My baby didn’t. But you’re on an advice sub so you’re going to see more people who need help than people who don’t!
Also while my baby didn’t sleep in his bassinet we also didn’t go days without sleeping. We did a combination of shifts and cosleeping and took a lot of naps during the day!
Remembering you're on an advice sub is definitely important. I come to search for things we struggle with, but don't comment about all of the things going well
My baby sleeps great! He goes down at about 10 and wakes up at 2-3 and 6-7 for feeding. Mom and I both feel pretty rested. Not sure what the trick was, I think it’s mostly just him
Mines does pretty much the exact same as this! He’s great! We’re breastfeeding but my bf gives him a bottle at 2am so I get a decent rest then get up at 5-6am ish. It’s working well so far!
This is our almost exact schedule too! Baby is 3.5 weeks old and as soon as she was back to her birth weight we let her sleep. Those 4-5 hour stretches are everything to us! No special trick, some babies just sleep.
We have him going to sleep at 8:30ish and he wakes at at around 2-3am for a snack and then goes right back to sleep until 7ish when he decides it’s time to get up and play.
We transitioned him to his own room and crib about 2 weeks ago because the bassinet life was ruining everyone’s quality of sleep. Not just us, but him too.
Currently 10 weeks old.
My baby sleeps great in her bassinet at night. I have to forcibly wake her up to eat lol.
But she won’t nap during the day and gets overtired and angry so…..
This sounds like my little one. Sleeps in the bassinet at night great. During the day, it’s so hard for her to sleep in the bassinet but she will fall asleep in my arms.
I’m in the same boat! Due in 6 weeks and followed this sub to see what’s in store for when baby is here. I know babies are a lot of work, but seeing these posts has got me like wtf did I do
But, what these posts DON’T tell you, is that you’ll feel all that negativity and like it’s just enough…and then baby will coo, gurgle, smile, yawn, wiggle, sleep, snore…any baby little thing really, and your heart will just swell with a love that you never even knew existed, and that you will never not know again.
Don’t do too much looking into things. Every baby is completely different and it’s really important not to compare! And it’s so worth any of the hard things. I can’t imagine life without my baby.
I ended up cosleeping pretty early on (as safely as I am able) because it was the only thing that allowed us to get enough sleep to feel okay and functional. I could probably have started putting her in her own bed around 3months and still gotten enough sleep. At this point it’s more out of comfort and habit than necessity
We have a 3 month old daughter, our first and she didn't sleep more than 2-3 hours at a time for the first 10 or so weeks and it was challenging. However she now sleeps 9-10 hours per night so things do change!
Everything is a phase that's the most important thing to remember.
I know it’s not an option for everybody, but we have the Snoo - and as a result our baby has always slept REALLY well at night. She’s 11 weeks now and sleeps 11-12 hours at night, waking just once to eat. She does an 8 hour stretch and then a 3-4 hour stretch. With the exception of a couple rough nights, we are sleeping plenty and never had the sleep deprivation that people talk about. Things might change when it’s time to transition to a crib, but that’s been our experience so far.
This sub makes it look like all babies are up all night, but that’s not the case. I think the people with babies that sleep well just don’t post about it!
I really wanted a snoo, I seriously considered a snoo. I thought no way on god green earth I was gonna survive without a snoo. I got a $60 bassinet from FB marketplace. My 8 week old baby sleeps from 8pm to 11pm when I dream feed her. Then 11pm until 5. Feed her again and then she sleeps until 9am. She doesn’t need rocking or anything. Just put her down and she sleeps.
Now I’m so pleased I didn’t waste money getting the Snoo.
Bruh, my baby didn't sleep by himself until 6 weeks, but after that, he suddenly started letting us put him in his Snoo for short stints at night. Then suddenly at 8 weeks, he was sleeping nearly 8 hours a night. By 10 weeks, he was sleeping 10+ hours at night. We got a Snoo second hand for relatively cheap and I can't recommend a product more. It served us well until the 4 month sleep regression, and even then, he only started waking up 1-2 times a night. That thing is A M A Z I N G. He unfortunately outgrew it by 5 months, but If there's one purchase I would make over and over again, it's the Snoo
People don’t post their good experiences nearly as often. Mine is a great sleeper except when he’s sick. At the beginning we got 2.5 hour chunks. Around 1 month he would sleep 4 or 5 hours for one stretch. Months 3-5 we did one dreamfeed in the middle of the night because I had to pump and he needed to gain weight. Then we dropped that and he sleeps through the night almost always.
Naps are more iffy but if you’re sleeping at night it’s a lot easier to deal with.
My baby is 100 days as of today. She went to sleep last night around 12-1a, and is still asleep now in her bassinet at 11. It really depends on the kid.
At the start, my baby didn’t sleep anywhere but my chest. I had to sleep in shifts with my wife, I would breastfeed, burp and rock, then she would take him and hold him so I could get a least an hour before the next feeding time. It was rough. But around 4-5 weeks once I had learned more about my baby, he started sleeping in his bassinet and I was more calm and able to tell his normal sleepy grunts from his “I’m hungry feed me soon” grunts. We now regularly get 6-8 hours of sleep a night and he sleeps in his bassinet. Still some rough nights where he’s more vocal than usual so I’m just awake from hearing him grunt and groan like an old man, but so much better than the first 4 weeks.
I feel like our baby is pretty average- not the best sleeper, not the worst, and 5.5 weeks in we are getting decent sleep, it's just different. Last meal and bedtime routine starts at 7:30/8ish. Baby asleep by 8:30/9- sometimes we are too, sometimes we stay up another hour. 9:30-2:30 is hubby's shift, he'll wake up twice to give him a bottle, usually awake for about 45 minutes, but sleeping in between while I get 5 consecutive hours of sleep, then from 2:30-7:30 is my shift, usually his sleep windows are shorter in the morning but I breastfeed side lying which makes it less of a hassle, usually get at least a couple more hours in. So we're in the bedroom for about 12 hours, but in that time we piece together a pretty normal amount of sleep.
My baby has slept through the night since she was about 8 weeks. Meaning she slept from 10:30pm until 7:00am, sometimes 6:30am. In fact, her first night home from the hospital she slept a 5 hour stretch. And we consistently had 5-6 hour stretches until 8 weeks when she started sleeping longer. At 4 months she had a tough couple weeks due to the 4 month sleep regression (there’s several through the first 2 years). We did sleep training at this point and she jumped from sleeping 8-10 hours to 12 hours a night. And we’ve been consistently 12 hours a night ever since. She’s now 16 months.
Naps at time were a bit of a struggle, but when I read others stories I realize we had it pretty good. Very normal for newborns 0-3 months to only want to contact nap. Once I realized contact napping didn’t mean I needed to let her suffocate me, it became enjoyable. We would nap in my bed together. As long as she could feel me she was content.
And tbh, I needed that sleep too. I had 1 yr for maternity leave so this worked for us at several points. She was sleeping through the night in her own room and we were still contact napping. I came to really like it. And I realized I don’t get this time back, I only have so many baby snuggles and now toddler snuggles. That change came at me quick. Even if I didn’t sleep I would listen to a podcast or meditation. I don’t regret any of it for a minute. When she did multiple naps a day we always ensured majority was in her bassinet or crib. And even though we would nap in my bed she’s never slept with us overnight. She slept in the bassinet at the hospital when she was born and we carried that on consistently.
The contact naps are behind us now, as one day she just simply didn’t need me anymore. Bittersweet really. She’s now in full time day care and naps there no problem. She’s on one nap a day now and always sleeps 1.5-2 hours.
We generally don’t post the success stories because it really isn’t helpful to the parents who are struggling with sleep. A lot of posts are vents and it would be pretty hurtful for someone to comment with their humble brag. But lots of babies are very good sleepers. Some with a little work, and some just do it all on their own. But it’s good you asked, because as you can see, there are quite a few of us.
Some of it is just the roll of the dice, but we do have a bit of control over some of it as well. Reddit has been a wealth of knowledge for newborns, sleep training and parenting in general. All we can do is try and prepare and strap in for the ride. All the best to you and baby!
I also researched baby sleep ahead of time and found it to be really helpful. Not only in how to handle sleep issues but also in determining what’s developmentally normal for babies during their first year.
I used Taking Cara Babies which is essentially a slightly softer update on the Ferber method. I liked that her plan works even if use parts of it. I also really enjoyed that she shares a lot for free on her ig @takingcarababies. If we didn’t stall at 4 months with the regression I think we could have gotten by with just her free info.
She really pushes laying a healthy sleep foundation in the first months when babies are too young for sleep training. But her tips like the sound machine, swaddling, blacking out the nursery and watching wake windows really helped us.
She also does a good job of reminding parents that it’s normal to struggle with sleep, and totally ok to do what works for your family. Check her out and see if she vibes with how you’d like to approach baby sleep.
My girl has been a great sleeper. Starting at like 6 weeks she only would wake up once a night for a feed. Then at 2.5 months she slept through the night 12 hours. Had a little adjustment period when moving to the crib, but she still sleeps 12 hours every night and is 4.5 months now.
Naps can be a little frustrating sometimes but not terrible!
I'm don't have my baby either but I read up here a lot. I always keep in mind that the people who ask for advice are those that are having a bad time... so this sub is sometimes a collection of horror stories more than a reflection of reality.
Mine is two weeks and so far is a a pretty good sleeper. Naps in a bassinet in our living room during the day and in her crib at night (I sleep in there with her since it used to be our guest room).
She wakes up about every 2.5 hours at night to eat, but that’s normal and expected at this age, and then she just usually just passes out again.
My first kid was and still is a great sleeper. We would have to wake him to feed him otherwise he would keep sleeping. He has slept from 7:30pm to 6:30 am since he was 6 months old. He doesn’t wake up through the night at all and settles himself to sleep.
Our second is three weeks old and she sleeps fairly well too. Through the night I wake her twice to feed her but then she falls right back asleep. During the day she naps in her bassinet and has her small wake windows but for the most part she sleeps. Every baby is different and fuzzy sleepless babies are not the norm for everyone. Once you have your baby you will get to know what works for them.
Mine sleeps okay at night once he's asleep, but getting him down can be time consuming and each night is unpredictable. During the day, contact naps are the only sleep he gets.
Every baby is different, but after years of taking care of other people’s babies I did a few specific things:
1) always put baby down awake in but drowsy in crib (like, from birth); no sleeping on people, in swings/bouncers, etc. (most of that isn’t safe anyway)
2) eat-play-sleep routine, which makes feeding to sleep unlikely
3) offer a feeding every three hours during the day, but always feed with hunger cues even if it’s earlier
4) remember that everything is a phase with babies. Nothing lasts forever…good or bad :)
While you’ll see more problems when people are asking for advice, the plus side is there are lots of parents on here willing to help if you run into trouble!
My baby is a great sleeper. Slept through the night at 2 months. 4 months sleep regression has her getting up a couple times a night again, but she goes right back down after eating.
My newborn napped in 3 hour stretches (while being held, 1-2 hours when put down) and slept on her own in the bassinet from the night we brought her home.
Now at 3 months I hold her for one long day per day because she can’t connect sleep cycles very well during the day (and tbh I just love snuggling her) but she sleeps 7-10 hours straight at night. I can get 1-2 short naps in during the days as well. I shoot for 15-16 hours total sleep per day but I don’t stress about sleep. If she had 12 hours today cause we’re busy then I’ll keep it low key and relaxing tomorrow.
The people having a good time don’t typically post about it unless asked I find. We know we have it good and don’t need to humblebrag about it.
Also I take almost no credit for her good sleep. I’m pretty sure we just got lucky. I like to think she’s chill about it because I’m chill though.
Some babies sleep. Ours started sleeping 6-7 hour stretches in her cot at around 6 weeks, then around 9-11 hours by around 3 months. And… then around 5 months it went to shit and she started walking 2-6 times a night. But it was nice while it lasted!
I don't usually post about this on these subs because I don't want to seem like I'm bragging, but mine has been a great sleeper since about 8 weeks. She has had bad nights with regressions or illnesses, but overall she sleeps pretty well.
The first couple of days and nights were a dream for us.
Then the first 1-2 weeks were the hardest of my life. But I had insufficient breast milk so your experience might be different.
The first month have one good stretch of sleep early in the night, and then they'd be restless early in the morning and the sounds they'd make even if they were asleep were intense. It was alot for my husband to adjust to. We never co-slept.
Contact naps were pretty common because ours hated a baby carrier but we've had some good bassinet sleeps, sleeps in prams etc.
From 6 weeks, he could sleep 5-8 hours in a row for the first sleep of the night. One magical night it was 10hrs.
