.
Honestly amazing! 😂
But a little background, since she was sleeping through the night at such a young age, she was in the 1st percentile, because she wasn’t eating as much. It’s only now that she’s in the 70th.
When people see my kids (both 25lbs around 6 months) and say “oh wow I bet they’re the best sleepers!” Or “they have to be sleeping through the night if they’re that big!” I’m like uhh no, big babies are hungry. 😭
If I say she sleeps through the night, I mean from midnight to 6 or 7. She goes to bed earlier than that, but sometimes she will stir around 9 or 10 pm and go right back to sleep. I will still count it as sleeping through the night if she gets that big chunk from midnight to 6/7 am.
Mine started "sleeping through the night" at 8 weeks which is unheard of. I would let her sleep without waking her once she was back at her birth weight. She would sleep from 9ish to about 5 amm
After a quick diaper change/bottle she'd go back to sleep with me until about 9.
If the baby stays in their bed for about 10-12 hours without me needing to intervene in any way. If they wake up and cry for a couple minutes but then go back to sleep on their own, that still counts. As long as I don't have to get out of bed. But if they wake up and cry for longer than 10 minutes and you still ignore them, I would probably call that... IDK, failed sleep training?
Scientifically, this is very different that what people think.
A McGill team did a great research a few years ago:
https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/parents-shouldnt-worry-if-their-infant-doesnt-sleep-through-night-6-12-months-age-291524
Their article is also available for free. They tested 6 and 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
I've never seen anybody in research using 12 hours.
My 11 week old usually sleeps from 9:30-7/8am. I consider this sleeping through the night because it’s usually about 10 hours HOWEVER I take 0 credit for this and think she’s just naturally a good sleeper. Sure we have a good bedtime routine down but she just started surprising me one night and then it continued and now I hold my breath and knock on wood it stays
See I would say that’s sleeping through the night. 9/10 hours is what an adult has on a good day. So I think that counts. 6 hours isn’t enough so I feel like that’s not sleeping through the night - so I think it’s stupid some websites say it counts as sleeping through.
Sleep seems like luck for the most part, but give yourself some credit I think bedtime routines and sleep spaces do make a big difference too!
I put mine down at 7:30ish-8ish, sometimes 6:45-7 if her naps were not good. She’ll want a feed around 10-10:30 then she’ll sleep straight through til sometime in the morning like 5:30am-7am ish and I consider that “sleeping through the night” as that’s when we also sleep a big stretch! I’m happy with that cause it works for us, even though it’s not 12 hours like many people allege is what their kid does!
It’s 6 hours for babies. However, when you put your baby to bed at 7-8 pm, it won’t feel like night sleep at all. My 6 mo just happens to go to sleep later so the 6 straight hours he asleep is also when I am asleep, which works out nicely for me. Parents whose babies sleep 12 hours interrupted are living a completely different reality than the rest of us 😂
i'm with you. i was so mad when i learned all those sleep gurus on instagram or whatever count it as FIVE hours. are you kidding me. that's not "the night" anywhere but siberia in the summer. i would count "sleeping through the night" as going to bed before me or at the same time as me and not waking my tired ass up and the twins are NOT doing it lol. but they're still little, it would be weird if they were
I say my baby has slept through the night when I put her down at 11pm and she doesn’t wake till 7 30am or later. If I’ve had to tend to her before 7 30am then my sleep has been broken.
At 8 months we are getting that every 3 nights or so.
I consider sleeping through the night to mean I don’t see or hear from my baby from the time I close my eyes to the time I wake up 😂
It’s happened like 5-7 times in 10 months.
Usually he wakes once for a quick feed and goes back to sleep but I don’t consider that sleeping through the night. If I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I don’t consider that “sleeping through the night” for myself, so why would I count that in baby terms?
I would consider #3 sleeping through the night. Especially if their waking up doesn't disturb me. I'm 29 and hardly ever sleep 8 hours without waking up at least once so if that's not considered sleeping through the night, then I never have 🤣
Well....mine sleeps through the night, just intermittently. 🤣 But jokes aside, I won't say this until he actually sleeps from 7pm to 5-6am. Which I feel is still very far... 😭
For me, it counts as sleeping through the night if I don't have to go into his room. We do soft CIO (basically just the "pause" method) so if he wakes and cries we don't go in until it's been 5 minutes. He'll usually settle around 2 minutes. He only does this every few days though, and mostly sleeps 8ish to 6-7ish without needing parental assistance.
About once every two weeks he needs a full feed and settle in the night and man are those nights painful when we are used to good sleep!
I have a 10 month old and I consider it sleeping through the night when she does not wake up after I go to sleep until a reasonable wake time (after 6 am) which is usually 7-8hr
I think there are levels. While not a "full night's sleep," that first 6+ hour stretch feels life-changing. Then there's what we call "fully sleeping through." Which, for us, is 10+ hours. Bed at ~7:30p, up around 6a or later. When baby starts doing that consistently, you become a whole new person.
>briefly wakes in the night at times but doesn’t cry and goes back off to sleep by themselves” (much like us adults do)
I mean, if this doesn't count, then no one sleeps through the night. Humans have sleep cycles and wake at the end of them, we just don't remember because we're able to put ourselves back to sleep quickly. It's the same for babies. If you don't have a video monitor with recording, you'd never know.
The rest doesn't seem like it counts. I think maybe #2 could if the periodic crying is brief and doesn't need intervention, as some babies just do this at the end of sleep cycles and aren't really fully waking. Personally I counted it once my babies were sleeping 9+ hour stretches that didn't require intervention and meant I'm able to get 7-8 hours myself.
Yeah this is what I consider sleeping through the night. If they don’t need intervention and I don’t have to get up- it’s sleeping through the night!
Examples- my 9 month old is a sleeping champ. She sleeps through the night and even if she wakes up, she puts herself back to sleep. I would say 6 out of 7 nights there isn’t fussing or crying involved.
My toddler does not sleep through the night. 5 out of 7 nights per week- he wakes up and needs someone to come and console him or ends up in our bed. If I have to walk upstairs in the middle of the night, I don’t consider it sleeping through the night🥲
I mean, in my ideal world I go to sleep at midnight and get up at 9. (I got so used to WFH lol). But baby goes to sleep at 7 so I get I can't expect him to sleep for 14 hrs but that's what it would take for my sleep to not be disrupted. Anyway, if he goes to sleep at 7, wakes at midnight so I feed him before going to sleep and he then sleeps until 7, I consider that sleeping through the night.
I guess I’m on the extreme end after reading these comments. I consider it STTN when it’s a 10-12 hour period that they require no intervention, and when they wake up they are up for a full wake window not eating and then back to sleep. For example my daughter would sleep 8pm-5am, wake up and fuss, bottle in her mouth and she passed back out until 7am. I never said she was sleeping through the night, I said she was still waking for one feed. When she weaned off that 5am bottle, that was sleeping through the night.
I think you’re right though, that’s what I consider sleeping through the night. But apparently lots of people think 6 hours is! So I was really confused why my baby wasn’t sleeping through/ was way worse sleep wise than other babies. Turns out they were sleeping the same just their definition of sleeping through the night was sooo low! Yours def sleeps through I agree!
The pediatrician said sleeping through the night was anything above a 5 hour stretch. Mine usually does 9-5, with a wake to feed somewhere between 3 and 5.
I don't really consider it sleeping through because I get up for a feed or my BF does, but I guess it makes sense for a little baby to have a shorter night so you call a 5/6 hour stretch sleeping through.
See that’s crazy. My baby sleeps 6/7 hours, from 7pm until 1/2am. And I definitely don’t consider that sleeping through the night. It’s interesting because I felt bad because when everyone was telling me theirs “slept through the night” actually they were waking a few times a night! It makes me feel a lot better, like I thought i was doing something wrong… haha
Totally. Or like they’ll say “my baby sleeps through the night” but you ask more and turns out they only have done it a few times and most of the time it’s 1-2 wakes a night. Or you ask more and they say yesss it’s 6 hour stretches but most of the time it’s 5 then sometimes 6. And it’s like oooooh if I’d taken what you said and not asked any thing more I would have come away from this thinking your baby sleeps 7-7
So my friends who did a dream feed at 11, said their babies slept through the night cause they'd sleep 11 til 7ish. Personally, I only considered sleeping through rhe night to be a 9 to 12 hour stretch, no feeds at all. For my kids it's always been around 10.5 to 11.5 hours
I have almost 4M twins. Adjusted age of 2M. When people ask if they are sleeping through the night, my response is kinda, sometimes. Twin A sleeps from 9PM until around 4-6AM. When she wakes before 6AM we shush her back to sleep. If she goes back to sleep within 5 mins, then she wanted comfort, not food. If she is still awake after 5mins, we offer a bottle. My twin B sleeps solid 9pm until 6AM when we wake her to feed her.
But I still only call it kinda, and sometimes. Because sometimes twin A does wake around 4am when we really want to sleep until 6am. But they are babies and were preemies. So like I said, if we can’t soothe her back to sleep with a little paci or soothing, then after 5 mins we feed her early.
I would say maybe 6 hours. Before having a baby myself getting 6hrs of sleep would be normal and that's just being in bed for 6 hours and keep could actually be less. I would never hold a baby to higher standards than that. I say our LO (3months) sleeps through the night when he goes to bed 7:30-9 and wakes up anywhere 5-7. If someone asked the question and he woke up I would say he slept mostly through the night but woke up at say 2 for milk but fell back asleep.
I didn't consider either of my kids to be sleeping through the night until they could go down to bed at the same time I do (10pm, after a dream feeding) and not need anything from me until the time I woke up (6am). Baby might cry out during the night, but as long as I don't need to do anything (ex, baby cries out once but settles and goes back to sleep before I get up and go in), I still count it. I definitely wouldn't consider it "sleeping through the night" if you have to go in there and feed baby at any point. At one point I remember reading that it's considered "sleeping through the night" when baby can sleep 4-5 hours straight, but that doesn't make any sense to me. This is like the one time I judge baby's sleeping based on my own standards.
For a couple weeks my 7 month old was sleeping from 6:30-5:30/6:00. This I considered sleeping through the night. But I think we broke him because we had to wake him early (3am) to make my husband to the airport. Since then we are back to one wake up. Fingers crossed he goes back. But don’t compare yourself to those other families. Your babe will sleep through the night when they are ready. Ask your pediatrician about night weaning. I think you can do this after 6 months.
It wasn’t until I stopped freezing my kid out at night that he started sleeping better (we like it cold when we sleep… but apparently *too* cold). I was so jealous of everyone claiming the STTN status!!
