I'm Ready To Throw These Baby Books Out The Window!!

[MollyMurphy]

I could really use some advice.

At about 6 months old my son started waking up in the night occasionally. We upped his calories during the day and that seemed to work. Now at almost 8 months old he has been waking up between 2:30 and 3:30am for two weeks. We are not feeding him because a) we are still dreamfeeding him at 11:00pm b) we are satisfied that he is having plenty of food and milk during the day c) he doesn't seem hungary. So we give him a bit of water, check his bum and put him back to bed. But its taking on average an hour and half to get him back to sleep - sometimes longer.

Our son self settles for daytime and bed very well. We can tuck him in, give him his zebra and leave him with his mobile on and he can fall asleep on his own. We sometimes need to go in and put a hand on his tummy for a minute but he's doing great in this regard. We have weaned him off his soother which we alway took away before he was asleep anyway. We are careful to not develop bad habits - we don't talk, rock, pick up or make night wakings entertaining.

He doesn't cry - no tears. Just increasing whining and unhappiness. We don't CIO, we always come to him if he's upset but we don't pick him up - we will just soothe him in his crib. If he was actually crying we would pick him up.

I honestly can't see where we are going wrong. He doesn't seem to be in teething pain, is fine during the day, is napping better than ever - we never let him nap more than 2hrs in one stretch. He has solid and consistent routines.

What could be going on? Has anyone else dealt with this? None of these baby books are answering my questions

Hmm, I can't see where you're going wrong either!

How long does he nap for in total during the day? Maybe he's napping for too (I think the maximum should be ~3-3.5hours at this age).

Is he teething? is he actually awake (eyes open and babbling at you)
mine could be very whiny about that time but because they were disturbed by teething pain or bad dreams dependent on age.

If he's teething try calpol at 11pm and see if it makes a difference.

Tbh they go through phases like this until they are older toddlers.

I think that their sleep is not only affected by teething but developmental stages/ learning a new skill. Also separation anxiety.

Co-sleeping worked for us and night feeding. He did grow out of it.

Hope you find a solution that works for you.

Our 11 month old also has a tendency to be awake for 1.5 hours ish. Usually about 2-3:30. No idea why. I know that doesn't help but you are not alone!

Thanks guys. Well he has been sleeping 2hrs in the am, then usually about 40 min the afternoon while we are out and sometimes an additional 30min cat nap while on our late day walk before dinner. Teething was observably bothering him just prior to all this starting but two have broken through and now he seems fine during the day. He doesn't seem to have an seperation anxiety during the daytime - a stranger could walk away with him and he wouldn't bat an eye.

Hmmmm....I wonder if it is a developmental leap he's working on.

I always question if we should offer him a bottle but he's having 3 meals a day, 20oz min of formula and 4 oz of that is at 11pm still. He's not upset like you would expect if he was really hungary IYKWIM? Also I would think if he was hungary he would maybe go back to sleep then wake up again but after we manage to get him back down he's been sleeping to 7:30ish and even then he's not hysterically hungary - hungary tho. Would you offer a bottle under those circumstances or should we worry about him making it a habit?

TheSkiingGardener - lol! Sorry to say but misery loves company - it is good to know I'm not alone

I can't really offer any advice but just wanted to say that my DS (now nearly 4) did exactly what you are describing - woke up most nights between 1 and 3 am, quite often being awake for 1.5-2hours. He did this from about 5 months to 9/10 months. It was soooooo frustrating, I had no idea why he was doing it (ok, maybe sometimes it was teething but not for a solid 4 months!!). I used to try feeding him but he wasnt usually interested, he was just awake and we had to wait for him to tire himself out and go back to sleep. Then suddenly (right before I went back to work - thank god!!), he just stopped waking and started to sleep right through the night. There was nothing that we did to change anything (although he did give up on his dummy around the same time, 10 mths ish - just wouldnt take it anymore during a teething spell, so we just stopped offering it).

My friends DD, who is the same age as my DS, was the same, awake for a long spell in the middle of the night, up to about 1 year of age.

Could be developmental - there is an 8/9 month sleep regression. There?s more info here, here and here. My DS was often awake for 1.5 hours in the night when working on a developmental spurt.

TheSkiingGardener, I'd bet this is your issue too - there's another sleep regression at 11 months.

If it's that, IME it just goes away on its own.

It could also be to do with needing to drop to 2 naps - most babies drop the third nap between 6 and 9 months. The majority of babies on 2 naps have a short one first and a long afternoon one. It might be worth seeing if swapping the naps around helps at all (ie wake him from the first one, and possibly make the second a bit later so he's more tired & will sleep for longer).

When my DS is up and AWAKE in the night it's always 1.5 hours too - there's supposed to be some biological basis for it.

