6 Month Old Only Sleeps 2 Hours at a Time

[aloe]

We do try to feed him at night, but many times he’s just not very hungry. It’s more of a comfort suck. Perhaps he just misses him mommy now that she’s gone back to work.

That is called reserve cycling! kellymom.com/bf/normal/reverse-cycling/
mother-2-mother.com/reversecycling.htm see section on working mom
workandpump.com/reversecycling.htm

And VERY common.
Make sure the milk she is pumping for him gets to the hindmilk so he can fill up his tummy during the day as well. Glad you do try to feed him at night as could actually be hungry or maybe as you said he just plain misses time with mom since she is gone during the day now - hence the reserve cycling.

Dr. Sears has a book called the Baby Book that talks about how common this is too at this stage. It has been a really good book for us at least to refer to for all things baby. It also has good sections for dads in there. I think he also a book called the Sleep Book.

 

[aloe]

I don’t deal well with sleep-deprivation either. It’s all part of the sacrifices we make as parents.

Part of the initiation process.

 

[KellyPalmer]

I’m with your wife. Her instincts as a mother are spot on. I believe that it’s totally physiological for a baby to wake frequently to nurse throughout the night. This is biological, normal and to be expected for the majority of babies. It reduces their risk of SIDS and keeps baby close to mother at night. IMO, the best solution is to cosleep with the baby. Mother barely wakes to nurse and both can go back to sleep immediately so that neither are as tired the next day. Also IME, when baby is sleeping with mom, he wakes less often b/c he feels safe and secure. If you have concerns about safety, you can see that cosleeping (as long as mother is breastfeeding) is totally safe by reading the works of Dr James Mckenna, the world’s leading dr on the topic - Review of the Scientific Evidence . Dr Mckenna is a Professor and the director of the University of Notre Dame Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory.

 

[KellyPalmer]

Wow. Good to hear that I’m not the only one who has ever suffered from a baby that won’t sleep. Thanks again for all the suggestions. Many of the suggestions I’ve read from various “baby books.” It’s just been difficult to put the theory into practice.

We aren’t going cold turkey on the feedings. We do try to feed him at night, but many times he’s just not very hungry. It’s more of a comfort suck. Perhaps he just misses him mommy now that she’s gone back to work.

I’ve made progress in rocking my baby to sleep. However, the tricky part is now the transition from my arms to the bed (either co-sleeping or his crib). Sometimes he wakes up a little and then goes back to sleep immediately (woot!). Other times he freaks out and I have to start the rocking routine all over again. It might be a good three or four attempts before he finally settles down. I have the patience for it during the day, but it’s a lot harder at night.

Anyway, thanks for the advice and double thanks for the prayers!

Keep in mind that comfort sucking has more than one purpose – 1. being comfort (very important to emotional needs and security but also 2. signaling the body to produce the right amount of milk for the baby’s upcoming nutritional needs. Because breastfeeding works on supply and demand, babies will sometimes nurse when they are not hungry. This tells the mother’s breast to make more supply. When we get in the way of this, it sometimes leads to low supply and ending the nursing relationship earlier than both parties desire.

 

[luvpinsanity]

You have gotten some really good advice here.

Does your wife pump while she is at work? Does the baby drink from a bottle?

If so, I would consider (you, the husband) offering the baby pumped breast milk overnight. This would give your wife a break to catch up on her sleep. I would recommend doing this on a day when she doesn’t have to go into work the next day.

It’s going to entirely depend on your schedule, in my house, whoever had to be out of the house LAST that day was the one who fed the baby. If I had work at 8am, and FI had work at 10am, well, he would feed the baby so I could get the extra sleep.

What about first thing in the morning when the baby wakes up? On a day your wife is off, you could try feeding a bottle of pumped milk so your wife could sleep in for another two hours.

I don’t recommend CIO, or any sort of negative reaction - the baby isn’t doing anything wrong. Don’t worry, this too shall pass.

 

[PrayHarder]

You have gotten some really good advice here.