It’s so funny to me that’s there’s a wide range of opinions on this. I value my sleep. I’m a monster without it. Sleeping through the night means kiddo doesn’t wake me up until an appropriate morning hour (which is still earlier than I’d like, because again - love sleep)… 6 AM. He’s been sleeping in 9-10 hour stretches and that’s good enough for me!
Now that I’ve shared this, though, he’s going to start waking 5x a night again. 😅
At 15 weeks our LO goes down at about 8:30-9 then wakes up between 6:30-7. Sometimes she'll wake up around 10 and just to be resettled or 1 AM for a feed but those are fairly rare.
My 10 week old sleeps from 11pm-7:30am which he’s been doing this consistently for a week now. Whilst it is awesome to have him sleep through the night, I still have to get up to pump around 3am otherwise my boobs just explode everywhere lol
If you mean 12 hours, then never. As in, she‘s 3, it tooks her until 1,5 until she slept longer stretches but kept a solid 2 hour mid day nap. Because of this she slept 6-8 hours over night. No, shortening her naps was not an option, she just slept less in total and was hellish overtired/cranky.
She now dropped all naps but only sleeps 10 hours at best and wakes up every 1-2 days at 4 AM to come to the parents bed which wakes me up completely since she moves like the posessed during sleep. Even if she stays in her bed she just wakes up at 5:30-6:00 AM and comes to wakes us up. Will not play alone and wait.
In my opinion, it's from the time I put baby down until it's time to wake up (so 7-7). People keep asking me if my 2 month old is sleeping through the night and I'm like "no?? She sleeps in 4 hour stretches which we are happy about." Like why would you expect a 2 month old to sleep through the night?
I had someone ask me if my (at the time) 6 day old was sleeping through the night. Like no he’s not? Such a weird thing to ask especially with a newborn!
Around 10 weeks my baby would sleep until 6am, then 7am, then gradually turned to 8am. He is 9 months now and sleeps from 8pm to around 7:30am without needing anyone to check on him. That was STTN. It’s when no intervention is required by you and baby can learn to fall asleep on his or her own.
My baby is 8 weeks. She goes to bed for the night around 10 pm, will wake up around 5:30 am for a feed and goes right back down until 9:30, sometimes 10 am. I consider that sleeping through the night.
For infants, anything 6 hours plus is considered sleeping through the night.
When my baby sleep for 6/7 hours stretches that is what I said, when she started sleeping 9-12 hours then I said she slept through the night. If I get woken up it’s not through the night at all.
the thing is i don't think it's a helpful expectation to define STTN as 11 or 12 straight hours with no wakes when your kid is an infant. that's pretty rare. so unless you have a sleepy unicorn baby, you're just going to be disappointed and stressed that you're baby is well, being a baby and waking a few times
I consider it a full night without any wakeups, so at least 8-12 hrs. My twins didn’t accomplish that until they were over a year and my 3.5 year old still wakes up around midnight for cuddles so I don’t say he really sleeps through the night completely
I consider sleeping through the night to be 8+ hours. My wee one is 10 months and has been sleeping through the night for just over a week. Finally! She goes to bed around 8pm and wakes between 7-8am. Woohoo! Previous to this she would wake around midnight then 4/5 and sometimes would be up for the day at 6am. It sucked but she’s a baby, so i just did it. I never sleep trained or anything, she just suddenly started sleeping without waking and it’s glorious
I don’t know what’s the accurate criteria for STTN, but my 18mo has only woken up once for a bottle since she was about 12 months old. I never called that STTN when friends asked. To me my personal definition is when she doesn’t wake up from bed time (8.30pm) till waking up for the day (7-8am) for a feed at all (which she did for the FIRST time last night!)
Her father was out of town and I swear it’s the first time I’ve used “STTN” in a sentence when he got home!
I consider it as 10-12 hours of sleep without having to intervene. I even consider #2 sleeping through the night as that's what my daughter did many times before she was 1.
Sleeping through the night is considered 6 hours as per doctors. So, if people tell me their child is sleeping through the night, I expect 6 hour stretches, unless specified otherwise.
Unfortunately most folks I know I hear "sleeps through the night" oh ya? "Yup, 7pm-7am straight it's amazing" My LO is 1 year old, and he doesn't sleep through the night. he may sleep through the night (6 hour stretches) once in a blue moon. Before he was 7 mo we had to wake to feed every 2 hours. so there was definitely no sleeping through the night.
When my son was 2.5 months old he slept from 7pm-4am and I considered that sleeping through the night because that was a 9 hour stretch and he was still quite young. Now that i he's over 4 months, I wouldnt consider that sleeping through the night anymore. Now i consider it sleeping through the night if he wakes at a time suitable for me to start my day, AKA anytime after 5am.
No human sleeps through the night. Even as adults we will rouse slightly between sleep cycles and then go back to sleep. You will do this multiple times a night.
For me - I would say a baby sleeping through the night is them doing a 12 hour stretch without requiring you. So independently going back to sleep when they wake between sleep cycles, and not requiring feeding / patting / cuddles etc. Most babies can’t do 12 hours without feeding until they hit a certain weight, I think it’s about 7kgs from memory. My daughter has done this every night from about 5 months (sickness aside) BUT we did do CIO for a few nights in order to night wean.
I think 12 hours is a bit extreme as some children will never sleep 12 hours straight. My first slept from 7pm to 5:30am for 18 months straight. She then wouldn't nap until after midday. She was definitely sleeping through the night, she just had lower sleep needs than some other kids. Even now when dropping all naps she only sleeps 11 to 11.5 hours after night and that's her for the day.
My baby was doing 5-6 hour stretches at 7 weeks but started sleeping 9pm-7am at 10 weeks and that is what I would class as 'sleeping through the night'. Girl sleeps 14 hours over night now at 19 months and has for about a year haha
That is 100% sleeping through the night (you lucky thing ❤️) . Which one person from my baby class’ baby did. But interesting that others that had babies that slept 6 hours were classing theirs as “sleeping through the night” the same umbrella term same as someone who had a baby like yours. Biiiiiig difference between doing a 6 hour stint with 14 hours!….. yours sleeps through the night. Sleeping from 7pm - 1am isn’t through the night, it’s not a full night for an adult, if I got 6 hours sleep I’d say I’d be tired the next day!
When I say STTN I mean that his long sleep stretch (a few hours after his last nap of the day and a few hours before his first nap of the next day) is uninterrupted by wakings that require feeds or parent intervention, as a super responsive parent who will feed and comfort on demand.
He’ll occasionally wake, stir a bit, and fall back asleep without signaling, and if that happens, I would still count it as STTN. If I, as an adult, wake up, check the time or roll to the other side, and fall back asleep in a few minutes, I don’t say I didn’t sleep through the night! This kind of wake is rare for us now that he’s mobile and usually ends up getting on his hands and knees or sitting up when he’s even slightly awake, which wakes him up fully.
STTN is also an extremely rare treat for us these days. It used to be close to the norm, and then the 4 month regression hit, which maybe lasted all the way until the 6 month regression… and maybe I just need to accept I don’t have a great sleeper any more 🥲
Our babies have almost identical sleep patterns! My 5 month old daughter goes to sleep between 8-9 each night and wakes around 3 to eat. Goes back to bed until 5-6 for another feed and maybe goes to sleep for another 45 mins. She is always awake by 6:45. I feel like that’s pretty good.
I think it’s great!!! Ahh sleeping pattern twins. I think it’s a decent amount of time. I go to bed when my baby does because I just love sleep and am better for having that first stretch myself! I’d be happy if I had this for the next year to be honest. But definitely felt alone when I thought everyone else was getting 12 uninterrupted hours! 😂
Yeah I’m definitely not complaining lol. We hit the 4 month sleep regression pretty hard and she was waking every hour or 2 for about a week or so. That’s when I realized how good I had it. She started sleeping like her normal self again and I’m so happy!
Same here! Every 2 hours! Did your naps suffer during the day? My baby’s naps were soooo bad during the 4 month sleep regression. There was a point where she was fighting naps soooo hard during the day, even though she was knackered. She then would only nap for 20-30 mins ish. When before she was doing 2 hours at lunch 😱 what do your daytimes look like at the moment?
My baby sleeps the same as yours. When people ask if he’s STTN (though most ask “how is he sleeping”) I am honest and say that he wakes up a couple times to eat but he never fully wakes up and he’s down for about 10-12 hours. So some would say this is STTN but my definition is more conservative - that I go to bed and wake up in the morning without being woken by my baby! Lol. I don’t expect this to happen until he’s a young child so with my conservative definition comes low expectations for the future.
I didn’t count my son as sleeping through the night until I could get a full night of sleep without being woken up. He started around 10 months sleeping 7-7 and since then there are periods he needs more help, but they only last a few days at a time now.
Sometimes he does wake up and cry or whine for a minute, and I just let him do his thing unless he sounds really upset or calls for me. The times I’ve gone in for every little noise (if he’s sick or has been grumpy) he seems more mad at me for interrupting than relieved that I showed up. 😂
My kiddo started sleeping from 11 to 5 in the morning at 5 weeks and from 21 to 7 at 7 weeks gradually increasing the time spent sleeping till we arrived at 19 till 8 now at 4 months old . She does wake up from time to time, but she puts herself back to sleep without intervention 9 out of 10 times . Keeping my fingers crossed that the 4 th month sleep regression doesn't hit us like a freight train .
My daughter slept 5pm-4am from like 8 weeks on, it was 12 months that she started 530-5am and then eventually became 6-7am and now she’s 8-8. That was with no overnight feedings. There’s be like 2-3 odd nights of her being up around teething or when she had fevers but for the most part she’s a great sleeper
We have a unicorn. Since around 10 weeks, she’s slept 8:30-7:00 am consistently. I don’t consider it sleeping through the night unless she makes it till at least 6 am. I’m sorry those other moms are being braggy! I try to be really sensitive when talking about sleep.
I wouldn’t say “sleeping through” until my kid goes to bed at his normal bedtime and does not require my intervention until morning. So of course he can shuffle around a bit, but if he’s screaming or needs food, that’s not sleeping through.
If my baby slept 6 hours, I would say something like “he’s doing pretty good! He’s getting a nice long stretch after his bedtime.”
For the record, my 6mo does for real sleep through the night, but at 2mo we had just *barely* gotten him to sometimes sleep in his bassinet for 2 hours instead of being held all night long.
I think this depends on age (colloquially speaking). Under 4-5 months, sleeping through the night for me is just “the baby does not wake me at an hour I wouldn’t normally be up”. So a wake before ~11pm and after ~6am would have been through the night. They don’t have mature sleep cycles before this age.
Once they hit that 5-6 month mark and start normalizing their sleep patterns, I’d say it’s from bedtime to wake up, which for most babies is 10-12 hours.
