5 mth DS shouting during the night

[Franny1977]

My five month old doesn't require a feed during the night and essentially sleeps from 10pm - 7am. However every two hours or so (sometimes every hour) he shouts aloud and cries. Sometimes patting and talking to him calms him. However, mostly I have to lift him to soothe him back to sleep then return him to his cot.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there anything I can do to help him avoid these sleep disruptions? I've tried waiting for a little bit to let him go back to sleep but I rarely works. The good thing is he gets back to sleep within five minutes or so.

I'd be so interested to hear what others have done in similar cases I know it's not the worst sleep story.

Don't all babies do this? Read up on sleep cycles - he's passing from one to the next. Eventually they grow out of it and learn to self-settle and sort of sleep through the transition. Well, mine did, anyway.

How do you know he doesn't need a feed? It's pretty standard for a 5 month old to still need fed during the night.

I stopped breast feeding at 3 months he's definitely has enough during the day from his bottle feeds. Moreover he doesn't actually wake up or cry for a feed he just groans and cries for a bit.

Yes, I've read about sleep cycles though I thought it should be three to four hours. Maybe it is that though. I was just wondering if there's something I can do to help him self soothe other than lifting him and soothing him myself. Perhaps it will just pass in time.

I think 3-4 hours is an adult sleep cycle, although I may be talking utter tosh. Someone with more scientific knowledge might come along.

My DD grumbled in her sleep about 90 mins after dropping off for months, although she rarely properly woke up, so pat, pat did the job. But lifting and soothing is fine if its fine for you, he's only a little one.

I think there's some good stuff in The Baby Whisperer on this, IIRC

Thanks boss I must return to the baby whisperer. I used it earlier on. It's not so bad I just hoped I wasn'taking him too reliant on my to soothe so that he wasn't able to self soothe.

In fairness he sleeps well so it's not much much of a hardship to have to pat or lift him to get back to sleep :-)

Thank you!

My 5.5 month old has just started doing this after lulling me into a false sense of security with 10 days of sleeping 7.30-6.00ish (following 5 months of mostly sleeping really, really rubbishy)(it's so hard to remember the good bits are just phases too!!). I don't mind the screaming, he settles quickly with put up/put down when he screams, but now this no-crying, proper SHOUTING has started and it's doing my head in! He wakes himself up so much doing it that pick up/put down doesn't work and the last three nights he's started wanting to eat as well (with some pretty odd ways of showing it, including licking my shoulder and latching on to my chin?!), once the first two nights and last night twice - he fed long and hard at 12 and 4 last night so it's not just wanting comforting I don't think, he seems to be actually hungry. And it's different to the times when he wakes up and screams as opposes to shouts, which now happens again a couple of times a night too.

He is ill at the moment, the poor little man, so I am hoping it's all because of that and am obviously not going to try anything else to get him to go back to sleep if he's unwell and so am happy to let him nurse, but I'm equally terrified he's going to continue shouting till he gets food at night once he's better. I suppose I should just wait and see what happens but I'm ill as well so my patience is wearing a bit thin (to put it mildly). He's EBF, though we had about a week of giving him a bottle of formula at bedtime which I thought was helping him sleep through till he started rejecting it and he slept through without it.

Does anyone have any experience of this? Could it be just because he's ill, or because he's having a growth spurt or something?

(And sorry OP, I've sort of shouted over your post )

No problem b'bongo... My DS shouted every one or two hours last night. It seems the patting is working less and less and he actually wants to be lifted and soothed back to sleep. Like yourself I'm worried it's a slippery slope and that eventually it'll take a feed to get him back to sleep (fingers crossed).

He's just getting over a cold so maybe it was that that started it too....

Oh god every one or two hours? How awful I hope you're feeling alright.

I decided to try giving mine a bottle before bed last night to see (a) if he'd take it (having started rejecting them) and (b) if it made any difference to the waking/shouting and he couldn't have got it down faster if he'd tried! I suppose perhaps my milk supply's suddenly dwindling again in the evening? Who knows. But he then had a much better night - still woke up screaming twice and the second time he wanted feeding again but there was no shouting at all and it was a definite improvement on Wednesday night. I have no idea what that means, but I'm trying it again tonight!!

Did you have a better night again last night?

Sorry don't know where that "again" came from…!

Much better last night, he went back to sleep a couple of times by just me saying his name from the bed, only had to lift and soothe him once. I increasingly think it was the cold and that I started weaning a couple of weeks ago has caused a disruption to his patterns. I'll not speak too soon but I think he'll just grow out of it.

Glad to hear the top of feed worked for you, a friend of mine tried that with her DS last week and he slept through the night for the first time. She's still BF exclusively too.

Thanks & good luck :-)