Has anyone managed to solve baby waking every few hours?

[rr16]

I am desperate. It's been 4 months now my DS has been waking at night every 2 or 3 hours... I had hoped it was teething but his first teeth came thru ages ago. I've set up a proper bedtime routine, I feed him up before bed, I've left him to cry and he just gets histerical, I try to soothe him back to sleep but he just wakes up and starts crawling around his cot. What else can I do? The lack of sleep is seriously affecting my ability to function like a normal human being.
I FEEL LIKE I'M GOING MAD!!! I'm at the end of my tether, if you have any suggestions, please help!

How old is he?

Is he hungry?

Hi, he's nearly 9 months and no I don't think he's hungry, I give him the bottle when he wakes in the night but most of the time he refuses it. Then he'll go back off to sleep again.

Erm, it took about 22 months. Sorry, not what you wanted to hear

It scarred me deeply. Came in last night at 5am for booby as well.

What time does he wake in the morning?

How many naps does he have, and for how long?

He wakes up around 5am or 6am for a couple of hours then has a morning nap of about an hour around 10am. Later in the afternoon he naps around 2pm for longer than the morning nap but still very fitful/restless.

p.s. I've tried reducing nap times and even keeping him awake in the daytime to see if he would sleep better at night but no bloody luck...

Watching with interest! I, too , am completely shattered!

My girls were prem and used to wake every 3 hours at night for food. It does shatter you and make you feel like a total zombie. Once their tummies could cope with more food they slept longer. We fed them lots in the day and gave an 11pm feed and they started to go until 6am. We then upped food in the day even more and knocked out the 11pm feed. It was a gradual process but it worked. They're 11mnths now and sleep from 7pm-7am. It WILL get better. I know it's easy for people to say nap in the day..it doesn't always work like that.Is your baby breast fed or bottle fed? Not to start any convos over which is best but my friends who breast fed had more probs with their babies sleeping. I'm totally not denying breast milk is better for baby but my friend (who is a Dr) thought that sometimes breast milk can be thinner than formula and so baby gets hungrier more often. Also i think that breastfed babies crave the closeness that comes with breastfeeding whether they're hungry or not and will sometimes wake for a cuddle. I'm no expert but i know what worked for me. Hope that you're getting your sleep sometime soon!!

You're not co-sleeping, are you?!

Don't get me wrong - I co-slept in the early weeks with DD so that I got some sleep, and she got the comfort, but long-term you're not likely to get a full night's sleep that way, and you'll probably still be feeding (most likely to sleep!) way beyond an age when it's necessary.

I actually posted about that back when I was co-sleeping, and the responses I got from people still co-sleeping really encouraged me to transition DD into her crib in our room.

Don't cut back on the naps. Sleep begets sleep, and if they don't have enough during the day, they won't sleep as well at night.

Do you have any sort of routine? I don't mean a GF style routine, but a gentle similarity of times for feeding and napping each day. I have found this to help with night time sleeping with my two a lot. Nothing forced - just something that works around their ryhthms.

DD is 3 months old, and I'm doing a feed at 5 and then one after her bath before bed at 6.30-7, which is basically a long snuggle and a feed. This seems to top her up to go for a decent length of time.

Oh, and she's breast fed - she goes from 7 to 7 with two feeds during that period. Same as DS, also b/fed - by 7 months he was sleeping 7 to 7.

I am always very around the idea that b/fed babies spend the night awake, and formula is a magic elixir.

Didn't mean to give that impression about formula, as it's not what i think, it's just based on what others have said to me. Just trying to chuck possible ideas out there in teh hope something works for OP. I personally think that we got lucky with our girls.

DS is breastfed but I stopped nursing at night so I could sleep and hubby help out and also so he wasn't getting too used to the closeness etc...

It didn't work, he still wakes up. I've brought him into my bed coz I'm just too knackered to be getting up every time he wakes - an average 8 times.

As a b'fed baby he slept extremely well at night from birth to 5 months then catastrophy struck!!!

Maybe a warm bath before bed or a little lavender oil on the pillow... Does he have a little night light that might soothe him when he wakes?

I've not tried lavender oil but we bathe him every night as part of the bedtime routine. There is a night light on for him too. Thanks xXx

It's a vicious circle, co-sleeping - you do it to at least get SOME sleep in the night and to avoid turning into a complete zombie, but I really do think that in the majority of cases it creates more problems than it solves, long-term.

Don't get me wrong - if we do decide to go for a 3rd DC, I will co-sleep in the early days for sure. It's a lovely thing to do with a baby. But I will transition into a same-room crib before anything gets too ingrained.

rr16 - just wanted to add my view, although it is personal to our situation, and in no way do I judge anyone for the methods they use. Believe me.

My dd is 3.7yo and still doesn't sleep through the night. She co-slept with us from 4 months old, and left our bed at 2.5yo. We did it because we needed some sleep, and our intentions were honourable. However, we did it for so long that she now needs that physical contact to stay asleep, and her sleep habits and the number of wakings has never improved.

Ds, who is 11 months, is a different story. We were very clear about our approach to sleep, and we didn't overhandle him or mess about with him in the night at all. He fed, and then he was put back down. He does go through periods of waking once or twice a night, and we go in, give him his dummmy/straighten his bed/say sshh, but we are as boring as we possibly can be. I avoid picking him up at all costs as that generally makes him cry harder, and he has never been brought out of his bedroom at night. I am much more prepared this time round to let him cry a little bit (not for long, I'm too much of a wimp) before I go into his room, and generally he self settles.

