To let my baby cry at night?

[eatsleephockeyrepeat]

No, no, not sleep training; he goes off fine at night. He's 8.5 months old and most nights he drifts off happily between 6 and 6:30, either during his story or I'll leave him to it and he'll sing himself to sleep.

The problem is during the night. From around midnight in addition to his waking for feeds (he's breastfed) he will half-wake multiple times grizzling and moaning; not "I need you" crying, to me it's more "uggghhh, why aren't I asleeeeep" type crying. He's not even properly awake and in fact if you can somehow get him to wake up fully (harder than it sounds) he's usually in a fine mood, he just takes some sending back off again!

For info we cosleep, so he's cuddled and soothed when this happens, it just doesn't make any difference. Calpol/Nurofen make no odds but work for teething-related night waking. He's definitely not hungry. I work full time office hours and his dad works away in the week.

When dp is home he's not as tired as me more sensitive to the noise so gets up with ds, wakes him, resettles him etc., but he tells me I sleep through more of ds's wakings than I realise! So last night when he woke me I thought I'd see what would happen if I did nothing as if I were sleeping through it... granted it went on a while, but he did send himself back off each time. I don't know if I did a bad thing?

My question: WIBU to mostly ignore these half-asleep moany wakings? Will it help??

If he isn't full on crying then I would leave him to settle himself.

Ignore away, I think it helps in as much as they aren't reliant on you to resettle them everytime they wake.
My 14month old still wakes in the night sometimes but just chats to herself or plays with a toy and goes back to sleep. I'm very glad she doesn't need us to help her resettle every time.

He's in your bed when this is happening?

To be honest I would be worried about discovering I've slept through a child in my bed waking, something doesn't sit quite right about that.

But as for your actual question I think it would be fine to leave a half asleep moany child in their cot for a while and let them go back to sleep. No need to wake them. They soon let you know if they need you!

My daughter does this whinging too. Having tried multiple things, I have found the best thing is to leave her to go back to sleep. My presence often makes things worse. If she needs something, she gets angry or starts properly crying and then I go immediately of course!
She's a very light sleeper and really does best if left to get on with it...

As PP said I'd be a bit worried if I was co sleeping and I slept through their fussing, do you wake if he's moving about? But if he was in a cot and was just grizzling away but self-settling no I wouldn't be worried.

Definitely leave him to it.

He's in your bed when this is happening?

Yes neph, and I get your point. For what it's worth it's a king sized and I have since childhood been a rock solid doesn't-budge -an-inch sleeper who hangs onto the far edge of the bed.

Plus I take with a pinch of salt what my dp says, but I'm glad he thinks I'm asleep! It's more than I'm not awake enough to react to him, but I'm certainly awake enough to know it's happening and to have a terrible night's sleep!

Ah my DP does this too "you were fast asleep" no I bloody wasn't Well as you say you're not fast Asleep and are aware the baby's awake then yes keep doing what you're doing.

I should say he's also a doesn't-budge-an-inch sleeper and I'm a regular -checker he's still breathing waker, but oddly that doesn't make me feel exhausted if there isn't the background grizzling involved. But again, point taken, I want him out of the bed, and now his night feeds are right down that's top of the agenda.

If he's cuddled up next to you, and you feed him when he's hungry I'm not sure that counts as "leaving" him to cry anyway.

Some kids are restless sleepers, and there's not actually something that can be done about it other than what you're already doing.

DS2 does this moaning and whining in his sleep. I stopped going to calm him after many late night stumbling trips, he was a little older so each time I'd calmed him down or basically woken him up he'd scowl at me and say 'go (a)way' unaware what had happened. Two years later he's still doing it, I might shout though reassurances if he's going on abit. I wasn't achieving anything positive by waking him up so YANBU.

Sooo reassuring folks, THANK YOU.

I think I was just worried as you hear all this stuff about "leaving them to cry" and they lose trust in you and think you're not coming - only I'm THERE! I'm holding his damn hand and shhing whilst simultaneously trying to stay as asleep as possible and he won't bloody shut up! still grizzles away. Plus I actually BOLT if he ever utters a cry that sounds like "mother, I need you!".

I never left daughter cry because what would start as a whimper would normally end up in a very persistent crying. I never woke her up, just cuddled her and she went back to peaceful sleep. She's stubborn as hell and she didn't lick it off the stone but those were times when she was winning.

My 17 month old does this. She sleeps with her hands behind her back so looks like she's sunbathing but is howling- half asleep. We just pop her dummy back in and normally works but it's not for everyone.