Does your wife pump while she is at work? Does the baby drink from a bottle?

If so, I would consider (you, the husband) offering the baby pumped breast milk overnight. This would give your wife a break to catch up on her sleep. I would recommend doing this on a day when she doesn’t have to go into work the next day.

It’s going to entirely depend on your schedule, in my house, whoever had to be out of the house LAST that day was the one who fed the baby. If I had work at 8am, and FI had work at 10am, well, he would feed the baby so I could get the extra sleep.

What about first thing in the morning when the baby wakes up? On a day your wife is off, you could try feeding a bottle of pumped milk so your wife could sleep in for another two hours.

I don’t recommend CIO, or any sort of negative reaction - the baby isn’t doing anything wrong. Don’t worry, this too shall pass.

Yep. Wife pumps at work and I sometimes do a bottle feeding. But like others have said, my wife needs to breast feed at night to keep her supply up. Her supply was never very good to start so she needs to breast feed at night. We just wish it wasn’t every 1.5 to 2 hours. A four hour stretch every so often would be nice.

I sometimes do a bottle feed of pumped milk at night. Unfortunately, the way our house is laid out you can’t really escape from the baby’s crying (hardwood floors really echo). So when I wake up to feed him, so does my wife. And while she goes back to sleep, her sleep pattern has already been disturbed.

So yeah, we know this is all part of the game and we’re experiencing what 75% of parents experience according to the books. Very few actually have babies that work on the parents’ schedule (and those who do are very, very lucky).

 

[anruari]

I have several things to say here.

1. If you’re Co-Sleeping, this will help… you wife will not need to wake up fullly, and can herself sleep through the feeds.
2. as long as the baby is feeding at least every 4 hours your NFP needs are being dealt with, as your wifes cycle will not re-start… if you are relying on this method you need to do the reading go to the Creighton Method website, and search for information on this I cant remember what it’s called.
3. A baby cries to tell you that she has a need. - toddlers are different. if you wait for the baby to cry before responding you’ll teach her that other forms of communication are ineffective. if you learn her other more need-specific signals you’ll teach her to use every communication tool she has, and she’ll learn them faster. then she’ll also cry less.
4. If she’s not Hungry but just needs affection - or winding - then you might be able to cuddle or rock her back to sleep for your wife or help her to get her wind up. - then she’ll settle back down quicker.

 

[Cat]

Not everyone can co-sleep. I sure couldn’t. It was uncomfortable physically for both me and my husband, and scary psychologically. I never did sleep soundly, and ended up sick to my stomach from lack of good, sound sleep.

Many people on this forum know that I am favor sleep training. Six months old is old enough. Start stretching out the time between the feedings. You don’t have to let the baby lie alone and sob, but don’t feed him. Just come into the room, stand by the crib, stroke his little back, and say softly, 'Nightie night! Time to sleep now!" And wait. Each night, stretch the waiting time longer. You will be amazed–the child WILL learn to sleep for longer stretches. He’s just in the habit of waking up so often. Break that habit–you will be doing him and yourselves a good deed.

I would suggest that both parents develop a little bit more tolerance of crying. Believe me, the child will do a lot of crying between now and 21 years old, and parents need to learn which cries are for genuine needs and which ones are because the child wants to party and the parents are party-poopers.

I disagree that most babies need to wake up every 2 hours. I’ve known a LOT of babies in my 55 years on this earth, and most of them sleep for several hours at a stretch by the time they are six months old. Babies need sound sleep as much as they need food. It’s not good for a baby to keep waking up throughout the night.

Sorry to abruptly end this post–must go to work. But I look forward to reading all the criticisms! Just remember–one of the reasons why a mother can’t produce enough milk is that she’s too tired. What’s the best way to not be tired? Sleep.

 

[Regina_Love]

Please don’t let guilt affect your decision making. Sometimes mom’s feel guilty they are not home alllll day, and try to over commit to being there awake at night. As an adult use your superior intellect & wisdom to choose & decide what sleep pattern is best for all involved. You all need your rest!

