Sleeping Thru the Night - Battle Creek,MI

Not sleeping through the night is completely normal for 6 month old. There are many different things you can try to help, but in reality, it may not happen for a while. The best thing is to find some things that work for you and make a plan and stick to it 100% for a long period of time. Get a strict routine. Chances are that he's just hungry so you'll still have to feed him, but if you get a routine down you should be able to just BF him and put him right back to sleep and minimize the amount of time you're awake. I think my daughter stopped BF in the middle of the night around 9-10 months.

Get the book "no cry sleep solution". It's not a miracle book but the main focus is to help you set up a solid routine and cut out anything that hinders him sleeping for longer periods of time.

Oh, and I would suggest rather than giving him breastmilk in a bottle with cereal to JUST GIVE HIM CEREAL OR FOOD. There is no reason to put it in a bottle! Just give him a small portion of cereal just before bed if that helps him sleep. Like a bedtime snack so to speak. It might help and it will give him some practice for eating too! :)

There is another book that you might want to look at: "The No Cry Sleep Solution" we used that book's advise and our baby does sleep through the night, but we didn't really try it until he was a year old. He sleeps really well now at 22 mts from 8 to 8. Just remember that this is overall a short period of time in your life and your baby will sleep through the night eventually.

I feel for you. My son did not sleep through the night until he was 9 1/2 months old. He's now 11 months old. We finally had to put him in his bed and let him cry. We have music playing for him, we did the whole night time routine, I nursed him and then I put him in his bed and tucked him in and left the room. At first it was hard, but by night 3 it was easy and he didn't cry at all (which all made me cry). I also stopped feeding him at night. This helped tremendously! We even went to the doctor over this. He was over tired and that was why he was waking up. He now sleeps 12-14 hours at night.

Unfortunately, you have joined the club of 'not sleeping through the night' mothering!!! My son is six months old and he had a good spurt of sleeping from 7pm-2am when he was 2 months old but now he's up a few times - mostly just crying and when I rub his back,he'll go back to sleep. He usually eats on one side around 230 am then is up at 5am for the day. Just remember that breastfed babies need more milk - but at this age he should be able to physically go up to 12 hours without eating. That does not mean that he EVER will. My daughter just turned 2.5 and just started sleeping through the night without waking. If you are getting 4-5 hours in a row before your baby wakes up, take that for granted. Some are up every 2 hours still. Go to bed when he does and if it's easier, bring him into bed when you nurse. We do this with my son even though he's in a crib in another room. I nurse him and put him back in his bed the first time. if he's up to nurse a second time, he goes into bed with me.

Good luck....this too shall pass!!

I suspect your baby is waking up b/c he is hungry. Can you give him breastmilk with cereal in a bottle???? That would help to sustain him through the night.

It is NOT necessary to make him cry it out, I don't care what anyone says!!! Please get Secrets of the Baby Whisperer (I have heard that baby Wise is similar but I haven't read that one.) The Baby Whisperer book will teach you a LOVING technique for teaching your son to fall asleep by himself. Once a baby knows how to fall asleep on his own (without falling asleep by nursing or rocking or being held by you) then he will be able to fall back to sleep when he wakes during the night. We ALL wake during the night, even adults. If he falls alseep by nursing or being rocked then that's the only way he knows how to fall asleep so he will cry for you. Once you have taught him how to fall asleep on his own, he will just roll over and go back to sleep in the middle of the night like we all do, unless he TRULY is hungry, which should be once once during the early morning hours or not at all. It doesn't matter if you breast feed, formula feed, give solid foods, etc---- sleeping well has nothing to do with having a full belly and has everything to do with knowing how to self soothe. I urge you to read the book. It changed my life! Someone gave it to me for baby #3 and I wish I'd known about it for the first 2 children because I was a walking zombie gettinh no sleep!

Kids all have their own time table for developmental development. The only thing you can do is make sure you're not standing in the way, meaning are you doing anything that is encouraging him to wake up at night?

