When did your baby start sleeping longer stretches at night?

[Blanca78]

DD is five weeks old and generally sleeps for two-three hours in between feedings (usually closer to two hours, and sometimes less). I've been told I might start to see some slightly longer stretches between 6-8 weeks, and really hope this is true, though I know I shouldn't bank on it.

When did your baby start giving you slightly longer stretches?

[momma2alauna]

This probably isn't what you are hoping to hear, but my 5.5 month old has yet to give me more than a 4 hour stretch. And that has only happened 2 times. Up until she was 4 months old, she only slept for 2 hours at a time...all night long. Now she will give me a 3 hour stretch at the beginning of the night(when I'm not sleeping, of course!) and then it is up and nursing every 2 hours until she wakes up for the day at 5am! I am feeling very sleep deprived these days!

[Blanca78]

Oy, condolences! That sounds really rough and I hope the situation improves soon. I feel like the super interrupted sleep is something I can deal with for the short term but at this point even a 4-hour stretch would feel like a week's vacation.

Originally Posted by momma2alauna 

This probably isn't what you are hoping to hear, but my 5.5 month old has yet to give me more than a 4 hour stretch. And that has only happened 2 times. Up until she was 4 months old, she only slept for 2 hours at a time...all night long. Now she will give me a 3 hour stretch at the beginning of the night(when I'm not sleeping, of course!) and then it is up and nursing every 2 hours until she wakes up for the day at 5am! I am feeling very sleep deprived these days!

[katelove]

I'm not going to be telling you what you want to hear either. Sorry :-(     My 1yo will sometimes go 4ish hours at the start of the night and has done the occasional 5-6hr stretch (maybe 2-3 times in her life). But, most of the time it is 1-3hrs.

The two things which have saved me are 1) co-sleeping/side-lying feeding and  2) DH getting up with her when she wakes up in the morning. I get an extra couple of hours sleep most days which makes a *huge* difference as I am not a morning person. 

[McGucks]

We have a theme, here...DS2 is 14 months and I would sell my soul for a 4 hour stretch.  He has always been like this (we do EBF and co-sleep).  Like a PP, he does sleep a bit longer at the beginning of the night (sometimes 3 or 3.5 hours), but after that, it's usually every two or so until he wakes at 6:15 or so for the day.  Nap when you can, mama, and see if you can get someone to help you with housework (which is what kept me from napping with him early on until I finally realized I could have him take 20 minute naps a few times a day if he slept alone, or 90 minute naps if I slept with him.  Without question, I found sleep deprivation to be the hardest part of early parenthood.  Fortunately, when he wakes at night to nurse, he usually goes back to sleep before too long (10-20 minutes).  Good luck.  It's hard, I know.

[Buzzer Beater]

My one year old still wakes every 2-3 hours to nurse. Occasionally DH can rock her back down, but it's much faster if I just nurse side-lying. She's gone 4 or 5 hours maybe 3 times in a year.

[Blanca78]

All right, getting freaked out here...Sleep deprivation is getting to me! My sympathies to you all and I hope we can all find a way to get more sleep soon...sounds like it may be a long road, though.

[gumshoegirl007]

I'll be your beacon of hope!  DD has always slept 2-3 hours a stretch at night.  Many times 4 hours.  Now that she's over 10lbs (at about 8 weeks), she has begun to sleep for one 5 hour stretch each night. 

Her last nursing session begins somewhere between 9:30 - 10:30 pm and then she wakes up five hours later to nurse again.  We bed share, so I just roll over and give her the boob and fall back asleep, somewhere between 2:30 - 3:30 am.  The downside to that is that I quickly fall asleep so she only nurses on one side and then is back up again at 5:00 am to nurse.  I repeat a one-sided nursing session and only fall into a really light sleep if I get any sleep at all.  We then wake up between 6:30 - 7:00 am for the day and have a solid nursing session then or sometimes she snacks and goes back to sleep till about 8:30 am and then we have a good nursing session at that point in time.

Throughout the day, however, she feeds every 1h30min to 3h.  So I guess that's a downside.  But, I didn't actually start feeling sleep deprived until the past week or so.  I'm getting pretty good cumulative sleep, just not good consecutive sleep.

[LeighPF]

My little one is 4 weeks and probably a bit under 10 lb and I got 11 to 5ish the other night. My son was the same way. Of corse it does not last. 3-4 months was the first big new round of sleep disturbances.

Little Miss fusses in the co-sleeper and so she sleeps in my arms (or armpit) which leads to far better sleep for her. It works for me since she is so warm and cute (and I get more sleep).

[MamaPhD]

Don't dispair, I'm here to give you hope! 

