My 8 month old has recently started waking up 3 or more times a night. He will only go back to sleep with a bottle of fomula. He only drinks 1 to 2 half ounces before he falls back asleep. I tried giving him water in the bottle but once he realizes what's in the bottle, he refuses it. He has always been a great sleeper, so not sure what happened. He started crawling and pulling up to everything this last week too. I keep hoping he will go back to old sleep habits, but hasn't happened yet.
When he was 5 months he started waking every hour to 2 hours. Everyone told me then that the only way to fix the problem was to let him "cry it out". They said it would only take couple nights, but after a month of screaming, I gave up on that idea.
I won't do that again to my baby. I would rather get up all night long til he is 5 before I put him or anyone else in this house again. So please don't suggest the "letting him cry" method. It is the most cruel thing ever!
Thank you all for reading this and for any help you can give me!
Hay everyone! Thanks so much for all the helpful advice. I apreciate y'all taking the time to read and respond to my post. I have been limiting his nap time during the day, so far it has helped. Thanks again. And I am sorry I offended anyone about the the remake about letting baby "cry it out". I am sure it has worked great for thousand of families.
Thanks to all!
Wow, for you to be asking advice and then telling people that what they suggest is the "cruelest thing ever" isn't very nice. It's hard to give you advice when you start out by yelling at everyone. When done correctly the crying method actually works for lots of people. So, good luck to you staying up all night every night until your child is 5.
Since he is at least 6 months old, you can dilute the formula slowly a little more each time. Also, get the book, "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" by Dr. Ferber, he covers many DIFFERENT sleep issues. You can skip the chapter referring to the graduated method of letting a baby cry. He actually doesn't recommend "crying it out" and neither do I. That means not checking on them and when my 9 month old is going through a phase where he just doesn't want to go to sleep, I may let him cry for a couple of minutes and go in and check on him and leave again but it never lasts longer than about 5 minutes so I would refer to the book because there are LOTS of ideas and issues to read about. Good luck.
My daughter went through this as well. Infants often wake up a lot at night after they master a new skill. You mentioned that they started crawling. He just wants to "practice" his new skill all the time, even in the middle of the night. Just be patient and try to find other ways to soothe him back to sleep with out the bottle. Try picking him up breifly and rocking him or rubbing his back. It should only last a couple of weeks. I don't blame you for not wanting to let him "cry it out". That never worked for me either. It only made everyone else loose sleep and I did a lot of the crying too! Good luck to you and nap often.
My daughter would wake when she was teething. It started about 11 mo. She would sleep through the night for 1-3 mo. Then for the next month she would wake one to several times a night. During this time she would have 1-3 new teeth. May not be the problem with your child, but you could look into something that causes the baby to wake.
I did do CIO, but in a controlled setting. I went in and laid my daughter back down and rubbed her back for a minute and told her I loved her, then left the room for 5 minutes, then I did it again and left for 10 minutes and then 15, starting back over at 5 again...I had to do 3 cycles the first time, the second night a full cycle and the third night I heard her wake, cry/whine, then found her pacifier and went back to sleep. It was painful the first night, however after trying 5 or 6 other strategies for 2 weeks it was the only thing left to do other than be up all night with her.
try mixing some cereal in the bottle, right before bed. when i started doing that, mine son went back to sleeping all night.
if my 9 month old wakes up, I try patting him on the back, sometimes I have to pick him up for a minute. Usually he will go right back to sleep. Now he's gotten to when he does wake up and let out a yelp, I wait a minute and he usually roots around the crib and calms himself down.
