Need Sleep Training Advice for 5 Month Old

Hi there! Let him cry. I know it is hard and you don't want to wake everyone in the house, but it will only take a couple on nights and he will be sleeping like he should. He will probably only cry for about 10 minutes if that and then it will decrease every night. Might want to start giving him some baby single grain cereal to fill up his tummy at night.

Good luck!

Hi there, no offense to Andrea but I completely disagree I learned from the book "Good Night Sleep Tight" by Kim West the sleep lady that there are little things you can do from the very beginning to start sleep training a gradual learning process. I highly recommend this book it teaches you how to be your little ones sleep coach, you do enough to help them feel secure but you don't do it all for them. Letting a baby cry it out lets them know they can't trust you to be there for them which in leads to more problems later on with anxiety and so on. The sleep Lady teaches you how to give him the security to know that you will be there so that when he wakes up in the night he can roll over and go back to sleep with that security that you have built. There will be some tears but you will get much better rest in the coming months and years. In general it takes about 2 weeks, but every child is different could be a little longer or shorter. At 19 pounds if he is healthy in every other way this is nothing but a habit he can definitely go through the night without a single feeding. This book teaches you how to do it in steps to make it easier for both of you. You desperately need sleep I would suggest getting a babysitter for 2 or 3 hours for a couple days so you can get more sleep you will be a more effective sleep trainer if you can be a little better rested yourself.
I wish you well, and sympathize with you.

I just want to echo what Workinmom had to say. Having a routine during the day made all the difference for both of my kids. If don't already have one in place, give it a try. Both of my kids were breastfed only and slept 9-10 hour stretches at night by 4 months.
I think by 5 months we were on a 3.5 to 4 hour routine, but we may have still been on the 3 to 3.5 hour. (was a while ago!). Either way, start with the morning feed at say 7am (or whatever works for you), feed him, change diaper and play before putting him down very drowsy, but still awake. Let him settle himself. If he wakes before 10 am, hold off the feed until at least then. If he's still sleeping at 11am wake him up. If he's going to sleep more than 4 hours at a time it should be at night. :) Repeat process until 11pm feed. After that don't wake him. If he wakes let him fuss for a bit to see if he will settle back down (about 10 mins). If not, go in and try to settle him yourself. Don't pick him up or turn on lights, just rub his tummy and softly tell him he's ok, then walk back out. Repeat. If he doesn't settle in 30 mins, give him a small feeding (in the dark, no diaper change unless poopy), then back down. Since he's in the habit of waking so often it could take a week or so to establish a new routine, but stick with it and he will catch on. There is no need for a healthy 5 month old to eat constantly through the night.
Be brave!

Is he on any kind of routine or schedule? I do eat, wake, sleep with my daughter (almost 4 months), with about 3-3.5 hours between feedings, and about an hour of wake time. Then at night, I never wake her. It has helped her learn night from day. I also have a different routine day versus night. During the day, she only has one arm swaddled, and not her legs, she is in a crib with the blinds open, and the radio on. At night, she is fully swaddled, has ocean sounds and is in the dark once my husband and I turn off the lights to go to sleep. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, I give her a few minutes, and if she is still crying or seems more upset, I do side lying feeding. She usually goes right back to sleep, and I put her back in the bassinet. A bad night for us is up once.

I loved "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth.

I also had a large baby - she was actually even bigger than your little boy! She hit 19 lbs by four months. Part of the reason she was so tubby is that she had reflux and so she breastfed often, and I had quite the supply going on. She was nursing every two hours through the night at around five months of age (this was an improvement over her at about four months, before we put her on Zantac, when she would wake every hour to nurse to soothe her ouchy tummy between about two and seven AM.) So after five months of almost no sleep I was exhausted and realised that I needed to do something to get some sleep. I figured I could get by with three hour blocks, so we moved her from the co-sleeper to her crib in her own room, and if she woke up less than three hours after a nursing session I didn't go to her.

Yes, we had some nights with a significant amount of screaming. I would turn the monitor down so I couldn't really hear it too loud and often fell back asleep for a bit. Then when I woke up again after she'd settled down I'd turn the monitor back up so that I could hear when she next woke, and at that point it'd been long enough that I would go to her.

She dropped down to waking up about three times per night, and then two, then one, and finally night weaned at about 17 months of age. Of course, silly me managed to get pregnant with #2 when she was 13 months old, so I still wake up a few times per night because of my bladder - but at least this time I'm waking up because my body says to, not because she does! :)

I used the baby whisperer, and one thing that really helped our dd, was the "dream feed" where I would pick her up, still sleeping, feed her, then put her back to bed. It helped her stay asleep longer.

I loved the book "healthy sleep habits, happy baby" that is what we used to sleep train my daughter. It was awesome!

Good luck, I hope you get some sleep soon!!!!

Five months is considered a bit young for sleep training, especially CIO. Does he nurse enough during the day, or is he getting his nourishment at night? If it's just that he doesn't know how to get himself back to sleep, the baby whisperer's PU/PD worked well for teaching our son to self soothe to sleep at bedtime, and eventually in the middle of the night, although it too is recommended for six months and up (she has a shhhhh/pat technique for younger kids which we didn't try, at that point we were trying Pantley's "No Cry," which unfortunately didn't work for us).

