Numerous sleep books as well as celebrity parenting gurus (Jessica Alba – who knew?) propose that your baby can and should be sleeping 12 hours at night. Which suggests if your baby isn’t sleeping 12 hours at night, you’re doing it wrong. Or possibly your baby is broken. Maybe both?
This leads to a regular stream of emails from people who are frustrated by their inability to conquer the mystical mountain of the 12 hour night. They include a myriad of details including their 40 minute pre-bed soothing wind down routine, use of white noise, swaddling, put baby down awake, militant adherence to routine, schedules, block out blinds, positive sleep associations, and yet despite all their great work, they can’t get their baby to sleep longer than 11 hours a night.
And so I share with them my magical technique to master the art of the 12 hour night. But more on that later…
How Much Night Sleep Does Your Child Need?
Where did the goal of “12 hours” come from? Presumably these books are based on scads of credible science suggesting that 12 hours is a medically mandated and realistically achievable goal.
Nope.
The truth is “how much sleep” is still a subject of great debate.
The Sleep in America Poll says kids are sleeping ~10 hours at night by the their first birthday. It also says that over 1/3 of kids aren’t getting enough sleep. Ferber also suggests kids need ~10 hours by their first birthday. Wiessbluth says 1 year old babies should be sleeping between 10-13 hours of sleep at night, with the average falling around 11.5 hours. The amount of sleep kids get varies widely by country (New Zealand wins – go Kiwis!). Or there is the Pediatrics Study that tells us that for the past 200 years, pediatric sleep experts have failed to agree on how much sleep our kids need but that regardless of what amount is suggested, kids get on average, 37 minutes less sleep than the experts recommended number.
So don’t feel bad. You’re failing just like your great-great-great grandmother failed. So we’re all multi-generational sleep parenting failures. Woo hoo!
Successful Night Sleep Duration
So if the experts, authors, and pediatric sleep researches can’t agree on a number, how are you supposed to know what to do?
When I started Troublesome Tots, I was baby sleep “book smart” – I read a lot and wrote about it. Three years and many millions of babies later, I learn more from my readers than I do from the books. Plus readers stories are way more fun than sleep books. And while this doesn’t qualify as “statistical research” it’s a pretty solid base to draw conclusions from.
Thus I’ve concluded that 11 hours of night sleep is a great goal. Some lucky parents will have babies who sleep 12 or even 13 hours at night (hopefully these parents routinely buy lottery tickets as clearly the fates are with them). Some kiddos will resolutely sleep 10 hours at night, and not a minute more, even if their parents are doing ALL the right things. But ~11 hours is the gold standard. Typically this is, 7:30 PM – 6:30 AM. Or somewhere thereabouts.
The Magic Answer to the 12 Hour Night
Thus my magic answer is to accept that the 12 hour night may not be attainable for you. Not because of any flaw in you, your sleep plan, or your baby. If your baby is a newborn all bets are off because they’re a newborn. If your baby is over ~3-4 months in age and is sleeping somewhere in the ballpark of 11 hours of night, you’re doing great. If you “dream of a night 11 hours long” as an unachievable fantasy akin to dating Tom Hiddleston then probably your baby isn’t getting quite enough sleep. What to do about it really depends on how old they are. Generally the answer falls near the trifecta of have an early bedtime, put baby down awake, and hope for the best.
But you’ll get there. I have faith in you.
Does anybody else have any thoughts about how long their baby sleeps at night? Any lucky 13-hour babies out there? Does Jessica Alba care to weigh in?
11 hours and 15 minutes on the dot and my 9 month old is done for the night. And since she now does it without waking me up (usually), it makes me do a happy dance 🙂
Happy dance indeed!
Hi my son has always woken up between 4-4.30 am. He is now 7 months and still wakes up then. As newborn he went to sleep at different times then at 3 months we gradually made bedtime earlier and now it’s been 6.45-7 pm for a few months. He goes down to sleep relatively easy (usually within 30 mins) and can sleep a long stretch (sometimes 4 is first time he wakes up). I just wonder what could make him wake up always so early and find it si hard to go back to sleep then if he does at all? Any tips? PS he does use pacifier sometimes and sometimes falls asleep on boob at 7. He goes back to sleep with paci and pat on head if he wakes up before 4 but not at 4am. Thanks in advance!
