The trick is the cereal in the bottle thing. I have a 5 month old. We started giving her cereal at about 8-9 weeks and she’s been sleeping through the night since then. Give about 1 baby spoon of cereal in the bottle for every 2 ounces. If it won’t come out of the nipple, it’s too thick. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT try to cut the nipple to make it come out easier. And probably shouldn’t tell your doctor your doing this as they usually object.
Oh, and you shouldn’t give your child more than one cereal bottle a day as that might hurt their digestive track.
Both my sons at 3 months to the day.
It’s their Daddy who can’t make it through the night now.
What do you count as ‘sleeping through’? See, our pediatrician counts that as 6-7 hours of continuous sleep by the baby. Unfortunately for us, after a few months, Gabe started going to bed at 7:30 or so, which meant he woke up after 6-7 hours but it was still in the middle of the night. So, sleeping through, technically, about 8 months, I think. Can’t recall exactly. But not waking up on MY sleep schedule? Not until about 3 years old. Turned out his neck was massively out of whack, and once we corrected that, he sleeps much better. (If they snore and move around a LOT at night, check for physical discomfort!)
Not sure if Brendan usually sleeps 6-7 hours (10 months old). His crib is attached as a sidecar to our bed, so I often don’t wake up fully when he wakes to nurse, and I certainly don’t wake enough to check the clock. I have noticed he generally wakes around 4 AM (the sunrise alarm clock is brightening by then), not sure about before then. Bren is in the midst of a growth spurt at the moment, so I am currently noticing more waking (he’s both hungry and cranky).
As for the cereal in the bottle thing - if your baby has reflux, your doctor may advise you do that, and it often helps them keep the feeding down. Otherwise, there is a reason your doctor will advise against it, related to early introduction of solids potentially affecting their long-term health, particularly increasing their risk of allergies and obesity. Check this link for more on the ‘link’ between cereal and sleep, and this link for a more extensive discussion of the subject, including the health risks involved. And here for more pediatric myths debunked.
Also, interesting to note that there is a developmental change around 6 months that makes babies far more fussy for a few weeks, then suddenly their comprehension level leaps, and their behavior changes, and they sleep again (or sleep better). These stages happen over and over and over, so most kids will go though multiple stages of not sleeping, followed by sleeping, followed by not sleeping, followed by sleeping. It seems kind of strange to me that we expect kids to retain any new behavior (such as sleep) forever once it happens the first time. IME, everything is a phase, including the good stuff (like sleep). Every time I’ve waited (teeth gritted and often bleary-eyed) for two more weeks, things have improved, regardless of what the issue was.
Another set of lucky parents checking in:
My first son started sleeping through the night at about a week and a half (No kidding!!).
My second son took about three weeks.
My daughter (3rd kid) took about five weeks.
Zev Steinhardt
At six-seven months, but we had to let her cry. She was waking up, nursing for 30 seconds, and going back to sleep–she just wanted cuddle time. After a few nights of awfulness, we were all sleeping better; it was worth it, though I felt terrible at the time.
Around seven months old, as I recall.
He still doesn’t sleep long enough for us. He goes to bed about 10 or 11, and wakes up by 7:30 most mornings.
Oops, forgot to add that my son is now three.
As an aside, our smartest move was to put a VCR and TV in the nursery. Since my son was only partly breastfed, we switched off who would get up with him. My husband worked his way through the AFI Top 100 movies, watching the films 20-30 minutes at a time, whenever he was feeding Cranky Jr at night. And I did the same, renting a lot of other stuff. We got a Blockbuster Gold Membership in record time, our son learned to sleep with noise in the background, and we didn’t mind getting up so much.
It’d be like:
Cranky Jr at 4 a.m.: “WAHHAHH!”
Me: * Groan.* “Not again. Oh, wait, Mansfield Park is in the VCR. Woo-hoo!”
IIRC, he was about 8 years old before he consistently slept through the night. And grudgingly only took one nap during the day durning infancy (for about an hour). He’d go to bed around 11 pm/midnight, wake up around 3/4, go back to sleep until about 6:30 then up all day (nap if it happened was bout 3 pm - 3:30)
My daughter was 3 before she slept all night … 3 years old! My son was a little more consistent, but frequently gets up at night. I don’t mind. I don’t think sleeping all night is some right that I have! I never minded getting up to nurse my children in the night, and I did and continue to work fulltime. One benefit of nursing I’ve read is that it makes you better able to cope with sleep interruptions. I believe this, but I also believe it doesn’t happen that way for everyone. Same with other listed benefits of nursing. The weight loss thing was a joke, form me! I never lost the weight until I was done nursing! (Nearly 3 years in the case of my son.)
And because I did work, I cherished the nighttime closeness with my children. And I will add that nighttime nursing is easier if you sleep with your baby, which, contrary to popular myth, is not dangerous.
Well anyway, just offering another perspective.
My son had colic, he was first, and he didn’t sleep through the night until he was seven months old. He’d get up a 4a, nurse, then fuss and cry for two hours until it was time to nurse again. Being a first time parent with Ivylad serving his country (he was in the Navy stationed in San Diego and I was in FL.) made it a very stressful time for me.
