Newborns who sleep through the night...is this normal!?

[Amila]

My 6 week old has slept a solid 8 hours at night for a few weeks now...and before that she only woke once or twice, ate, and passed back out. We are co-sleeping and as long as she is snuggled up next to me shes content. Part of me is screaming "YESSS!" because my other two were terrors, but don't babies this tiny NEED to eat at night? I guess I know shes getting what she needs because she poos and pees constantly, and is gaining weight, but it just seems weird!

[skybluepink02]

My son was like that. Slept through the night at 3 months (1 month adjusted). He'd have growth spurts every so often where he would wake up and ear, but overall is a nd always has been a great sleeper. My daughter, OTOH, was well over a year before she slept more than a couple hours at a time.

I say enjoy your sleep!

[lrgs]

My first DD was a great sleeper.........6 hour stretches right off the bat and then 8-10 hour stretches at about 8 weeks old. Sleeping right through (with dream feed) from 7-7 by about 4 months. It was amazing. This time around........not even close! Ainsley was up every 1.5-2 hours for weeks and weeks as a newborn and it's gradually stretched but we're lucky for about 5 hours. I say enjoy your sleep! (and I'm jealous, lol)

[rachieface]

My son slept through the night from six weeks till 18 weeks-ish.  It was BLISSFUL.  Then the four-month sleep regression hit, and we haven't recovered yet (he's seven months old).  So if your babe is gaining fine, just ENJOY it!  I sure miss those nights. 

[Monkey Keeper]

Yup...so far 2 of 3 for me have STTN early, and the first one nearly doubled her birth weight at 4 months!  Consider yourself blessed.  My first is still a great sleeper while the one that was not a good sleeper and did not STTN till well after a year is still a crappy sleeper at 2.5.

[lach]

My son was like that.  He LOVES sleep.  Can't get enough.  Asks to go to bed.  He's 20 months, and goes down at 5:30pm and sleeps until 7am or later.  He also takes a solid 3 hour nap.

As a newborn I thought there was something wrong with him, because he slept so much!  In the hospital when he was born, he slept the entire time.  I had to wake him up to feed him.  When he got home, we all joked that we were going to forget the baby, because the only thing he did was sleep.  "We need him to cry more!" we'd say "to remind us that he's here!"  And he never, ever had a witching hour.  And I always felt a little guilty that I didn't need to rock him to sleep or feed him to sleep... I'd just lay him down and he'd close his eyes and that was it.  

It was all a little weird, to be honest!  Man, if there was a way to bottle this kid's sleep habits and sell it to the parents of other newborns, I'd be a billionaire. 

Of course, it's not always smooth sailing.  When he goes through a growth spurt, or when teething hurts him, or when he has an ear infection (he has tubes now, but last winter it was one ear infection after the other), he can be up all night crying with the best of them.  In a weird way, it is nice to know that he loves sleep so much that when he's not getting it at his normal times then something is REALLY wrong.  My DD never much liked sleep, and has always done whatever she can to get out of it, so when she'd wake up in the middle of the night it was always a really drawn out debate between DH and me about what was wrong, if something actually was wrong, whether it was morally wrong to give her Motrin if we weren't certain there was a problem, and so on.

Sometimes you hit the baby-sleeping-jackpot, and sometimes you don't, and count yourself lucky that you may have!

[Knitting Mama]

I wish y'alls' babies could teach my 8 month old about this STTN thing....

[CherryBomb]

As long as she's gaining, I say let her sleep!  My guy is 8 weeks and for the past few weeks has been sleeping up to 9 hours straight at night.  I know it might not last so I'm going to enjoy it while i can!  I thought it was weird too, though, before this my earliest STTNer was 10 weeks (dd1).  Dd2 was 6 months and dd3 didn't STTN until I weaned her shortly after her 2nd birthday (she was nursing upwards of 6x a night and it was killing me!!)

[1blueheron]

Another vote for don't worry if baby's gaining.  My DD was a big fat sleepaholic (20 hours a day! up to 11 hour stretches at night!) until she decided that she must explore everything all the time.  She's still a decent night sleeper, and we've had recent nap improvement, but for goodness sakes, enjoy it, for it may not last!!

[FrugalGranolaMom]

I say enjoy your sleep while you can. My DS started sleeping great at about 8 weeks and then he started teething at 3 months and it was a looooong time before we got good stretches of sleep again.

[P.J.]

Our baby STTN from day one, and has always been a big baby and gained consistently. I guess he just ate all he needed during the day. At five months his sleep patterns changed, however. He still STTN most nights, but not always. Enjoy it while it lasts!

[MamitaM]

My son is also  a great sleeper and sleeps through the night,he's now 3 months old. He'd wake maybe 1-3 times in the night to nurse at first and now not until about 5am or so,but he'll fall back to sleep if he's nursed again.

[coffeegirl]

Just adding my voice to the choir-- for the love of Pete, DON'T wake a sleeping baby!! :)

[GoBecGo]

My DD2 was like this, 5-6 hours from birth, 7-9 by 6 weeks.  I say was because she's 6months now, having a growth spurt and teething and a normal night is 5-6 now, sometimes it's 2!  So i say enjoy!

[hakeber]

DS slept 6-8 hour stretches by 5 weeks old and regularly slept 12 hour shifts by the time he was 8months old.  Between 1 and 4 he slept 14+ hours at night (no nap though, he gave those up at about 18 months.

DD slept five hour stretches at birth.  Now at 11 months she will sleep 9-10 hour stretches (provided no teething or illness of course) with two 1-2 hour naps in the day.

The golden rule in my family is and always has been: "NEVER wake a sleeping baby!"  There's just no need for it.  I remember the first night in the hospital with DD they came in to my room after about three hours and insisted I wake her up and feed her and she lay there like a limp rag doll...I tried to wake her up but she was EXHAUSTED and so was I and I thought, stupid idiotic staff, shut up and leave us alone.  She's a baby, not a gold fish. If she's hungry she'll let me know!

[Knitting Mama]

Yeah, we're firm believers in "never wake a sleeping baby" here. I've had to do it once or twice to meet a deadline, and I hate it every time. I figure her body knows best for sleep, so there's no way I'm going to think I know otherwise!

[dmpmercury]

My dd2 started 8 hour stretches pretty early and has been sleeping all night since a little after 2 months. She is my best sleeper. I'm really enjoying it for now. My dd1 got up to 8 hour stretches by 6 weeks. She had the 4 month regression then was up more often and went back and forth between good streches and wakefull nights. My ds on the other hand was up hourly if not more and still really wakeful at a year. Enjoy it. It might last it might not so enjoy it while it lasts. I hope the 4 month regression doesn't hit but I'm fully expecting that it might.

[blizzard_babe]

DS2 is a pretty good sleeper at seven weeks. Doesn't usually make it through the night, but a 4-5 hour stretch is not outside the norm. After the frightening terror that DS1 was when it came to sleeping, I'm also a mixture of relieved and concerned. I'm not entirely sure when DS2 slept his first five hour stretch, because I was too long-term exhausted to make note of such things.

He has put on over three pounds since his birth (and was over 10 pounds at birth), though, so I can't bring myself to worry TOO much. He's clearly thriving. The poops are there, the pees are there, the weight gain is there, he's got above-average head control and is smiling and generally alert. He just... sleeps really well.