Forgot to add I do bring him to our bed for an hour if he won’t go back to sleep which is most tines. I do manage to get him to sleep in cot after a while but he wakes up after 10-15 mins crying and will do the same if I get him to sleep again. Thanks !
Ok, so I understand this is an achievable goal. My daughter started sleeping through the night pretty early on…BUT my son, who is 7 months was up every 2-3 hrs last night and hasn’t slept all that well since he was an infant. I thought we were even luckier with him, he was sleeping 5-8 hrs, but in the last 3 months that hasn’t happened. I am doing the same thing with him that I did with my daughter, but it seems like its getting worse.
HELP!
Sounds like a sleep association issue.
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/
Does anything there sound familiar?
Great post! (As always!) I agree that I have found the magical number to be 11 (sometimes up to 11.5)…but unless he’s sick or something, my little guy never sleeps 12+ hours. HOWEVER due to sleep training (and your awesome site), he does stay in his crib from 7:30am to 7:30pm, hence the12 hours. He usually wakes between 6:30-7, but happily plays and talks to himself until we get him up at 7:30. If someone has a child waking up after 10 hours, it’s not realistic that they’ll stay in the crib an additional 2 hours. But if anyone else is like me with a little one who sleeps 11 or more, I don’t think 12 is an unrealistic goal! 🙂
Oops! Make that 7:30pm to 7:30am! No my son does not sleep all day 🙂
A bit of solo play time in the morning helps keep EVERYBODY happy. I know I’m much more ready to slip into parent mode if I have 20 minutes of privacy in the bathroom first.
Wait that sounds like I’m having 20 minute long morning BMs or something. Please top picturing that – that’s not at all what I meant! I just mean getting taking a quick shower, getting dressed, and brushing teeth make me much more ready to be a parent than rolling out of bed and walking immediately into the kid’s room 😉
My son is 13 months and he has been sleeping for 12-13 hours at night for a while. He also takes at least one 2 hour nap and sometimes he will take a second nap anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour or so, but it’s usually less than an hour. I honestly thought all babies 10 months and older slept 12 hours at night.
MommyofOne my 13 month old has also been sleeping 12-13 hours at night with 2 naps totally 3 hours but last couple nights after being sleepy in her crib she starts to roll around, sit up, throw around her lovey like a cheerleader. Today I thought maybe she is sleeping too much during the day so I am curious what time you give your lo their 2 hour nap? I guess I think it’s time to go to one nap but not sure if it should be in morning or afternoon and am looking for experience since your lo sleep sounds very similar to mine. thank you in advance
I would say that your conclusion of 11 hours a night is just about right. My son is 16 months old. At 6 months we finally moved him into his own bed after he had been sleeping with us and nursing through the night. We struggled for a couple of months and finally I found your website. It took us just a few days of following your instructions for him to learn to sleep on his own through the night. Now he is sleeping like a champ. He knows what to expect and if we are getting close to bedtime and he is ready he will bring us a book, as if to say…come on I’m ready for bed. When he hit about 10 months-1 year he was sleeping about 11 hours. And he has continued to do so up until now. Our next battle will be moving him to a big boy bed. You need to write an article on how to transition to that. I am scared to change anything because we are doing so great now. 🙂
Here MK – let me give you the short version.
Don’t.
Seriously, you don’t want to cross that bridge until he’s at least 3. Why? Because 2 YO kids are notorious for having -zero- self-control. So giving them the freedom to roam is not a great idea. The BEST case scenario is that things stay the same. In every other scenario your 2 YO takes advantage of the freedom to roam by….roaming.
I second that!
(I am no sleep expert, but I have 8 kids, 7 of which have moved into beds, several of them too early for my sanity!)
