Isn’t this a question that we are often asked and made to feel terrible when our baby is the only one who appears to be waking and feeding a lot in the night and not “sleeping through”.
So why does my baby wake up so often?
Human infants are totally dependant on their caregivers to keep them close day and night and unlike other mammals (yes, we are mammals), we are unable to cling onto our mothers fur or trot along next to them, but still we need to provide our babies with warmth, protection and frequent access to maternal milk. Breast
milk is high in calories, low in fat and very easily digested, therefore requiring frequent feeding.
Popular beliefs about baby sleep are based on research from the 1950’s and 1960’s when the majority of babies were fed formula milk.
So, it is completely normal for babies to waken and feed frequently day and night.
According to BASIS (Baby sleep info source) 13% of babies had not frequently slept through for 5 hours or more by the age of 1 year.