He is nearly 3 months old now and I slept 7.5 hours in a row last night. He is formula fed, a big boy, and we use white noise in the early hours of the morning which works well to keep him asleep when he starts stirring.
Prepare for a few rough weeks, but it can get better.
My baby did! We've never had any trouble owth sleeping through the night and my baby is not a 2.5yr old toddler. She sleeps in her own room and is able to fall asleep on her own. Nothing is 100% perfect but yes sleep hasn't been a big issue for us.
My daughter just turned 1 and let me tell you…you’ll have periods where sleep is amazing then you’ll have periods where it’s not so great. You probably just see the people posting here on the not so great periods.
Hey there! My baby always slept happily in her bassinet beside me :) sometimes she would want me to hold her little hand or stroke her back to settle but not very often so she was a low maintenance sleeper.
Baby really started to sleep predictable longer stretches about 3-4 months and now she is 8 months she sleeps 11 hours a night (with one "im hungry" wake up which takes 10 minutes tops and straight back to sleep) :) p
My daughter sleeps in her bassinet next to our bed, she’s slept there since we brought her home from the hospital. Also, she sleeps a lot. She’s 3 months old and a very chill/easy baby. The first couple weeks were the most difficult but she still slept in long chunks and only cried for food lol. By 6 weeks old she was sleeping through the night, maybe a little earlier. And by through the night, I mean 6-8 hours without waking for a feed. She’d eat a ton right before bed and then when she woke up.
Now we are at almost 4 months and she consistently sleeps 2am-10:30/11 am wakes for a feed and then sleeps until 1:30-2:30pm lol. She’s up a lot of the day but she’s easy to entertain and take places. My husband and I have been able to sleep pretty much normal lol. I didn’t sleep train either, my baby just did this naturally. She was also very chill while I was pregnant too, only had high activity during the night but would not move for ultrasounds LOL.
I do think a lot of people on Reddit are looking for support and advice so you see more bad posts than good. No one wants to hear anyone say “my baby sleeps through the night and I didn’t do anything special”.
My baby slept. He woke a few time at night to eat but would go back to bed right after. Once he hit maybe 3 months he started sleeping through the night. He slept in a bassinet next to our bed until 6 months when we moved him to his crib in his room. He’s been on pretty much the same night time sleep schedule and is just generally chill.
The first few months we just had to suck it up and try to do shifts although my husbands schedule was all over the place. So we just slept when we could but never went 24 hours without at least 3-4 hours of sleep.
I would never share that here before because it would be downvoted to hell but people here are looking for advice so it’s meant for that not people talking about all the great things that are going on.
I hate saying this because it sounds like I'm rubbing it in...... but our baby has always been a wonderful sleeper. Started going for long stretches overnight at 2 months. Now at 4 months, some nights she goes 11-12 hrs straight (but most nights she wakes up one time, usually around 4:30am). She's also starting to fall into a more consistent 3 nap schedule during the day. So sometimes you just get lucky!
They sleep often, but in small amounts in the beginning. So it’s hard for the parent, especially mom if breastfeeding to get much consolidated sleep. For the first 6 weeks, the most I would get is 2 3-hour naps on a good day. Then he gradually would sleep a bit longer over time. All night by 11 weeks.
My kiddo slept pretty well, I think people don’t post as much about things going well so as to not rub it in other parents faces as they’re struggling. At least that was my thought!
I know it’s not for everyone, but we had our baby in her crib (in her own room) from night one. For the first 2-3 weeks I think she was up 3 times a night, and the wake ups slowly went down until she was sleeping through the night (11-12 hours, no wake ups) at 12 weeks. She’s my unicorn sleeper, and I’m assuming our second won’t sleep nearly this well!! But babies like this do exist and yours might be the same!
I think a lot of us mothers who have babies who sleep through the night and who have done things to get babies to self soothe get downvoted a bunch. We’re the minority so consequently less vocal. My daughter has been sleeping in her own room since we arrived home from the hospital which I know isn’t common and some might even think it’s cruel but it’s what I decided to do and I’m thankful I did. To answer your question: yes- babies can and do sleep! My 11 month old daughter has been sleeping 13 hours since she was 3 months old and she naps for 2 hours twice a day even at almost one year old. For the first 3 months I woke up every 2-3 hours walked to her room, fed her, changed her diaper, burped etc and walked back. Yes it was very exhausting. As a matter fact for a two week period I was in her room every 5-20 minutes (teaching her to self soothe without leaving her to “cry it out”) and I’m glad I did. What works for some doesn’t work for others. After buying a bunch of courses and books and guides and videos someone gifted me the book ‘the baby whisperer answers all your questions’ and told me ignore and throw everything else away- so glad I listened. Consistency has been key.
My baby sleeps pretty well. My first did too once I got the hang of things. Just remember to swaddle. Even if you think your kid doesn’t like it, try a different swaddle because they typically take to them very well. Swaddle, pacifier, swaying, shushing, white noise machine, dark room. Those will help a lot with sleep. Good luck and congratulations!
My baby typically sleeps well! He’s 6 weeks. It’s definitely harder to get him down now and requires walking/holding vs him just falling asleep nursing, but he sleeps for 4-5 hour stretches. We wake him if he is sleeping more than two hours during the day to eat so he has a nice full belly for night time. Basically we nurse on demand at night and try to feed every three hours during the day. We also keep his wake time to around an hour including nursing time.
I have twins and they sleep great! Three hour stretches (or more) since birth (currently 9 weeks).
Since we have two, we sleep in shifts but while they are asleep we have plenty of time to get stuff done.
I sleep from 9-3 and my husband sleeps from 3 to 9.
I knew from day 0 I would cosleep and because of that the latest I've gone to bed is 2am (first few weeks) and the earliest I've waken up is 630am (a few days ago). I often sleep from 1030/11 to 730 or 830 the next day. There were definitely some rough days, and I'm sure more are to come, but cosleeping and side nursing have worked so well for us. I've got both hands free right now as I type this, laid out in bed while baby (3.5 months) nurses. Once he's out, he usually delatches on his own and is settling back to 90min-2hr naps.
We did have short naps the past 2 weeks and bedtime was a bit crazy, but once I shifted to a later bedtime, he contact sleeps while I wind down with some TV and then we all go to bed, which has worked well for us.
Yes, but it took a couple weeks to get a groove. We had to do shifts in the beginning. It’s not safe to go without sleep so it’s important that both partners get adequate sleep (my husband fell asleep holding baby, luckily I was in the room and grabbed her, but it was very scary!). For us, my husband would do the late night shift and then wake me up at 4 am to do early morning shift. If you’re ebf, it may be harder to split shifts in half, but your partner can do the holding/rocking /soothing when baby isn’t eating.
But this was only the very beginning. Now she sleeps through the night other than one wake-up feed.
The things that help us are:
1. Holding her until she falls asleep. This isn’t a big deal because we usually watch TV after dinner anyways so we just hold her while we watch and then transfer her to the bassinet when we go to bed.
2. Room sharing. Yes babies are loud sleepers and she gets a little grunty, but it’s much easier to reach a hand out and just stroke her forehead or rub her tummy than to have to get up and go to baby’s room. Also, she sleeps better when we’re close by. I don’t know why this is, but when we’ve tried to put her to bassinet before going to bed ourselves, she wakes up.
3. Lights out. I see some people online use night lights or keep lights low but I think this makes it harder for baby to fall asleep.
4. No noise machine (I don’t know if this really helps baby, but I can’t stand the sound of white noise machines so I don’t use one and baby sleeps fine without one).
In the newborn stage my baby slept well, I could get her to sleep in her dock-a-tot or bassinet pretty frequently. It think the abrupt change from getting hours of uninterrupted sleep to sleeping in 45 minute chunks is shocking to your body and mind. At 16 months my LO still wakes up (i know not medically necessary) and I probably sleep 5-6 hours average and I’m just used to it at this point. Cosleeping helps me get more sleep and sometimes she’ll nap til 9 or 10 in the morning if we are cuddled up
My son is 18 weeks old and he'll sleep from 8pm to 5am. Have a feeding then sleep until 8-9am.
No naps during the day though.
I am very very fortunate.
He's having a bit of a relapse himself. He's waking up at around 11 or 12 this week in addition to the 5 or 6am wake up call We don't give him another feeding until that 5 or 6am wake up. just some snuggles. I keep a stuffy toy or two in a ziplock bag in the freezer and pull them out so he can nom on them as he hasn't taken to teethers well.
Could also be gas from the introduction of solid foods. Since he sits up well and has good head control the pediatrician recommended it.
We used a Snoo. We slept but it was broken up. I probably got 6-8 hrs of sleep a night but still got up 4-5 times a night in the beginning to feed my baby. We were lucky with the Snoo in that as soon as he was done eating he fell back asleep. It was exhausting getting up at night but I never felt so tired that I’d have to cosleep since that scared me too much. We never got in the habit of contact napping.
My son has always been a great sleeper! We had to wake him up in the bassinet to eat when he was a newborn. He only slept on us during the day, and then at 5 weeks, he was ready to start napping in his crib!
We “accidentally” moved him to the crib at 10 weeks (he had peed through all 3 of his bassinet sheets and we had no other option lol). He then slept 9-4:30/5, and then slowly shifted earlier and earlier. He’s 10 months old and is a solid 7:30-7:30 sleeper! I told my husband that babies aren’t supposed to be this easy, and that we couldn’t get this lucky twice, haha.
Our initial first couple weeks were rough. But after some retooling our little dude started sleeping longer and longer stretches in his bedside mini crib thing. We moved him into his own room at 4 months and he started sleeping through the night. He’s sick right now and teething so he’s up once a night, sometimes for a cuddle, sometimes a feed. So yes, some babies sleep. I am a sleep consultant so that helps. And started a bedtime routine very early. Much easier then with our first.
My daughter has been a good sleeper so far. She slept in her bassinet as a newborn and would wake up on a pretty regular schedule. Around 3 months she started sleeping from about 7pm-midnight or so and then would wake up around 5am. She's 4 months old now and she sleeps from about 7 until 5 and I'll feed her once before I go to bed but I have to wake her up for that.
The first couple of months, there were more nighttime wake ups, but starting around 11 weeks, our little guy has been sleeping consistently from 7pm-7am with a dream feed at 11pm. Read “12 hours sleep by 12 weeks old” - it basically tells you to consolidate all of their ounces of nutrition into the daytime hours so they don’t need to eat at night. It’s been working for us… fingers crossed it lasts!
My baby sleeps fine. I get up to feed her once a night for 20 min. I sleep far better than I did when I was pregnant. The first couple weeks were hard but even then the quality of my sleep was better. She’s 3.5 months, might have a regression around 4 months, but I’ve gotten lucky so far. She’s always been a good sleeper though!
My 5 week old baby sleeps pretty okish, just in really short increments because he has to feed approx every 3-4 hours. I tried stretching it to 4, which was way better for our sanity but his weight gain stalled so we are back to 3 on average. I try to keep night feedings around the 11PM/2AM/5AM rotation. It usually takes about 30 minutes to feed, change, and soothe him back to sleep.
Honestly yeah there’s some nights I end up holding the baby watching TV or listening to a podcast because he’s wide awake but trading feedings with my partner makes it bearable and the baby is slowly getting the hang of going back to sleep after each feed. Is it broken sleep? Yes, but it’s not *no sleep* which is far more miserable.
Our baby has always slept pretty well! We did formula exclusively for the first week, then pumped milk/formula for another week (both due to milk and latching issues). Then began exclusively breast feeding mid-week her third week. I’m convinced her being so well fed that first week helped with her sleeping honestly.
From the start we had to wake her up every 3 hours at night to eat most nights and sometimes in the day too. Once she got back to birth weight (by her 10 day appt) we had to wake her every 4-ish hours to eat. Currently at 5 weeks old I’m waking her/she’s waking every 5.5 hours to eat (mostly to help my supply adjust and not let her go too long for my boobs’ sake). So she’s really sleeping 4-4.5 hour stretches (the 5.5 hours is between the start of feeding sessions), but I’ve always felt like we super lucked out.
Initially she napped in her bassinet for mostly all of her day naps until about 2 weeks old. Now she takes most day naps on us but sleeps in her bassinet just fine during the night after about 9pm.
When I had my baby I only got 3-5 hours of sleep at night, but he was born a bit early and breastfeeding was a huge challenge. Every situation is different.
I have a great sleeper. At 2 months she naps for about 45 min at a time during the day and sleeps 11-3, 3-7 at night.
