Advice for Getting 5 Month Old to Sleep Through the Night? Help!

A.,
I guess that the biggest question would be is he waking up to eat or just to wake up? If he is waking up to eat then try feeding him some solid food right before you put him to bed so that he will not get hungary during the night. If he is just wasking up to be awake, then the other suggestions are right, you need to just let him cry and try some music for him to help soothe him. Hope this helps.

A.,
In all seriousness, 5 month old babies are not made to sleep through the night. And, you are made to hate hearing him cry.
How long does he sleep now?
It is through meeting our babies needs when they are babies that we raise confident, independent children.
Please, don't take a cry-it-out approach with your precious baby. Make the investment in parenting him through the night just as you would in the day.
Sleep training programs teach babies that their needs will not be met at night, so they may as well give up and shut down. All this really does is place a baby at greater risk for SIDs.
Here is a great article by Dr. Sears on sleep...
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T070300.asp
I hope you find it helpful.
L. G

The key to getting a 5 month old to sleep thru the night is "Filling" the belly! Are you giving him cereal? Some doctors say no but there has never been a case where this hurt the child. Try diluting some cereal and possibly keeping him up at least 2 hours past his normal sleep time.

The "Becoming Babywise" book. It is a miracle. It helped me to get my son to sleep through the night at 3 months. It doesn't matter if you start it later, my sister did and her daughter was sleeping though the night in a few months. It takes some maintenence and paying attention to eating time and schedules, but it's more than worth it.
Good Luck!
M.

I hate to tell you this and I still have a hard time with it on my 3rd baby. You have got to do it now the older the harder! I have heard from so many other moms doctors and therps, let them cry it out. I t will be hard I promise you that but you can do it. Just if you start stick with it. I never let my oldest cry herself to sleep and even now at 5 she still is terrible to get to sleep. We(my hubby) let my 2nd baby cry it out at 3 months it only took a few night, and now she goes to bed by herself. My 9 month old now thats another story....
Good luck to you. I know it's not easy.
also "white noise" is saposed to help soothe them to sleep. i.e-fans or even classical music.

My daughter started sleeping through the night at 4 weeks old. I tried the cereal in the bottle trick and it worked, but you have to be careful not to put to much. Just a pinch. You are just boosting what's in the bottle. MANY Dr's and nurses and other moms say that it's harmful to the baby and that it changes the way they will eat or what have you. My daughter does not have any weight issues nor did she have trouble learning to eat cereal from a spoon.

At 5 months you should be feeding the baby cereal anyway. Not in the bottle but from the spoon. he may be going to bed hungry.

Take all the advise you get here with a prayer for disearnment.

Hi A.,
I had a similar problem and my docter said that since i usaully nursed her to sleep, she was not learnig how to put herself to sleep. so i had to make it so that i could not hear her ( very hard to listen to your baby cry) and let her just cry it out for a few nights and after that she slept through the night. that was at about 5 months too. also check out the sleep book by docter sears, excellent!

Is he taking lots of naps through the day?

Hi, I bought a sound machine from Walmart and it worked wonders. It was like $15 and it had 10 different sounds on it. I know you don't like to hear him cry, but that's really the only way to do it. If you continually go in his room when he starts to cry, then he knows that everytime he cries, you'll come. I would let my son cry for about 15 minutes at first, then I would go in and patt him on his back for awhile, then I would leave the room again. But I never picked him up out of his crib. whatever you decide to do, just make sure you are consistant with it. Good luck.