When will my baby sleep through the night?

How long is a piece of string?

There is no answer to this and there isn’t a single sleep consultant in the world who can guarantee to have your baby sleeping through by X age. Newborn and smaller babies physically need to wake in the night to feed and actually not waking in the night isn’t always a good sign. Think of it as survival instincts. The baby is waking to ensure it’s safe with its caregivers nearby and then also waking to eat, ensuring they’re putting on the weight needed.

By 12 weeks there will be many babies who are big enough and capable of sleeping through. This may not be achievable for everyone though.

I get how frustrating it can be when you talk to other Mums and their baby is seemingly sleeping much better than yours. Trust me, I’ve been there. My two closest Mum friends had both their babes sleeping through at 12 weeks and it took Hallie nine months… a whole six months more of disturbed sleep. It broke me!

There are several things you can do to help line your little one up for success and sleeping through:

Ensure they’re getting enough to eat during the day

Encourage full feedings during the day. Make sure they’re really filling themselves up and when appropriate start spreading the feedings out to encourage them to have more in each sitting, rather than constantly snacking. Also spreading out the feedings during the day will give you the confidence to spread out any night feeds too. If they’re going three hours in the day, you know they don’t need feeding every hour at night.

Understand the difference between comfort and hunger feeds

Leading on from above, if babe is waking at night and just wanting to suckle for a minute or two before going back to sleep, this is probably a comfort feed and you’re likely to be up every couple of hours offering these. These are the feeds you want to drop at night, you just want to hold on to the hunger ones where you can tell they’re actually taking in a lot of milk because they need it.

Have good sleep hygiene

Set you and your baby up for success. Have their room set to the right temperature, them in the right layers, use red/orange lights (nothing blue), white noise - these will all help settle your babe.

Give them a minute

Babies are incredibly noisy sleepers. When they wake, give them a minute while you assess what could be wrong rather than immediately assuming they’re hungry.

Ensure they’re not overtired

By keeping an eye on their schedule during the day and ensuring they’re getting the correct amount of day sleep with the right gaps between naps and bedtime you can give your little one the best shot at a good nights sleep. Overtiredness can be a massive reason into why babies wake throughout the night. Also, sleep often breeds sleep (within reason).

Working through that checklist will definitely help your babe get there with their nights. If you need any more help, don’t hesitate to get in touch.