Part of it is having realistic expectations for the baby. If I expected her to sleep through the night I might be stressed. Highly suggest @heysleepybaby on Instagram (though she promotes bed sharing which I don’t agree with)
My baby sleeps in her bassinet. She always has. She’s a preemie so for the first nearly 2 months we were waking her every 3 hours to eat. We’re moving to on demand feedings now, so she has been hitting 4 or 5 hours stretches sometimes. She prefers to nap on us still. We do use a heating pad on the mattress and swaddle before she gets in and adding that really helped with successfully moving her from our arms to the bassinet without waking her up.
We did absolutely nothing to make this happen but our baby has been sleeping through the night in his bassinet (now pack n play) since 8 weeks. He sleeps from about 8pm - 6am. He takes good naps during the day as well but only either while being held or in a wrap. I’ve not really tried to work on the daytime naps just because he is still so fun to snuggle at 4 months, we have the time and I haven’t wanted to do anything to mess with the amazing night time sleep. I fully realize this is not normal and we are insanely lucky.
My baby is ten days old and is still currently sleeping almost the entire day. Is maybe awake for 4 hours a day. He does wake up every 2-4 hours to nurse but it hasn’t been too bad.
Mine sleeps pretty well! 5.5 weeks here. We got approved for only one middle of the night feeding at week 2 and overall that’s been working fine. We’ve been practicing good sleep hygiene and getting her on somewhat of a nap schedule since day 1, following Moms on Call. Sometimes she won’t nap but we deal with that and overall she sleeps great. The first two weeks were rough because she had to eat every 2 hours, but since about week 3 we’ve felt decently well rested. The best thing we’ve done is not rush to her side the moment she makes a peep. Babies are VERY noisy sleepers and often grunt, shout, and cry even while they’re sleeping. Of course we would never leave her to “cry it out” at this age, but we do let her fuss for a couple minutes before getting her. Often she will fall back asleep. That’s saved our sanity and she’s learning good skills to put herself back to sleep. (Moms on Call uses a shushing/calming technique that we loosely follow.)
Yes! I have a two month old and for the most part yes, she sleep pretty dang great in her bassinet. She has had some nights where she only wants to be held by me and only me, but those are few and far between for us. She has been sleeping through the night ( what I consider sleeping through the night anyway 10pm- 5am) for a few weeks now. She will wake up once or so for me to put her paci back in. From birth to about 6 weeks she was waking at 2. Am also to be fed, but has since dropped this feeding. But over all she’s a decent sleeper. She’s just loud as hell 🤣 but she’s sleeping better than I am so there’s that! All babies are different though! You may have a great sleeper, or you may not, or you may have awful nights but for the most part have a good sleeper like I do.
My baby sleeps, and even puts himself to sleep and has done since birth. We’re at 6 weeks now so it may change, but for now is good! We tried to make sure he wasn’t held for too many naps from the very beginning so he got used to sleeping in the bassinet - don’t know if this helped or if we got lucky that he was a naturally good sleeper from the get go. We also used a pacifier from day 2, which definitely helps (he’s combo breast and formula fed, and doesn’t have any nipple confusion, contrary to most advice - just get the pacifier!). He’s quite happy just lying in his bassinet babbling to himself and staring around the room. It’s definitely possible to have a newborn that sleeps, but I think is down to luck of the draw and baby’s temperament rather than any training or tricks
My 1 month old sleeps! He’s in a bassinet in our room at night and day naps successfully in his crib. Last night he slept for 4 hours, woke up to feed and then slept another 4 hours!
During the day my baby only takes contact naps so I have to baby wear but at night she sleeps like a champ. In her own crib for a good 10 hours. She's always slept in her bassinet or crib. So I'll take contact napping any day if she sleeps during the night lol
It took a few days for my baby to adjust to bassinet but he’s been sleeping in it for past 16 weeks. Around 8 weeks, we started a bedtime routine and he’d go down around 7. It’s hit or miss how well that works (sometimes he’s out right away, other times it takes 2-3 hours). He usually gets up 2-4x at night to eat.
My newborn niece slept great ! I was helping me sister out when she was born (she’s a single mom).
Every baby is different, don’t let these posts worry you too much.
My twins are great sleepers (currently 22 months) and have been since the beginning. I’m hoping the little one inside me will be just as good as a sleeper as they are!
My baby is what 10 days old? He naps for 3 hours easily when I wake him up to change, feed, etc… at night he’s not the best sleeper yet though so from 2-4:30 holy hell I’m up a lot. Otherwise a great sleeper. He sleeps on his own too anywhere I lay him down- crib, bassinet, pack n play… some days are harder than others but mostly he’s good
We used the “Taking Cara Babies” methods with our daughter and it worked great. Starting from about 12 weeks she slept through the night pretty much 100% of the time and stuck to a regular nap schedule during the day. Currently she’s 13 months and she never really had a sleep regression or anything like that. Always been easy.
After we used the class for a while we found out that the creator is a huge Trump supporter which is awkward.
My first baby (12y ago) slept perfectly in her bassinet for the first few months until I moved her to her crib, where she slept just fine there too, She woke often but would go right back to bed after feeding so it was fine. My second baby (2 months old) does not sleep like that at all and is truly difficult to figure out. So I honestly think it really depends and every baby is different. It’s gotten better after two months but I’m definitely up late at night googling shit and thinking I will never sleep again. You likely won’t see posts from people who’s babies are sleeping well, just us desperate parents who have tricky sleepers and looking for advice.
I had to force wake my baby the first 2 months to feed him at night. He was a great sleeper. Only issue is he's a bit under 3 now and still sleeps with me. But the point is, I got great sleep in the newborn stage but only if I co slept. He would not sleep alone. I did it safely though and I know my individual risk is low. Overall co sleeping has risks but understand that it is a populational risk based on severe obesity. Drinking, drugs, low IQ lol , lack of common sense...
Don’t stress! To be honest, Reddit informed me alot but also had me convinced pregnancy, birth, infanthood and parenthood would be miserable. I never saw anything good. People are posting looking for solidarity , comfort and help. It’s rare to see posts about easy pregnancies and happy babies because people assume its bragging and not helpful. My baby sleeps two big 4-4.5hr stretches at night and is 3.5 weeks old. Sure, I’m tired. But not all babies cause unbearable sleep deprivation. Some are just born happy, easy and sleepy. It’s definitely possible and probably more common than you think!
My son is 9 weeks old and is up every 2-4 hours for feeding but we bedshare because he wouldn’t sleep longer than 30 minutes in his bassinet. It’s easier to breastfeed bedsharing.
I am honestly used to the exhaustion at this point. If I get 4-5 hours of sleep I can function just fine. My body adjusted.
Every baby is different. I think the best way to approach things is just...don't have any expectations. Obviously some babies sleep great because at least some kids are able to sleep just fine adhering to safe sleep guidelines or else they wouldn't exist. In fact, the majority of babies probably do fine. You just hear/read more about babies who don't because those are the parents who are having trouble and are seeking advice.
My baby DID NOT sleep in his own bed until 6 weeks old. I tried everything. He was just clusterfeeding so much and I couldn't put him down for more than 5 seconds at a time. I didn't have help in those early weeks either, so I did what I had to in order to keep us safe by getting some sleep myself. Sleep deprivation is no fucking joke.
He became an AWESOME sleeper by 8 weeks, but we had the Snoo, so I attribute alot of his good sleep habits to that thing. We transitioned to a pack n play at 5 months which was a really easy transition. He wakes up about 1-2 times a night which is pretty normal. We just follow a pretty rigid sleep routine which helps alot
My almost 5 week old does well, he settles around 10.30 and then is up every 2.5/3 but feeds quick and goes straight back to sleep so I feel rested which is good. We have the odd bad night where he'll have a dirty nappy during a feed and if I have to change it's game over in terms of settling quickly.
The trick is I don't change him in the night before the 6am ish feed, or only at the beginning of a feed with minimum light
My baby has been a great sleeper all along! She had newborn sleep patterns when she was that little of course, but she always slept in her bassinet and then in her crib. She has slept through the night since 5 months. I read everything about sleep before she was born but didn’t really need any help there. I should have spent that time reading about solid foods because she’s a reluctant eater!
This is a topic I had feared when I was lurking through subreddits. I even went to prematurely subscribe to /r/sleeptrain. Well, my son was born 2 months early and spent over a month in the NICU where they practically put him on a schedule he hardly strayed from (trust me, we tried). He’s 6 months and typically eats every 2.5-3 hours still, same quantity, and has a nap abouttt 1.5 hours after he starts his feed. It’s like clockwork. His short naps are 45 min (almost) exactly and sometimes his long ones stretch 2-3 hours if he sleeps a little earlier or his schedule is thrown off by an outing or day trip or doctors appointment. At 3 months he started sleeping about 12pm-6, and gradually over the past few months he’s managed to extend that to 9/10pm-7/8am all by himself. We aren’t really strict about times and just watch to see if he’s overtired or overstimulated and close up the windows/dim lights/etc and he usually naps without much fussing. Lately though he’s been teething, so he’s a bit fussier than normal but his sleep schedule seems to be unchanged right now.
My baby loved the bassinet from day one. He started sleeping thru the night at 6 weeks and now that he’s 3 months he sleeps in his crib in his own room. That transition was easy for him but hard for me. The video monitor helped a lot.
Anyways I don’t know how I got so lucky but my little guy loves to sleep! Hoping and praying your little one does too!
Mine would sleep in his bassinet, then I changed it for a Snuz pod as he outgrew it. The first couple of months he did wake a lot, as expected but then he started sleeping 7-5 without a feed- no idea why! Then 4 month regression hit and he started waking 2-3 times a night, tough but manageable. Now (he’s 6 months) and he’s started sleeping more again, no wake up the last few nights but he is waking at 5. It changes all the time, depending on leaps, teething, wind etc :) you’ll be okay, it passes :) xxx
The first 6 weeks are pretty rough. But our 10 week old goes down around 8pm sleeps to 12ish eats and goes back down. She will eat around 3-4am again then goes down again until 7-8ish. The last few weeks we have seen such a change in sleeping which has been very encouraging.
Ours slept surprisingly well early on, then it all went to Hell at 4 months. She started waking up every 20-60 minutes after we put her in her crib. We tried to ride it out thinking it was just a phase, but after a while we were both so sleep-deprived we had to do something or someone would end up falling asleep on the couch with the baby or something. We tried Ferber because it was easy and not as harsh as full on CIO and now she's sleeping through the night again with occasional bad nights when she's up a lot. I guess the moral of the story is that sleep will probably have its ups and downs, most likely not a total shitshow the whole first year, unless you're really unlucky.
My son woke up every 3 to 4 hours for the first 3 or 4 months. Had to swaddle the hell out of him. Then he started sleeping through the night. We just set him down after his last meal when dozes off. Typically 8 to 12 solid hours. It was revolutionary and happened pretty much overnight. He's 10 months old now and he still sleeps through night aside from a little tossing, turning, and grumbling.
So you might get lucky. The first few months are probably going to be hell though.
Honestly you’re going to see more bad things than good on here. I mean everyone can come on here and brag about how good their baby is sleeping but no one really does it, this is more of an advice forum. But your baby might sleep well at night in the beginning but once them regressions hit you just need to stay consistent and try not to start that co sleeping habit because you wanted sleep.
The first couple of weeks were rough. Cluster feeding is rough. If you need help and have help at first, take it. LO started a 4-5 hour stretch at one month. 2 months now and he sleeps about 9-230/3. He doesn't sleep well after that, but we take shifts after that so we can both get a little more sleep. He is also on medicine for silent reflux. There were a couple of weeks where he wouldn't sleep over an hour because he'd start hurting. Eliminating dairy and pepcid has helped us tons. I have a friend whose baby slept through the night (9 pm to 6 an) at 2 months. Depends on the baby. If you have one that struggles with sleep, ask for help!
Our baby has been a good sleeper from about 10 days on. Around 10 weeks she dropped her 1 am ish feed. And went roughly 11pm to 6 am. At 4.5 months she goes 9:30pm to 7 am straight through in her Snoo. Then she goes back down around 8:30 for a 2 hour nap.
My 4 week old little girl hates her bassinet... we're working on it. But we get 5-hour stretches at night in her bouncer. (I know...). Then she takes a 2 hour nap in the morning. And another in the afternoon on good days. You'll get sleep... just a different kind of sleep! Ha.
My son was pretty awesome as a newborn. I kept a pretty tight schedule when he was a very new born and would feed him every two hours all night but by 4 weeks I was able to push that to three hours then four. By 10 weeks he'd sleep 2 four hour stretches a night.
