My son is 26 months old and has never slept the night. He needs to eat often. He woke every 2 hours or more to eat his entire first year. It sucks to have a baby that needs to eat more, but I would never deprive him of the food he needs. He has slowly dropped his feeds as he didn't need them anymore. Occasionally, I only have to get up once a night and it's great.

Have you thought about putting a little cereal in the bottle before bedtime? Also, a white noise machine works great for my daughter, she has slept through the night (up to 5 hour stretches) since she was 3 months old and I swear it was because of the white noise!

My daughter woke up 2-3 times each night for the first 7 weeks. I only had 6 weeks off of work and when I started back up I didn't want to continue waking up if I could avoid it. People had been telling me for weeks to put rice cereal in her bottle. At exactly 7 weeks, I tried it, and poof! She has not slept less than 9 hours through the night since. If it's actually single-grain RICE cereal by Gerber, it is NOT a choking hazard. I talked to my doctor. It fills the baby up, prevents him/her from getting hungry through the night. Now it's part of her night time routine, but if she happens to fall asleep before getting it, she still sleeps through the night because she's gotten used to it.

With rice cereal, it says right on the package for "supported sitters" which can be only a couple of months old. It gives you mixing directions to mix it right in with the formula or breast milk, or even juice. I just had to make the nipple hole a tad bit bigger with a safety pin. I HIGHLY recommend cereal for sleep purposes. Worked like a charm and everyone I know who has tried it has used it ever since.

Sylvia, I know my friends did this when their child got older and still wanted to sleep with them they set up a sleeping bag on the floor for them to sleep so that the child was not in their bed.  After a while the child stopped coming in because they were not able to get into bed with mom and dad.  

By 6-8 months an average baby has the metabolism to sleep through the night without needing to eat. I would highly recommend reading Dr. Weissbluth's book, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." This book was a lifesaver to me! The main points which surprised me were:

** The more a baby sleeps the more he will sleep each night. So, don't deprive him of naps or try to keep him up later in order for him to sleep longer. This will only make him overtired which will agitate him and he will be unable to soothe himself back to sleep.

** The earlier you put your baby to bed, the later he will sleep. I used to put my baby to bed around 8 and he would wake up 3-5 times a night! I now put him to bed around 6 and he sleeps 12 hours without waking.

** Always sleep your baby in his crib during the day for naps so he will associate his crib with sleeping.

** If he does wake during the night, give him awhile before you go into him. The first night wait 5 minutes before you go in to soothe him, the next night bump it to 10, the next night 15, etc. This will give him a chance to soothe himself before he relies on you.

** When you go in to soothe him try to leave him in the crib, instead of nursing/giving him a bottle with milk, try giving him water. This way he is not getting what he wants/expects and will stop waking up expecting it and will instead eventually go back to sleep.

I hope that all makes sense. The book will explain it all better. After reading the book and applying it's methods, my 7 month old was sleeping through the night and taking better naps to boot!

i poasted alittle while ago that i had the same problem we finally desided the girls just needed to learn that they wernt going to get what they wanted they were only throwing fits so two nights ago we put them in their cribs and let them cry it out the first night was hard espically for me because i like to baby them but they finally fell asleep last night when they were getting tired we brushed their teeth     and put them in their cribs. this time they cried for less then 5 min and went to sleep they woke up once but cried for less then two min and didnt wake up until 8 this morning! It felt wonderful to sleep in my own bed 

My 5 month old wakes up to be breastfed at least once a night. Will she ever sleep through the whole night?