# Can a sleep-trained 2 week old baby sleep through the night?!!



## Super Pickle (Apr 29, 2002)

I know some people who are telling me that their 2 week old baby is sleeping through the night. Is that possible, even with sleep training? I mean, doesn't the child have to eat?


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## ozzyemm (Apr 15, 2005)

My son slept for 5 hour stretches when he was two weeks old. We do not sleep train, but he was in the hospital for the first week of his life, and they fed him every four hours.

I am still not sure exactly WHY he slept 5 hour stretches (which I consider "through the night"), but he still sleeps most of the night, but now he nurses while we sleep.

If you are using formula, it "fills up" baby's tummy longer, because it is harder to digest than breast milk, allowing baby to sleep longer.


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## Siana (Jun 21, 2004)

The medical defintion for a baby sleeping through the night is sleeping for a four-hour strech, I believe.

My DD then technically "slept through the night" around 2 weeks old.

While it might be possible to sleep-train a baby to sleep through the night at 2-weeks-old, there is no evidence to suggest the long-term effects are positive (though advocates of sleep training may say there has been no proven negative effects either, just theories).

The Breastfeeding Answer book, a LLLI publication states:

"Although it may be possible to "train" babies to adopt sleep patterns appropriate for older children and asults, the long-term effects of altering natural sleep patterns have not been studied."

This statement is a general one, not just for nursing babies.


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## hsingmamato3 (Jun 26, 2005)

My baby started sleeping 6 hours at 2 weeks... breastfed and co-sleeping. He's a really really easy-going baby, very mellow, so maybe that's why? I'm definitely not complaining! A baby who sleeps is so opposite my girls!


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## NYCVeg (Jan 31, 2005)

According to MIL, my dh slept 12 (yes, 12) hours a night from the day they brought him home. They did not try to "train" him. Apparently, he screamed his head off non-stop 12 hours a day and then slept the next 12.







He wasn't bf, though, and he didn't co-sleep...but they lived in a tiny, 1-BR apartment, so I'm sure they would have heard him if he was crying.


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## rmzbm (Jul 8, 2005)

Yes, a 2 week old CAN sleep through...but to try to sleep train them into it is a horrible idea for a million reasons.







People need to accept that losing sleep is part of the turf of new parenthood. Geez.


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## IncaMama (Jun 23, 2004)

yeah my dd slept through that early...but now she doesn't anymore. LOL


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## lilyka (Nov 20, 2001)

my babies all slept 4-6 hours by 2 weeks. they got over it though around week 3 or 4 . I think there is that whiole sleepy newborn, still high calorie colostrum (there is still colostrum in the milk after it comes in) and the stars align etc. then the milk thins out a bit and baby starts to grow and its all over.


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## oceanbaby (Nov 19, 2001)

My younger sister slept all night from the day she was born. My mom kept bringing her to the doctor convinced something was wrong - I didn't sleep more than 2 hours at a time for 2 years, so she just couldn't accept that my sister slept so much!


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## guestmama9915 (Jul 29, 2004)

My now 6mo old also slept loooong stretches through the night, between 5-6 hours. I never had a lack of sleep because of her (only other reasons







). She still sleeps like that.


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## Kirsten (Mar 19, 2002)

I breastfed my babies, and didn't do any sleep training. My dd1 slept what I consider through the night - from midnight til 5:00 a.m. from two days old. I was surprised but thrilled. By a month old, she'd sleep from 11:00 til 6:30 or so. Nothing I did or didn't do; she just slept. The doctor told me she needed to eat during the night (she was a slow gainer) so we'd set the alarm and get her out of the basinette next to our bed - but she'd just be so sleepy and look at me like "what are you DOING? I'm SLEEPING here..." Would have to get her completely naked and tickle her feet and it just felt so crummy to wake her when she was sleepy. She'd fall right to sleep after nursing for a minute so it was pointless anyway and we stopped after a night or two of it.

Dd2 was a decent sleeper from fairly early on - with some problems during the colic months...

Dd3 took a good six months to get to the point where she'd sleep through the night.

So, yes, I think a 2 week old breastfed baby can sleep through the night - even if she/he is not "sleep trained". I think it is fairly rare but I believe it can happen.


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## MountainLaurel (Dec 17, 2005)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Super Pickle*
I know some people who are telling me that their 2 week old baby is sleeping through the night. Is that possible, even with sleep training? I mean, doesn't the child have to eat?

My mom has told me that the military nurses in the hospital where I was born had me sleeping through the night by the time she brought me home, a couple weeks after I was born. (Long story involving fluid in my lungs and a long baby born two weeks post-term in an incubator built for preemies)


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## graceshappymum (May 11, 2006)

I breastfeed dd when we get into bed (about 11 or 12) and she is out for about 5 or 6 hours. At four months she does wake up to feed, but she does so without waking me. If 4 hour stretches is sleeping through, she has done that since she was two days old. I think that co-sleeping and EBF have helped that though.


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## Boadicea (Mar 28, 2004)

My non-sleep trained, EBF, co-sleeping DS slept six hours at a time at night from birth. By the time he was six weeks old, he slept 10+ hours per night! He never napped much, but who could complain when he slept so well at night?!?







At 4.5 years old, he is still a champion sleeper.

DD is an entirely different story. At 28 months, she still doesn't sleep through the night, even by the textbook standards of five hours.


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## Nikki Christina (Mar 27, 2003)

my bf co-sleeping girls both slept 5-6 hours a night starting at 3 - 3 1/3 weeks

my oldest i would TRY to wake up because i was worried about her going so long.. she would pull from me & still sleep...

when her younger sister did the same i just didnt worry about it


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## royaloakmi (Mar 2, 2005)

If they're talking 5 hours sleeping through the night (medical definition), maybe it's natural. (Though not natural in our house, since my 2.5 yo twins rarely make it five hours).

If it's longer, I would suspect they're doing Babywise or something like that, where you just ignore the baby and stop feeding them at night. But I suppose there is a huge range of "normal" and even that would be possible, though it's hard for me to imagine from my vantage point!


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## Joannarachel (Dec 10, 2005)

My three month old (exclusively breastfed, sling-carried, fed-on-demand, cosleeping) slept through the night the whole first week we brought her home! I was soooooo confused









For a while she was waking once or twice at night...now, she occasionally sleeps through the night again, and definitely doesn't wake to nurse before four most of the time.

I have to say HOOORAY for the family bed. My son slept in a crib from three weeks old (he was in a co-sleeper before), and our nights were miserable.


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## Super Pickle (Apr 29, 2002)

Aaahhh. Thanks everybody!


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## jadzia's_mommy (Jun 9, 2005)

My DD slept 6-7 hours a night at 3 weeks. I was worried because all the books said she had to nurse more often than that, but the pediatrician said as long as she was gaining don't worry about it, and enjoy the sleep.







I'm glad I did because it didn't last all that long!


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