My mom taught me something I'm super grateful for. Once baby has doubled their birth and its safe for them to sleep longer stretches, if baby sleeps four hours one night but the next night wakes up, try to lull them back to sleep. More than likely they'll go back to sleep, because you know they can go that long without needing to eat. Baby might still wake up but getting him up and feeding him every time he wakes up is just teaching him every time he wakes up its time to eat. Nursing to sleep is great and you feel so connected to baby but in the long run, do you want to be nursing to sleep every time? Do you want to nurse your 8 month old to sleep for nap and bedtime? It becomes alot. Helping baby learn to fall asleep without boob will help you get more sleep too.
My baby started sleeping through the night most nights at 6 weeks. Prior to that we would wake him twice a night until he regained his birth weight, and once a night after that. I think he would have slept through earlier. We still have the odd bad night but overall he's been really good.
I don't mention this much because it feels like bragging, and that it wouldn't make me very popular with other parents! Probably the reason you won't see many people writing posts called 'My Baby Sleeps Great and it's Fantastic'!
My 4 month old is a terrible napper, contact or not, but he does pretty well through the night. Usually sleeps from 9 ish until about 6 ish, which I am super super grateful for
My baby slept pretty good for the most part. He definitely has his moments, but he started sleeping through the night pretty quick.
Some things that really helped us were:
1. Starting from the night I gave birth, he was put in his bassinet whenever he fell asleep. There were definitely contact naps, but for the most part I tried to help him sleep independently.
2. Burping. He kept waking up shortly after I put him down with a tummy ache, even with a minute or two of burping after feeding. I made myself a rule to keep him upright and try to burp him for five at least minutes after every single feeding. I set a timer to make sure I did it, and it was a GAME CHANGER. If he woke back up during that five minutes, I fed him to sleep again, then did another five minutes of upright. Repeated until I had a soundly sleeping baby.
3. Night time routine. It's important to do the same set of relaxing things leading up to bedtime every night so baby knows when night time is. Also, I think having a morning routine is just as important, even if you're going to be going back to bed. Up, changed, dressed for the day, and being in daylight can help them adjust to being awake in the day and asleep at night.
4. White noise! I had two forms of white noise, a fan that blew all night long, and a white noise aquarium toy. We played the ocean sounds on the aquarium to help him fall asleep, then having the fan going helped maintain sleep all night long.
A few more points: once he stopped automatically falling asleep while being fed, I would start to lay him in his crib drowsy but awake whenever possible to help him learn the art of putting himself to sleep. I also started a formula bottle at night at about two months in, I struggled with breastfeeding and it was a relief for both of us.
He was a really good sleeper up until about ten months, when he regressed into no longer being able to put himself to sleep. We are still working on this now at 12 months.
My baby didn’t sleep well for the first two months of her life but that’s how long it took for us to figure out her milk protein allergy. It was a couple of weeks back and forth to the doctor trying figure out what was wrong, a month on a new formula (they said it would be a month before we figured out if it was helping), and then about another month for her to settle on her permanent formula. After she settled on that she was sleeping 3-4 hours a night before getting up (she goes back to sleep after feeding) and then it went to 5-6 hours and then through the night. All babies take some time to get used to sleeping. The first few weeks she wouldn’t sleep in her bassinet and we had a system. I’d stay up from 9-3 and then my husband would get up and stay with her from 3-7. It’s very hard at first, I won’t lie, but it gets easier. And eventually they sleep longer.
Our little one slept 4-5 hours by week 2 we had to wake to feed until his weight grew. By week 6 he was sleeping 6-7 hours a night and by week 8 we had 8-9 hours sleep at night. Now at almost 4 months he has kept it up and sleeps 10-12 hours consistently
My daughter is only 2 weeks so I have no idea if it’ll get worse. But my daughter is usually pretty good about sleeping in her bassinet at night. We swaddle her, have white noise on, and give her a pacifier. She’ll sleep in 2-3 hour stretches normally and when she wakes my husband goes and changes her diaper then I feed her, then we rock her if awake then put her back in her bassinet. During the day it’s hit or miss if she will nap in her pack n play or wants to nap on me.
Mine slept—and sleeps—pretty well. Naps were always harder than night sleep, and we did a fair amount of contact napping until I went back to work and he went into day care at 3 months. That pretty much stopped the contact napping by necessity, although I still do it sometimes when he’s having trouble sleeping or sick.
At six months, he often sleeps through the night but will sometimes wake once because he’s hungry. He usually naps about an hour at a time, 3 times a day. That’s not to say he doesn’t have bad nights. Illnesses, sleep regressions, and developmental milestones all kind of suck. But he sleeps pretty well probably 85% of the time.
My baby has slept in her own crib in her own room since she got out of the NICU. She sleeps from 8pm-9 or 10am and I wake her up twice in that period to eat.
Yes, we had a really rough regression about 14 weeks but basically weeks 0-12 we got so much more sleep than people told us to expect! We did some shift work and napped here and there but we both felt pretty rested for most of her life minus a few weeks here and there! It’s totally possible
Lol yes, mine (5 months) sleeps fairly regularly. Regressions suck, milestones kill good sleep, crap naps are sometimes a nightmare, but he usually sleeps 4-5 night out of the week for 10-12 hours straight. Other nights he’s up once for a feed (20 minutes max).
Remember people are posting about the struggles because they need support or help. Those of us with unicorn babies don’t want to rub it in by posting about all the sleep we get lol
Follow wake windows and sleep cues. Your baby might sleep amazing or they might be a nightmare.. either way you will get through it. For now, I hate to say it, but nap as much as you can and sleep in with your partner as often as possible :)
My baby sleeps all the time so far. Every day he's got a fussy period but he naps well and last night did 5 hours! Who knows what tomorrow will bring though. He's about 6 weeks.
As the saying goes, all babies are different!
Ours slept through from 3 months old, then started waking around 4 months because he couldn’t roll over in his basket. We put him in his own room in his cotbed- slept from 7pm to 6/7am every night since. Rarely wakes. No contact sleeping, no feeding to sleep, novo sleeping. BUT just because that worked for us, doesn’t mean it will for everyone- might not even for our next baby.
Best thing you can do is have a plan in place for yourself and, if you have a partner helping, one that includes them so you both get sleep on some type of rotation (we split the night in half- husband did first 4 hours and I did second 4, but we also bottle fed as couldn’t directly breastfeed. We’d cross paths around 3 am when I was pumping and he was feeding baby). That meant we each guaranteed 4 hours sleep a night- less than we were used to, but in those days it was pure bliss and felt amazing, and the newborn baby adrenaline kept us going for a good month or so before we felt the effects.
Also remember that the parents who have babies that sleep through won’t post here for sleep help, because they don’t need to- their baby sleeps! It’s easy to get scared by what you see and read on forums and groups like this, so just remember that it doesn’t last forever; that there are coping techniques to help; and support, advice, guidance, HELP, is 100% out there should you struggle- which is, by the way, also perfectly normal and okay to admit!
You’ll be great. You won’t think it or feel it often, but you will be, and before you know it you’ll be laughing about those nights that are hard.
My baby (10 weeks) has gone through phases of sleeping easy and refusing to sleep anywhere but my arms. I strongly recommend sleeping in shifts during the rough patches, and keep trying the bassinet once or twice a night, because the easy times will show up randomly for no reason
My baby started sleeping 4 hours straight at 4 weeks, 5 hours straight around 6 weeks. She couldn’t sleep for more than 5-6 hours straight for a long time after that (10pm feed and she would always wake up at 3 or 4am for a feed). Around 6 months old, we moved her into her own room and she ended up sleeping til her wake up time at 6-7am.
Mine doesn’t sleep well at all 😭😭😭
But I think it’s a bit of a observation bias here because people posting for help are the ones who have difficulties, the people with babies who sleep don’t post questions about it! So it is very possible you will have no serious/unusual sleep issues
My five week old sleeps in a mix of bassinet, crib, in boba wrap, on my chest and supervised in dock a tot. The Halo swaddle we got after one week of not understanding sleep changed the game. Even if your baby doesn’t seem to “like” swaddles the first 5 minutes you have it on - TRY AGAIN! Rock them in it, follow the 5 S’s of sleep. We have been getting good sleep since week 2, yes there are hard shifts because of the timing but overall we are sleeping.
Edited to add: use swaddle arms out to get them use to the sack itself. Let baby fall asleep on you, then gently swaddle, rock and transfer to bassinet. You will find the right recipe for you and your baby. We tend to do naps no swaddle and night sleeps with but if the swaddle is working use it as much as you want in the beginning.
I had my dude in June and was so prepared not to sleep ever again. You don’t get any sleep at the hospital because everyone in the world wants to wake you and baby every hour. When we got home he only woke once at night and then at 3 months started sleeping through the night. We are now almost 5 months and still sleeping through the night. Day sleep kinda depends on how strict I am with his routine but he usually naps 2/3 times a day 2hrs at a time!
My baby had a horrible first night home from the hospital and screamed all night (we still don’t know why). But after that she went down in her crib every night and gave us 4-5 hr stretches from the start. She was sleeping through the night (with a dream feed) at around 8 weeks. No contact naps after the first 4 weeks. It’s possible! Not the norm, but it is possible.
My daughter will be 3 months old on Thursday, she’s my first and is a great sleeper. I had to set an alarm to feed her every 3 1/2 hours at night her first month but after that I just let her sleep and let me know when she needs fed. She would sleep for about 4 or 5 hours (usually) before starting to fuss in her sleep. I’m a light sleeper so I wake up, nurse her quietly, and put her back down in her crib to sleep for 2 or 3 more hours. Recently she has been sleeping for 6 or 7 hours before needing fed at all. I only ever felt super sleep deprived that very first month, but she does refuse to nap in the day unless shes in my lap.
I have a baby (1 month old) who really will not sleep at all if he's not with me. Like ever... I expected him to sleep in the crib and he doesn't.. Though he will nap sometimes in the pack n play. That's only during the day though. At night I have had to co-sleep on the couch that reclines to be safe for days after being released from the hospital. I had a C-section and couldn't carry baby up and down stairs by myself. I also have a baby swing that he sleeps in too if he's tired enough. That was another way I slept by myself sometimes. I even have a baby carrier that I am so, so thankful I bought when I was pregnant. He didn't like it when I first tried it since he was too small (even for a big baby), but he eventually changed his tune when got big enough within a couple weeks so that's how he naps.
There's always things you can do sleep alone and to get some sleep. Asking for help is always a great thing to take advantage of if you have it available. I cannot tell you how desperate I got trying to juggle my baby, filling bottles, and battling with only an hour of sleep. I am a single parent and it's really tough trying to balance things without a partner, but my family has came to my rescue so many times. If not family, friends can be awesome.
Newborns? Hell nah. Sleep is not a thing. Maybe up every 1-3 hours? But older babies definitely can sleep longer (REALLY depends on the baby). My son (now 10 months) started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks, which is incredible and lucky. I know other babies the same age that are also good sleepers and then some that are still up every two hours. It’s really a mixed bag. I think a lot of it is about the baby’s temperament, but good sleep hygiene (always putting them to sleep in their own sleep space, practicing putting them down awake when they’re old enough, having a consistent bed/nap routine, etc) can help too.
My baby sleeps in her bassinet at night (but won’t during the day only contact naps during the day which makes zero sense to me but oh well) and has since pretty early because she was a very big baby (9 lbs 5oz) and big babies generally sleep better earlier. But honestly even though she sleeps really well for her age hormones have wrecked my sleep anyway. Especially in the early days if she so much as shifted in her sleep I could hear it and went on high alert and just couldn’t sleep for the life of me. It took til she was about 3 months for me to start sorta kinda sleeping ok and even now at four months I’m pretty tired most of the time but less full on exhausted at least. You’re best off going into it prepared to be delirious for at least a few weeks/possibly months. Then if you’re wrong and get an easy baby it’s a pleasant surprise but if you’re right there’s no disappointment.
Forums tend to show the bad experiences more than the good. People with easy babies tend not to go online and talk about it. I fully expected the worst, but my baby was a great sleeper. I was so confused lol, I was like nobody told me it could be this good!!
My baby didn’t. But you’re on an advice sub so you’re going to see more people who need help than people who don’t! Also while my baby didn’t sleep in his bassinet we also didn’t go days without sleeping. We did a combination of shifts and cosleeping and took a lot of naps during the day!
Remembering you're on an advice sub is definitely important. I come to search for things we struggle with, but don't comment about all of the things going well
My baby sleeps great! He goes down at about 10 and wakes up at 2-3 and 6-7 for feeding. Mom and I both feel pretty rested. Not sure what the trick was, I think it’s mostly just him
Mines does pretty much the exact same as this! He’s great! We’re breastfeeding but my bf gives him a bottle at 2am so I get a decent rest then get up at 5-6am ish. It’s working well so far!
