Will I get any sleep at all in the early days?

You will get sleep but whether it is of the same quantity and quality you are used to is questionable. Perhaps that is why our body seems to have disturbed sleep toward the end of pregnancy. Babies need a lot more sleep than adults when they are young, approx 16 hours per day. Young babies do not take all this sleep in one long stretch as they need to wake up for frequent small feeds. Up to three months, babies sleep in sleep-wake cycles through the day with longer spells at night. The length of these cycles varies enormously from baby to baby, but on average your baby will sleep about two hours at a time in the day, and four to six hours at night. All babies wake up a number of times throughout the night.

If you regularly feed your baby to sleep, however, he'll need that same cue to help him drop off again during the night. This is true whether your baby sleeps in a cot or shares your bed. Several studies support the idea that breastfed babies take longer than formula-fed babies, to develop a pattern of sleeping through the night. This is because breast milk is easier to digest than formula milk, so babies get hungry more quickly and wake more often during the night.

As breastfeeding is comforting and calming as well as nourishing, it doesn't take long for a baby to make a connection between feeding and sleeping. Most babies are physically capable of sleeping through the night from six months. They still need about 14 hours of sleep a day. Even newborn babies are familiar with the long, still and quiet night as they have been listening to the sounds of the family through the wall of the womb for about two months before they are born.