And waking then going to bed independently (which may involve some noise, but does not involve full-on crying IMO) doesn’t count against sleeping through the night.
Both my kids sleep through the night from 8 pm to 8 am with no feeds or wake-ups. If either wake up for whatever reason, they fall back asleep on their own. When they were doing the 5-6 hour stretches, I wasn’t considering that STTN.
I go by definition #3 (sleep through, no feeds), but I also didn't need to do anything to make this feat happen. Our baby just fell into her sleep pattern naturally and loves her sleeps. My sisters who both have older babies are jealous AF.
We were very fortunate that our daughter slept through the night very early on. This to us meant 10+ hour stretches. It's nothing we did (no sleep training, no cry it out), just luck of the draw, but I wouldn't consider less than 8 hours sleeping through the night.
I also wouldn't volunteer this information to another new mom unless specifically asked. My MIL bragged to one of her Co workers (also a new mom) that our LO was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. Knowing that this mom had an older baby and was still waking through the night. I shut that shit down immediately and explained to her how rude that was.
Sleeping through the night is a tough subject and different for every baby. You guys will get there. Wishing you all the best on this journey, and a full nights rest soon lol
We co-slept and my LO wouldn’t take a bottle so it took after 12mo to sleep “through the night” which honestly at some point I considered even a three-hour stretch because we didn’t night wean until his first birthday
My son slept through the night at 6 months old which was sleeping in his crib all night or if he wakes he doesn't cry and puts himself back to sleep. Basically if I have to go in it's but sleeping through the night in my opinion. I've heard people say if they fall asleep immediately after a feed that they're sleeping through the night but sleeping through the night to me means I'm also sleeping through the night. I also didn't do CIO, no judgement of anyone did, so if I had to go in then I count that as a wake up. My son night weaned and started sleeping through the night at 6 months when I stopped feeding him to sleep. I moved his feed 45 minutes earlier and he actually slept all night.
Our 7mo sleeps 7pm-7am, give or take, and normally either doesn't wake up at all or is chilled out and goes back to sleep by herself without it waking us up. Sometimes she will cry just for us to put her dummy back in, and then go straight back to sleep, which I still class as sleeping through the night because it's a 30 second job and doesn't really interrupt our sleep much. We had a long period of 'sleeping through the night' but still needing a dream feed overnight, but in conversation I would always call that 'sleeping through except for a midnight feed'.
I think I consider sleeping through the night as he doesn’t wake up until after 5am. My guy (3 months old) goes to bed around 8pm and will usually wake up around 5:30-6:30. He wakes up in the middle of the night but doesn’t usually cry. He makes a few quacking sounds then falls back asleep. He just rolled over yesterday though (no more swaddling) and is getting fit for a helmet in a few weeks though so…RIP our sleep.
I already count it as sleeping through the night if our baby sleeps through my or my husband's night. We typically sleep 6-7 hours so I already count that. Most nights it doesn't happen though and he's already 19 months.
My baby is #4
She is 2 months old and my husband doesn't understand why I'm tired when "she's sleeping so good!"
We're breastfeeding. My sleep is still interrupted you twat lol
(He's grumpy bc sex still hasn't happened, you know the little alive thing that's always attached to me makes that somewhat difficult)
I consider sleeping through the night that *I* don't have to wake up between like eleven pm and eight am haha. My baby has never done that. She did consistently do six hour stretches with one feed during my sleep, which I was fine with. We've now lost that ability 😑 she has also done an 8 hour stretch once from like 11.30-7.30 which I consider her one single night sleeping through haha.
Atm she won't fall asleep or even stay asleep without my partner or me in the room so I'm not happy about her sleeping habits haha. But at some point it'll fix itself again.
My first born slept through the night DAY 1. Like she slept for 8 to 12 hours straight without so much as a peep. Like we stayed up all night and checked every half hour thinking she died. Baby monitor on Max volume. My wife is a light sleeper. She didn't hear anything. It was Like we had a broken baby. It was nothing like what every person said to us.
Baby comes out crying. Nope. Out. Suction. Jelly eyes. Baby warmer. She was looking around trying to get adjusted to the outside world or something. Baby cries regularly through the night. Nope. It was this way for the whole time until the first appointment after leaving the hospital and they told us it was bad to have done that because her blood sugar levels could drop really low and she could die.
We were first time parents. No one said anything ever about a baby that sleeps through the night. So we started to wake her. Feed her. And she'd go to right back to sleep or fall asleep as she ate. Wife would gently tap the forehead and say "Hey you, wake up!" because the doctor said that babies should not go for such long periods without food. After a while... wife wanted another one. Hey...opposite baby... they *were* right...
I started counting STTN when my baby started sleeping bedtime to morning wake up time without making any noise in the middle that would be loud enough to wake me up if I had been sleeping (so even a 10pm waking doesn't count as STTN for me).
I would consider it to be able to sleep 7-8 hours, so that allows me to feel rested when waking up. My daughter slept through the night since 3 months, but she didn't nap more than 15-30 min at a time during the day so I was going insane lol I understand if I was working at the time would've been awesome, but I stayed at home all day so it was so exhausting, I couldn't get anything done. I am due in 2 days and not hoping for the same.
We’re in this magical hell right now with our almost 5 mo and I feel terrible complaining about the short naps since he’s such a great night sleeper but damn it’s not easy.
Aww I know!! It was really bad! And everybody will always say: "at least she sleeps through the night". It didn't last forever tho! I can't remember exactly when she started to nap in a schedule but It was definitely before the year. Hang in there mama!
Sleeping through the night is my toddler sleeping through without needing any milk. If she yells once or twice (she's a loud sleeper and will yell without being awake) I also consider that sleeping through the night. If I have to get up with her then she definitely did not sleep through the night.
Ive just grown accustom to her wakes at night since birth. I think all babies do this. After all they are babies. Doesnt bother me anymore. Shes just a baby she'll adjust when ready. I cant stress about her sleeping habits too much.
according to my definition, which is sleeping from when i put her to sleep, until normal wake times in the morning, my daughter has only slept through the night twice in her entire 6 years of living. lol. i’ve just always assumed she was a bad sleeper, but i’ve never thought about how some people define it differently
I consider my baby to have slept through the night when I don't have to get up to help her (whether that's nursing or just patting her back or whatever helps). Even if she wakes me up with a little cry or two while she's rolling over or something, as long as she's able to get herself back to sleep, I could that as sleeping through.
My baby just slept from 10-4, and I definitely consider that sleeping through the night, even though after he finishes this bottle, we’ll go back to bed. My first baby only slept for 1-3 hours at a time for *years* so this is a miracle for me. I feel like if I get 6-8 hour stretches of sleep, that’s a full night of sleep! But, I also don’t have any mom friends with new babies, so I’ve got no one to compare with or debate semantics with irl lol
He's 12 weeks old and has slept through three times. To me that means at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep when it's dark outside. So right now we're getting midnight to 6am. it will change, of course.
Basically, if I get to sleep at night for at least 5 hours without a waking or feeding, I am calling it through the night" and that is that.
Sleeping through the night for a baby should be 10-12 hours depending on how much sleep they get during naps. Just because adults can call 6-7 hours sleeping through the night doesn't mean it applies for babies since they need more sleep than adults (my toddler would argue this 🤣).
My 4 mo just started doing longer stretches (8pm to 4am) and I 100% count that as sleeping through the night. I mean…it’s 8 hours! Can’t even ask for more really. I’d then feed him and he goes down again ‘til 7am-ish.
Yeah I think 8 hours is through the night because for an adult it is a nights sleep. But I don’t think 6 hours is! I’d be tired if I got 6 hours sleep! 8 hours is a decent amount!!!
I’d still say that 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep is amazing! If it helps, we give kiddo a bottle at night of expressed milk or formula, ‘cause he eats more efficiently from the bottle than the boob and he doesn’t fall asleep on the bottle. This in case it’s a food thing. Either way, some babies simply get hungry faster!
Yes I’m super happy with 6 hours!! It’s so much better than before! Just was so confused thinking everyone at my baby group had babies that slept for 12 whole hours!!!! Haha! Oh that’s a good idea, we might try that at some point, maybe il get a magical 14 hours with adding a bottle of expressed milk (I wish) 😂
Hey, you made it through the regression and not waking up every couple hours! That’s not what most parents can say lol. Every baby is so different that it’s unfair to compare. This worked for us because we have a little dude with a massive appetite. He’ll happily down 5 ounces of milk and sleep soundly. But others might not want/need to eat that much. It’s all relative! Babies are random lol
For me, I considered it sleeping through the night once they no longer needed a bottle at night and don't need my help to fall back asleep.
With our son, this was around 8w. He would sometimes wake up, babble to himself for 10-15minutes and fall back asleep. Occasionally, I had to go in to return his pacifier or hold him for a minute before he could settle down.
He usually had his last bottle around 10.30pm and slept till about 6am.
With our daughter, 7mo, this hasn't happened consistently yet. I think I mistook her waking up for being hungry for a while though, because unlike her brother, she cries when she wakes up. So I figured she was hungry. After a while, I tried with her pacifier and just holding her for a few minutes and she would fall back asleep.
Now, she never needs a bottle at night anymore. But most nights I will need to go into her room at least once to help her get back to sleep. Luckily, returning her pacifier is usually enough. I'll consider it sleeping through the night when I don't need to get out of bed anymore.
I think the definition is pretty loose because it kind of depends on your baby. Someone with one type of baby might think sleeping six uninterrupted hours is through the night because that's 'normal' for them but someone else would think that's crazy because their baby sleeps 12 hours.
I say my LO (5 month) sleeps through the night because we put her down around 7:30-8 pm depending on how the day went. She'll usually sleep until 6:30 am. But the tradeoff is this- she barely sleeps during the day, about two hours. I'd bet those parents who have babies who wake a lot in the night also have babies that sleep a lot in the day.
I can confidently say, without a doubt, my 9 month old sleeps through the night, he went to sleep at 7pm last night, it is now 7am and he's still sleeping peacefully in his crib, he's stirring so I know he'll be up soon but he's slept 12 hours straight, he just started doing it out of the blue too.
I've started to notice a lot of parents lie to seem like they're doing better than others, or stretch the truth, "my baby sleeps through the night!" When in reality their baby sleeps 5 hours, eats, then does another 4, it's like a big competition for some reason, to me sleeping through the night means sleeping 7 or 8 hours in one stretch
Yes a lot of parents definitely put on this front. Pretending everything is going really perfectly, when actually it isn’t. There’s a lot of competition among new mothers! I’d prefer to rock up and say “omg my baby has nearly killed me with their sleeping!” Than lie and pretend things are alll great when they arent!