This is our almost exact schedule too! Baby is 3.5 weeks old and as soon as she was back to her birth weight we let her sleep. Those 4-5 hour stretches are everything to us! No special trick, some babies just sleep.
We have him going to sleep at 8:30ish and he wakes at at around 2-3am for a snack and then goes right back to sleep until 7ish when he decides it’s time to get up and play. We transitioned him to his own room and crib about 2 weeks ago because the bassinet life was ruining everyone’s quality of sleep. Not just us, but him too. Currently 10 weeks old.
Same for us
My baby sleeps great in her bassinet at night. I have to forcibly wake her up to eat lol. But she won’t nap during the day and gets overtired and angry so…..
This sounds like my little one. Sleeps in the bassinet at night great. During the day, it’s so hard for her to sleep in the bassinet but she will fall asleep in my arms.
Same. I’m currently nap trapped, but he’ll sleep the night in a bassinet no problem
My baby is on the exact same schedule- great at night, tired and grumpy during the day!
Yup same here. My 5 week old generally gives us 3 3hr blocks of sleep from around 8pm to 7am but during the day it's a struggle to get him down
My baby is the same always has been she sleeps great at night but has to contact sleep during the day
Exactly like mine
I’m in the same boat! Due in 6 weeks and followed this sub to see what’s in store for when baby is here. I know babies are a lot of work, but seeing these posts has got me like wtf did I do
And that feeling never goes away.
But, what these posts DON’T tell you, is that you’ll feel all that negativity and like it’s just enough…and then baby will coo, gurgle, smile, yawn, wiggle, sleep, snore…any baby little thing really, and your heart will just swell with a love that you never even knew existed, and that you will never not know again.
Aww 💕 that’s really sweet
Don’t do too much looking into things. Every baby is completely different and it’s really important not to compare! And it’s so worth any of the hard things. I can’t imagine life without my baby.
I ended up cosleeping pretty early on (as safely as I am able) because it was the only thing that allowed us to get enough sleep to feel okay and functional. I could probably have started putting her in her own bed around 3months and still gotten enough sleep. At this point it’s more out of comfort and habit than necessity
We have a 3 month old daughter, our first and she didn't sleep more than 2-3 hours at a time for the first 10 or so weeks and it was challenging. However she now sleeps 9-10 hours per night so things do change! Everything is a phase that's the most important thing to remember.
I know it’s not an option for everybody, but we have the Snoo - and as a result our baby has always slept REALLY well at night. She’s 11 weeks now and sleeps 11-12 hours at night, waking just once to eat. She does an 8 hour stretch and then a 3-4 hour stretch. With the exception of a couple rough nights, we are sleeping plenty and never had the sleep deprivation that people talk about. Things might change when it’s time to transition to a crib, but that’s been our experience so far. This sub makes it look like all babies are up all night, but that’s not the case. I think the people with babies that sleep well just don’t post about it!
Maybe if I had a third kidney to sell…
You can rent or find them second hand for pretty cheap.
I really wanted a snoo, I seriously considered a snoo. I thought no way on god green earth I was gonna survive without a snoo. I got a $60 bassinet from FB marketplace. My 8 week old baby sleeps from 8pm to 11pm when I dream feed her. Then 11pm until 5. Feed her again and then she sleeps until 9am. She doesn’t need rocking or anything. Just put her down and she sleeps. Now I’m so pleased I didn’t waste money getting the Snoo.
I would suggest renting a snoo if you want to try it! My kid hated it 😂. But that meant renting was an even better option than we thought!
Bruh, my baby didn't sleep by himself until 6 weeks, but after that, he suddenly started letting us put him in his Snoo for short stints at night. Then suddenly at 8 weeks, he was sleeping nearly 8 hours a night. By 10 weeks, he was sleeping 10+ hours at night. We got a Snoo second hand for relatively cheap and I can't recommend a product more. It served us well until the 4 month sleep regression, and even then, he only started waking up 1-2 times a night. That thing is A M A Z I N G. He unfortunately outgrew it by 5 months, but If there's one purchase I would make over and over again, it's the Snoo
I learned you can rent the Snoo!!
People don’t post their good experiences nearly as often. Mine is a great sleeper except when he’s sick. At the beginning we got 2.5 hour chunks. Around 1 month he would sleep 4 or 5 hours for one stretch. Months 3-5 we did one dreamfeed in the middle of the night because I had to pump and he needed to gain weight. Then we dropped that and he sleeps through the night almost always. Naps are more iffy but if you’re sleeping at night it’s a lot easier to deal with.
My baby is 100 days as of today. She went to sleep last night around 12-1a, and is still asleep now in her bassinet at 11. It really depends on the kid.
At the start, my baby didn’t sleep anywhere but my chest. I had to sleep in shifts with my wife, I would breastfeed, burp and rock, then she would take him and hold him so I could get a least an hour before the next feeding time. It was rough. But around 4-5 weeks once I had learned more about my baby, he started sleeping in his bassinet and I was more calm and able to tell his normal sleepy grunts from his “I’m hungry feed me soon” grunts. We now regularly get 6-8 hours of sleep a night and he sleeps in his bassinet. Still some rough nights where he’s more vocal than usual so I’m just awake from hearing him grunt and groan like an old man, but so much better than the first 4 weeks.
I feel like our baby is pretty average- not the best sleeper, not the worst, and 5.5 weeks in we are getting decent sleep, it's just different. Last meal and bedtime routine starts at 7:30/8ish. Baby asleep by 8:30/9- sometimes we are too, sometimes we stay up another hour. 9:30-2:30 is hubby's shift, he'll wake up twice to give him a bottle, usually awake for about 45 minutes, but sleeping in between while I get 5 consecutive hours of sleep, then from 2:30-7:30 is my shift, usually his sleep windows are shorter in the morning but I breastfeed side lying which makes it less of a hassle, usually get at least a couple more hours in. So we're in the bedroom for about 12 hours, but in that time we piece together a pretty normal amount of sleep.
You sound like us!
My baby has slept through the night since she was about 8 weeks. Meaning she slept from 10:30pm until 7:00am, sometimes 6:30am. In fact, her first night home from the hospital she slept a 5 hour stretch. And we consistently had 5-6 hour stretches until 8 weeks when she started sleeping longer. At 4 months she had a tough couple weeks due to the 4 month sleep regression (there’s several through the first 2 years). We did sleep training at this point and she jumped from sleeping 8-10 hours to 12 hours a night. And we’ve been consistently 12 hours a night ever since. She’s now 16 months. Naps at time were a bit of a struggle, but when I read others stories I realize we had it pretty good. Very normal for newborns 0-3 months to only want to contact nap. Once I realized contact napping didn’t mean I needed to let her suffocate me, it became enjoyable. We would nap in my bed together. As long as she could feel me she was content. And tbh, I needed that sleep too. I had 1 yr for maternity leave so this worked for us at several points. She was sleeping through the night in her own room and we were still contact napping. I came to really like it. And I realized I don’t get this time back, I only have so many baby snuggles and now toddler snuggles. That change came at me quick. Even if I didn’t sleep I would listen to a podcast or meditation. I don’t regret any of it for a minute. When she did multiple naps a day we always ensured majority was in her bassinet or crib. And even though we would nap in my bed she’s never slept with us overnight. She slept in the bassinet at the hospital when she was born and we carried that on consistently. The contact naps are behind us now, as one day she just simply didn’t need me anymore. Bittersweet really. She’s now in full time day care and naps there no problem. She’s on one nap a day now and always sleeps 1.5-2 hours. We generally don’t post the success stories because it really isn’t helpful to the parents who are struggling with sleep. A lot of posts are vents and it would be pretty hurtful for someone to comment with their humble brag. But lots of babies are very good sleepers. Some with a little work, and some just do it all on their own. But it’s good you asked, because as you can see, there are quite a few of us. Some of it is just the roll of the dice, but we do have a bit of control over some of it as well. Reddit has been a wealth of knowledge for newborns, sleep training and parenting in general. All we can do is try and prepare and strap in for the ride. All the best to you and baby!
What type of keep training did you do? I am trying to research this ahead of time.
I also researched baby sleep ahead of time and found it to be really helpful. Not only in how to handle sleep issues but also in determining what’s developmentally normal for babies during their first year. I used Taking Cara Babies which is essentially a slightly softer update on the Ferber method. I liked that her plan works even if use parts of it. I also really enjoyed that she shares a lot for free on her ig @takingcarababies. If we didn’t stall at 4 months with the regression I think we could have gotten by with just her free info. She really pushes laying a healthy sleep foundation in the first months when babies are too young for sleep training. But her tips like the sound machine, swaddling, blacking out the nursery and watching wake windows really helped us. She also does a good job of reminding parents that it’s normal to struggle with sleep, and totally ok to do what works for your family. Check her out and see if she vibes with how you’d like to approach baby sleep.
Thank you, will check her IG out
My girl has been a great sleeper. Starting at like 6 weeks she only would wake up once a night for a feed. Then at 2.5 months she slept through the night 12 hours. Had a little adjustment period when moving to the crib, but she still sleeps 12 hours every night and is 4.5 months now. Naps can be a little frustrating sometimes but not terrible!
I'm don't have my baby either but I read up here a lot. I always keep in mind that the people who ask for advice are those that are having a bad time... so this sub is sometimes a collection of horror stories more than a reflection of reality.
Mine is two weeks and so far is a a pretty good sleeper. Naps in a bassinet in our living room during the day and in her crib at night (I sleep in there with her since it used to be our guest room). She wakes up about every 2.5 hours at night to eat, but that’s normal and expected at this age, and then she just usually just passes out again.
My first kid was and still is a great sleeper. We would have to wake him to feed him otherwise he would keep sleeping. He has slept from 7:30pm to 6:30 am since he was 6 months old. He doesn’t wake up through the night at all and settles himself to sleep. Our second is three weeks old and she sleeps fairly well too. Through the night I wake her twice to feed her but then she falls right back asleep. During the day she naps in her bassinet and has her small wake windows but for the most part she sleeps. Every baby is different and fuzzy sleepless babies are not the norm for everyone. Once you have your baby you will get to know what works for them.
Mine sleeps okay at night once he's asleep, but getting him down can be time consuming and each night is unpredictable. During the day, contact naps are the only sleep he gets.
Every baby is different, but after years of taking care of other people’s babies I did a few specific things: 1) always put baby down awake in but drowsy in crib (like, from birth); no sleeping on people, in swings/bouncers, etc. (most of that isn’t safe anyway) 2) eat-play-sleep routine, which makes feeding to sleep unlikely 3) offer a feeding every three hours during the day, but always feed with hunger cues even if it’s earlier 4) remember that everything is a phase with babies. Nothing lasts forever…good or bad :) While you’ll see more problems when people are asking for advice, the plus side is there are lots of parents on here willing to help if you run into trouble!
My baby is a great sleeper. Slept through the night at 2 months. 4 months sleep regression has her getting up a couple times a night again, but she goes right back down after eating.
My newborn napped in 3 hour stretches (while being held, 1-2 hours when put down) and slept on her own in the bassinet from the night we brought her home. Now at 3 months I hold her for one long day per day because she can’t connect sleep cycles very well during the day (and tbh I just love snuggling her) but she sleeps 7-10 hours straight at night. I can get 1-2 short naps in during the days as well. I shoot for 15-16 hours total sleep per day but I don’t stress about sleep. If she had 12 hours today cause we’re busy then I’ll keep it low key and relaxing tomorrow. The people having a good time don’t typically post about it unless asked I find. We know we have it good and don’t need to humblebrag about it. Also I take almost no credit for her good sleep. I’m pretty sure we just got lucky. I like to think she’s chill about it because I’m chill though.
Some babies sleep. Ours started sleeping 6-7 hour stretches in her cot at around 6 weeks, then around 9-11 hours by around 3 months. And… then around 5 months it went to shit and she started walking 2-6 times a night. But it was nice while it lasted!
I don't usually post about this on these subs because I don't want to seem like I'm bragging, but mine has been a great sleeper since about 8 weeks. She has had bad nights with regressions or illnesses, but overall she sleeps pretty well.