DD woke up only once to eat around 2-3am by 5-6 months old.  I think she went to bed around 8-9pm so it was a good 6 hour stretch, and then another good stretch until 7am or so.  When she woke up, I would do a quick diaper change, nurse and then she was out again.  As she got older that time kept sliding later to 4am to 5am, etc until she started to sleep through the night most nights by 9-10 months.  I really didn't mind getting up cuz the whole thing only took like 15 minutes. 

DS is now 11 weeks and he is still eating every 2-3 hours at night.  At the beginning of the night, it's more like 3 hours, so he eats around 9pm to bed, feed at midnight, and then 3am.  But he eats more often early morning, every 1-2 hours until he is "up" around 7am. 

I think it helped DD was a big baby (90th percentile ht and wt) and had a big tummy.  I hear small babies with small stomachs have to eat more frequently.  DS is already bigger than his sister was so I am hopeful he will be sleeping longer stretches any time soon!  Also I think my babies sleep better in their crib than with me.  DD slept in her crib from early on and DS definitely sleeps longer in his crib.  When I bring him into our bed (usually early in the morning) he wakes more often (every hour or so) and then nurses back to sleep.  Not saying your baby has to sleep separately!  Just my kids' sleep personality seems to work better this way.

[somegirl99]

DS did great with sleep from 2-4 months, we'd almost always get a stretch of 5-6 hours and one time had a stretch of 10 hours.

Then we hit the 4-month sleep regression, then the 8-month sleep regression.

At 10 months we are finally doing better again and he slept for 9.5 hours last night!  Too bad my dogs had to wake me up 3 separate times instead.

[Erin77]

My eight month old rarely sleeps longer than 4 hours at a stretch, though we can sometimes (maybe twice so far) squeeze a 5 hour stretch out of him. He goes to sleep at 6 pm and eats at 9 pm, 12 am and 2 am and is up again at 5:45 am. Yawn.

[Chloe'sMama]

Both DDs woke up about every 2-3 hours when little.  DD1 nightweaned when she was about 20 months and that was great, DD2 is almost 9 months and she wakes up an average of 4 times a night still.  

[andromedajulie]

DD is 10 months old and I'm still waiting to go longer than 4 hours. (with my older one it was much worse)

I think half the problem is all these other people telling us, "WHAT?????????? she isn't sleeping through the night yet???????" (looking at you like you have two heads) - which leads us to an unrealistic expectation of a baby. who are all these alleged babies who supposedly sleep that long?!

Obviously sleep deprivation is the other half of the problem!!

[expat-mama]

DS is 10.5 months and still gets up every 2 hours pretty consistently. He sleeps in his crib and with us depending on how the night goes. During the aforementioned "sleep regressions" he would wake up every 15 mins - 1hr. That was hell.

We had a period when DS was a few weeks old (6?) and then a few months (3?) when he slept for 4-6 hours stretches occasionally. That has not happened since then. The most we ever get these days is maybe 3 hours if we are really, really, *really* lucky.

Sigh- I know, it's hard. We're just muddling through looking forward to the time when he'll sleep better. Then it'll be time for us to have the next baby.

[Strong Mama]

My older son slept 7-7 at 3 months.

My middle son slept 6-6 at 3 months.

and the twin girlies(they are now almst 4 months) have been sleeping 7-7 since 2 months. They do have the growth spurt occasion where they wake at 5 to eat instead of i7, but then they go back to sleep.

[sosurreal09]

UMM yeah know you don't want to hear this but 18 m/o....

[sosurreal09]

Originally Posted by Strong Mama 

My older son slept 7-7 at 3 months.

My middle son slept 6-6 at 3 months.

and the twin girlies(they are now almst 4 months) have been sleeping 7-7 since 2 months. They do have the growth spurt occasion where they wake at 5 to eat instead of i7, but then they go back to sleep.

Why did you get so lucky? lol That is VERY rare and definately the exception.

[Strong Mama]

Quote:

Why did you get so lucky? lol That is VERY rare and definately the exception.

 I dont know...lol people hate me, i am aware of this.lol

[LittleBirdy]

Sleep deprivation sucks, doesn't it?

DS started giving me 4 hour stretches fairly early on - maybe 4 or 5 weeks?  But only for the first stint of the night.  By 2.5 months he did 7 or 8 hour stretches and he STTN exactly twice just before he turned 3 months old.

Then.... he turned 3.5 months old... sigh.

Started waking up A LOT - sometimes hourly.  I was nearly driven to the brink of insanity.  Then I got myself in a better mental place to handle it: his nightwakings are HIS problem.  I don't mean that it's his problem to deal with ALONE - I still nurse him back to sleep for every blessed nightwaking - what I mean is I came to realize that it was not my fault, it was not something I'd done, and that the best thing I could do was figure out how to make things more comfortable for ME.  Which was full time cosleeping and getting really good at sleeping through night nursing - which takes practice, for both you and baby.

Hugs mama.  Big, big hugs.  You'll get through this, I promise.