As a foster mom for five years I took in drug exposed, failure to thrive, neglected babies who didn’t even know how to cuddle. They are generally afraid of adults. I put them on a routine. Eat, play, sleep. By encouraging them to play after eating it gave them a chance to work out all the gas bubbles, get lots of love & attention. They were tired & ready to really sleep well, By having them sleep well & long they grew a good healthy appetite & woke up ready to eat seriously. They ate well & good portions. I gave them veggies first then protien & starches, and lastly fruit. Then, well rested & well fed, they were ready to PLAY! I as the adult led the routine, and the children showed huge gains! Charlie went from 5% (very near death!) on the growth charts to 110% in eight months! My babies rarely fussed at all. They didn’t need to scream to be fed. They knew meal time was coming. They were contented & happy!

I prefer to sleep all night, and was usually able to acheive that by 8 - 10 weeks of age. They slept from 7-10 hours per night, (Of course I was not concerned with maintaining my milk supply, and I was up some nights with teething, or an extra feeding for growth spurts, but not often)

Moms we do not need to go to great lengths to achieve bonding. My foster kids, ages new born to 8 years old, only took 3 days to two weeks to bond with me as their new mom. Kids know instinctually who loves & cares for them, and will attach to those who provide for them. Moms/Dads You choose if you need to sleep through the night, or prefer to co-sleep with baby. **What works best for you?**When you are rested, well fed, and happy, then baby will be happy too!

God Bless You & your families

 

[nordskoven]

Anybody Irish or Native American? They will tend to have low stomach acid, and that can mean lots of dysbiosis, tummy and feeding issues. And Johanna is spot-on: beware of allergies. You may perk up the tummy avoiding high allergen foods, and with mom’s use of some pro-biotics that you can get from your doctor by prescription or, with doc’s permission, at health food stores, to encourage digestion. These will be non-dairy.

If mom has had antibiotics, she might have left baby stripped of healthy gut bugs. That can lead to an imbalance with gut yeast or Candida predominating instead of Bifida et alii, with a proliferation of gut Candida stealing relaxing magnesium and aggravating allergies as it gives off toxic acetaldehyde. Shoot for mommy eating low-allergy foods, with your doctor’s advice and approval. The likely culprits are soy, cow’s milk, oranges, peanuts, and those gluten grains that spell BROWS: Barley, Rye, Oats, Wheat, Spelt.

You may further ask your doctor if you can administer a few drops of tea made from bay leaf, common in Italian families for squalling babies that have eating issues. This acts as a relaxer for gut valves that may be ballooning from gas from food fermenting and not digesting due to: food allergy; low level of friendly gut bugs. Again, ask your doctor for supplements right for nursing moms to build up good guys in the tummy.

It takes 20 minutes for the brain to even figure out it has eaten. Work that into the strategies given. If you can get the snoozing baby up to feed first you will have baby back to sleep because they are in sleep mode, and won’t have to allow for the 20 minute window before food is even sensed by the brain. Your getting your baby up will also by-pass the ranting that has the baby wound up. This squalling can trigger a high blood pressure cycle that is hard to lower in some types of individuals. To lower the blood, pressure gently but firmly run little massage circles anywhere on the baby (or an adult) in 7-10 places. This will trigger the vaso-vagal response.

When humans are choking, for example, God made the protection of dropping blood pressure until we correct what is wrong so food lodged in the throat won’t be further trapped by panic-driven high blood pressure. But gently spinning little hollow massage circles–that means going full circle and half around again–will gently trap blood in diffuse parts of the body, and it tricks our bodies into triggering the vaso-vagal response. The blood pressure will lower. This is highly important as some types of individuals will jump up their blood pressure and it can get stuck for hours, especially if magnesium is low, all as part of fight-or-flight response. Apple juice for mom for more magnesium? I’d ask your doctor about these strategies and see if they are right for you. Now you know what to ask. And get a live-in grandma. That’s the way we used to do it. Blessings!