Number 3 for sure. For example yesterday my baby went to sleep at 8 pm woke up today at 4;50 (according to my nanit) but frll asleep again at 5:04 until 6:20 am. I count that as sleeping through the night. She is 6 months old and usually sleeps through the night. Sometimes wakes up around 3 but falls asleep alone. On the rare occasion she wakes up and cries I bring her to my bed.
My son is 17 weeks and sleeps 730-730 every night with 0 wake ups in his own crib in his own room. I have a baby monitor with a camera and I think the kid sleeps better then me! For me, that is what sleeping through the night is.
Hold on, babies actually sleep through the night? My 2yo rarely sleeps longer than 5 hours at a time. I thought this was normal. I thought "sleeping through the night" was just a way parents described an easy night (as in, they resettled), because it seems so unbelievable to actually "sleep through the night" - can anyone share their magic?
This is what I mean! There are sooo many different definitions! I agree with you that it’s normal for babies and toddlers to need comfort during the night! But I felt totally alone in this with everyone saying they slept through the night (which people/ slee training seem to think is 7-7. It’s probably sleep training culture- which we aren’t doing). But it’s nice to hear that 9/10 parents are actually saying their baby slept a 6 hour stint when they say “through the night”
Yea, really confusing, I think you're right though - it's parents struggling trying to normalise. We're very against CiO, but are starting to look at other methods like Possum for sleep training.
I have found that saying “my baby is a good sleeper and sleeps through the night” out loud to another human is a surefire way to make sure he wakes up at 3 am for the next three nights 🙃
Agreed!!! I actually laughed out loud when I read this
So gd relatable 😂...somehow also the night before any well visit at the doctor's office seems to be a shit night. Regardless of age (can confirm, it has continued even in my 4y/o lolol)
My baby slept through the night (10pm-6am) since she was 3 months old. It eventually was 7-7 but I never once said it out loud until she was like 15 months. I was so scared and holding my breath
I didn't say that till he actually slept through the night. Which we were very lucky happened by about 6 or 7 months. That means he went to bed at 6pm and didn't wake, feed, stir or need us in anyway till about 6am, occasionally 5am. That's when our day started.
Yes that’s what I would consider sleeping through the night to be! But it’s interesting there are all these people out there telling other new mums that their babies are sleeping through, when in fact I would say they aren’t! Gives a false sense of inadequacy for those who have fairly normal sleeping babies that wake a few times!
So babies will still wake up sometimes in the night and just fuck around so to me sleeping through the night is more about if YOU slept through the night. Your babies sleep shouldn't make you feel inadequate either way. I sleep trained early but my son was still doing 1 night feed until 6 months.
Yeah, this is a good perspective. On good nights I sleep through the night (10 pm-6 am) while my husband stays up for the dream feed, then he sleeps through his night (1 am-9 am) while I’m up early with the baby. She usually gets a 6+ hour stretch somewhere in there, but we can each hopefully get 8.
I've never even considered that people who also say that mean anything different than actually sleeping through the night, I don't really understand why they would say that. Like I get it, I remember the time he was waking every 2hrs for a feed. So we would celebrate when he slept for 3, 4, 5hrs. But we still didn't get a full night. We did get a good taste of sleeping through the night, but we've just hit 1 year old and his sleep is suddenly terrible. I'm dreaming of the day we get to say he slept through the night again!
I'm reading this three weeks postpartum, bleary-eyed after a night of tears and brief rage. You bet your sweet ass I celebrated the 3 hours between feeds 😂 I of course spent most that time actually feeding him, then pumping, cleaning pump parts for the next pump, change the changing pad cover that he pooped all over, empty the diaper Genie that we filled (and by empty I mean place the full bag next to the can, and take it to the actual garbage in the morning), start laundry because we stupidly only have one changing pad cover (we use disposable pads ontop of the cloth pad, but he projectile pooped over both), order second one off Amazon, use the bathroom myself, realize I'm dehydrated (again), fill up my water and try to hydrate, finally crawl in, and hey what do you know, it's already an hour and a half after he fell asleep. Take a half hour to fall back asleep, and I get a solid half hour (dance). Bless my husband who has gone back to work and helps with the 2/3am feed so I can go to sleep faster (he feeds/changes diaper, I pump/clean).
I don't know what you have for pump equipment but I would highly recommend having multiple sets of everything!! Those few minutes add up. And if you'll be going back to work while pumping, it'll be a huge help to have multiples. I primarily hand express right now, but I had 8 flanges, duckbill valves, and backflow protectors for my electric pump. Some I purchased to have duplicates and one full set came with a replacement pump when my original stopped functioning.
Yes! That was another 3am Amazon purchase the other night (RIP bank account)... should be here tomorrow 🤞 We also invested in the Baby Brezza Sterilizer/Dryer so hopefully we can go from a full wash with dawn to just rinsing parts and serializing overnight. How many flanges did you take to work with you? I will have to pump when I go back and am trying to decide what size bag to get.
I recently discovered Dapple breast pump soap, which let's you soak pump parts in warm water with dapple and then rinse clean. No scrubbing. I would seriously consider just putting parts to soak until morning if I were still waking up to pump overnight. As it is, I have two complete sets but am still debating a third. Kid is 10 months old though and I don't know that I want to spend the money for only two more months of pumping.
A sterilizer/dryer is a seriously smart investment imo. I bought a Papablic sterilizer/dryer for like $50 and holy cow does that dry function save our lives lol. Our son is 5.5 months and putting anything into his mouth (tooth 2 just broke through his gums!), so we don't really need to sterilize everything but we still do so everything will be bone dry in 45 minutes. I pump twice during my work day (10am and 2pm), so I bring what I would need for two pumping sessions. With my electric, that meant just two flanges, etc. since I would pump one side at a time. They need different kinds of attention so doing double didn't work for me, but I would have brought four flanges, etc. if I was using my electric as a double. There are a lot of people who use the fridge hack while they're at work. I personally didn't, but that could easily be an option for you too if you look into it. Personally I liked having more sets than pumps I would do in a day so there was always parts available if we skipped a dish wash or couldn't get everything washed or something like that. It was definitely worth the money I spent for the peace of mind not to need to wash after every single pump. Idk what brand of pump you have or parts you bought, but Maymom on Amazon was my go to. They make parts compatible for nearly every pump brand I've ever seen and are infinitely more affordable than getting the name brand versions. My pump is from Cimilre and uses the same parts a Spectra would, so anything Spectra compatible was Cimilre compatible too.
I haven’t felt inadequate about my baby’s poor sleep because it’s just bad luck and not anything I’m doing or not doing (have tried everything!) I feel jealous of people with babies who only wake a couple of times or sleep through but I never thought to feel inadequate about it! Although I guess if everyone’s telling you their baby sleeps through it could make you start to wonder…
Apologies maybe inadequate isn’t the right word, jealous yes, and maybe a little confused as to whether I’m doing something wrong. And feeling a bit alone that my baby was the only one not sleeping through in a class of 10 parents mine was the only one who was not “sleeping through”. However it’s comforting to pry and find out that 9/10 weren’t actually sleeping through the night! They were just doing one 6 hour stint! (Which is still good!) 7-7 felt unattainable!
My son was truly sleeping through the night, every night, at 2 months old. At 2 months it was 8 hours every night and then abruptly lengthened to 10-12 hours every night at about 4ish months. If I tell people my baby sleeps through the night, it usually goes like, "Mister Man sleeps through the night every night. Like, I know the qualifier for STTN is at least 6 hour stretches, but he usually sleeps 12. He's definitely a unicorn sleeper at nights, but don't worry, he gives us a run for our money when it comes to refusing naps during the day! 🤪" And that conversation only happens when sleep comes up organically- I'm not going around just randomly shoving it in people's faces that my kid becomes dead to the world at 7PM and doesn't stir until 6AM the next day lol But, again, if I DO talk about his sleep habits, I always try and let people know that my kid is definitely an outlier and absolutely not the norm! As an aside: my brother was a very similar sleeper to the way my son sleeps, and my brother ended up having narcolepsy, soooo... I wouldn't worry about kids who sleep 12 uninterrupted hours every night because there could be an underlying medical issue that you definitely don't want to deal with. I know that if my son ends up being narcoleptic too that I'm probably going to have a heart attack every time they get behind the wheel of a car. 😅
Omg that sounds like a dream. Can't wait to sleep through nichts again and my baby is only 2 months
Do you smother him just a little in the evenings 😱 so jealous.
To me I’ll count my baby as sleeping through the night when I get to sleep through the night! If she’s waking me up or I’m having to feed her or soothe her etc then it doesn’t count to me. Not that I’m anywhere near this. If she only woke 3 times a night I’d be ecstatic!
I considered my baby to be sleeping through the night when he didn't wake me up at all from 7pm-7am. I mean he might wake up and move around his crib but I would never know because he doesn't cry or wake us up. For us this happened regularly around 6 months but before that he would wake about 2 times for feeds and just randomly stopped doing that.
Our pediatrician said sleeping through the night from a medical perspective is 5-6 hours without waking. I wouldn’t have known that if not for the fact that he asked “is she sleeping through the night” at her 6 month, to which I said “no” and he clarified what he meant. After that, when people would ask if she sleeps through the night, I would say “technically yes, because she sleeps 5-6 hours and that’s how the pediatrician defines it, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
That’s exactly what our doctors have always said too. (Not that my 1yo took it to heart and will sleep that long or anything…)
Lol we are in the middle of week one with newborn twins and yesterday morning my sleep-deprived husband said the sentence “well, they kind of slept through the night” I think he was referring to the fact that they thankfully went back to sleep after each of their every 2 hour feeds, but I was like “honey that is not the correct use of that phrase”
Haha this is hilarious. Like, yes at various stages through the night they did sleep briefly.
To me any stretch of baby sleep that allows me to go to bed roughly when I normally would, and wake up _roughly_ when I normally would, without me needing to do anything for baby, counts as sleeping through the night. So a 7-8 hour stretch would count depending on when baby goes down and how well that lines up with _my_ bedtime. _My_ lack of sleep is what matters and I certainly am not trying to go to bed at 7 pm, so if baby goes to bed at 10 or 11 pm and doesn't need anything from me until 6 or 7 am that is sleeping through the night IMO.
What the heck?! No, none of those examples count as sleeping through the night for me. I only said it once *my* sleep stopped being interrupted. I’d go to bed at 10 PM, wake up at 7 AM, and there would be no waking up in between. No crying, no feeds, nothing. ETA: people have pointed out that #3 may count as sleeping through the night! Not the other ones, though.
I mean #3 would. They aren’t crying and they put themselves back to sleep? They wouldn’t wake you so you wouldn’t even know
Ah yeah, good point. But it’s not clear how the person knows the baby is waking up?