The problem for us is that sometimes they can climb out of the crib (=dangerous) before they have enough sense to stay in bed. Or sometimes they get potty trained and need to be able to get to the bathroom independently, but don’t want to stay bed.
In these cases, we have employed the help of two baby gates on the door, just until the child falls asleep. I take them down after toddler is sleeping so he can get out in the morning. This saved our sanity!
I’m one of the lucky few! My daughter sleeps between 12-14 hours at night and naps for an hour or two during the day.
Happy dance for you too!
My daughter was a terrible sleeper until 8 months old. We tried everything to help but nothing did! She now sleeps from 7:45pm-8:30am. It is a DREAM come true. I wish I had exact advice on how it happened (really, it wouldn’t make me so nervous to have another baby!) but in some ways, I just got lucky. What I can say is, it’s okay to let them cry some because it wasn’t until E learned to soothe herself that she started to sleep through the night. Mind you, they also have to be ready to self soothe…we tried CIO many times with E and failed miserably. Suddenly at 8 months, she “got” it! Also, routine is key for us! Whether it’s bedtime routine, where they sleep, what they sleep with (paci, lovie, whatever), etc keep it all the same! If we vary from things much, it reflects in how E sleeps!
Sorry to hear that sleep training was such a slog for you guys. But figuring out that routine is key is a HUGE baby/toddler truth! It’s key for most things – not just sleep. Congratulations – sounds like all your hard work has led to great things 🙂
My 9 month old does 11-11.5 hours a night and it works for us. Would I love an extra couple of hours? Absolutely, but 11 hours seems to be enough for the little one, as long as he naps well during the day.
Extra hours would be great but 11 hours if FANTASTIC. Trust me there are plenty of people reading this who would give up a finger or two if it meant they could get to 11 hours 😉
What both my husband and I have come to realize, is sleep time is fluid. It’s always changing. Whether I put him down at 8:15, 7:30, and yes sometimes we even put him down at 8:30; he will wake up anywhere from 6-9 am and I can’t really say why. He still wakes up once a night where I will have to go into his room and soothe him (sometimes I will give him a bottle) and through all this he still naps twice a day about an hour. My son will be 1 on Thursday.
Hey Janine,
I’m glad to hear you aren’t making yourself nutzo about the sleep thing. Sometimes you really just need to go with the flow (see my fluid pun?!?!).
If you’re feeling gung-ho about things you might want to try locking in on a consistent bedtime. For younger babies this doesn’t matter so much, but older babies/toddlers have developed a circadian rhythm which means if they fall asleep at the same time every day their body will hormonally regulate around that schedule. It could be that if you lock down bedtime your morning wake-up might become a little more predictable. Or at least a smaller band of time?
Cheers!
Alexis
I just had this conversation with our pediatrician! Our one year old sleeps from 7:00-ish to 6:15-ish. I complained that we were doing everything right- why wasn’t she sleeping enough? He agreed that we were doing everything right, and said she was sleeping enough because she naps so well on top of decent night sleep.
He gave me some hope: he said sometimes the 11 hour sleepers get a little more night sleep when they drop down to one nap.
Either way, Alexis and my doc have helped me relax and feel better!
Yay pediatrician! I love pediatricians who agree with me 😛
Glad to hear you’re feeling more relaxed – that was my goal in writing this post. So many great books (and so many less great books making us feel nutzo!).
Cheers 🙂
This was true for us. My daughter dropped her day nap relatively early (just after she turned 2), but even now at 3 1/2 sleeps 12-13.5 hours every night. My 7 month old seems to be getting stuck at around 10.5 hours overnight (no feeds) but naps well, so I’m just implementing good sleep habits and hope the early rising finishes soon.
we have twins and our little boy sleeps from 7 till 4.45am usually so think yourself lucky to sleep that long
Is this UNINTERRUPTED sleep for 11-12 hours? Or total? My 8 mo old goes to sleep between 7 & 7:30pm and is awake and up for the day between 6 & 7am. BUT he nurses twice at night (midnight-ish, and 5am-ish)….. and wakes up and cries himself back to sleep (usually within 10 minutes) a few other times. But we also just started extinction sleep training 12 nights ago so it’s still fairly new.