What we found to be helpful is having the bedroom be a sleeping sanctuary. We have very dark curtains and a fan going to create some white noise. It helps our daughter (nearly 6 months old) go to sleep and not wake up due to noises around the house (3 year old playing). They also share the room, and it keeps it quiet in there so they don't bother each other if one wakes up. Sometimes they even nap in there together (but for that one I be sure one is asleep before adding the other child - usually works to have the oldest asleep first). Usually the baby is asleep when I lay her down for naps and bed, but sometimes she's not. But hardly ever does that prevent her from falling asleep on her own. (this started to happen at 3 months)

Second, critique how you act when feeding him at night. Do you change the diaper, turn on lights, cuddle and sing songs... Is there anything you could do less of to encourage sleeping. My mom talks about getting me to sleep through the night. She claims it took 3 nights, but she started doing one less thing each time I cried until eventually all she was doing was talking to me from the door.

Our daughter usually sleeps through the night unless she's going through a growth spurt and then she likes an extra feeding - usually at 4am. That lasts a few days and she's back to sleeping through the night. 6 months is typical for growth spurts, so if this is something new that might be the reason.

Your breast milk is all the caloric nutrition that he needs until he is one year old. Starting solids is just a chance for him to experiment with tastes and textures, so don't feel like adding some high calorie solid before bedtime is the key, it might backfire if it gives him a tummy ache.

My friend (who is still exclusively breastfeeding as well) wakes her 5 month old daughter up around 10 or 11pm for one last feeding so she'll sleep through the night. I think she still wakes up at 6 or 7am, but at least its not 3 or 4am.

Hope this is helpful! Best wishes!

Many infants and toddlers don't sleep through the night. If they wake, there's a good reason and they can't meet their own needs. I'd nurse him on demand and not push the solids at this early age. He needs his mama frequently, usually including nursing. He's still very little. Please don't forget that. You're meeting both his physical and emotional needs. Growing him is your biggest job right now and it's 24x7. While that many not be convenient, it's a big part of parenting. Please slow down and enjoy your son. He'll be grown before you know it, though it may not seem like it right now.

you poor thing. i can imagine how tired you must be! i agree with another poster that says, don't be afraid to put your child down earlier, when he seems tired. my daughter went to bed at 6:30 and slept 11/12 hours. also, he does NOT need to eat at night. physically, he can get through those hours. he is only waking and wanting to eat out of habit.

i had a friend who had this exact problem, and she got the book, Good Night, Sleep Tight, The Sleep Lady's Guide to Helping Your Child Go To Sleep, Stay Asleep, and Wake Up Happy. She said it took 3 days and her daughter has slept through the night since. she couldn't believe she went through those extra months with waking up in the middle of the night. she sent the book to me too! it is also helpful because it has a pretty good guide of how much your child should be sleeping over the next three years, including naps, sample schedules, etc.

I know a lot of people will say that your baby should not cry at night, blah blah, but i would be surprised if a baby that has been trained to go to sleep while eating/rocking could do it without any crying. be reassured though, that if you stick with it, your child will learn to go to sleep on his own, although it may not be easy for you. he will not remember it, he will not be scarred emotionally, and it will not affect your attachment with him. it will teach him to be a more independent sleeper. and, you'll be a better mom for it because you'll be more rested. babies cry. it's just what they do.

You must go get the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child." It is awesome! We mostly followed what the doctor recommends and our 2 year old sleeps 10-12 hours straight beginning around 7:30 p.m. Our six month old recently started sleeping 10-12 hours in a row beginning at 6 p.m. (if she wakes up after 10 hours, I change her, breastfeed her and put her back to sleep for another couple of hours so her total sleep is still 12 hours).

The best thing to do is start a consistent wind-down routine that signals to baby that it is time to go to bed. You'll also want to make sure that he is not napping after 5 p.m.

Here's what we do for our six-month-old:

1. She usually has her last feeding between 4-5 p.m.
2. She refuses to nap after 3 p.m. (even if tired) so late afternoon naps are not an issue and that is why we put her to bed so early - because by then she's exhausted.
3. We take her to her bedroom, change her diaper, put her in her jammies.
4. I rock her in her darkened bedroom with a fan on (white noise because she's sensitive to our household noises) for about 5-10 minutes (and we use a pacifier every time we put her to sleep).
5. Then I put her down in her crib. Most times she is asleep or near being asleep and she just drifts off. She used to pop her eyes open as soon as we laid her down and it was incredibly frustrating. So, we did "cry it out." Now we don't really have that problem anymore.

