slept like a baby

Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up like every two hours?

It's a firgure of speach, basicly saying that they slep without a care.

yeah its a phrase but why use that analogy? its an oxymoron

I know what you're getting at. Though my own baby slept through the night from the time she was around one year old, just so long as she didn't have a bottle before bedtime. I think the only reason babies wake up so much is when they need a diaper change.

As for the phrase, 'slept like a baby', i think it's like any other adage, highly inaccurate and woefully over used.

I agree with you. Though I think it comes from the amount of sleep a baby needs/gets rather than how well a baby actually sleeps. When the term first originated it probably meant something more on that idea. Over the years, things change (they are constantly changing.) Now it's just a figure of speech rather than having logical meaning to it via linking correct meanings to words. That's how I look at it.