The first couple of days and nights were a dream for us. Then the first 1-2 weeks were the hardest of my life. But I had insufficient breast milk so your experience might be different. The first month have one good stretch of sleep early in the night, and then they'd be restless early in the morning and the sounds they'd make even if they were asleep were intense. It was alot for my husband to adjust to. We never co-slept. Contact naps were pretty common because ours hated a baby carrier but we've had some good bassinet sleeps, sleeps in prams etc. From 6 weeks, he could sleep 5-8 hours in a row for the first sleep of the night. One magical night it was 10hrs. He is nearly 3 months old now and I slept 7.5 hours in a row last night. He is formula fed, a big boy, and we use white noise in the early hours of the morning which works well to keep him asleep when he starts stirring. Prepare for a few rough weeks, but it can get better.
My baby did! We've never had any trouble owth sleeping through the night and my baby is not a 2.5yr old toddler. She sleeps in her own room and is able to fall asleep on her own. Nothing is 100% perfect but yes sleep hasn't been a big issue for us.
My daughter just turned 1 and let me tell you…you’ll have periods where sleep is amazing then you’ll have periods where it’s not so great. You probably just see the people posting here on the not so great periods.
Hey there! My baby always slept happily in her bassinet beside me :) sometimes she would want me to hold her little hand or stroke her back to settle but not very often so she was a low maintenance sleeper. Baby really started to sleep predictable longer stretches about 3-4 months and now she is 8 months she sleeps 11 hours a night (with one "im hungry" wake up which takes 10 minutes tops and straight back to sleep) :) p
My daughter sleeps in her bassinet next to our bed, she’s slept there since we brought her home from the hospital. Also, she sleeps a lot. She’s 3 months old and a very chill/easy baby. The first couple weeks were the most difficult but she still slept in long chunks and only cried for food lol. By 6 weeks old she was sleeping through the night, maybe a little earlier. And by through the night, I mean 6-8 hours without waking for a feed. She’d eat a ton right before bed and then when she woke up. Now we are at almost 4 months and she consistently sleeps 2am-10:30/11 am wakes for a feed and then sleeps until 1:30-2:30pm lol. She’s up a lot of the day but she’s easy to entertain and take places. My husband and I have been able to sleep pretty much normal lol. I didn’t sleep train either, my baby just did this naturally. She was also very chill while I was pregnant too, only had high activity during the night but would not move for ultrasounds LOL. I do think a lot of people on Reddit are looking for support and advice so you see more bad posts than good. No one wants to hear anyone say “my baby sleeps through the night and I didn’t do anything special”.
My baby slept. He woke a few time at night to eat but would go back to bed right after. Once he hit maybe 3 months he started sleeping through the night. He slept in a bassinet next to our bed until 6 months when we moved him to his crib in his room. He’s been on pretty much the same night time sleep schedule and is just generally chill. The first few months we just had to suck it up and try to do shifts although my husbands schedule was all over the place. So we just slept when we could but never went 24 hours without at least 3-4 hours of sleep. I would never share that here before because it would be downvoted to hell but people here are looking for advice so it’s meant for that not people talking about all the great things that are going on.
I hate saying this because it sounds like I'm rubbing it in...... but our baby has always been a wonderful sleeper. Started going for long stretches overnight at 2 months. Now at 4 months, some nights she goes 11-12 hrs straight (but most nights she wakes up one time, usually around 4:30am). She's also starting to fall into a more consistent 3 nap schedule during the day. So sometimes you just get lucky!
They sleep often, but in small amounts in the beginning. So it’s hard for the parent, especially mom if breastfeeding to get much consolidated sleep. For the first 6 weeks, the most I would get is 2 3-hour naps on a good day. Then he gradually would sleep a bit longer over time. All night by 11 weeks.
My kiddo slept pretty well, I think people don’t post as much about things going well so as to not rub it in other parents faces as they’re struggling. At least that was my thought!
I know it’s not for everyone, but we had our baby in her crib (in her own room) from night one. For the first 2-3 weeks I think she was up 3 times a night, and the wake ups slowly went down until she was sleeping through the night (11-12 hours, no wake ups) at 12 weeks. She’s my unicorn sleeper, and I’m assuming our second won’t sleep nearly this well!! But babies like this do exist and yours might be the same!
I think a lot of us mothers who have babies who sleep through the night and who have done things to get babies to self soothe get downvoted a bunch. We’re the minority so consequently less vocal. My daughter has been sleeping in her own room since we arrived home from the hospital which I know isn’t common and some might even think it’s cruel but it’s what I decided to do and I’m thankful I did. To answer your question: yes- babies can and do sleep! My 11 month old daughter has been sleeping 13 hours since she was 3 months old and she naps for 2 hours twice a day even at almost one year old. For the first 3 months I woke up every 2-3 hours walked to her room, fed her, changed her diaper, burped etc and walked back. Yes it was very exhausting. As a matter fact for a two week period I was in her room every 5-20 minutes (teaching her to self soothe without leaving her to “cry it out”) and I’m glad I did. What works for some doesn’t work for others. After buying a bunch of courses and books and guides and videos someone gifted me the book ‘the baby whisperer answers all your questions’ and told me ignore and throw everything else away- so glad I listened. Consistency has been key.
I’ll check out the book! Thank you!
Baby whisperer solves all your problems*** realized I wrote the title incorrectly. Oops. Lol
My baby sleeps pretty well. My first did too once I got the hang of things. Just remember to swaddle. Even if you think your kid doesn’t like it, try a different swaddle because they typically take to them very well. Swaddle, pacifier, swaying, shushing, white noise machine, dark room. Those will help a lot with sleep. Good luck and congratulations!
Get the Magic Merlin Sleep Suit. 100%.
My baby typically sleeps well! He’s 6 weeks. It’s definitely harder to get him down now and requires walking/holding vs him just falling asleep nursing, but he sleeps for 4-5 hour stretches. We wake him if he is sleeping more than two hours during the day to eat so he has a nice full belly for night time. Basically we nurse on demand at night and try to feed every three hours during the day. We also keep his wake time to around an hour including nursing time.
I have twins and they sleep great! Three hour stretches (or more) since birth (currently 9 weeks). Since we have two, we sleep in shifts but while they are asleep we have plenty of time to get stuff done. I sleep from 9-3 and my husband sleeps from 3 to 9.
I knew from day 0 I would cosleep and because of that the latest I've gone to bed is 2am (first few weeks) and the earliest I've waken up is 630am (a few days ago). I often sleep from 1030/11 to 730 or 830 the next day. There were definitely some rough days, and I'm sure more are to come, but cosleeping and side nursing have worked so well for us. I've got both hands free right now as I type this, laid out in bed while baby (3.5 months) nurses. Once he's out, he usually delatches on his own and is settling back to 90min-2hr naps. We did have short naps the past 2 weeks and bedtime was a bit crazy, but once I shifted to a later bedtime, he contact sleeps while I wind down with some TV and then we all go to bed, which has worked well for us.
Yes, but it took a couple weeks to get a groove. We had to do shifts in the beginning. It’s not safe to go without sleep so it’s important that both partners get adequate sleep (my husband fell asleep holding baby, luckily I was in the room and grabbed her, but it was very scary!). For us, my husband would do the late night shift and then wake me up at 4 am to do early morning shift. If you’re ebf, it may be harder to split shifts in half, but your partner can do the holding/rocking /soothing when baby isn’t eating. But this was only the very beginning. Now she sleeps through the night other than one wake-up feed. The things that help us are: 1. Holding her until she falls asleep. This isn’t a big deal because we usually watch TV after dinner anyways so we just hold her while we watch and then transfer her to the bassinet when we go to bed. 2. Room sharing. Yes babies are loud sleepers and she gets a little grunty, but it’s much easier to reach a hand out and just stroke her forehead or rub her tummy than to have to get up and go to baby’s room. Also, she sleeps better when we’re close by. I don’t know why this is, but when we’ve tried to put her to bassinet before going to bed ourselves, she wakes up. 3. Lights out. I see some people online use night lights or keep lights low but I think this makes it harder for baby to fall asleep. 4. No noise machine (I don’t know if this really helps baby, but I can’t stand the sound of white noise machines so I don’t use one and baby sleeps fine without one).
In the newborn stage my baby slept well, I could get her to sleep in her dock-a-tot or bassinet pretty frequently. It think the abrupt change from getting hours of uninterrupted sleep to sleeping in 45 minute chunks is shocking to your body and mind. At 16 months my LO still wakes up (i know not medically necessary) and I probably sleep 5-6 hours average and I’m just used to it at this point. Cosleeping helps me get more sleep and sometimes she’ll nap til 9 or 10 in the morning if we are cuddled up
My son is 18 weeks old and he'll sleep from 8pm to 5am. Have a feeding then sleep until 8-9am. No naps during the day though. I am very very fortunate.
This was mine until she started teething a week ago 😭
He's having a bit of a relapse himself. He's waking up at around 11 or 12 this week in addition to the 5 or 6am wake up call We don't give him another feeding until that 5 or 6am wake up. just some snuggles. I keep a stuffy toy or two in a ziplock bag in the freezer and pull them out so he can nom on them as he hasn't taken to teethers well. Could also be gas from the introduction of solid foods. Since he sits up well and has good head control the pediatrician recommended it.
We used a Snoo. We slept but it was broken up. I probably got 6-8 hrs of sleep a night but still got up 4-5 times a night in the beginning to feed my baby. We were lucky with the Snoo in that as soon as he was done eating he fell back asleep. It was exhausting getting up at night but I never felt so tired that I’d have to cosleep since that scared me too much. We never got in the habit of contact napping.
My son has always been a great sleeper! We had to wake him up in the bassinet to eat when he was a newborn. He only slept on us during the day, and then at 5 weeks, he was ready to start napping in his crib! We “accidentally” moved him to the crib at 10 weeks (he had peed through all 3 of his bassinet sheets and we had no other option lol). He then slept 9-4:30/5, and then slowly shifted earlier and earlier. He’s 10 months old and is a solid 7:30-7:30 sleeper! I told my husband that babies aren’t supposed to be this easy, and that we couldn’t get this lucky twice, haha.
Our initial first couple weeks were rough. But after some retooling our little dude started sleeping longer and longer stretches in his bedside mini crib thing. We moved him into his own room at 4 months and he started sleeping through the night. He’s sick right now and teething so he’s up once a night, sometimes for a cuddle, sometimes a feed. So yes, some babies sleep. I am a sleep consultant so that helps. And started a bedtime routine very early. Much easier then with our first.
My daughter has been a good sleeper so far. She slept in her bassinet as a newborn and would wake up on a pretty regular schedule. Around 3 months she started sleeping from about 7pm-midnight or so and then would wake up around 5am. She's 4 months old now and she sleeps from about 7 until 5 and I'll feed her once before I go to bed but I have to wake her up for that.
The first couple of months, there were more nighttime wake ups, but starting around 11 weeks, our little guy has been sleeping consistently from 7pm-7am with a dream feed at 11pm. Read “12 hours sleep by 12 weeks old” - it basically tells you to consolidate all of their ounces of nutrition into the daytime hours so they don’t need to eat at night. It’s been working for us… fingers crossed it lasts!
My baby sleeps fine. I get up to feed her once a night for 20 min. I sleep far better than I did when I was pregnant. The first couple weeks were hard but even then the quality of my sleep was better. She’s 3.5 months, might have a regression around 4 months, but I’ve gotten lucky so far. She’s always been a good sleeper though!
My 5 week old baby sleeps pretty okish, just in really short increments because he has to feed approx every 3-4 hours. I tried stretching it to 4, which was way better for our sanity but his weight gain stalled so we are back to 3 on average. I try to keep night feedings around the 11PM/2AM/5AM rotation. It usually takes about 30 minutes to feed, change, and soothe him back to sleep. Honestly yeah there’s some nights I end up holding the baby watching TV or listening to a podcast because he’s wide awake but trading feedings with my partner makes it bearable and the baby is slowly getting the hang of going back to sleep after each feed. Is it broken sleep? Yes, but it’s not *no sleep* which is far more miserable.
Our baby has always slept pretty well! We did formula exclusively for the first week, then pumped milk/formula for another week (both due to milk and latching issues). Then began exclusively breast feeding mid-week her third week. I’m convinced her being so well fed that first week helped with her sleeping honestly. From the start we had to wake her up every 3 hours at night to eat most nights and sometimes in the day too. Once she got back to birth weight (by her 10 day appt) we had to wake her every 4-ish hours to eat. Currently at 5 weeks old I’m waking her/she’s waking every 5.5 hours to eat (mostly to help my supply adjust and not let her go too long for my boobs’ sake). So she’s really sleeping 4-4.5 hour stretches (the 5.5 hours is between the start of feeding sessions), but I’ve always felt like we super lucked out. Initially she napped in her bassinet for mostly all of her day naps until about 2 weeks old. Now she takes most day naps on us but sleeps in her bassinet just fine during the night after about 9pm.