My little one does this as well……it’s pretty much clockwork 7-11.30/12, then through to anywhere between 4 and 5.30….he has bottle both times and seems to go back down easily. He’ll normally sleep until about 6/6.15……but that lasts for 1-2 nights and then the next night he’ll wake at 2 or 3 or 4!!! It’s so unpredictable….I am back working and getting up with him but am so tired…. I think he probably gets roughly enough sleep in total but ….not sure what to do!!!
Nope – just means “night sleep” so by my measure your 8 month old sleeps 11-12 hours at night. Hopefully you’ll soon be working on gently weaning that midnight feeding out and then you’ll be sleeping uninterrupted till 5 AM which will feel like a cold drink on a hot day.
PS. Your apple cherry pork loin recipe looks like a winner. Will definitely try it out!
How soon till I should start night weaning from the midnight feeding? Up until 2 weeks ago, he was on my boob every hour or two. Not eating every time, but attached to it. I didn’t want to do too much at once, with the weaning AND training. Anyways, suggestions? Also, with the waking up and crying. Even though he only cries 5-15 minutes tops and goes back to sleep, I’m wondering if that’ll stop soon. He goes to bed around 7ish, cries at 10ish, cries again around midnight (nurse) then cries around 3ish, then again around 5ish (nurse).
5-15 minutes is just his way of adjusting to the new norm (= not on your boob). So it sounds like he has 2 actual feeds – midnight and 5 am. I’ve found the 5 AM feed is tricky to get out of – some babies just decide to start the day instead. So I would focus on shortening the midnight feed to get you sleeping a decent stretch without waking up.
When? Tonight? This weekend? It takes 1-2 weeks to gently wean off a feed entirely so might as well start when you’re ready 🙂 Good luck!
This sounds exactly like my 5month old, EBF, son. I’m wondering if it’s too early to wean some of these night feedings??? And if not, how? He will usually only eat 2-5 minutes each time and goes right back down, but is up at least every two hours after 10pm.
Also, I would suggest using real cherries not dried. The dish was okay, but needed something to brighten it up a bit 🙂 I was on a crockpot freezer meal kick when I first went back to work full time after having my son. 🙂
My almost-17-month son is a champion at falling asleep and getting through the majority of the night (thanks in no small part to the awesome guidance on this site!!) – lately though, he has been going through periods of waking up WAY too early. He goes to bed between 7-7:30pm, and used to sleep pretty reliably until around 6:00am. Now, he seems to alternate between waking around 5:00am (or 4:33, in the case of this morning) for several days in a row, then having an incredibly long night or two (until 7am or later!). Is there something we should be doing to help him stay asleep longer in the morning? I would love any wisdom that’s out there! 😀
Hard call. Is he still taking 2 naps a day? If so this could be his way of letting you know he’s ready to drop to 1. Could be something random (who knows what goes on inside these little creatures?).
Sorry I don’t have an easy answer for you. I would probably wait to see what develops organically over the next week or so before I start mucking things around though. Good luck!
My 13 month is doing the SAME thing. She used to sleep until 6 (with a bed time of 7/7:30), would wake up and get a 4 oz bottle, and go back to bed until 7…. but ever since we transitioned her off the morning bottle, she is waking up at 4:30 or 5. She goes inbetween fussing and talking to herself contently, so we let her continue on her own for a while, but she will not go back to sleep. So eventually I’ll get up with her (around 6 am if I can make it that long). Then she is EXHAUSTED by the time it hits 9 am and can barely stay awake, hence, she is still at two naps.
Not sure if its just the missing bottle in the morning or if she is needing to go down to one nap in the daytime… but with her early rising I can’t keep her up past 9 am!
