No longer feeding in night but still waking (next step)?

[Wiggy29]

Our 5 month old ds has a dream feed at 22:30/23:00ish when we go to bed, he was feeding at 4 but gradually this has gone back to about 06:30/07:00. While this is great, he still wakes about 3ish for a 'cuddle'.

If we put him in our bed, he sleeps through fully without waking at all but if not he always wakes, sometimes just for his dummy and a gentle head stroke, other times it takes 20mins of shushing (i.e. walking round, rocking him with his dummy) to get him back over.

What do you think the next stage should be? I'm thinking this but please feel free to step in with other/ better suggestions:

1. Stop any form of rocking to sleep during the day at nap time for a few days.
2. Stop any form of rocking to sleep at night for however long it takes.

3, Stop head stroking/ petting/ cuddles etc in night.

1. Get rid of dummy so that is no longer an issue (we did this with ds1 at about 6 months as it was more of a pain than a help as he cried when it fell out).

Any other ideas? That looks really harsh typed in black and white but surely we have to start somewhere if we're to ever move towards a full night's sleep?

Hi wiggy
ThOught I would chip in as no one else had answered.
Ds (now 11 mo) started doing he same at around 6 mo. he hasn't had a night feed for months and can occasionally self settle or Just needs a cuddle to to go back off. Also like yours he sleeps through if co-sleeping. After trying a few methods to get him to sleep through nothing worked ( and I haven't the heart to do cc) so when I needed sleep as I was going back to work we took the side off the cot attached it to my side of the bed and have been all been sleeping better since.
If he wakes I give a little cuddle but most nights we all get a full night sleep, I know any form of cosleeping isn't for everyone but now I don't spend as much time with him in the day I love having nights with him!

Thanks for replying, we do end up doing this sometimes by default as if he wakes, we try to put him back down but after about 15mins we're in zombie mode and it's just easier to bring him in with us and get a decent sleep. Like you, cc isn't really our thing but we're not keen on trying to fit the three of us in our double bed. Thanks for replying though, I'll let you know hoe things go over the next week or so when we're trying him in his own room.

Our DS stopped feeding in the night at around 4 months but would wake up a few times in the night crying cos he dummy had fallen out, or generally just being awake and wondering where we were.

What worked for us was:

• stopping all rocking to sleep at night and during the day
• when he cried in the night, leaving him for 3-4 minutes before getting up, to see what happened. After a 2-3 days he started learning to settle himself back down. NB we didn't leave him to cry it out for long periods of time. We just gave him a few mins to see if he was really waking up before we rushed into him. We think he started to learn to re-settle without his dummy once we stopped rushing to put it back in.
• If he cried for longer than 3-4 mins or sounded like he was getting distressed, we would go into the room, gently place a hand on his chest and say shhhh shhhh a few times, replace dummy and walk out. No eye contact, no picking him up out of bed except in extreme circumstances (we had to do it once or twice when his teeth were coming through and he was obviously upset and in pain). Usually he would go back off to sleep once he had his dummy and was reassured we were still there.
• attaching DS's dummy to his sleeping bag with a very short-stringed dummy clip which could not possibly have got caught round his neck. By the time he was 6 months old he had learned to find the string and replace his own dummy in the night.

xx

Thanks for your response BotBotticelli, really helpful. Just to update, weve stopped all rocking but, as a transition, just lay next to him on our bed. That's worked really well and as of tomorrow, we're going to try putting him in the cot for daytime naps. He twisted a bit for one nap but didn't sound too distressed so I didn't pick him up.

Thanks again for advice.

Well, we did the next step today and he has went down in his cot with no rocking. He cried a bit so waited until he started to sound genuinely distressed then lifted him out (didn't rock him, just held him) and when he was clam again put him straight back down. It took about 10 minutes (not too bad) but he woke 2-3 times each nap so I just went in and popped dummy back in but didn't lift him out of the cot.

Do you it's best to continue this technique straight into his sleep tonight or get the hang of naps in the cot (without being rocked) during the day first? In my mind, it may confuse him more if he's in our bed tonight then suddenly back in the cot in the morning for naps.