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!

All this confirms that all babies are different ...I have 13 month old twins...and they never ever sleep through ...if one does manage it you can bet the other one wont....its stopping me living to be truthful - lack of sleep is just the pits - even the so called super nanny we had at the beginning could not sort them out - I just think some babies cant sleep through - I cant bear to let them cry for long when they wake up and as they share a room its totally impractical to do that - they go to sleep well enough.....especially after swimming but swimming with twins is enough to finish me off - to be honest I have not had the guts for that for a while......maybe I will do the letting them cry in the night thing ...oh God ...where to find the strength????

But you said yourself roselover that "you can't bear to let them cry for long". There is your answer. You have to bear it for the sanity of your future! Find the strength by thinking about how great you will feel when you get a full nights sleep! Can you put them in separate rooms until you can try the controlled crying and get them sleeping through which might stop them waking each other?

First I would say this is habit rather than need if he is on 3 meals per day. You can try cereal before bed, with dinner a bit earlier so there is a gap between.
Don't go in at night, let him whinge for a few nights and usually after 3-4 nights it stops.
Put him down slightly awake, not feed to sleep. They panic when you aren't there if you were there when they went off to sleep.
This teaches self settling.
Remove toys and objects from around the cot, use a blackout blind. This stops strange shadows of trees/ lights etc.
If you go in don't speak or converse, or turn on the lamp/light. Walk in, shush and pat then leave again.
Don't offer milk as this reinforces the habit as you get him out of the cot and wake him up more, nutritionally there is no need and it isn't good for their teeth (sugar in milk which stays on teeth until the next brushing). HTH

Oh and increase protein in the diet if there isn't much. Their muscles develop lots as they get more mobile and burn more calories which means they need protein to repair muscle. Also it takes longer to digest than carbohydrate (which he should still have plenty of anyway).

I do have to add that from an evolutionary point of view babies of 9 months and in fact as old as 3 years were designed to suckle at night. My current assignment is all about the relationship between the introduction of formula, four hourly routines and its effects on co-sleeping and a decline in breastfeeding. So far I have realised that Western expectation of baby behaviour has become very distorted over the last century. The feeding and sleeping at night recommendation by medical professionals was based on management principles! There is no evidence to suggest this should occur naturally except in textbooks based on predominantly formula fed babies.