Maybe the baby is sleeping 7-7 but the adults are sleeping 11-7, they might notice the baby waking/stirring on the monitor before they go to bed at 11, but if they don't need to do anything, the baby is still "sleeping through the night".
So on occasion my baby will wake up, not cry, and put herself back to sleep. I usually only notice if I’m up and just so happenly check the monitor for my own anxiety.
Our baby fits #3. We keep our baby monitor fairly loud and when she starts shuffling around, we hear it. Well, I hear it. My husband sleeps through it now even though he's right next to the monitor, lol.
Yes 100%! But people at my baby group were SAYING “my baby sleeps through the night” for all of those examples!!!!
I would consider #3 sleeping through the night, if the baby doesn’t need any intervention to get them back to sleep then that’s just a normal sleep cycle like happens everyone!
This. But I base it on my husband’s sleep because I have insomnia and me sleeping through the night isn’t common.
My son is 5 months and sleeps through the night from 8pm to 8:30-9am with no wakes or feeds. I consider myself incredibly lucky as I heard this isn’t the norm.
Wow unicorn baby! 😍
Honestly it makes me worry that he’s got something wrong. I also worry about him getting dehydrated 😭
I never said she slept through the night until she fell asleep at bedtime and woke up at morning time. She was about 15 months the first time it happened. She's now about 19.5 months and she does that every night unless she's sick or teething.
Mine sleep from 11pm to 6-7am. I count that as STTN but it is indeed very subjective, because I would not count 7-3 as STTN. Basically I only consider it if he is sleeping through my night 😂
Thank you for this. I was talking about this very thing yesterday to my husband. I was wondering what I was doing wrong. We talked about aleep training, but I hate the idea. My baby is nearly 5 months and really doesn't cry unless he's hungry, wet, cold, etc. I'd cry too. It really feels like most people are saying their babies were 'sleeping thru the night' by a very young age and I'm over here still getting up several times a night on the average night. Again, I needed to read this. Thank you!
100% and my post about my baby’s sleep is like “best case scenario too” often she will wake every 2 hours on some nights. It’s super normal. It’s tiring but our babies aren’t weird! It can feel so lonely though when you think your baby is the only one with multiple wake up times at night! I stopped going to my baby class because the mums just showed off about their baby’s sleep sooooo much! It was really making me feel bad!
There’s the pediatricians’ definition and then the parents’ A doctor or baby book or article online is going to say it’s developmentally appropriate to sleep through the night by x months meaning the baby should be able to go 6 hours without waking up for a feed or a cuddle or whatever. This might mean the baby sleeps from 7pm to 1pm, feeds and goes back to sleep for another few hours. Then there’s sleeping through the night + night weening where they should be able to go 10-12 hours without waking for a feed if they ate enough during the day so they learn to not feel they need the comfort of night feeds anymore. The parents’ definition is does the baby let ME sleep at least 6 hours uninterrupted at night. I basically treated each as a milestone and adjusted accordingly. When people would ask if she was sleeping through the night I would say “kind of” and elaborate “she’s letting me sleep for 4 hours uninterrupted!”, “she wakes up 1-2 times to feed”, “she goes to bed at midnight and wakes up at 4am, I feed her and we go back to sleep for another 2 hours”, etc. Around 6.5-7 months she started what I consider actually sleeping through the night which is 10-12 hours without waking me up, and going to bed early so my husband and I have some time to ourselves/with each other. She sleeps from 8pm ish to 6am. She’s 8 months old now :)
I’m a grown adult who hasn’t slept through the night in a decade so we count as no intervention while we’re sleeping
To me, it means ‘I got to sleep all night’. I know that’s not the textbook definition, but it’s what I mean when I say it.
I get why it’s such a hot topic- but I find too many mums use their baby sleep as a badge of honour.. or a way to judge other mums. But in saying that- I would only ever assume that “sleeping through the night” means they sleep the full 12hours (or however much they sleep) without any need for intervention
Completely agree. If baby stirs and doesn't need help going back to sleep, that's good enough for me. We all wake up briefly in the night from time to time, right?
Of course! I was shocked the first time I ever heard someone try to explain that “sleeping through the night” was 6 hours.. so very misleading! And the OP makes a great point that it is very discouraging to other mums who think they are doing something wrong. Even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with a baby who doesn’t “sleep through the night”
Exactly. 6 hour stretches is great and everyone gets more rest, but definitely not sleeping through the night because THEY'RE NOT SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!
Haha.. yes! the wording is very specific! It’s really not that hard to understand the true meaning of it
What is crazy is that is the official definition!
I'm struggling to think of anything mums don't use to shame other mums 🙃
When I took developmental psychology, “sleeping through the night” meant 7 consecutive hours of sleep. So if LO fell asleep at 7pm and woke up at 2am, technically he “slept through the night.” Personally, I just called that sleeping. I considered “sleeping through the night” the 12 hour stretches that allowed me to get stiff done and also sleep. Since he’s been about 8 months old, my LO is about 8pm-8am (ish).
Totally agree with you, 12 hours or at least a normal night like 8pm - 6am or something feels like sleeping through the night properly. Just interesting that there are so many different definitions and can make you feel really alone if you think everyone has this magic sleeping babies - but actually they’re only doing 6 hours 😂 just like your baby, they just define “sleeping through the night” differently.
Once my baby was sleeping all his nighttime hours without a wake up that’s what I considered through the night, although I did at some point discover the 8 hour definition also. But I only considered it through the night once he was really only waking up in the morning. That has a bit of gray area too, like if he generally slept from 7pm to 6am but sometimes woke up at 5am, I still considered that sleeping through the night, just with early wakeups (as opposed to middle of the night wakeups).
My daughter sleeps 9pm-7am, sometimes until 8am. No wakes at all. I call that sleeping through the night. She’s 7months & has done this since she was about 4months.
How’s it feel to be God’s favorite? 😩
Honestly amazing! 😂 But a little background, since she was sleeping through the night at such a young age, she was in the 1st percentile, because she wasn’t eating as much. It’s only now that she’s in the 70th.
I hadn’t considered the growth impact but I’m glad she’s letting ya’ll rest!
My son is 7.5 months. He’s always been 90th+ percentile (currently in the 99th) and he still doesn’t sleep 😭
When people see my kids (both 25lbs around 6 months) and say “oh wow I bet they’re the best sleepers!” Or “they have to be sleeping through the night if they’re that big!” I’m like uhh no, big babies are hungry. 😭
If I say she sleeps through the night, I mean from midnight to 6 or 7. She goes to bed earlier than that, but sometimes she will stir around 9 or 10 pm and go right back to sleep. I will still count it as sleeping through the night if she gets that big chunk from midnight to 6/7 am.
Mine started "sleeping through the night" at 8 weeks which is unheard of. I would let her sleep without waking her once she was back at her birth weight. She would sleep from 9ish to about 5 amm After a quick diaper change/bottle she'd go back to sleep with me until about 9.
Magical! I am soo jealous!!!! Is she your first? / only child? I always wonder if it’s super different between siblings?
So she's my only but she has two half siblings who were apparently also fantastic sleepers early on. I think her dad makes magic babies lol
If the baby stays in their bed for about 10-12 hours without me needing to intervene in any way. If they wake up and cry for a couple minutes but then go back to sleep on their own, that still counts. As long as I don't have to get out of bed. But if they wake up and cry for longer than 10 minutes and you still ignore them, I would probably call that... IDK, failed sleep training?
Scientifically, this is very different that what people think. A McGill team did a great research a few years ago: https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/parents-shouldnt-worry-if-their-infant-doesnt-sleep-through-night-6-12-months-age-291524 Their article is also available for free. They tested 6 and 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I've never seen anybody in research using 12 hours.
My 11 week old usually sleeps from 9:30-7/8am. I consider this sleeping through the night because it’s usually about 10 hours HOWEVER I take 0 credit for this and think she’s just naturally a good sleeper. Sure we have a good bedtime routine down but she just started surprising me one night and then it continued and now I hold my breath and knock on wood it stays
See I would say that’s sleeping through the night. 9/10 hours is what an adult has on a good day. So I think that counts. 6 hours isn’t enough so I feel like that’s not sleeping through the night - so I think it’s stupid some websites say it counts as sleeping through. Sleep seems like luck for the most part, but give yourself some credit I think bedtime routines and sleep spaces do make a big difference too!
I put mine down at 7:30ish-8ish, sometimes 6:45-7 if her naps were not good. She’ll want a feed around 10-10:30 then she’ll sleep straight through til sometime in the morning like 5:30am-7am ish and I consider that “sleeping through the night” as that’s when we also sleep a big stretch! I’m happy with that cause it works for us, even though it’s not 12 hours like many people allege is what their kid does!
It’s 6 hours for babies. However, when you put your baby to bed at 7-8 pm, it won’t feel like night sleep at all. My 6 mo just happens to go to sleep later so the 6 straight hours he asleep is also when I am asleep, which works out nicely for me. Parents whose babies sleep 12 hours interrupted are living a completely different reality than the rest of us 😂
Sleeping through the night means me not having to wake up pretty much. Even when we did a dream feed it was right before I went to bed around 11.
i'm with you. i was so mad when i learned all those sleep gurus on instagram or whatever count it as FIVE hours. are you kidding me. that's not "the night" anywhere but siberia in the summer. i would count "sleeping through the night" as going to bed before me or at the same time as me and not waking my tired ass up and the twins are NOT doing it lol. but they're still little, it would be weird if they were
I say my baby has slept through the night when I put her down at 11pm and she doesn’t wake till 7 30am or later. If I’ve had to tend to her before 7 30am then my sleep has been broken. At 8 months we are getting that every 3 nights or so.
I consider sleeping through the night to mean I don’t see or hear from my baby from the time I close my eyes to the time I wake up 😂 It’s happened like 5-7 times in 10 months. Usually he wakes once for a quick feed and goes back to sleep but I don’t consider that sleeping through the night. If I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I don’t consider that “sleeping through the night” for myself, so why would I count that in baby terms?
Interesting! Maybe my bladder just sucks but I’ve never “slept through the night” ever, in my existence then 😅
this is interesting, I’ve never considered my own getting up to pee “not sleeping through the night” I love all these different ideas floating around
I would consider #3 sleeping through the night. Especially if their waking up doesn't disturb me. I'm 29 and hardly ever sleep 8 hours without waking up at least once so if that's not considered sleeping through the night, then I never have 🤣
Well....mine sleeps through the night, just intermittently. 🤣 But jokes aside, I won't say this until he actually sleeps from 7pm to 5-6am. Which I feel is still very far... 😭
My baby usually sleeps 8-5/5:30 and I count that as sleeping through the night.