 

[Regina_Love]

PrayHarder,
Have you had any sucess? A lot of good information here. Enjoyed reading it!

 

[PrayHarder]

PrayHarder,
Have you had any sucess? A lot of good information here. Enjoyed reading it!

There has been a lot of good information on this thread. I would say that our situation has improved somewhat. We’ve been more successful at soothing him back to sleep without picking him up or feeding him. And he’s slowly getting better at self soothing. We still do feed him quite regularly in the evening, but he has become much more efficient at it – suck and then back to bed without a lot of fuss.

Is he the ideal, falls asleep on his own and sleeps for many hours at a time baby? No. But there have been small improvements.

 

[faithfully]

Thanks for the suggestions each and every one of you. I’m all for trying these things out. The difficulty is that my wife dismisses a strategy when it doesn’t work in the first five minutes. While she understands in theory that these things take time to get right, it’s a different story at 2am in the morning and the baby is screaming.

I’m trying to explain that doing the same things every night and expecting a different result isn’t going to work, but she’s never in a good state to calmly discuss strategy. Today she basically got ready and left for work barely saying anything to me and basically gave me the cold shoulder. As a husband it kinda sucks getting the silent treatment when I haven’t even done anything wrong.

So in addition to your advice, I also ask for your prayers that patience and cooler heads will prevail.

Hi, I just saw this thread, and wanted to add a few things. 6 months is perhaps too early for many babies to sleep through the night. I too have twins, and I can tell you that children can be treated side by side exactly the same and have very different results. One of my twins would not sleep through the night. He needed some form of security. He wasn’t particularly hungry, just wanted to be with me. This went on for YEARS! I tried cry it out. I’ve tried everything. He has a degree of persistence that quite frankly is not normal. He is 7 today. And I’m about to finally agree to having him treated for ADD. He also has sensory issues. The list is not extreme (extreme behavior would have been easier to deal with and understand). Finally, if he wakes in the night and he’s scared, he knows he can come get in bed with us. It can get crowded. And I do not care. I’ve been sleep deprived for nearly 7 years.

So, my point is, if your child is quite normal on most fronts many of the suggestions above will work. (I highly recommend getting your baby down without a feeding. And working towards soothing without a feeding. My babies had to actively eat within a minute or the bottle went away.) If there is anything slightly off, it won’t matter what you do. And then I recommend doing whatever it takes to get sleep. And if that’s co sleeping, get over it and stay healthy.

Sleep deprived people/children are at risk for many things. Being a grump the least of which is a real concern.

 

[Cat]

Hi, I just saw this thread, and wanted to add a few things. 6 months is perhaps too early for many babies to sleep through the night. I too have twins, and I can tell you that children can be treated side by side exactly the same and have very different results. One of my twins would not sleep through the night. He needed some form of security. He wasn’t particularly hungry, just wanted to be with me. This went on for YEARS! I tried cry it out. I’ve tried everything. He has a degree of persistence that quite frankly is not normal. He is 7 today. And I’m about to finally agree to having him treated for ADD. He also has sensory issues. The list is not extreme (extreme behavior would have been easier to deal with and understand). Finally, if he wakes in the night and he’s scared, he knows he can come get in bed with us. It can get crowded. And I do not care. I’ve been sleep deprived for nearly 7 years.

So, my point is, if your child is quite normal on most fronts many of the suggestions above will work. (I highly recommend getting your baby down without a feeding. And working towards soothing without a feeding. My babies had to actively eat within a minute or the bottle went away.) If there is anything slightly off, it won’t matter what you do. And then I recommend doing whatever it takes to get sleep. And if that’s co sleeping, get over it and stay healthy.

Sleep deprived people/children are at risk for many things. Being a grump the least of which is a real concern.

ADD is a medical condition that most children do NOT have. Most children are perfectly normal and are capable of sleeping through the night by six months of age.