My daughter slept through the night when she was a month old. I learned a lot from my son. I used to take him out of the crib, go to the kitchen, turn on the lights, and nurse.
With my daughter, the cradle was by the bed. So I took her out, kept it dark, and if she remained dry put her back after nursing. Sometimes she’d fall back asleep in the middle of eating…it was the cutest thing, her mouth half open and her face peaceful and relaxed.
Of course, now they’re 10 and 13, and I have a heck of a time getting them up in the morning for school…
#1, boy, now 4.5, slept through the night at 3 months. But when he turned about 14 months, he would start waking up with night mares/terrors. About 2 I started pulling him into bed with us and he slept through the night.
Mr. Ujest, tired of sharing the bed, built a bunk bed for #1 and we are back to the usual night terror wake up session. Guess who has to get up? #1 also goes to bed at 10-11p anything earlier than that and it is a battle royale.
#2, a girl, 2.5, has slept through the night since 4 months. She does periodically call for room service, but she is still in her crib, and really starting to scale the walls out of that. I figure she will be serving us breakfast in bed any time soon.
I still have to get up and get him a beer at 2:00 am. HA! Only kidding, but he was up just about every night til he was 2 or so. He’d just want a quick sip of something and then he’d crash pretty quick afterward.
Been blessed this time around with a boy who has slept through the night every night of his life, unlike the other 3 who took a good 9 months. Please though, don’t try the cereal thing, it’s really not a good idea for a lot of reasons that Hedra’s links pretty much covered. Not sure about in the USA, but out here we have sleep and early parenting centres, where people with unsettled children can go for a residential stay, and try and sort things out. I hope there’s a similar system in the states, as this is has been a very good option for a good many Australians.
When lieu lieu was about 6 weeks she started sleeping through the night.
Now that she’s 19 months, she hits the hay about 9:30 and sleeps until about 7 (daylight). Sometimes she’ll wake up and cry herself back to sleep in 5 to 10 minutes.
Kinda hard to complain.
I too am blessed: both of my children were sleeping through the night by 3 weeks.
My son is now 3½ months and squeaks now and then because he has a tooth (?!?!) trying to make its way out.
My daughter will be 2 years old next week and she wakes up occasionally from a nightmare or for water, but its a pleasure to go see her.
It happened one night.
I kept my son on his formual til he was 3!
Yes, I fed him food also, but well I just did.
Anyway, he used to wake up EVERY 3 hours Every night for 3 years.
Til the day I stopped the formula.
He’s slept thru the night ever since.
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When people say a baby(or bigger person for that matter) “sleeps though the night” does that really mean they sleep for several hours in a row without waking up? Until the past few months I never slept more than 2-4 hours without waking almost fully up again several times a night for no apparent reason. Now I can finally stay asleep without waking more than 2 or 3 times…so my parents could answer “25 years” 
I feel bad for my parents though, I’m the firstborn, and Dr. Spock badly let them down by implying newborns slept most of the time: until I was 3 months old I slept 4 hours a day. My parents finally convinced the pediatrician that I actually was hungry despite despite being breast-fed frequently, and he reluctantly suggested that mom probably wasn’t producing enough milk so they should try suplemental feedings of formula w/cereal. After that I started sleeping more normally, and my parents regained their sanity. I wonder how early sleep patterns are established, though…
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Our son (6 months old) started sleeping through the night at 4 months when he could roll over onto his stomach. Now he has been waking up about once a night for a feeding. Unfortunately, he won’t cry himself back to sleep. Part of the problem is that he is teething and the combination of teething and being hungry seems to be too much for him. On top of that, he has allgeries, so those nights can be very long since he can’t breath well when laying down. But I do consider that he is sleeping through the night most nights. One feeding at night seems like nothing compared to 2 or 3 that he started at. Now we alternate nights, not feedings. I’m not sure if he will start sleeping through the night after hit top teeth come in. Apparently the next ones are the worst cringe.
As for the cereal thing, it doesn’t seem to help much (probably because we started feeding solid foods around the same time he started teething). We did have to give him cereal in a bottle at 3 weeks because he wasn’t gaining enough weight and the doctor instructed us to do this so he wouldn’t have to be hospitalized. It all turned out that he was sucking so hard he was collapsing the nipple, then got too much air and wouldn’t eat enough so he was hungry all the time but it hurt to eat. Once we got a Dr. Browns bottle, the problem went away (after 3 types of bottles). Now he burps on his own grin He’s getting easier to take care of every day.
So I guess putting all those factors together, he really started sleepling through most nights at 4 months until he started teething. Although with how short I have to get up to feed him, I consider what his is doing to be practically sleeping through the night.
**First of all, Congratulations to Torgo. **
My wife and I have an 11 week old at home, the most recent addition.
She is sleeping thru the night perhaps two or three times per week and has been for the last two weeks.
Some nights she snoozes from 9:00pm to 7:30am, but alot of the nights she wakes up around 3:00am - 4:00am. My wife feeds her and relaxes her and she’ll go down for a few more hours. It’s getting better.
Don’t worry, Torgo, it’s about to get better. Just be consistent. Put the child down at bedtime every night. Get the routine down, and they will catch on.