When will my baby sleep through the night?

How long before ten hours straight?

That was the question, followed by: so nine months to sleep twelve hours straight?

The honest answer is that there isn't a date, and that the question contains an assumption worth unpicking first.

Papa had heard of the 4 months sleep regression. He was prepared for it, little did he know that there was a 6 months sleep regression and an 8 months sleep regression too. Noone told him that. It seemed for the little we had moved forward, it was all crashing back. All normal.

What 'sleeping through' actually means

In most of the research it means around five or six consecutive hours. Not twelve. Not from seven in the evening to seven in the morning.

So when somebody tells you their baby slept through at eight weeks, they may well mean six hours, which is a very different claim from the one you heard.

That mismatch causes an enormous amount of unnecessary despair, and it's worth knowing before you compare yourself to anybody.

The rough shape

Stretches lengthen over the first year. Some babies reach long unbroken nights in the middle of the first year, and a substantial proportion still wake at twelve months and beyond.

Ari at 14 months still wakes up middle of the night to feed.

Both of those are normal. Night waking at a year isn't a failure of method.

It also does not improve in a straight line. Illness, teething, a new skill (a lot of these happen in the first two years, rolling, learning how to sit, learning how to crawl, b ababing, learning how to eat, walk, talk), travel or a house move can interrupt a good run. Sleep often settles again afterwards.

Protecting one adult's sleep rather than both of ours being wrecked. Splitting the night into shifts so somebody got four unbroken hours.

And giving up on the date. Once we stopped asking when and started assuming it would take months, it became something to manage rather than something to be failing at.

If her sleep changes suddenly and stays that way, or there is snoring, gasping or breathing pauses, speak to her doctor. Ordinary night waking is different.