Godspeed, sleep issues are the worst. I think you need a plan of action, personally. You need to decide what you are going to do, and stick with it.

just this week got baby to sleep without waking a million times. i figured out she had just got used to me rocking or feeding her to sleep when she woke in the night so i spent a week 'teaching' her to get to sleep by herself. sitting in the room where she could see me i put her in the cot awake, she cried innitially but soon got the hang of it. i found that sometimes the more i tried to comfort her the more wound up she would get..

My prem DS woke up every 3 hours. Things that helped (sometimes) were:

• She didnt like a flat bed and needed something raised. We switched to a hammock which has a slight tilt. Alternatively you could try raising one side of the crib on books

• She needs to feel snuggled and cosy. Again used the hammock initially but later on I rolled up a towel and put it under the mattreess to create a sort of lining over her head

• She was used to BF in the night to go back to sleep. From 5 months onwards, i stopped bf her in the night - just used to hold her until she went back to sleep

• Used control crying after that

• She still wakes up in the night but its only about once a night so there is light at the end of the tunnel

Good luck!!!!

Afraid I have nothing to add, but agree with idea that once you get to a certain point, you need a plan! I came on here for that reason - my 6 month old DD doesn't go more than 2 hrs without bf. I got up this morning and decided I need to move things along.

Sorry to hijack your thread, but 5dollar can you point me to your thread about co-sleeping because I think I need to stop doing it for the reasons you listed (I may have read it and forgotten in my sleep deprived state) - I've just been searching for it without success.

whenwillI - the thread is here.

My question was - when did your co-sleeing baby sleep through? And pretty much without exception, everyone says it only happened when they transitioned baby (or in many cases - toddler!!) into their own bed/cot, or else they say they're still co-sleeping, and their child is not sleeping through.

This is what I suspected would be the case, and was enough for me to decide to out an end to full time co-sleeping. So, I sat up in bed to feed, and then settled DD into her basket right next to me, so that she got used to it. What I did was feed, wind, feed, wind, etc, until I was sure she was satisfied and sleepy enough to be put down, and then put my hand on her chest until she went to sleep. After about a week of doing this, I no longer needed to put my hand there - she got used to settling without it. And then about a fortnight after that, she moved out of the basket right next to my side if the bed, into a crib at the end of our bed, where she remains.

She was just under 2 months old when I decided to move away from co-sleeping and into her Moses basket. Now at nearly 15 she wakes, on average, twice for a feed between 7 and 7. Again, breastfed.

We just have the dreaded 4 month sleep regression to look forward to now!

'Now at nearly 15 weeks'!!

goodness my son is 20mths and an amazing sleeper he sleep seven to seven every night and just goes straight to the cot with abottle etc.

My daughters son a nightmare and he just seems he does not need sleep. He naps no more than 2 hours during the day and up at six everymorning wanting to play. As we speak now he is awake full of energy. She co slept with himand still does to get a little sleep but she is diabetic so has to be very careful so always puts him in the cot before going to sleep herself. he will only sleep for two hours and then jt walkes and gets up and wnats to play. It is so hard and she is at college and work (trainee nurse) and just dont know what to do. He hasd a bed time routine where she feeds him and baths him etcnas hugs him but no way he will go in the cot ans he screams and screams and because he is a herat bbay (born with his heart the worng way round top and bottom she does not like to leave him as belive may put pressure on his heart.. will read and look for ideas..

thanks 5dollar, that just confirms what I woke up thinking this morning - change may soon be afoot for DD!

Hi there - I have a 9 month old who sleeps 8pm-7am with no waking unless she is teething or unwell. She has 1 or 2 naps a day depending on what we are up to. She has 3 good solid meals a day with lots of diluted juice and/or water to drink as and when she wants, one breastfeed in the morning before breakfast and one breastfeed before bed and after her bath. She was exclusively breastfed until 6 months old and she seemed happy & content with this until one night she started waking twice a night and not the usual once. After 3 weeks of her eating 3 good sized solid meals and having what I have described above she was still waking twice a night. I felt it was because she hadn't learnt to settle herself back to sleep (I understand it's normal for all people to wake several times a night-we just go back to sleep). I was sure she couldn't possibly be hungry or thirsty, she didn't seem unwell or teething so I tried the controlled crying technique. First night picked her up, soothed/settled her then put her back to bed with no feed, she cried for 55 mins then went to sleep. During the crying I was rubbing her back & soothing her with a gentle voice. Second night same as above except she cried for 25 mins. Third night same but she cried for 5 mins. Fourth night she didn't wake. Boom boom all sorted. Not saying it was easy but we had already done this with our son (now 3 years old) and it worked great with him too. As I said you have to feel ready to do this as it isn't pleasant watching your baby crying. Remember though that you are doing them a favour in the long run as they will need to get themselves off to sleep sometime.
Also be sure they are not crying because they are ill or teething or hungry/thirsty/windy or some other need that hasn't been met. In situations such as teething or illness I have always rocked or fed my babies back to sleep (usually after calpol) because I believe they need extra comfort at these times.
I hope this may help you xx

and also I have never co-slept, just had the moses basket then cot in our room, not next to our bed just on other side of room. My hubb and I were always determined to keep our bed to ourselves! I did breastfeed both mine in bed though and just put them back in after winding xx