Thank you, I appreciate all of your comments. Well, it should be interesting tonight then because he flip his naps on his own today - doing a short am nap and a 2 hour afternoon nap. Crossing fingers. Oh lordy Jellybelly - I sure hope this doesn't last months - how exhausting. Well, it makes me feel better though to consider that perhaps we are not "doing" anything wrong - that we might just have to ride it out.

That's interesting. It does sometimes feel as though there is more sleep regression than progression in this first year. My DS is certainly working on some mental leaps so maybe that's it. I'll also try swapping his naps round.

As you can see from the posting time we're up again tonight. Ah well. Good luck MollyMurphy.

Why not try giving back his dummy? he may need the comfort as you don't have him in yr room we had our 3 in our room until they were 2 and a half and they are all normal adults.[not in our room any more!!]

Ds went through months of roapy sleep till he cracked walking.

Personally i wouldn't rule out hunger (though lots of books will tell you they "shouldn't " be hungry ). Ds is 15m and despite eating LOTS will sometimes take me by the hand and lead me to the fridge in the middle of the night (on top of bf's)

Try not to worry about "habits" a lot of crap is spoutted about them imho. Do what is needed to meet the needs of your baby. Not the baby the "guru" lucked out on. There is nothing they wont grow out of as long as they feel secure.

WHy not try leaving him if he isn't actually crying ? Many children just get themselves back to sleep. It could be a habit he has developed so by not going in at all he may stop whining and just settle ?
Try changing what YOU do and see if it changes what he is doing ?

Everything you said you do sounds really sensible.

Another sleepless night here unfortunately....

I think that we are going to ditch the dreamfeed, which he doesn't seem to want anymore and since he's waking up at any rate. We were going to try weaning it of but he's sometimes refusing it outright so whats the point? I'm inclined to reevaluate if he's hungary at night. I think your right MoonFace -I shouldn't be so worried about habits but more instead about what he needs.

ppeatfruit - well, we have been giving him his soother in the night because nothing else will help him off to sleep. He doesn't need it during the day or to fall asleep at night. We introduced a comfort stuffie to replace the soother as he can't find his soother and put it in himself and thus has no control over that particular form of comfort.

Davsmum - my DH and I debate this al the time. We leave him to whine for awhile but as he gets more upset we go in. We fundamentally want him to know that we are going to be firm that its bedtime, we are there for him...but its bedtime.

Tring to surrender myself to being very tired

MollyMurphy, our DS can never find his dummy either. He's usually lying on it. I'm wondering about putting a few in the cot with him so he can find one.

we had glow in the dark dummies:)

My DS did this too, he wasn't having milk during the night from 6 weeks as he was sleeping through, but at 5 months he started waking again.

Turns out it was wind waking him up, I went mad trying to work out what it was but that was it! I gave him some colic drops when he woke, picked him up and cuddled him so he was laying on his front (helps to fluff out all the wind!) and then he would go straight back to sleep.

Might not be the case for yours but when you start on solids sometimes it can make them very windy, but it doesn't bother them until they are laying down at night.

My DS has grown out of it now, almost, and mostly sleeps through again.

Worth thinking about..

he he, that used to happen to my DS too. He would wake and be crying, we would pick him up, he would fart, sigh and be asleep again before we could put him down.

Happy memories!

MollyMurphy! My DS didn't wake! Only thing we changed was turned out the sidelight in his room and had a night light instead. Don't know if that had anything to do with it or was coincidence but I was most bemused when I woke at 6 this morning.

For God's sake, don't throw the books away, you'll need them!

to prop the head of the cot up when he has a cold.

The Skiing Gardener - oh how lovely - I hope you've cracked it
I can't say the same.....4:30-6:00am last night, though at least it was bit later. I offered him milk - nope. He was't hungary....

So true colditz, so true.

It was only a few months ago 4:30 was regular wake up time. It's an awkward time of the morning isn't it, by the time he's back in bed you're not sure if it's worth going back to your own.

We'll do the light thing again and see if that is a possible solution.

Good luck tonight.

Hey TheSkiingGardener - we tried blocking out more of the night light and he slept through last night! Who knows? Now I'm not getting too ahead of myself as he did sleep though twice last week then reverted to the wakings but....hope springs eternal. I will say, I am also optimistic that all this self settling is paying off. He is doing awesome with it - just now I tucked him in for a nap, he fell asleep himself cuddling his zebra and watching his crib aquarium. Much better since we gave him that stuffie to fall asleep with.

Hoorah! Unfortunately it didn't work last night here. BUT, we also tried ted in the cot and he was much happier while he was awake for an hour and a half .

Really good to hear he is doing well with the self-settling. We were working on that and then teething hit. Now we have a bizarre ritual where we take him upstairs and he points to whether he wants a cuddle on the bed to fall asleep or to go straight in the cot. Thinking about it this probably isn't helping him settle in the middle of the night. It's very cute though so I don't want to stop!

Good luck tonight, DH is upstairs putting DS to bed now, with lights down low and ted in the bed...