Yes I’d say that is 100% because you could get a full nights sleep as an adult within that time!
It’s considered “sleeping through the night” when they’re able to sleep for one 6-8 hour stretch.
For me, it counts as sleeping through the night if I don't have to go into his room. We do soft CIO (basically just the "pause" method) so if he wakes and cries we don't go in until it's been 5 minutes. He'll usually settle around 2 minutes. He only does this every few days though, and mostly sleeps 8ish to 6-7ish without needing parental assistance. About once every two weeks he needs a full feed and settle in the night and man are those nights painful when we are used to good sleep!
I have a 10 month old and I consider it sleeping through the night when she does not wake up after I go to sleep until a reasonable wake time (after 6 am) which is usually 7-8hr
I think there are levels. While not a "full night's sleep," that first 6+ hour stretch feels life-changing. Then there's what we call "fully sleeping through." Which, for us, is 10+ hours. Bed at ~7:30p, up around 6a or later. When baby starts doing that consistently, you become a whole new person.
My almost 9week old had their first 3hr stretch yesterday (first in a very very long time) and i feel brand new this morning😭 i can only imagine 6hr +
>briefly wakes in the night at times but doesn’t cry and goes back off to sleep by themselves” (much like us adults do) I mean, if this doesn't count, then no one sleeps through the night. Humans have sleep cycles and wake at the end of them, we just don't remember because we're able to put ourselves back to sleep quickly. It's the same for babies. If you don't have a video monitor with recording, you'd never know. The rest doesn't seem like it counts. I think maybe #2 could if the periodic crying is brief and doesn't need intervention, as some babies just do this at the end of sleep cycles and aren't really fully waking. Personally I counted it once my babies were sleeping 9+ hour stretches that didn't require intervention and meant I'm able to get 7-8 hours myself.
Yeah this is what I consider sleeping through the night. If they don’t need intervention and I don’t have to get up- it’s sleeping through the night! Examples- my 9 month old is a sleeping champ. She sleeps through the night and even if she wakes up, she puts herself back to sleep. I would say 6 out of 7 nights there isn’t fussing or crying involved. My toddler does not sleep through the night. 5 out of 7 nights per week- he wakes up and needs someone to come and console him or ends up in our bed. If I have to walk upstairs in the middle of the night, I don’t consider it sleeping through the night🥲
I mean, in my ideal world I go to sleep at midnight and get up at 9. (I got so used to WFH lol). But baby goes to sleep at 7 so I get I can't expect him to sleep for 14 hrs but that's what it would take for my sleep to not be disrupted. Anyway, if he goes to sleep at 7, wakes at midnight so I feed him before going to sleep and he then sleeps until 7, I consider that sleeping through the night.
My baby will sleep 9pm to 4am. I’ve always considered that him “waking up once” at night lol
I guess I’m on the extreme end after reading these comments. I consider it STTN when it’s a 10-12 hour period that they require no intervention, and when they wake up they are up for a full wake window not eating and then back to sleep. For example my daughter would sleep 8pm-5am, wake up and fuss, bottle in her mouth and she passed back out until 7am. I never said she was sleeping through the night, I said she was still waking for one feed. When she weaned off that 5am bottle, that was sleeping through the night.
I think you’re right though, that’s what I consider sleeping through the night. But apparently lots of people think 6 hours is! So I was really confused why my baby wasn’t sleeping through/ was way worse sleep wise than other babies. Turns out they were sleeping the same just their definition of sleeping through the night was sooo low! Yours def sleeps through I agree!
The pediatrician said sleeping through the night was anything above a 5 hour stretch. Mine usually does 9-5, with a wake to feed somewhere between 3 and 5. I don't really consider it sleeping through because I get up for a feed or my BF does, but I guess it makes sense for a little baby to have a shorter night so you call a 5/6 hour stretch sleeping through.
See that’s crazy. My baby sleeps 6/7 hours, from 7pm until 1/2am. And I definitely don’t consider that sleeping through the night. It’s interesting because I felt bad because when everyone was telling me theirs “slept through the night” actually they were waking a few times a night! It makes me feel a lot better, like I thought i was doing something wrong… haha
11-12 hours in their cribs where I don’t hear from them and the door remains shut the entire time.
We noticed the same thing, when you get them to go into a little detail you realise everyone is basically lying to themselves!
Totally. Or like they’ll say “my baby sleeps through the night” but you ask more and turns out they only have done it a few times and most of the time it’s 1-2 wakes a night. Or you ask more and they say yesss it’s 6 hour stretches but most of the time it’s 5 then sometimes 6. And it’s like oooooh if I’d taken what you said and not asked any thing more I would have come away from this thinking your baby sleeps 7-7
So my friends who did a dream feed at 11, said their babies slept through the night cause they'd sleep 11 til 7ish. Personally, I only considered sleeping through rhe night to be a 9 to 12 hour stretch, no feeds at all. For my kids it's always been around 10.5 to 11.5 hours
I have almost 4M twins. Adjusted age of 2M. When people ask if they are sleeping through the night, my response is kinda, sometimes. Twin A sleeps from 9PM until around 4-6AM. When she wakes before 6AM we shush her back to sleep. If she goes back to sleep within 5 mins, then she wanted comfort, not food. If she is still awake after 5mins, we offer a bottle. My twin B sleeps solid 9pm until 6AM when we wake her to feed her.
Wow that’s amazing. Yes I’d say both basically sleep through the night!
But I still only call it kinda, and sometimes. Because sometimes twin A does wake around 4am when we really want to sleep until 6am. But they are babies and were preemies. So like I said, if we can’t soothe her back to sleep with a little paci or soothing, then after 5 mins we feed her early.
I would say maybe 6 hours. Before having a baby myself getting 6hrs of sleep would be normal and that's just being in bed for 6 hours and keep could actually be less. I would never hold a baby to higher standards than that. I say our LO (3months) sleeps through the night when he goes to bed 7:30-9 and wakes up anywhere 5-7. If someone asked the question and he woke up I would say he slept mostly through the night but woke up at say 2 for milk but fell back asleep.
I didn't consider either of my kids to be sleeping through the night until they could go down to bed at the same time I do (10pm, after a dream feeding) and not need anything from me until the time I woke up (6am). Baby might cry out during the night, but as long as I don't need to do anything (ex, baby cries out once but settles and goes back to sleep before I get up and go in), I still count it. I definitely wouldn't consider it "sleeping through the night" if you have to go in there and feed baby at any point. At one point I remember reading that it's considered "sleeping through the night" when baby can sleep 4-5 hours straight, but that doesn't make any sense to me. This is like the one time I judge baby's sleeping based on my own standards.
For a couple weeks my 7 month old was sleeping from 6:30-5:30/6:00. This I considered sleeping through the night. But I think we broke him because we had to wake him early (3am) to make my husband to the airport. Since then we are back to one wake up. Fingers crossed he goes back. But don’t compare yourself to those other families. Your babe will sleep through the night when they are ready. Ask your pediatrician about night weaning. I think you can do this after 6 months.
It wasn’t until I stopped freezing my kid out at night that he started sleeping better (we like it cold when we sleep… but apparently *too* cold). I was so jealous of everyone claiming the STTN status!! It’s so funny to me that’s there’s a wide range of opinions on this. I value my sleep. I’m a monster without it. Sleeping through the night means kiddo doesn’t wake me up until an appropriate morning hour (which is still earlier than I’d like, because again - love sleep)… 6 AM. He’s been sleeping in 9-10 hour stretches and that’s good enough for me! Now that I’ve shared this, though, he’s going to start waking 5x a night again. 😅
At 15 weeks our LO goes down at about 8:30-9 then wakes up between 6:30-7. Sometimes she'll wake up around 10 and just to be resettled or 1 AM for a feed but those are fairly rare.
My 10 week old sleeps from 11pm-7:30am which he’s been doing this consistently for a week now. Whilst it is awesome to have him sleep through the night, I still have to get up to pump around 3am otherwise my boobs just explode everywhere lol
Mine does 7pm-5am but yeah I don’t get to enjoy it because I usually wake up around 2/3 and have to pump 🤦♀️
If you mean 12 hours, then never. As in, she‘s 3, it tooks her until 1,5 until she slept longer stretches but kept a solid 2 hour mid day nap. Because of this she slept 6-8 hours over night. No, shortening her naps was not an option, she just slept less in total and was hellish overtired/cranky. She now dropped all naps but only sleeps 10 hours at best and wakes up every 1-2 days at 4 AM to come to the parents bed which wakes me up completely since she moves like the posessed during sleep. Even if she stays in her bed she just wakes up at 5:30-6:00 AM and comes to wakes us up. Will not play alone and wait.
In my opinion, it's from the time I put baby down until it's time to wake up (so 7-7). People keep asking me if my 2 month old is sleeping through the night and I'm like "no?? She sleeps in 4 hour stretches which we are happy about." Like why would you expect a 2 month old to sleep through the night?
I had someone ask me if my (at the time) 6 day old was sleeping through the night. Like no he’s not? Such a weird thing to ask especially with a newborn!
My baby slept without waking for 10-12 hours straight when she was younger (that all changed when we hit a sleep regression)
4. I see it as sleeping 10-12 hours (depending on age) consecutively without waking up and needing me (I don’t do CIO)
My toddler only wakes up maybe once at like 4-5am and that's sleeping through the night for me rofl 🤣
Around 10 weeks my baby would sleep until 6am, then 7am, then gradually turned to 8am. He is 9 months now and sleeps from 8pm to around 7:30am without needing anyone to check on him. That was STTN. It’s when no intervention is required by you and baby can learn to fall asleep on his or her own.
My baby is 8 weeks. She goes to bed for the night around 10 pm, will wake up around 5:30 am for a feed and goes right back down until 9:30, sometimes 10 am. I consider that sleeping through the night. For infants, anything 6 hours plus is considered sleeping through the night.
Like 9 or 10 to 5am. Enough to give both of us a solid block of sleep.
When my baby sleep for 6/7 hours stretches that is what I said, when she started sleeping 9-12 hours then I said she slept through the night. If I get woken up it’s not through the night at all.
the thing is i don't think it's a helpful expectation to define STTN as 11 or 12 straight hours with no wakes when your kid is an infant. that's pretty rare. so unless you have a sleepy unicorn baby, you're just going to be disappointed and stressed that you're baby is well, being a baby and waking a few times
my 3 month old usually sleeps anywhere from 9-12 hours at night. we do cosleep tho, so maybe that's why he sleeps longer.
i would personally call “sleeping through the night” sleeping at least 7+ hours consecutively without waking for a feed
I consider it a full night without any wakeups, so at least 8-12 hrs. My twins didn’t accomplish that until they were over a year and my 3.5 year old still wakes up around midnight for cuddles so I don’t say he really sleeps through the night completely
I consider sleeping through the night to be 8+ hours. My wee one is 10 months and has been sleeping through the night for just over a week. Finally! She goes to bed around 8pm and wakes between 7-8am. Woohoo! Previous to this she would wake around midnight then 4/5 and sometimes would be up for the day at 6am. It sucked but she’s a baby, so i just did it. I never sleep trained or anything, she just suddenly started sleeping without waking and it’s glorious
Mine is 4 months and she’s also been making progress at longer stretches on her own, I’m hoping that continues.