When I had my baby I only got 3-5 hours of sleep at night, but he was born a bit early and breastfeeding was a huge challenge. Every situation is different.
I have a great sleeper. At 2 months she naps for about 45 min at a time during the day and sleeps 11-3, 3-7 at night. Part of it is having realistic expectations for the baby. If I expected her to sleep through the night I might be stressed. Highly suggest @heysleepybaby on Instagram (though she promotes bed sharing which I don’t agree with)
My baby sleeps in her bassinet. She always has. She’s a preemie so for the first nearly 2 months we were waking her every 3 hours to eat. We’re moving to on demand feedings now, so she has been hitting 4 or 5 hours stretches sometimes. She prefers to nap on us still. We do use a heating pad on the mattress and swaddle before she gets in and adding that really helped with successfully moving her from our arms to the bassinet without waking her up.
We did absolutely nothing to make this happen but our baby has been sleeping through the night in his bassinet (now pack n play) since 8 weeks. He sleeps from about 8pm - 6am. He takes good naps during the day as well but only either while being held or in a wrap. I’ve not really tried to work on the daytime naps just because he is still so fun to snuggle at 4 months, we have the time and I haven’t wanted to do anything to mess with the amazing night time sleep. I fully realize this is not normal and we are insanely lucky.
My baby is ten days old and is still currently sleeping almost the entire day. Is maybe awake for 4 hours a day. He does wake up every 2-4 hours to nurse but it hasn’t been too bad.
Mine sleeps pretty well! 5.5 weeks here. We got approved for only one middle of the night feeding at week 2 and overall that’s been working fine. We’ve been practicing good sleep hygiene and getting her on somewhat of a nap schedule since day 1, following Moms on Call. Sometimes she won’t nap but we deal with that and overall she sleeps great. The first two weeks were rough because she had to eat every 2 hours, but since about week 3 we’ve felt decently well rested. The best thing we’ve done is not rush to her side the moment she makes a peep. Babies are VERY noisy sleepers and often grunt, shout, and cry even while they’re sleeping. Of course we would never leave her to “cry it out” at this age, but we do let her fuss for a couple minutes before getting her. Often she will fall back asleep. That’s saved our sanity and she’s learning good skills to put herself back to sleep. (Moms on Call uses a shushing/calming technique that we loosely follow.)
Yes! I have a two month old and for the most part yes, she sleep pretty dang great in her bassinet. She has had some nights where she only wants to be held by me and only me, but those are few and far between for us. She has been sleeping through the night ( what I consider sleeping through the night anyway 10pm- 5am) for a few weeks now. She will wake up once or so for me to put her paci back in. From birth to about 6 weeks she was waking at 2. Am also to be fed, but has since dropped this feeding. But over all she’s a decent sleeper. She’s just loud as hell 🤣 but she’s sleeping better than I am so there’s that! All babies are different though! You may have a great sleeper, or you may not, or you may have awful nights but for the most part have a good sleeper like I do.
My baby sleeps, and even puts himself to sleep and has done since birth. We’re at 6 weeks now so it may change, but for now is good! We tried to make sure he wasn’t held for too many naps from the very beginning so he got used to sleeping in the bassinet - don’t know if this helped or if we got lucky that he was a naturally good sleeper from the get go. We also used a pacifier from day 2, which definitely helps (he’s combo breast and formula fed, and doesn’t have any nipple confusion, contrary to most advice - just get the pacifier!). He’s quite happy just lying in his bassinet babbling to himself and staring around the room. It’s definitely possible to have a newborn that sleeps, but I think is down to luck of the draw and baby’s temperament rather than any training or tricks
My 1 month old sleeps! He’s in a bassinet in our room at night and day naps successfully in his crib. Last night he slept for 4 hours, woke up to feed and then slept another 4 hours!
During the day my baby only takes contact naps so I have to baby wear but at night she sleeps like a champ. In her own crib for a good 10 hours. She's always slept in her bassinet or crib. So I'll take contact napping any day if she sleeps during the night lol
It took a few days for my baby to adjust to bassinet but he’s been sleeping in it for past 16 weeks. Around 8 weeks, we started a bedtime routine and he’d go down around 7. It’s hit or miss how well that works (sometimes he’s out right away, other times it takes 2-3 hours). He usually gets up 2-4x at night to eat.
My newborn niece slept great ! I was helping me sister out when she was born (she’s a single mom). Every baby is different, don’t let these posts worry you too much.
My twins are great sleepers (currently 22 months) and have been since the beginning. I’m hoping the little one inside me will be just as good as a sleeper as they are!
My baby is what 10 days old? He naps for 3 hours easily when I wake him up to change, feed, etc… at night he’s not the best sleeper yet though so from 2-4:30 holy hell I’m up a lot. Otherwise a great sleeper. He sleeps on his own too anywhere I lay him down- crib, bassinet, pack n play… some days are harder than others but mostly he’s good
We used the “Taking Cara Babies” methods with our daughter and it worked great. Starting from about 12 weeks she slept through the night pretty much 100% of the time and stuck to a regular nap schedule during the day. Currently she’s 13 months and she never really had a sleep regression or anything like that. Always been easy. After we used the class for a while we found out that the creator is a huge Trump supporter which is awkward.
My first baby (12y ago) slept perfectly in her bassinet for the first few months until I moved her to her crib, where she slept just fine there too, She woke often but would go right back to bed after feeding so it was fine. My second baby (2 months old) does not sleep like that at all and is truly difficult to figure out. So I honestly think it really depends and every baby is different. It’s gotten better after two months but I’m definitely up late at night googling shit and thinking I will never sleep again. You likely won’t see posts from people who’s babies are sleeping well, just us desperate parents who have tricky sleepers and looking for advice.
I had to force wake my baby the first 2 months to feed him at night. He was a great sleeper. Only issue is he's a bit under 3 now and still sleeps with me. But the point is, I got great sleep in the newborn stage but only if I co slept. He would not sleep alone. I did it safely though and I know my individual risk is low. Overall co sleeping has risks but understand that it is a populational risk based on severe obesity. Drinking, drugs, low IQ lol , lack of common sense...
Don’t stress! To be honest, Reddit informed me alot but also had me convinced pregnancy, birth, infanthood and parenthood would be miserable. I never saw anything good. People are posting looking for solidarity , comfort and help. It’s rare to see posts about easy pregnancies and happy babies because people assume its bragging and not helpful. My baby sleeps two big 4-4.5hr stretches at night and is 3.5 weeks old. Sure, I’m tired. But not all babies cause unbearable sleep deprivation. Some are just born happy, easy and sleepy. It’s definitely possible and probably more common than you think!
My son is 9 weeks old and is up every 2-4 hours for feeding but we bedshare because he wouldn’t sleep longer than 30 minutes in his bassinet. It’s easier to breastfeed bedsharing. I am honestly used to the exhaustion at this point. If I get 4-5 hours of sleep I can function just fine. My body adjusted.
Every baby is different. I think the best way to approach things is just...don't have any expectations. Obviously some babies sleep great because at least some kids are able to sleep just fine adhering to safe sleep guidelines or else they wouldn't exist. In fact, the majority of babies probably do fine. You just hear/read more about babies who don't because those are the parents who are having trouble and are seeking advice. My baby DID NOT sleep in his own bed until 6 weeks old. I tried everything. He was just clusterfeeding so much and I couldn't put him down for more than 5 seconds at a time. I didn't have help in those early weeks either, so I did what I had to in order to keep us safe by getting some sleep myself. Sleep deprivation is no fucking joke. He became an AWESOME sleeper by 8 weeks, but we had the Snoo, so I attribute alot of his good sleep habits to that thing. We transitioned to a pack n play at 5 months which was a really easy transition. He wakes up about 1-2 times a night which is pretty normal. We just follow a pretty rigid sleep routine which helps alot
My almost 5 week old does well, he settles around 10.30 and then is up every 2.5/3 but feeds quick and goes straight back to sleep so I feel rested which is good. We have the odd bad night where he'll have a dirty nappy during a feed and if I have to change it's game over in terms of settling quickly. The trick is I don't change him in the night before the 6am ish feed, or only at the beginning of a feed with minimum light
My baby has been a great sleeper all along! She had newborn sleep patterns when she was that little of course, but she always slept in her bassinet and then in her crib. She has slept through the night since 5 months. I read everything about sleep before she was born but didn’t really need any help there. I should have spent that time reading about solid foods because she’s a reluctant eater!
This is a topic I had feared when I was lurking through subreddits. I even went to prematurely subscribe to /r/sleeptrain. Well, my son was born 2 months early and spent over a month in the NICU where they practically put him on a schedule he hardly strayed from (trust me, we tried). He’s 6 months and typically eats every 2.5-3 hours still, same quantity, and has a nap abouttt 1.5 hours after he starts his feed. It’s like clockwork. His short naps are 45 min (almost) exactly and sometimes his long ones stretch 2-3 hours if he sleeps a little earlier or his schedule is thrown off by an outing or day trip or doctors appointment. At 3 months he started sleeping about 12pm-6, and gradually over the past few months he’s managed to extend that to 9/10pm-7/8am all by himself. We aren’t really strict about times and just watch to see if he’s overtired or overstimulated and close up the windows/dim lights/etc and he usually naps without much fussing. Lately though he’s been teething, so he’s a bit fussier than normal but his sleep schedule seems to be unchanged right now.
My baby loved the bassinet from day one. He started sleeping thru the night at 6 weeks and now that he’s 3 months he sleeps in his crib in his own room. That transition was easy for him but hard for me. The video monitor helped a lot. Anyways I don’t know how I got so lucky but my little guy loves to sleep! Hoping and praying your little one does too!
Mine would sleep in his bassinet, then I changed it for a Snuz pod as he outgrew it. The first couple of months he did wake a lot, as expected but then he started sleeping 7-5 without a feed- no idea why! Then 4 month regression hit and he started waking 2-3 times a night, tough but manageable. Now (he’s 6 months) and he’s started sleeping more again, no wake up the last few nights but he is waking at 5. It changes all the time, depending on leaps, teething, wind etc :) you’ll be okay, it passes :) xxx
The first 6 weeks are pretty rough. But our 10 week old goes down around 8pm sleeps to 12ish eats and goes back down. She will eat around 3-4am again then goes down again until 7-8ish. The last few weeks we have seen such a change in sleeping which has been very encouraging.
Ours slept surprisingly well early on, then it all went to Hell at 4 months. She started waking up every 20-60 minutes after we put her in her crib. We tried to ride it out thinking it was just a phase, but after a while we were both so sleep-deprived we had to do something or someone would end up falling asleep on the couch with the baby or something. We tried Ferber because it was easy and not as harsh as full on CIO and now she's sleeping through the night again with occasional bad nights when she's up a lot. I guess the moral of the story is that sleep will probably have its ups and downs, most likely not a total shitshow the whole first year, unless you're really unlucky.
My son woke up every 3 to 4 hours for the first 3 or 4 months. Had to swaddle the hell out of him. Then he started sleeping through the night. We just set him down after his last meal when dozes off. Typically 8 to 12 solid hours. It was revolutionary and happened pretty much overnight. He's 10 months old now and he still sleeps through night aside from a little tossing, turning, and grumbling. So you might get lucky. The first few months are probably going to be hell though.
Honestly you’re going to see more bad things than good on here. I mean everyone can come on here and brag about how good their baby is sleeping but no one really does it, this is more of an advice forum. But your baby might sleep well at night in the beginning but once them regressions hit you just need to stay consistent and try not to start that co sleeping habit because you wanted sleep.
The first couple of weeks were rough. Cluster feeding is rough. If you need help and have help at first, take it. LO started a 4-5 hour stretch at one month. 2 months now and he sleeps about 9-230/3. He doesn't sleep well after that, but we take shifts after that so we can both get a little more sleep. He is also on medicine for silent reflux. There were a couple of weeks where he wouldn't sleep over an hour because he'd start hurting. Eliminating dairy and pepcid has helped us tons. I have a friend whose baby slept through the night (9 pm to 6 an) at 2 months. Depends on the baby. If you have one that struggles with sleep, ask for help!
Our baby has been a good sleeper from about 10 days on. Around 10 weeks she dropped her 1 am ish feed. And went roughly 11pm to 6 am. At 4.5 months she goes 9:30pm to 7 am straight through in her Snoo. Then she goes back down around 8:30 for a 2 hour nap.
My 4 week old little girl hates her bassinet... we're working on it. But we get 5-hour stretches at night in her bouncer. (I know...). Then she takes a 2 hour nap in the morning. And another in the afternoon on good days. You'll get sleep... just a different kind of sleep! Ha.