**When we did "cry it out" we basically did the routine above, put her down after 10 minutes or so and if she started crying we let her (we would go up occasionally and stick the pacifier back in to help her settle down and go to sleep). There were two times that she cried for 45 minutes. A few other times that she cried for up to 30 minutes. Thereafter it was about 5 minutes or less. The doctor in the book states that by this time in their life they have the ability to learn self-soothing techniques.

Hope that helps!

Kristi (http://mommycribnotes.blogspot.com)

My suggestion may be counter-intuitive, but I would suggest putting him down around 6pm, rather than 8. For whatever reason, their little bodies seem to react better to being put down much earlier, and they sleep better and longer that way. A girlfriend of mine suggested that, and I thought she was crazy, but it really does work. Believe it or not, my younger daughter would go to sleep at 6pm, and sleep until 6:30-7am! If I put her to bed around 8, she'd wake up every few hours. I have no idea why that is, but I've heard the same thing from a lot of moms.

Also, if you are nursing him to sleep, I would suggest that you not do that. Rather, nurse him and then give him his bath (or whatever) - and THEN put him in his crib. If he is falling asleep nursing, he may not be getting a full meal in, and so he's waking up hungry. If you feed him and make sure he stays awake until he is really full, you will have better results. Also, putting him down awake but calm will yield better results in the long run, since he will know that being in his crib and awake is not a bad thing and he CAN fall asleep on his own - if he wakes up in the middle of the night, he is less likely to cry, and more likely to get himself back to sleep.

I hope that helps! =)

This sounds normal to me..... I exclusively breastfeed until 6 months and then very slowly added solid foods with my daughter, and she was more than a year old before she started sleeping more than 6 hrs without nursing.

I would suggest trying the sleep training method in The Baby Whisperer book. As long as your son is growing and thriving, my pediatrician always told me that a baby doesn't usually need to eat much at night after 3 months. The method in the Baby Whisperer is very gentle and only involves a little bit of crying/whining (for VERY short periods of time). It's worked on both of my kids. It requires a few days of strict dedication but is totally worth it in the end when you get to SLEEP!!! Of course, even once you're baby learns to soothe himself back to sleep, he'll still give you trouble from time to time but it's much easier to handle only a few sleepless nights here and there rather than every night :)

Breastfed babies usually don't sleep the whole night till much older ( at least both of mine didn't) People will probably tell you to do formula, but I wouldn't , un;ess you don't mind . I didn't want to do formula for many reasons, mostly my girls hated it anyway and wouldn't drink it. My advice is to just nurse him before bed, if he goes to bed at 8 and wakes up at 4 that really is a "full" night. nurse him and put him back to sleep. You didn't mention how many times he is getting up. At about 6 months they are hitting another growth spurt and will need to nurse more.

I have lots of sympathy - my daughter is 8 months and still eats twice per night. A couple months ago we started worrying about it, and lots of people recommended Dr. Weissbluth's "Healthy Sleep Happy Child" book. He's a fan of crying-it-out but offers lots of other options. But you know what? He says that breast-fed babies typically eat twice per night until they're about 9 months, even if they're on solids. Our daughter was getting up several times per night, so we implemented some things to discourage that (basically stopped picking her up unless it was time to eat - we'll go in and pat her or keep a hand on her) and now she basically wakes to eat around 11 and 3:30.

Lots of people tout the Ferber method, but Dr. Ferber has since said that he thinks six months is too young and that his method was misunderstood. If you do want to go that route, you might want to check into that.

With four kids, I have so been there! Lack of sleep is SO hard, and it effects us in so many ways, many that we don't even realize.

I used the book "Solve your child's sleep problems" by Dr. Ferber. It does involve some crying, so you have to be strong for that part, but it WORKS! At six months, your son is just at the right age to start the program, and Dr. Ferber explains how to gradually cut down the night time breast feedings, so you don't cut him off cold turkey from the nutrition he needs.

I got the book when my first was nine months, still breastfeeding, and getting up 2-3 times a night. Within a week she was sleeping through the night. I started my three boys with the program when they were 6 months.

Good Luck,
A.
Nurture Mothers

"sleeping thru the night" means sleeping for 5 hrs strait. It is really rare and not healthy for a baby that young to sleep thru the night. They need to eat regularly thru the night, especially if they are Breast Fed. Actually your milk has the highest fat content during the middle of the night feedings. Also night weaning can cause your milk supply to drop.
You will make it thru this time. It took me 3 babies to accept that babies don't sleep thru the night.
Try to nap if you can ;)