Sleeping Through The Night

http://babyparenting.about.com/cs/sleeping/a/newbornsleep.htm

Extract:
Sleeping "Through the Night"
You have probably heard that babies should start "sleeping through the night" at about 2 to 4 months of age. What you must understand is that, for a new baby, a five-hour stretch is a full night. Many (but nowhere near all) babies at this age can sleep uninterrupted from midnight to 5 a.m. (Not that they always do.) A far cry from what you may have thought "sleeping through the night" meant!
What's more, while the scientific definition of "sleeping through the night" is five hours, most of us wouldn't consider that anywhere near a full night's sleep for ourselves. Also, some of these sleep-through-the-nighters will suddenly begin waking more frequently, and it's often a full year or even two until your little one will settle into a mature, all-night, every night sleep pattern.

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Letting the Baby Cry It Out.

1) For sopping night time nurisng, I would say 6 months is a good time to stop night time. By then their tummy size increases and they can drink lot more and retain. Also since we introduce solids, their tummy will be heavy and will not need any more milk in the night. The method I followed was let dad do the bad deed. So I would let my hubby sleep between the kid and me. Since there is no milk smell near the dad, the baby just cries a while and then goes back to sleep. The first few days will be bad but you just have to be strong willed and then they will come down to almost zero. If you just cant see the baby cry, sleeping in the adjacent room with someone sleeping close by and letting him cry out would help.

Sleeptime Routine:
This also totally depends on the mom. Follow a daily routine like talking to the baby about sleep time, putting some lullaby songs, singing them yourself, putting the mobile on etc. Prepare your baby to bed( apply lotion, change the diaper, put in sleeping bag, etc.) put them in the crib. Then turn of the light and make sure you tell them that you are still around. If you have a rocking chair, move it next to the crib and sit there peacefully.

If the baby cries, just tell her "Amma is right here, please go to bed". I've seen even 3 months baby sleeping on their own. It might take sometime because small babies memory span wont be long, so they may forget that it is routine but as they grow big, they remember and know that is a routine.

Believe me it feels like heaven. You will enjoy a lot.

Courtesy: Lavanya.