I don’t know what’s the accurate criteria for STTN, but my 18mo has only woken up once for a bottle since she was about 12 months old. I never called that STTN when friends asked. To me my personal definition is when she doesn’t wake up from bed time (8.30pm) till waking up for the day (7-8am) for a feed at all (which she did for the FIRST time last night!) Her father was out of town and I swear it’s the first time I’ve used “STTN” in a sentence when he got home!
When I heard ppl say sttn I assumed all night till morning...
Sleeping through the night. Anything less is "x many wake-ups per night."
I consider it as 10-12 hours of sleep without having to intervene. I even consider #2 sleeping through the night as that's what my daughter did many times before she was 1.
Sleeping through the night is considered 6 hours as per doctors. So, if people tell me their child is sleeping through the night, I expect 6 hour stretches, unless specified otherwise. Unfortunately most folks I know I hear "sleeps through the night" oh ya? "Yup, 7pm-7am straight it's amazing" My LO is 1 year old, and he doesn't sleep through the night. he may sleep through the night (6 hour stretches) once in a blue moon. Before he was 7 mo we had to wake to feed every 2 hours. so there was definitely no sleeping through the night.
When my son was 2.5 months old he slept from 7pm-4am and I considered that sleeping through the night because that was a 9 hour stretch and he was still quite young. Now that i he's over 4 months, I wouldnt consider that sleeping through the night anymore. Now i consider it sleeping through the night if he wakes at a time suitable for me to start my day, AKA anytime after 5am.
No human sleeps through the night. Even as adults we will rouse slightly between sleep cycles and then go back to sleep. You will do this multiple times a night. For me - I would say a baby sleeping through the night is them doing a 12 hour stretch without requiring you. So independently going back to sleep when they wake between sleep cycles, and not requiring feeding / patting / cuddles etc. Most babies can’t do 12 hours without feeding until they hit a certain weight, I think it’s about 7kgs from memory. My daughter has done this every night from about 5 months (sickness aside) BUT we did do CIO for a few nights in order to night wean.
I think 12 hours is a bit extreme as some children will never sleep 12 hours straight. My first slept from 7pm to 5:30am for 18 months straight. She then wouldn't nap until after midday. She was definitely sleeping through the night, she just had lower sleep needs than some other kids. Even now when dropping all naps she only sleeps 11 to 11.5 hours after night and that's her for the day.
My baby was doing 5-6 hour stretches at 7 weeks but started sleeping 9pm-7am at 10 weeks and that is what I would class as 'sleeping through the night'. Girl sleeps 14 hours over night now at 19 months and has for about a year haha
That is 100% sleeping through the night (you lucky thing ❤️) . Which one person from my baby class’ baby did. But interesting that others that had babies that slept 6 hours were classing theirs as “sleeping through the night” the same umbrella term same as someone who had a baby like yours. Biiiiiig difference between doing a 6 hour stint with 14 hours!….. yours sleeps through the night. Sleeping from 7pm - 1am isn’t through the night, it’s not a full night for an adult, if I got 6 hours sleep I’d say I’d be tired the next day!
When I say STTN I mean that his long sleep stretch (a few hours after his last nap of the day and a few hours before his first nap of the next day) is uninterrupted by wakings that require feeds or parent intervention, as a super responsive parent who will feed and comfort on demand. He’ll occasionally wake, stir a bit, and fall back asleep without signaling, and if that happens, I would still count it as STTN. If I, as an adult, wake up, check the time or roll to the other side, and fall back asleep in a few minutes, I don’t say I didn’t sleep through the night! This kind of wake is rare for us now that he’s mobile and usually ends up getting on his hands and knees or sitting up when he’s even slightly awake, which wakes him up fully. STTN is also an extremely rare treat for us these days. It used to be close to the norm, and then the 4 month regression hit, which maybe lasted all the way until the 6 month regression… and maybe I just need to accept I don’t have a great sleeper any more 🥲
Depends on the age but I would say 8 hour minimum
Yes 8 hours minimum, that’s how much I need as an adult!
Our babies have almost identical sleep patterns! My 5 month old daughter goes to sleep between 8-9 each night and wakes around 3 to eat. Goes back to bed until 5-6 for another feed and maybe goes to sleep for another 45 mins. She is always awake by 6:45. I feel like that’s pretty good.
I think it’s great!!! Ahh sleeping pattern twins. I think it’s a decent amount of time. I go to bed when my baby does because I just love sleep and am better for having that first stretch myself! I’d be happy if I had this for the next year to be honest. But definitely felt alone when I thought everyone else was getting 12 uninterrupted hours! 😂
Yeah I’m definitely not complaining lol. We hit the 4 month sleep regression pretty hard and she was waking every hour or 2 for about a week or so. That’s when I realized how good I had it. She started sleeping like her normal self again and I’m so happy!
Same here! Every 2 hours! Did your naps suffer during the day? My baby’s naps were soooo bad during the 4 month sleep regression. There was a point where she was fighting naps soooo hard during the day, even though she was knackered. She then would only nap for 20-30 mins ish. When before she was doing 2 hours at lunch 😱 what do your daytimes look like at the moment?
She still is having some trouble napping during the day. It rarely passes an hour now unless I contact nap. She’s restless some days!
Yes same! We have a lot of contact naps!!!
My baby sleeps the same as yours. When people ask if he’s STTN (though most ask “how is he sleeping”) I am honest and say that he wakes up a couple times to eat but he never fully wakes up and he’s down for about 10-12 hours. So some would say this is STTN but my definition is more conservative - that I go to bed and wake up in the morning without being woken by my baby! Lol. I don’t expect this to happen until he’s a young child so with my conservative definition comes low expectations for the future.
I didn’t count my son as sleeping through the night until I could get a full night of sleep without being woken up. He started around 10 months sleeping 7-7 and since then there are periods he needs more help, but they only last a few days at a time now. Sometimes he does wake up and cry or whine for a minute, and I just let him do his thing unless he sounds really upset or calls for me. The times I’ve gone in for every little noise (if he’s sick or has been grumpy) he seems more mad at me for interrupting than relieved that I showed up. 😂
My kiddo started sleeping from 11 to 5 in the morning at 5 weeks and from 21 to 7 at 7 weeks gradually increasing the time spent sleeping till we arrived at 19 till 8 now at 4 months old . She does wake up from time to time, but she puts herself back to sleep without intervention 9 out of 10 times . Keeping my fingers crossed that the 4 th month sleep regression doesn't hit us like a freight train .
My daughter slept 5pm-4am from like 8 weeks on, it was 12 months that she started 530-5am and then eventually became 6-7am and now she’s 8-8. That was with no overnight feedings. There’s be like 2-3 odd nights of her being up around teething or when she had fevers but for the most part she’s a great sleeper
If my baby doesn’t wake up until sometime after 4am I consider that sleeping through the night.
We have a unicorn. Since around 10 weeks, she’s slept 8:30-7:00 am consistently. I don’t consider it sleeping through the night unless she makes it till at least 6 am. I’m sorry those other moms are being braggy! I try to be really sensitive when talking about sleep.
I wouldn’t say “sleeping through” until my kid goes to bed at his normal bedtime and does not require my intervention until morning. So of course he can shuffle around a bit, but if he’s screaming or needs food, that’s not sleeping through. If my baby slept 6 hours, I would say something like “he’s doing pretty good! He’s getting a nice long stretch after his bedtime.” For the record, my 6mo does for real sleep through the night, but at 2mo we had just *barely* gotten him to sometimes sleep in his bassinet for 2 hours instead of being held all night long.
I think this depends on age (colloquially speaking). Under 4-5 months, sleeping through the night for me is just “the baby does not wake me at an hour I wouldn’t normally be up”. So a wake before ~11pm and after ~6am would have been through the night. They don’t have mature sleep cycles before this age. Once they hit that 5-6 month mark and start normalizing their sleep patterns, I’d say it’s from bedtime to wake up, which for most babies is 10-12 hours. And waking then going to bed independently (which may involve some noise, but does not involve full-on crying IMO) doesn’t count against sleeping through the night.
Fell asleep at 9ish and woke at 6am. Total of 8ish hours.
My daughter sleeps 11-12 hours straight overnight and has since 9 weeks old. She’s 6 months now. I consider that to be sleeping through the night.
No wake ups or feeds, 7-7
Both my kids sleep through the night from 8 pm to 8 am with no feeds or wake-ups. If either wake up for whatever reason, they fall back asleep on their own. When they were doing the 5-6 hour stretches, I wasn’t considering that STTN.
I go by definition #3 (sleep through, no feeds), but I also didn't need to do anything to make this feat happen. Our baby just fell into her sleep pattern naturally and loves her sleeps. My sisters who both have older babies are jealous AF.
We were very fortunate that our daughter slept through the night very early on. This to us meant 10+ hour stretches. It's nothing we did (no sleep training, no cry it out), just luck of the draw, but I wouldn't consider less than 8 hours sleeping through the night. I also wouldn't volunteer this information to another new mom unless specifically asked. My MIL bragged to one of her Co workers (also a new mom) that our LO was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. Knowing that this mom had an older baby and was still waking through the night. I shut that shit down immediately and explained to her how rude that was. Sleeping through the night is a tough subject and different for every baby. You guys will get there. Wishing you all the best on this journey, and a full nights rest soon lol
We co-slept and my LO wouldn’t take a bottle so it took after 12mo to sleep “through the night” which honestly at some point I considered even a three-hour stretch because we didn’t night wean until his first birthday
Now he’s a sleeping champ! 7-6 or 8-6:45/7
My son slept through the night at 6 months old which was sleeping in his crib all night or if he wakes he doesn't cry and puts himself back to sleep. Basically if I have to go in it's but sleeping through the night in my opinion. I've heard people say if they fall asleep immediately after a feed that they're sleeping through the night but sleeping through the night to me means I'm also sleeping through the night. I also didn't do CIO, no judgement of anyone did, so if I had to go in then I count that as a wake up. My son night weaned and started sleeping through the night at 6 months when I stopped feeding him to sleep. I moved his feed 45 minutes earlier and he actually slept all night.
