FWIW, and understanding that individual babies do differ, most babies can sleep through the night (10-12 hours) by 3-4 months old. Check out the books "Twelve Hours' Sleep by Twelve Weeks Old" or "Precious Little Sleep" for guidance.

In my case where n=2, naps during the day are/were not all that consistent but at night (unless they are very sick or something) the kids sleep.

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lamasery an hour ago | parent | next [-]

3 for 3 sleeping through the night by 60 days. All we did was have a feeding schedule that we stuck to pretty closely, and around week 2 started intentionally delaying our response to night-time crying, gradually increasing how far we stretched it (start with maybe a minute, increase over time). They wake up at night and don’t know how to self-soothe back to sleep if you always jump in the second they make a sound, they don’t actually need night time feedings past the first few weeks, responding immediately trains them not to fall back asleep on their own if they stir at night (and everyone does). Down to one feeding at night by a month or so, none past two months.

Can’t say many other things worked equally well for all three kids, but that did.

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sonofhans 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’m convinced that 1 of 100 babies sleeps miraculously, magically, the true sleep of the just, right out of the box. Some lucky parents of those genetic freaks think, “Our sleep technique works! We should write a book!”

	▲	johnthedebs 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In our case(s), it was something that required conscious effort. And when we did that... it worked. It honestly didn't seem like it would at first, but then it does. Again, n=2 for me personally but as I mentioned in my reply to another comment we also had a friend with a "baby who won't sleep" and when they tried it also worked for them. I don't make a habit of recommending this to people unless I'm close with them, bc I know that some people may take it personally or believe they are an exception. And I'd bet money that there are plenty of exceptions. But I also think they're exceptions rather than the rule. Whenever I've seen parents who believe that their baby can sleep through the night and work towards that goal, they seem to get there pretty quickly. Edit to add: To put it in engineering terms, I think part of the problem is that you have to escape a local maximum of baby sleep. You may suffer several nights (possibly a couple weeks) that are worse than what you're used to in order to get to a place that's significantly better than what you're used to. When you're already sleep deprived, that can feel like a big hump to get over.

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rimliu 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah. My wife was breastfeeding and she could do that half-asleep. Barely any sleep was lost.

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johnthedebs 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To be clear, they don't eat/feed at night either. The baby is in a separate room from us and we don't see or hear him most nights (95%+) between 7pm-6am. He's around 8.5 months old now and this has been the case for 3-4 months, although that percentage was a bit lower at the beginning.

I'm emphasizing it bc many people are surprised by this, but if you know it's possible, you can start to work towards it. My partner's coworker has a ~1 year old who was still waking up (maybe multiple times?) each night to eat. She introduced them to one of those books (the 12-by-12 one) and they were very grateful.

	▲	integralid 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		4 month old should eat every 3-4 hours. You mentioned sleeping for 10-12h and this sounds almost harmful for the baby. I don't think I'd like that. Thanks for your recommendation anyway. I'm sure that there are many science-based techniques to "tame" children and make child care as atomic family bearable.

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drakonka 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Half asleep definitely doesn't sound like good quality, restorative sleep.