I think that parents need to be very careful about assuming that their child might have ADD or ADHD or other “issues” just because they aren’t sleeping through the night at six months.

More often than not, the PARENTS have the issues and the child is perfectly normal. But if we assume that our child has something “wrong,” then from the beginning, we may find ourselves training that child to act a certain way.

Parents can and do train a child to wake up during the night by continually “rewarding” the child for waking up, or by not allowing the child to fuss for a few minutes before falling asleep on their own.

And sometimes, “nervous” parents can keep a child awake because they refuse to allow him or her to sleep because they are so afraid that the child will not wake up again. Back in the 1980s, a study was done with children who are still not sleeping through the night even at older ages. The study was documented on a special on PBS. It was fascinating. In one of the stories in the documentary, a camera was rigged up in a 5-year-old boy’s bedroom. The scientists and the parents were watching the child sleep from another room. Within a few minutes, the child sighed in his sleep, and immediately the mother said, “Something’s wrong with his breathing! We have to go to him!” And the scientists told her that the child was just sighing in his sleep. Every few minutes, the child would roll over or twitch or do something that’s perfectly normal for sleeping people, and the mother would go ballistic and beg and plead with the scientists to stop the study because their child would surely die! It turned out that the MOTHER needed the sleep training more than the child! Poor kid–he was so exhausted because his parents never actually allowed him to sleep through the night, and he had various developmental delay issues because of the sleep deprivation that his own parents had encouraged out of their fears. I still have that special on VHS somewhere in storage–I plan to get it out again when my daughter has her first baby.

Obviously, if a child truly has a medical condition, the parents will have to adjust their techniques to accomodate the medical condition. But in spite of all the food additives and pollution and antibiotics and immunizations and other stressers, MOST babies are normal and can sleep through the night by six months, usually earlier, if parents let them.

I don’t understand why so many parents do not believe that sleep is a GOOD thing for babies. Sleep is as important as food for good health.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

ADD is a medical condition that most children do NOT have. Most children are perfectly normal and are capable of sleeping through the night by six months of age.

I think that parents need to be very careful about assuming that their child might have ADD or ADHD or other “issues” just because they aren’t sleeping through the night at six months.

More often than not, the PARENTS have the issues and the child is perfectly normal. But if we assume that our child has something “wrong,” then from the beginning, we may find ourselves training that child to act a certain way.

Parents can and do train a child to wake up during the night by continually “rewarding” the child for waking up, or by not allowing the child to fuss for a few minutes before falling asleep on their own.

And sometimes, “nervous” parents can keep a child awake because they refuse to allow him or her to sleep because they are so afraid that the child will not wake up again. Back in the 1980s, a study was done with children who are still not sleeping through the night even at older ages. The study was documented on a special on PBS. It was fascinating. In one of the stories in the documentary, a camera was rigged up in a 5-year-old boy’s bedroom. The scientists and the parents were watching the child sleep from another room. Within a few minutes, the child sighed in his sleep, and immediately the mother said, “Something’s wrong with his breathing! We have to go to him!” And the scientists told her that the child was just sighing in his sleep. Every few minutes, the child would roll over or twitch or do something that’s perfectly normal for sleeping people, and the mother would go ballistic and beg and plead with the scientists to stop the study because their child would surely die! It turned out that the MOTHER needed the sleep training more than the child! Poor kid–he was so exhausted because his parents never actually allowed him to sleep through the night, and he had various developmental delay issues because of the sleep deprivation that his own parents had encouraged out of their fears. I still have that special on VHS somewhere in storage–I plan to get it out again when my daughter has her first baby.

Obviously, if a child truly has a medical condition, the parents will have to adjust their techniques to accomodate the medical condition. But in spite of all the food additives and pollution and antibiotics and immunizations and other stressers, MOST babies are normal and can sleep through the night by six months, usually earlier, if parents let them.

I don’t understand why so many parents do not believe that sleep is a GOOD thing for babies. Sleep is as important as food for good health.

I agree that sleep is important for babies. I think most would agree.

