Sleeping Through The Night is a Myth

There is no such thing as sleeping through the night.  It is however toted as the light at the end of the tunnel, the gold at the end of a rainbow, the one thing that a good parent has accomplished.   Sleeping through the night is a myth it doesn’t exist, the phrase should be deleted from the English language and every other language for that matter. 
Why do I feel so strongly about this?  There are two questions I am asked now that my son is over three months …
Q.  “How old is your baby?”
A.  “5 months”
Q.  “Does he sleep through the night?”
There it is … the pink elephant in the room.  How do I answer this, no not really, yes of course, sort of depends on the day?  Depending on how you answer you will get a few different responses. 
No not really will get you a grimace and a “that’s too bad” followed by some sort of advice on filling his stomach because that is the only reason he may not be sleeping.
Yes of course will get you a smile and nod of approval and then of course a comment on what a good baby I have.
Sort of will get you a mixed bag, some grimaces, some pursed lips some advice but nothing too invasive.
Two months ago, my answer to this question was YES! he sleeps its a miracle!  Until of course my husband pointed out that he didn’t feel like he slept through the night.  I was offended by this as if my husband telling me the baby didn’t sleep through the night was indicative of my failure as a parent.  What was worse was that he was right to a certain degree. 
How we define sleeping through the night is ridiculous.  Babies are not meant to sleep for periods of longer than 7 – 8 hours until they are at least three months old.   But once they make it through three months they can in theory sleep “through the night”.  The problem is they won’t do it consistently, they will do it just long enough to make you think you have a schedule, just long enough to make you comfortable.  Just long enough for you to get used to sleeping 6 – 7 hours a night and they won’t anymore.  They won’t because they are teething, they had their shots, its a wonder week, its not a wonder week, they are overtired, they are under tired, sad, scared, happy, excited, bored, restless.  My son woke up at 2 am last week because he learned to say “dadadadada” he did that for 20 minutes.  Nothing was wrong, he didn’t need me, he just babbled to himself for a while and then went back to bed. 
Does that mean he doesn’t sleep through the night?  Yeah probably … should I be made to feel as if there is something wrong with that?  No I don’t think I should.
When you are a new parent any length of sleep longer than 2.5 hours is incredible and you pray for the day that you can get 5 consecutive hours.  You will do anything to make that happen, swaddling, not swaddling, more formula, cluster feeding, adding cereal to the bottle anything to give your sleep deprived body a break.
I understand what it feels like, I understand it sucks.  But we as the parents need to get away from defining good and bad babies and parents based on their sleep habits.  My son is not a bad baby because for the week after his shots he doesn’t tend to sleep through the night, he is just a baby who had needles jabbed in his leg and for a few days after that he needs some extra cuddling in the middle of the night.  As a parent I understand and accept that. 
I encourage you to not ask if the baby sleeps through the night, I encourage you to ask “are you getting enough sleep?”  this question to the parent is subjective to their needs and their babies needs.  It does not insinuate that the baby should be sleeping through the night it instead focuses on that parent and babies individual need. 
Babies will sleep when they are ready, they will sleep for as long as they are able and that’s ok.