Eating at Night

[M and N's Mom]

Hi!  My DS is 4 months old and wakes up to eat usually once a night.  He is exclusively BF.  I feed him at 7:00 and he is in bed by 7:30 usually.   He is up between 2:00 and 3:00 to eat.  I was hoping he'd not need a night feeding by this time.   My DD was sleeping 10 hours consistently by this age.

I'm wondering if I just got lucky with my DD.  If so, what is the average age a BF baby can go 10 (or more) hours at night? (Is there an average age?) 

Is there anything I should be doing to extend his night?  I'm currently feeding him at about:  7:30, 11:00, 2:00, 5:00 & 7:00.  I've recently added a 6pm cluster feed.  I don't do a dream feed as when I tried it, it completely messed him up and he was waking up 6-10 times a night fussy.

Thanks for any advice.

[Ami ~ 3 girls' mom]

I've never done the DF either.  I think once a night is marvelous for a 4mo.    You're going to hit a growth spurt soon where he'll be hungry, too.

[Samuel's mum]

I have to agree that once a night for a 4 month old sounds very good to me.

We had a poll on this site about 'sleeping through' not long ago. The results were:

At what age did your BF child start sleeping through the night (8+ hours)
3 Months  14 (23%)
4 Months  7 (11.5%)
5 Months  5 (8.2%)
6 Months  5 (8.2%)
Over 6 Months  30 (49.2%)

So as you can see the majority were still waiting at 6 months and many significantly beyond that.
I moved the actual thread to the FAQ board as a lot of people found it helpful. I promise the FAQ board will be finished soon!