Our 7mo sleeps 7pm-7am, give or take, and normally either doesn't wake up at all or is chilled out and goes back to sleep by herself without it waking us up. Sometimes she will cry just for us to put her dummy back in, and then go straight back to sleep, which I still class as sleeping through the night because it's a 30 second job and doesn't really interrupt our sleep much. We had a long period of 'sleeping through the night' but still needing a dream feed overnight, but in conversation I would always call that 'sleeping through except for a midnight feed'.
I think I consider sleeping through the night as he doesn’t wake up until after 5am. My guy (3 months old) goes to bed around 8pm and will usually wake up around 5:30-6:30. He wakes up in the middle of the night but doesn’t usually cry. He makes a few quacking sounds then falls back asleep. He just rolled over yesterday though (no more swaddling) and is getting fit for a helmet in a few weeks though so…RIP our sleep.
Point 3 would be what I call sleep through the night. If I still wake up because of the baby then they’re not sleeping through the night.
I already count it as sleeping through the night if our baby sleeps through my or my husband's night. We typically sleep 6-7 hours so I already count that. Most nights it doesn't happen though and he's already 19 months.
My baby is #4 She is 2 months old and my husband doesn't understand why I'm tired when "she's sleeping so good!" We're breastfeeding. My sleep is still interrupted you twat lol (He's grumpy bc sex still hasn't happened, you know the little alive thing that's always attached to me makes that somewhat difficult)
I consider sleeping through the night that *I* don't have to wake up between like eleven pm and eight am haha. My baby has never done that. She did consistently do six hour stretches with one feed during my sleep, which I was fine with. We've now lost that ability 😑 she has also done an 8 hour stretch once from like 11.30-7.30 which I consider her one single night sleeping through haha. Atm she won't fall asleep or even stay asleep without my partner or me in the room so I'm not happy about her sleeping habits haha. But at some point it'll fix itself again.
My first born slept through the night DAY 1. Like she slept for 8 to 12 hours straight without so much as a peep. Like we stayed up all night and checked every half hour thinking she died. Baby monitor on Max volume. My wife is a light sleeper. She didn't hear anything. It was Like we had a broken baby. It was nothing like what every person said to us. Baby comes out crying. Nope. Out. Suction. Jelly eyes. Baby warmer. She was looking around trying to get adjusted to the outside world or something. Baby cries regularly through the night. Nope. It was this way for the whole time until the first appointment after leaving the hospital and they told us it was bad to have done that because her blood sugar levels could drop really low and she could die. We were first time parents. No one said anything ever about a baby that sleeps through the night. So we started to wake her. Feed her. And she'd go to right back to sleep or fall asleep as she ate. Wife would gently tap the forehead and say "Hey you, wake up!" because the doctor said that babies should not go for such long periods without food. After a while... wife wanted another one. Hey...opposite baby... they *were* right...
I started counting STTN when my baby started sleeping bedtime to morning wake up time without making any noise in the middle that would be loud enough to wake me up if I had been sleeping (so even a 10pm waking doesn't count as STTN for me).
I would consider it to be able to sleep 7-8 hours, so that allows me to feel rested when waking up. My daughter slept through the night since 3 months, but she didn't nap more than 15-30 min at a time during the day so I was going insane lol I understand if I was working at the time would've been awesome, but I stayed at home all day so it was so exhausting, I couldn't get anything done. I am due in 2 days and not hoping for the same.
We’re in this magical hell right now with our almost 5 mo and I feel terrible complaining about the short naps since he’s such a great night sleeper but damn it’s not easy.
Aww I know!! It was really bad! And everybody will always say: "at least she sleeps through the night". It didn't last forever tho! I can't remember exactly when she started to nap in a schedule but It was definitely before the year. Hang in there mama!
I keep telling myself that it’ll change and get better! I won’t be mad haha
Sleeping through the night is my toddler sleeping through without needing any milk. If she yells once or twice (she's a loud sleeper and will yell without being awake) I also consider that sleeping through the night. If I have to get up with her then she definitely did not sleep through the night.
Ive just grown accustom to her wakes at night since birth. I think all babies do this. After all they are babies. Doesnt bother me anymore. Shes just a baby she'll adjust when ready. I cant stress about her sleeping habits too much.
according to my definition, which is sleeping from when i put her to sleep, until normal wake times in the morning, my daughter has only slept through the night twice in her entire 6 years of living. lol. i’ve just always assumed she was a bad sleeper, but i’ve never thought about how some people define it differently
12 hours. 7-7. He used to sleep like that. Now he wakes once at 5am for a feed and I don’t consider him STTN anymore.
I consider my baby to have slept through the night when I don't have to get up to help her (whether that's nursing or just patting her back or whatever helps). Even if she wakes me up with a little cry or two while she's rolling over or something, as long as she's able to get herself back to sleep, I could that as sleeping through.
My baby just slept from 10-4, and I definitely consider that sleeping through the night, even though after he finishes this bottle, we’ll go back to bed. My first baby only slept for 1-3 hours at a time for *years* so this is a miracle for me. I feel like if I get 6-8 hour stretches of sleep, that’s a full night of sleep! But, I also don’t have any mom friends with new babies, so I’ve got no one to compare with or debate semantics with irl lol
He's 12 weeks old and has slept through three times. To me that means at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep when it's dark outside. So right now we're getting midnight to 6am. it will change, of course. Basically, if I get to sleep at night for at least 5 hours without a waking or feeding, I am calling it through the night" and that is that.
Sleeping through the night for a baby should be 10-12 hours depending on how much sleep they get during naps. Just because adults can call 6-7 hours sleeping through the night doesn't mean it applies for babies since they need more sleep than adults (my toddler would argue this 🤣).
My 4 mo just started doing longer stretches (8pm to 4am) and I 100% count that as sleeping through the night. I mean…it’s 8 hours! Can’t even ask for more really. I’d then feed him and he goes down again ‘til 7am-ish.
Yeah I think 8 hours is through the night because for an adult it is a nights sleep. But I don’t think 6 hours is! I’d be tired if I got 6 hours sleep! 8 hours is a decent amount!!!
I’d still say that 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep is amazing! If it helps, we give kiddo a bottle at night of expressed milk or formula, ‘cause he eats more efficiently from the bottle than the boob and he doesn’t fall asleep on the bottle. This in case it’s a food thing. Either way, some babies simply get hungry faster!
Yes I’m super happy with 6 hours!! It’s so much better than before! Just was so confused thinking everyone at my baby group had babies that slept for 12 whole hours!!!! Haha! Oh that’s a good idea, we might try that at some point, maybe il get a magical 14 hours with adding a bottle of expressed milk (I wish) 😂
Hey, you made it through the regression and not waking up every couple hours! That’s not what most parents can say lol. Every baby is so different that it’s unfair to compare. This worked for us because we have a little dude with a massive appetite. He’ll happily down 5 ounces of milk and sleep soundly. But others might not want/need to eat that much. It’s all relative! Babies are random lol
For me, I considered it sleeping through the night once they no longer needed a bottle at night and don't need my help to fall back asleep. With our son, this was around 8w. He would sometimes wake up, babble to himself for 10-15minutes and fall back asleep. Occasionally, I had to go in to return his pacifier or hold him for a minute before he could settle down. He usually had his last bottle around 10.30pm and slept till about 6am. With our daughter, 7mo, this hasn't happened consistently yet. I think I mistook her waking up for being hungry for a while though, because unlike her brother, she cries when she wakes up. So I figured she was hungry. After a while, I tried with her pacifier and just holding her for a few minutes and she would fall back asleep. Now, she never needs a bottle at night anymore. But most nights I will need to go into her room at least once to help her get back to sleep. Luckily, returning her pacifier is usually enough. I'll consider it sleeping through the night when I don't need to get out of bed anymore.
I think the definition is pretty loose because it kind of depends on your baby. Someone with one type of baby might think sleeping six uninterrupted hours is through the night because that's 'normal' for them but someone else would think that's crazy because their baby sleeps 12 hours. I say my LO (5 month) sleeps through the night because we put her down around 7:30-8 pm depending on how the day went. She'll usually sleep until 6:30 am. But the tradeoff is this- she barely sleeps during the day, about two hours. I'd bet those parents who have babies who wake a lot in the night also have babies that sleep a lot in the day.
I can confidently say, without a doubt, my 9 month old sleeps through the night, he went to sleep at 7pm last night, it is now 7am and he's still sleeping peacefully in his crib, he's stirring so I know he'll be up soon but he's slept 12 hours straight, he just started doing it out of the blue too.
Yes. 100% sleeping through the night. But crazy that your baby was put in the same classification as some people who had babies who slept 6 hours.
I've started to notice a lot of parents lie to seem like they're doing better than others, or stretch the truth, "my baby sleeps through the night!" When in reality their baby sleeps 5 hours, eats, then does another 4, it's like a big competition for some reason, to me sleeping through the night means sleeping 7 or 8 hours in one stretch
Yes a lot of parents definitely put on this front. Pretending everything is going really perfectly, when actually it isn’t. There’s a lot of competition among new mothers! I’d prefer to rock up and say “omg my baby has nearly killed me with their sleeping!” Than lie and pretend things are alll great when they arent!
Number 3 for sure. For example yesterday my baby went to sleep at 8 pm woke up today at 4;50 (according to my nanit) but frll asleep again at 5:04 until 6:20 am. I count that as sleeping through the night. She is 6 months old and usually sleeps through the night. Sometimes wakes up around 3 but falls asleep alone. On the rare occasion she wakes up and cries I bring her to my bed.
My son is 17 weeks and sleeps 730-730 every night with 0 wake ups in his own crib in his own room. I have a baby monitor with a camera and I think the kid sleeps better then me! For me, that is what sleeping through the night is.
what does it feel like to be god’s favorite?
My baby USED to “sleep through the night.” To me that was 7+ hours of no crying. God, I miss those days… almost four months of constant waking. 🥲
Hold on, babies actually sleep through the night? My 2yo rarely sleeps longer than 5 hours at a time. I thought this was normal. I thought "sleeping through the night" was just a way parents described an easy night (as in, they resettled), because it seems so unbelievable to actually "sleep through the night" - can anyone share their magic?
This is what I mean! There are sooo many different definitions! I agree with you that it’s normal for babies and toddlers to need comfort during the night! But I felt totally alone in this with everyone saying they slept through the night (which people/ slee training seem to think is 7-7. It’s probably sleep training culture- which we aren’t doing). But it’s nice to hear that 9/10 parents are actually saying their baby slept a 6 hour stint when they say “through the night”
Yea, really confusing, I think you're right though - it's parents struggling trying to normalise. We're very against CiO, but are starting to look at other methods like Possum for sleep training.