One thing you might try since you need to get some sleep is taking shifts with your husband/partner. Around five months my son started getting ear infections and waking every two hours. I was working and since we knew he didn't need to eat every time he woke, my husband would be on duty from 10-1, then me 1-5 and then him again, 5-6, at which point I would get up and go to work. This way we each got at least a four hour block of sleep. It wasn't great, but it made a big difference compared to 1-2.

Good luck.

Have you ever read "On Becoming BabyWise" by Gary Ezzo? I used that book, as did many of my friends, and I would HIGHLY recommend it. It's not about crying it out, it's about scheduling the baby's entire day so that the routine is predictable. The book goes into detail about how to do it, but it's very easy to implement. This makes for a happy baby and he will sleep a lot more! Definitely pick this book up from the library or bookstore - you can read it in a few hours. Another big Aha! moment that I had from the book was to make bedtime at 6pm. I know that sounds early, but it made a HUGE difference for my girls. Good luck!

Read this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1305892/Six-mon...

All current research says making a child scream himself to sleep is bad for him:( Get either "The Sleep Book" by Dr. Sears or "The No-Cry Sleep Solution". I also liked "The Baby Whisper answers all your questions" but you have to ignore her ignorance about breastfeeding and just try her sleep techniques. All three books teach compassionate response to your baby's sleep issues instead of ignoring them.

Good Luck!!

My son was exactly like yours! When we let my son CIO we did it on accident out of pure exhaustion (we just didn't get up the first time he woke after we put him to bed). To our amazement he didn't wake up at all in the middle of the night (and trust me I wasn't up 3 times checking on him). I'll never forget waking up at like 6:30 in the morning realizing I had slept all night--I was so happy/relieved I think I cried. So, in our case it just meant that he cried himself to sleep, but then the middle of the night stuff ended too. When he did wake up in the middle of night after that we sent dad in to comfort him and rock him--I decided that my breasts were closed for business from 8pm-6am and that his dad could figure it out. If we felt like he was thirsty I think his dad gave him a bottle of water. It worked for us!

Is your son going to bed drowsy, but awake or are you feeding/rocking or something else and putting him down completely asleep?

I was having the same issues with my daughter. I was feeding her to sleep every night and at every wakeup. And would only go down if she was fully asleep. I read every sleep book and decided to go with "Sleeping through the Night" It seemed like a gentler approach to some of the others. It has you start with bedtime, then nighttime and then naps. It is a gradual approach. The thought it that once they are able to put themselves to sleep then, they will also do it at wakeups. It says that 80% of children will sleep through the night in 2 weeks.

Once I did this, things improved significantly. She is still waking up, but not as much. We were averaging 5-6 times and now it is 2-3, so a huge improvement.

Also, the book "The Sleep Easy Solution" talks about dealing with night wakeups. You do the checks in every few minutes (like you would at bedtime) and then do the same at each wakeup. If you want to feed your baby, you still can, but you determine the wakeup and wake them up for it. If they wakeup on their own, you get them to go back to sleep. It says it should take a few nights for this work. I am waiting a little longer before doing this since my daughter is now teething and waking up uncomfortable and the book says you should hold off on any sleep training if they are sick or reaching a milestone until it has passed.

Good luck!

3 of my 4 kids were waking up in the night only 1 time by 5 or 6 weeks old and have slept through the night by 8 or 10 weeks, al of them are breastfed. My 4th is only 2 weeks old and I am putting him to bed at 11get up around 4 to feed him (only 30 minutes) then get up again around 8 or 8:30 to feed again. He has gained back all he lost and more by his 2 week appointment. I got the go ahead from our pedi to keep doing what we are, because it is working.

During the day he goes an average of 3 hours between feedings.

One thing that has worked is I have always offered them a pacifier at bedtime, not only does it help prevent SIDS but it also helps me determine when they are really hungry or if they just want to suck.

I know what you are going though being up all night, at one point one of my sons had Asthma so bad that we were getting up every 2 or 3 hours to give him his breathing treatments through the night.

Well I know this isn't what you want to hear but your son is still on the young side for sleep training. I mean they say they have to be at least 4 months which he is but it works better the older they are...like 6 months or even 12 months. It sounds like your first was just a better sleeper. All babies are different and so are their sleeping habits. It sounds like he is still hungry if he eats every time he wakes up. If I were you I would hold off a little longer on the sleep training because it will be really confusing for him if you come in once a night when he cries to feed him but not the other times. And he is still young to go all night without eating at all. But like I said all babies are different. Both mine were breast fed but my first started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks but then as she got older woke up once or twice a night until I weaned her at a year. And that was really hard, she cried for hours and hours. But my second woke up every two hours for the whole first year of her life. I weaned her at 13 months and figured she was going to cry all night cause she woke up so much but the first night i did it she didn't cry! maybe a wine for about 30 seconds but that was it. So all babies are really different. I would give him more time before sleep training.