I think the disagreement lies in how they get to sleep. Dr. Sears, the attachment parenting expert, advocates for various sleep methods. Here’s a quote.

CONDITIONING BABY TO FALL ASLEEP
Sleep is not a state you can force your baby into. Sleep must naturally overtake your baby. Your nighttime parenting role is to set the conditions that make sleep attractive and to present cues that suggest to baby that sleep is expected. Try the following sleep tight tips, which may vary at different stages in your baby’s development. What doesn’t work one week may work the next.

askdrsears.com/topics/fussy-baby/31-ways-get-your-baby-sleep-and-stay-asleep

 

[Regina_Love]

Am I the only one who finds it amusing we now turn to Doctors to learn how to do basic, basic things…like attatch to our children? Many of these Doctors have little real world experience actually raising babies. Children will attatch to ANYONE who cares for them. Even abused, and neglected children have attached to me with in a few days to a couple of weeks in my home. It’s simple. They know I love them, and want what’s best for them. Even newborns have the capacity to attach very quickly. Most attach with in one day!

I’ve always found experienced moms are the best resource for practical, functional, good advice that works. A healthy, well fed baby is capable of sleeping through the night by 10-12 weeks. Of course I wasn’t nursing them, so I encouraged continuous sleep. I’ve had over 50 babies, & children, and all of them slept through the night after a few days with us. I would hug, kiss, and cuddle baby. Then wrap them in a blanket, and place them in the crib. i would stroke their hair, & sing one song. Cheerfully say, "night night. Then I would leave the room. They would hold their blanket, or stuffed animal, suck a thumb, or fingers, and fall asleep. They learned to relax, and fall asleep. When they’d wake up at night, they’d roll over, relax, and fall asleep again.

 

[KellyPalmer]

I don’t think it’s healthy to sleep through the night at 10-12 weeks. Definitely not for a breastfed baby. That goes against biology.

 

[jilly4ski]

You could try to dream feed. This is how I got my first to sleep through the night (he was a year old though not 6 months). What you do is note when the baby normally wakes up, and then you anticipate the wake up time and nurse them while they are not fully awake. So instead of coming fully awake they are then sleeping through that normal wake up time. I know it sounds rather counter intuitive but it really works, especially if baby is merely waking from habit and not from hunger. Mine was waking 3 or 4 times every night at 12 months
I think I started with the first wake up time, since that was the most consistent. But you could start with whichever feeding is most convenient for her. Like the midnight or 2 am feeding. So she could get a block of sleep. Anyways, it was so effective for us that I think I only had to do it for 2 weeks, before we were down to one wake up and that followed shortly on its own a few weeks later. It will take some time, for me it was when I could no longer stand the status quo that I did something to change it.

 

[faithfully]

ADD is a medical condition that most children do NOT have. Most children are perfectly normal and are capable of sleeping through the night by six months of age.

I think that parents need to be very careful about assuming that their child might have ADD or ADHD or other “issues” just because they aren’t sleeping through the night at six months.

More often than not, the PARENTS have the issues and the child is perfectly normal. But if we assume that our child has something “wrong,” then from the beginning, we may find ourselves training that child to act a certain way.
…
I don’t understand why so many parents do not believe that sleep is a GOOD thing for babies. Sleep is as important as food for good health.

Cat, I’m not sure if you’re talking to me, or just trying to make a point that not all kids have ADD. Which of course is true. Probably most kids are totally normal.

My example was having 1 child totally normal, 1 minute older than his brother who just would not follow the example. It’s easier to tell something is up when you have side by side children, getting the same treatment. One complies the other never does.

Personally, I recommend the book by Dr. Weissbluth. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy child.

