Baby Still Waking Up At Night

val23

Registered User
Hi,

My baby is already 5.5 months old. He usually goes to bed at 8:00. Then he wakes up for a feed at 12:00 and 5:00. I heard that this is not normal as babies this age are supposed to sleep through the night. Can somebody please advise me on this?

Thanks.
Val
 
Your baby is normal. Read "The No Cry Sleep Solution" and you will rejoice in the normality of your baby's sleep pattern.
 
I think your baby sounds very normal as well. Personally I wouldn't recommend the No Cry Sleep Solution. For me, I just didn't feel that it's 'softly softly' approach would adequately communicate what you want to the baby. BUT lots of people swear by it, it just wasn't for me.

I personally like the Baby Whisperer by (I think) Tracey Hogg. It has sensible advice without letting your baby cry it out.

I stopped feeding my baby (breastfeeding) through the night at 6 months, when the baby health sister said she didn't need feeding overnight anymore. I gave her a 10pm "roll over" feed. This means just feeding her with dim lights whilst she was still asleep. I then didn't feed her again until after 5am.

She certainly woke up during the early hours for short while - less than two weeks. I didn't let her cry, just comforted her whatever way I could, but didn't feed her. She soon realised that a long sleep overnight was a much better idea and is now quite a good sleeper, sleeping 11-12 hours overnight and 2-3 hours during the day pretty much consistently.

I dropped the roll over feed at about 9 months, when she didnt' seem to be taking much anymore.

You are the best one to judge whether your baby is waking out of habit or hunger. I judged that my cheeky monkey was just waking up out of habit and in about a week and a half she proved me right.

Good luck !
 
Thanks for your advice.

I think I will try to cuddle my baby when he wakes up tonight. It's just that sometimes I am so tired and sleepy that it is just easier to feed him. I actually feed my baby just with a night light on.

Just wondering in case he really wants a feed, does this mean that he doesn't get enough food during daytime?
 

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I know how you feel when you are sooooo tired ! I agree that feeding is the easiest and quickest way to get baby back to sleep. When you decide not to feed overnight, you have to be mentally prepared for less sleep for a little while, in the hope that you'll get more sleep in the long run.

I recommend that if you decide not to feed overnight, you stick to your decision. Don't feed some nights or some wakenings and not others. Your baby will be confused by your mixed signals.

Having said that, remember your bub is still really young. Only you can judge whether bub is hungry or just waking out of habit. if hungry, probably no amount of comforting is going to get him back to sleep.

Good luck.
 
I've been reading "On becoming BABY WISE" by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam. Every person I know who has used the methodology in this book has had success (5 different moms with 8 babies)! It basically gets your baby on a regular schedule of eat-play-sleep. My baby isn't born yet, but I am going to use this formula as it seems to work for most people.
Good luck!
 
Dear val23
When I/we started to stop feeding at night, it was clear for my husband, that now it was his turn, to attend our son, when he was crying and waking up.
So remember: your husband has to get up and go there, otherwise your baby will smell you, which means the milk he will not get, and it will take you even longer to stop the night feeds.
It's hard for your husband too, but that's the deal.....
Sometimes it takes you then 3 days sometimes more. It took us 10 days of partly controlled crying and partly of really picking him up and holding him until he settled down. It was a mix but totally in my husband's hands and I did not interfere and gave no comments......
Good Luck
 
one more thing:
Our son is now 18 month old and STILL waking up almost every night. But now he tells us, what he wants (something to drink) and gets back to sleep.
They simply have to learn to sleep, just like they have to learn to walk, talk, eat...
 
Hkgirl - of course you should use whatever works best for you, but did you know that the American Society of Paediatrics has issued a health warning against Babywise books? Apparently the author (Ezzo) is an unordained Christian Fundamentalist minister with no medical training. He is not the sort of person I would be looking to for advice about my precious child. There is lots of information on the internet, such as:

http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/baby/babysleep/8369.html

I don't have his book, but have read excerpts of his advice such as smack a child if it throws food from the highchair. What ???? My daughter started dropping and throwing food at about 9 months. Is he seriously suggesting I should smack a 9 month old???? Also, the LLL says that his routines interfere with establishing and maintaining breastfeeding.

His advice and routines sound cruel to me. I just wanted to be sure you made an informed decision before trying to use his books. For me, there is absolutely no way !
 
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Our 9 month old boy is also not sleeping through the night and still wakes up several times a night. In fact his sleep pattern has gotten worse in the last 2 months.

He'll go to sleep at around 9pm after his bedtime feed and then usually sleep through until 1am or 2 am at which time he wakes for a night feed. We've tried cutting out the night feed, but if we don't give it to him he'll just keep on crying.

The problem is that after his night feed, he'll usually only sleep for an hour at a time in his cot and wake up every hour at 3am, 4am, 5am until he wakes up for good at 6am.

If my wife holds him in her arms in our bed, he'll sleep longer, but once he's back in his cot the maximum he'll sleep is for an hour at a time.

In the past he was better and after waking up for his night feed would fall back into a continuous sleep from 2am to 6am or 6.30am without waking up. How we long for those days!

Both my wife and I are becoming extremely tired.

Graham
 
Hi guys,

My son is now 13 months old and I just stopped breastfeeding him a few days ago. Until then, he would wake up once or twice a night for a feed. How did it stop? I had him sleep with the nanny instead of sleeping in the same room with me. After waking up for awhile, he just went back to sleep. If I was sleeping in the same room as him, he would see me and would not stop crying until I nurse him. I guess it's a different strategy for every kid.
 
dear graham,
that sounds exactly like my baby, although my baby is only 6 weeks old. He would go to sleep at 9pm, waking up at 1am, 4am, 5am, 6am and never go back to sleep again after 6. I am so sleep deprived and it's driving me crazy. He doesn't sleep so much in the day either, I have never seen a baby who sleeps so little and yet so energetic!!! :gl:
 
My son was a great sleeper till about 6 months old. After that it's been just like Graham described ! Now he's 3 and he was doing that on and off until 3 months ago. Now he wakes up ocassionally at night but just once and usually he's had a dream or something. At 6 months old when he started waking up every hour...it coincided with teething. So I think that's what bothered him for a long long time. Everytime he woke up very frequently I started checking his mouth and sure enough there was a tooth cutting through his gums ! He finally at 2yr 10mths had all his teeth in..but now it's dreams ! But atleast he doesn't wake up every 1 or 2 hours !

Good luck guys.
 
Thanks

dear jwang,
thanks for the info, i am willing to listen to anything and try anything to make life easier for me and my baby. as i am a first time mother, i am really shocked at how looking after a newborn is NOT a bed of roses.

i am hoping that this waking up several at night and refusing to sleep business will diminish soon once he is older. am i being too optimistic?? anyone heard of control crying?? how do you go about it?
 

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You are soooo describing my baby as well, Graham. Val23, you should consider lucky your baby is only waking up at most twice at night to feed. Mine used to sleep from 8.30pm to 4am but at 3 mths, she went backwards and wanted to feed at 11pm, 2am, 5am. Now at 6.5mths, her schedule has become even worse with waking almost every 1-2hrs (due to teething probably - I have posted another thread re. this). My husband and I are slowly going crazy.

If I were you, Val23, I will count my blessings and pray he will wake less and less as he gets older...
 
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