Should baby sleep through the night at 12 weeks?

[camrynamom]

Hello- I am mother to a spirited baby girl.  My friends all have babies that slept through the night by 8 weeks.  My LO is on a 3 hour EASY and is formula fed.  She takes about 24-26oz per day.  She goes down fairly easy no matter what around 8pm.  She always sleeps 6 hours for the first part of the evening and then around 3 hours.  I have stopped the Dreamfeed b/c she is really hard to wake and it does not seem to buy more time at the other end.  She takes the full bottle at the first evening feed (2am) and I have tried the paci for the 5am feed.  Naps are going well.  I just watch for her cues, swaddle and offer the paci sometimes.  My gut tells me that she should still have the 2 am feeding, but that I need to work on eliminating the 5am feed.  It is just unsettling to me that it seems most babies  I know are sleeping through at this point.  Am I doing anything wrong?

[Ennypen]

Im no expert but it sounds as if your LO is doing wonderfully!

The sleeping through the night issue is one that I am sure every mom wonders about. The truth of it is that every child is different some sleep through 8 hours very early, some don't do it till much later on. There is no hard set rule for when a LO should sleep through the night. I know that Tracy mentions that a baby should be able to sleep through without a feed by a certain age but she taught us to listen to our LOs and see what they need.. and if your LO needs feeding in the night still then feed her.. she is still only very young.

My William woke at least every hour and a half at your LOs age and did not sleep through the night properly until 10 months old. I of course wondered if I was doing things wrong but with the support of the wonderful people on here I soon realised it was just something that I had to ride through... and now here I am with a bab that sleeps 12 hours through each night.

Take it easy and go with the flow.. I know getting up in the night is a pain and sometimes very stressful but it'll pass and you will be wondering where the time has gone.

Helen xx

[bubbaloo]

My LO has slept through one night in 4 months!!!

She is breastfed though but at the mo is waking about 4-5 times a night.........i'm hoping this is due to the heat and a growth spurt and not a regular thing!!!

Normally she wakes 1-2 times a night which i can deal with

[Lana]

Sounds to me like she is doing great .  I wouldn't worry about what other babies are doing.  My first slept 10 hours without at feed at 3 months.  My second could only go 8 hours at 6 months.

[linfran]

She sounds perfectly normal to me.  All your friends might be harbouring a false sense of security.  My ds slept right through from 6 weeks and I thought it was great....a few weeks later, he was teething, then he got sick, then he got better, then we went on holiday - so you can guess what happened to the full night's sleep!!!!  I didn't know what had hit me!!!!

It sounds like you're really tuned into her needs, she's a really lucky little baby.

[frankiesmom]

Hi, my lo is 11 weeks old and still wakes at 2 and 5 for a feeding.  And he gets a df!  I felt like I was doing something wrong b/c Tracy says they should not have that extra feed at 2, but I am just going with it now b/c he is still eating.  My older dh didn't sleep through unitl 4 months.

But, it would be nice to get some uninterupted sleep, wouldn't it?

Good luck, Kim

[NrsT]

SHHHHHH SHHHHH That's great!! Don't jinx it!!!! I posted the almost identical email about 10 days ago, at 11 1/2 weeks, almost every baby I know (or it feels like it) sleeps throught the night from 6 weeks.  For about 5 nights we were down to 1 feed, so I was feeding at 10pm, 3 am and then 6am.   I started gloating....then I thought, let's try for the all night sleep!.....That very night he regressed to 4 night time wakings.  Throw in the dog that seems to nudge my face just as I manage to fall asleep after lying awake for two hours listening to my husband snoring...and now as well as wanting to feed 4 times a night, my sons latest trick is to wake screaming after 1 hour 45 mins due to wind/farts/colic/whatever?   I don't need to tell you that there's not a lot of room in there for sleeping.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
So please, enjoy your sleep and don't jinx it!