I started my twins on their sleep training during nap time. It was easier for me when sleep deprived to listen to any crying that usually only lasted a minute or two. Both my boys went down with absolute ease. Not rocking, no bottles nothing. But one would not stay asleep at night. And would cry and cry and cry, if not retrieved. And would crash just being next to me. I have no problem with this. Both of our sleep was way more important than anything else. Fortunately DH wasn’t so possessive of our bed that we couldn’t do the only thing that actually kept baby asleep. He has not been trained to do this. And as it turns out, he’s not perfectly “normal”… (although perfect enough for me!)

I’ll repeat, perhaps many children can be sleeping through the night at 6 months. Especially if they were on time and not early babies, but many don’t. It’s not time to panic about anything. My suggestion was to keep in mind 1) it may just be too soon, or 2) sometimes there is something wrong (not necessarily terribly wrong) that interferes. A parent can go batty trying to cope. Especially when others make the insinuation that you’re doing everything wrong, too stressed, not letting things happen. I have to say, it never helped me one bit to listen to know-it-all suggestions about a situation they truly knew nothing about. And they (my they) still do it. Totally clueless full of suggestions and opinions. It’s very frustrating. I don’t believe in making a “call” on the situation without a full comprehension of the situation. Most people don’t have that sort of info. Not even here in this thread for the OP.

It can be very stressful for a parent who is chronically sleep deprived to deal with a child that just won’t sleep.

I’m not sure where you get the idea that anyone doesn’t believe sleep is a good thing for babies. (not to mention parents… the lack of sleep is absolutely detrimental to health. Trust me, this I know for sure!) Regardless, chances are baby just needs to learn to self soothe.

I’ve known a few couples that allowed mom to take a few nights off at a hotel, and dad did the sleep training. He will usually have an easier time, won’t start lactating when the baby cries, etc. Mom can rest up completely and life can get a little easier.

Hope the OP finds a solution that works for their situation…

 

[Cat]

I don’t think it’s healthy to sleep through the night at 10-12 weeks. Definitely not for a breastfed baby. That goes against biology.

Not at all. Normal biology is to be able to eat sufficient food for the body’s needs. That can be done over 24 hours a little bit at a time, or it can be done at several feedings during which more food is taken in.

The point of breastfeeding is to feed the baby. Yes, we all use it as a way of demonstrating love for our children, and it is very nice to have that close time with a child. But the point is feeding. If mothers choose to use breastfeeding as a “comfort method,” then of course the child will continue to demand his or her “comfort” at all times, including during the night. And that’s FINE–as long as it’s OK with mom and dad and the rest of the family.

The point is, it’s NOT fine for many women to go without long hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep. I certainly couldn’t handle it, even though I was a stay-at-home mom for years. I throw up if I am sleep-deprived, and as you know, if you throw up enough, you will become dehydrated, and that’s the END of breastfeeding.

It is not good for a baby to have a mother and father who are consistently sleep-deprived.

There is no harm in training a baby to eat all their food during the daytime hours, and use their nighttime hours to sleep. That is not going against nature. It’s the way most humans sleep. We humans tend to sleep in long stretches at night, not in “cat-naps” throughout the day and night.

If you choose to allow the child to wait to learn to sleep during the night on their own schedule, that’s fine. But don’t label as “unhealthy” those who choose to train their children to sleep through the night from a young age. It’s not unhealthy at all.

My younger daughter was totally breastfed for one year–no other food, not even Cheerios. She simply wouldn’t accept any other food or a bottle of anything.

But from six weeks, she slept 10-12 hours a night. And she was incredibly healthy.

What she did was nurse longer during the day. By the time she was about three months old, she was nursing 5x a day for a half hour at each feeding. She never napped during the day, BTW–she would breast feed, and when she was finished (after a half hour) she was up and active again.

At the time I had my daughter, 17 of my friends (in my church) also had babies, and with only ONE exception, all of these babies were sleeping through the night at 6-8 weeks, and with only one exception, ALL of these babies were breast fed, several exclusively like mine.

And all of these babies were incredibly healthy.

I have quite a few co-workers at the hospital where I work who have babies, and for the most part, these babies sleep through the night by 6-8 weeks, and many of them are breastfed and all of them are very very healthy.