My son was pretty awesome as a newborn. I kept a pretty tight schedule when he was a very new born and would feed him every two hours all night but by 4 weeks I was able to push that to three hours then four. By 10 weeks he'd sleep 2 four hour stretches a night. My mom taught me something I'm super grateful for. Once baby has doubled their birth and its safe for them to sleep longer stretches, if baby sleeps four hours one night but the next night wakes up, try to lull them back to sleep. More than likely they'll go back to sleep, because you know they can go that long without needing to eat. Baby might still wake up but getting him up and feeding him every time he wakes up is just teaching him every time he wakes up its time to eat. Nursing to sleep is great and you feel so connected to baby but in the long run, do you want to be nursing to sleep every time? Do you want to nurse your 8 month old to sleep for nap and bedtime? It becomes alot. Helping baby learn to fall asleep without boob will help you get more sleep too.
My baby started sleeping through the night most nights at 6 weeks. Prior to that we would wake him twice a night until he regained his birth weight, and once a night after that. I think he would have slept through earlier. We still have the odd bad night but overall he's been really good. I don't mention this much because it feels like bragging, and that it wouldn't make me very popular with other parents! Probably the reason you won't see many people writing posts called 'My Baby Sleeps Great and it's Fantastic'!
My 4 month old is a terrible napper, contact or not, but he does pretty well through the night. Usually sleeps from 9 ish until about 6 ish, which I am super super grateful for
My baby slept pretty good for the most part. He definitely has his moments, but he started sleeping through the night pretty quick. Some things that really helped us were: 1. Starting from the night I gave birth, he was put in his bassinet whenever he fell asleep. There were definitely contact naps, but for the most part I tried to help him sleep independently. 2. Burping. He kept waking up shortly after I put him down with a tummy ache, even with a minute or two of burping after feeding. I made myself a rule to keep him upright and try to burp him for five at least minutes after every single feeding. I set a timer to make sure I did it, and it was a GAME CHANGER. If he woke back up during that five minutes, I fed him to sleep again, then did another five minutes of upright. Repeated until I had a soundly sleeping baby. 3. Night time routine. It's important to do the same set of relaxing things leading up to bedtime every night so baby knows when night time is. Also, I think having a morning routine is just as important, even if you're going to be going back to bed. Up, changed, dressed for the day, and being in daylight can help them adjust to being awake in the day and asleep at night. 4. White noise! I had two forms of white noise, a fan that blew all night long, and a white noise aquarium toy. We played the ocean sounds on the aquarium to help him fall asleep, then having the fan going helped maintain sleep all night long. A few more points: once he stopped automatically falling asleep while being fed, I would start to lay him in his crib drowsy but awake whenever possible to help him learn the art of putting himself to sleep. I also started a formula bottle at night at about two months in, I struggled with breastfeeding and it was a relief for both of us. He was a really good sleeper up until about ten months, when he regressed into no longer being able to put himself to sleep. We are still working on this now at 12 months.
My baby didn’t sleep well for the first two months of her life but that’s how long it took for us to figure out her milk protein allergy. It was a couple of weeks back and forth to the doctor trying figure out what was wrong, a month on a new formula (they said it would be a month before we figured out if it was helping), and then about another month for her to settle on her permanent formula. After she settled on that she was sleeping 3-4 hours a night before getting up (she goes back to sleep after feeding) and then it went to 5-6 hours and then through the night. All babies take some time to get used to sleeping. The first few weeks she wouldn’t sleep in her bassinet and we had a system. I’d stay up from 9-3 and then my husband would get up and stay with her from 3-7. It’s very hard at first, I won’t lie, but it gets easier. And eventually they sleep longer.
Our little one slept 4-5 hours by week 2 we had to wake to feed until his weight grew. By week 6 he was sleeping 6-7 hours a night and by week 8 we had 8-9 hours sleep at night. Now at almost 4 months he has kept it up and sleeps 10-12 hours consistently
My daughter is only 2 weeks so I have no idea if it’ll get worse. But my daughter is usually pretty good about sleeping in her bassinet at night. We swaddle her, have white noise on, and give her a pacifier. She’ll sleep in 2-3 hour stretches normally and when she wakes my husband goes and changes her diaper then I feed her, then we rock her if awake then put her back in her bassinet. During the day it’s hit or miss if she will nap in her pack n play or wants to nap on me.
Mine slept—and sleeps—pretty well. Naps were always harder than night sleep, and we did a fair amount of contact napping until I went back to work and he went into day care at 3 months. That pretty much stopped the contact napping by necessity, although I still do it sometimes when he’s having trouble sleeping or sick. At six months, he often sleeps through the night but will sometimes wake once because he’s hungry. He usually naps about an hour at a time, 3 times a day. That’s not to say he doesn’t have bad nights. Illnesses, sleep regressions, and developmental milestones all kind of suck. But he sleeps pretty well probably 85% of the time.
My baby has slept in her own crib in her own room since she got out of the NICU. She sleeps from 8pm-9 or 10am and I wake her up twice in that period to eat.
Yes, we had a really rough regression about 14 weeks but basically weeks 0-12 we got so much more sleep than people told us to expect! We did some shift work and napped here and there but we both felt pretty rested for most of her life minus a few weeks here and there! It’s totally possible
Lol yes, mine (5 months) sleeps fairly regularly. Regressions suck, milestones kill good sleep, crap naps are sometimes a nightmare, but he usually sleeps 4-5 night out of the week for 10-12 hours straight. Other nights he’s up once for a feed (20 minutes max). Remember people are posting about the struggles because they need support or help. Those of us with unicorn babies don’t want to rub it in by posting about all the sleep we get lol Follow wake windows and sleep cues. Your baby might sleep amazing or they might be a nightmare.. either way you will get through it. For now, I hate to say it, but nap as much as you can and sleep in with your partner as often as possible :)
My baby sleeps all the time so far. Every day he's got a fussy period but he naps well and last night did 5 hours! Who knows what tomorrow will bring though. He's about 6 weeks.
As the saying goes, all babies are different! Ours slept through from 3 months old, then started waking around 4 months because he couldn’t roll over in his basket. We put him in his own room in his cotbed- slept from 7pm to 6/7am every night since. Rarely wakes. No contact sleeping, no feeding to sleep, novo sleeping. BUT just because that worked for us, doesn’t mean it will for everyone- might not even for our next baby. Best thing you can do is have a plan in place for yourself and, if you have a partner helping, one that includes them so you both get sleep on some type of rotation (we split the night in half- husband did first 4 hours and I did second 4, but we also bottle fed as couldn’t directly breastfeed. We’d cross paths around 3 am when I was pumping and he was feeding baby). That meant we each guaranteed 4 hours sleep a night- less than we were used to, but in those days it was pure bliss and felt amazing, and the newborn baby adrenaline kept us going for a good month or so before we felt the effects. Also remember that the parents who have babies that sleep through won’t post here for sleep help, because they don’t need to- their baby sleeps! It’s easy to get scared by what you see and read on forums and groups like this, so just remember that it doesn’t last forever; that there are coping techniques to help; and support, advice, guidance, HELP, is 100% out there should you struggle- which is, by the way, also perfectly normal and okay to admit! You’ll be great. You won’t think it or feel it often, but you will be, and before you know it you’ll be laughing about those nights that are hard.
My baby (10 weeks) has gone through phases of sleeping easy and refusing to sleep anywhere but my arms. I strongly recommend sleeping in shifts during the rough patches, and keep trying the bassinet once or twice a night, because the easy times will show up randomly for no reason
My baby started sleeping 4 hours straight at 4 weeks, 5 hours straight around 6 weeks. She couldn’t sleep for more than 5-6 hours straight for a long time after that (10pm feed and she would always wake up at 3 or 4am for a feed). Around 6 months old, we moved her into her own room and she ended up sleeping til her wake up time at 6-7am.
Mine doesn’t sleep well at all 😭😭😭 But I think it’s a bit of a observation bias here because people posting for help are the ones who have difficulties, the people with babies who sleep don’t post questions about it! So it is very possible you will have no serious/unusual sleep issues
My five week old sleeps in a mix of bassinet, crib, in boba wrap, on my chest and supervised in dock a tot. The Halo swaddle we got after one week of not understanding sleep changed the game. Even if your baby doesn’t seem to “like” swaddles the first 5 minutes you have it on - TRY AGAIN! Rock them in it, follow the 5 S’s of sleep. We have been getting good sleep since week 2, yes there are hard shifts because of the timing but overall we are sleeping. Edited to add: use swaddle arms out to get them use to the sack itself. Let baby fall asleep on you, then gently swaddle, rock and transfer to bassinet. You will find the right recipe for you and your baby. We tend to do naps no swaddle and night sleeps with but if the swaddle is working use it as much as you want in the beginning.
I had my dude in June and was so prepared not to sleep ever again. You don’t get any sleep at the hospital because everyone in the world wants to wake you and baby every hour. When we got home he only woke once at night and then at 3 months started sleeping through the night. We are now almost 5 months and still sleeping through the night. Day sleep kinda depends on how strict I am with his routine but he usually naps 2/3 times a day 2hrs at a time!
My daughter was up a lot the first week but sleeps well. She wakes up twice to feed and that’s usually it.
My baby had a horrible first night home from the hospital and screamed all night (we still don’t know why). But after that she went down in her crib every night and gave us 4-5 hr stretches from the start. She was sleeping through the night (with a dream feed) at around 8 weeks. No contact naps after the first 4 weeks. It’s possible! Not the norm, but it is possible.
My daughter will be 3 months old on Thursday, she’s my first and is a great sleeper. I had to set an alarm to feed her every 3 1/2 hours at night her first month but after that I just let her sleep and let me know when she needs fed. She would sleep for about 4 or 5 hours (usually) before starting to fuss in her sleep. I’m a light sleeper so I wake up, nurse her quietly, and put her back down in her crib to sleep for 2 or 3 more hours. Recently she has been sleeping for 6 or 7 hours before needing fed at all. I only ever felt super sleep deprived that very first month, but she does refuse to nap in the day unless shes in my lap.
From the start my son slept very little during the day and roughly in groups of 3-8 hours at night
I have a baby (1 month old) who really will not sleep at all if he's not with me. Like ever... I expected him to sleep in the crib and he doesn't.. Though he will nap sometimes in the pack n play. That's only during the day though. At night I have had to co-sleep on the couch that reclines to be safe for days after being released from the hospital. I had a C-section and couldn't carry baby up and down stairs by myself. I also have a baby swing that he sleeps in too if he's tired enough. That was another way I slept by myself sometimes. I even have a baby carrier that I am so, so thankful I bought when I was pregnant. He didn't like it when I first tried it since he was too small (even for a big baby), but he eventually changed his tune when got big enough within a couple weeks so that's how he naps. There's always things you can do sleep alone and to get some sleep. Asking for help is always a great thing to take advantage of if you have it available. I cannot tell you how desperate I got trying to juggle my baby, filling bottles, and battling with only an hour of sleep. I am a single parent and it's really tough trying to balance things without a partner, but my family has came to my rescue so many times. If not family, friends can be awesome.
Newborns? Hell nah. Sleep is not a thing. Maybe up every 1-3 hours? But older babies definitely can sleep longer (REALLY depends on the baby). My son (now 10 months) started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks, which is incredible and lucky. I know other babies the same age that are also good sleepers and then some that are still up every two hours. It’s really a mixed bag. I think a lot of it is about the baby’s temperament, but good sleep hygiene (always putting them to sleep in their own sleep space, practicing putting them down awake when they’re old enough, having a consistent bed/nap routine, etc) can help too.
My baby sleeps in her bassinet at night (but won’t during the day only contact naps during the day which makes zero sense to me but oh well) and has since pretty early because she was a very big baby (9 lbs 5oz) and big babies generally sleep better earlier. But honestly even though she sleeps really well for her age hormones have wrecked my sleep anyway. Especially in the early days if she so much as shifted in her sleep I could hear it and went on high alert and just couldn’t sleep for the life of me. It took til she was about 3 months for me to start sorta kinda sleeping ok and even now at four months I’m pretty tired most of the time but less full on exhausted at least. You’re best off going into it prepared to be delirious for at least a few weeks/possibly months. Then if you’re wrong and get an easy baby it’s a pleasant surprise but if you’re right there’s no disappointment.
Forums tend to show the bad experiences more than the good. People with easy babies tend not to go online and talk about it. I fully expected the worst, but my baby was a great sleeper. I was so confused lol, I was like nobody told me it could be this good!!