Baby waking in night to play - WWYD?

[ATruthFestivelyAcknowledged]

My four month old has never been a 'good' sleeper. He's always woken at least every three hours, sometimes every hour, and I used to always feed him back to sleep, which, while exhausting, was effective.

Recently however he's been waking at about 2am & kicking around / shouting for around two hours every three nights or so. This is even more exhausting than the frequent feeds when at least I got back to sleep quickly then - this is impossible to sleep through.

WWYD? Move him to his own room & ignore the playing? (but then I have to actually get up for feeds) Pray it stops soon? Something else?

Please help. I'm exhausted & really don't know what's best. Thank you!

I'm sorry, I don't have any answers, my DD is waking for day at 4/5 so you have my sympathies and hopefully bumping you back up the list will get the attention of someone more helpful and I'll look out for the responses!

My dS is the same! Wakes for an hour at 2 am and shows no signs of hunger... He is 6 months. We leave him chatting for an hour or so until he gets frustrated, then I end up feeding him back to sleep as nothing else can calm him. He hardly takes any milk so i'm desperate to find a way to help him self settle after his little party!

Last night I played white noise and started feeding him as soon as he woke up so he didn't have a chance to get properly alert iyswim. It worked, but it meant I fed him pretty much every 90 mins last night. I don't know which is worse!

I have been having the same thing with my 5.5 month old for the past month or so (basically since 4 month sleep regression). He has improved on other areas of sleep such as settling down a lot faster for the night and waking less often, so the midnight partytime is the last remaining sleep issue.

Firstly I feed him quick when he wakes like ATruthFest does and hopefully he doesnt get fully alert.

If this doesnt work and he is wide awake I try not to engage with him at all and I put him in his cot with one of those musicbox/light projectors on. The lightshow lasts for 10 mins and then switches off.....when it does turn off he will start to cry so I turn it back on and this gets repeated maybe 4-6 times, then I will try feeding him again and he will usually go to sleep. I try to sleep during all of this. A few times he actually put himself to sleep while watching the lightshow!!

I've been through this. The only thing that worked for me (as in, didn't send me mad or make me dread the nights), was to just go with it. When DS was in one of these phases, I would get up, make a cup of tea, put on a DVD or get out a good book, and feed him/rock him. It never lasted for longer than 2 hours, and I began to look forward to these times, as a chance to catch up on reading/internetting.

My 6mo DS does this - I just don't have the energy to get up with him, so I tend to leave him to chatter / play / stare around the room and stick some ear plugs in to dull the noise! Eventually he starts to whine and then I can feed him to sleep. Doesn't usually last for more than an hour.

Right. So I wouldn't be a mean mummy to just leave him to it? We moved him to his own room last night in the hope we could sleep through the chatter and just wake up for the real cries, but I ended up sleeping even less as I was so hyper alert listening out for him. CinqueFoil - I got up with him the first few times and just watched whatever was on Sky+ but I don't want him to get into the habit of thinking it's 'normal' to be awake in the middle of the night. How long did it take for your DS to stop doing it? eightyone - did you do anything to help cut down the night wakings or did it happen naturally? Thanks!

Well, he never did it very regularly. He's 9.5 months now, and he went through a phase of doing it a few times a week when he was around six months. It didn't last long at all.

I'm pretty much convinced that sleep is something developmental, that gets better and worse and better and worse along with various developmental milestones, and that won't properly settle until the baby is ready for it. Some babies are ready for it very young, and some (like mine) take their time. It's always been easier for me to just go along with it - I find it less stressful and less time-consuming than trying to fight it with any kind of training. I get enough sleep, because I just follow DS and fit around him. I understand that not everyone sees it that way, though, and that not everyone can (or would even want to) tackle it like that.

Whatever gets you through the night . . . :)

Thanks Cinque - I agree with you completely and would be happy to fit around DS, however DP thinks we need more of a routine. We're trying to find a 'middle ground', but not really succeeding!

What cinque says. Ive always let DS take the lead and decided that he'll sleep better when he's ready. Until then I'll do whatever I need to to get a decent amount of sleep - usually going to bed when he does! Not everyone would agree with this but I try to take the path of least resistance. Plus sleep training a baby who's not ready seems like far too much hard work.

ATruthFest

I dont think any of my attempts to help his sleep did anything, maybe my attempts (shh/patting etc) stopped it from getting worse, but I honestly think it was a phase he grew out of.

It was pretty bad for a while though and he was waking every hour or so and taking forever to settle. It pretty much started bang on 4 months and lasted for around 2 weeks.

He is still not as good as he was before he was 4 months (he used to only wake 2-3 times) and now it is every 3 hours with a long period of wakefulness as I mentioned previously. And he settles much faster, sometimes even self settles! Although last night he had 2 long periods of wakfulness....fingers crossed he is not heading into the 6 month sleep regression!