Any suggestions would be helpful. 🙂
I am just holding out for my 8.5 month old to sleep longer than 4-5 hours at a time. He goes to bed wide awake and I’ve tried everything to break the night wakings. No cigar. Recently he has started waking up and staying awake–screaming because he is tired but he won’t sleep. I am a walking zombie.
Hey Kayla,
What happens 4 hours after bedtime? This can be the result of MANY things but I’ll throw out the common causes and maybe something will point you in the right direction:
– Too tired (crappy naps all day, too long awake before bed).
– Distracted nurser during the day (REALLY common at this age!!!)
– Not enough soothing (yes some babies are swaddled till their 1st birthday!).
– Sleep association issue – wide awake but still has a nurse to sleep association because it happens too close to bedtime (see post I link to below).
Hopefully one of those jiggles something for you? Good luck!
He naps great! He takes 2 1.5-2 hour naps every day. We fell into the 2-3-4 sleep routine. So I don’t think it is that.
He is a good eater during the day and I work part-time so I see his intake through bottles as well and he always seems to be eating enough. I have tried feeding him a solid snack before bedtime but it still doesn’t impact his sleep.
I put him to bed with a paci and he has several pacis in the bed with him. He knows how to find them and put them back in and sometimes he will go back to sleep but sometimes not. Do you think this could be the issue? The idea of taking away his paci sounds torturous at this point.
I read that post when you first posted it and it prompted me to move the nursing session back but it didn’t really change anything. I nurse him about 15 minutes before bed.
It is so baffling because he goes to sleep so easily–I often put him to bed babbling and after a few minutes he will roll over and go to sleep (we have a video monitor). There is no rhyme or reason to his sleep patterns. One night he will wake up 3 times and the next night he is up every hour or more. It is so exhausting. I have tried CIO and he either 1. cries himself to sleep after 10 minutes but wakes up 15 minutes late. Repeat for 2 hours. Or he will scream hysterically for an hour or more. I really do not know what to do–I feel like I have tried everything. I have next to zero help and I am just soooooo exhausted.
Ahhhh….pacis.
Pacis are both wonderful and terrible. Some babies will reinsert their own paci without blinking. But I think that in your case it’s an issue – the paci is causing the suck=sleep association to persist and even though he has access to them, it’s not working. See if you can gently wean off the pacis – my guess is the mysterious screaming will stop if he can go to sleep without them.
Also, remember that it can take up to eight weeks to get into a routine, so whatever changes you make, you won’t see the effects necessarily right away. I had to start putting my little guy to sleep partially awake and if he woke up in the middle of the night, I quickly learned his hunger cries vs attention cries (which, if I have into, would last all night).
My LO sleeps roughly 10hrs and takes 2 naps (most but not all the time). Her sleep is still the bain of my existence. She goes down at 8 and gets up at about 6.30, sometimes, 5.45 or 6. She only bf’s at night (STILL WAKES UP ONCE) and has regular cows milk 3-4x a day.
She totally blindsided us last wk and slept straight through doing 11hrs one day and 10.5hrs consecutively and we thought we’d reached Utopia. WRONG! She woke up twice the next night and breastfed like she was running a marathon. (Granted she didn’t breastfeed that morning so she was probably craving it the whole darn day but to wake up twice? That’s just mean!)
She’s 14 1/2 months. When oh when will she will consistently sleep straight through oh wise sleep guru? (yes, that’s you Alexis) 😉
Blerg – when somebody calls me the wise sleep guru I feel like I really need to STICK THE LANDING. Well here goes…
Lots of babies LOVE THE BOOB. They love it just so much. However in your house the breasturant is only open at night so of course she’s all like, “Oh boy, the best place ever! But it’s only open at night?!? Oh well I can make this work!!!”
So that’s what my gut says. She loves boob. You have a few options…
1) Try to gently wean off the night feed. Meaning you offer if she’s hungry but each night you decrease the amount of time she can nurse by 1 min.
2) Dream feeds – you go in when she’s asleep and ignore her when she’s awake. Then you gently wean off the dream feeds. Some boob babies do better with weaning this way and also it an break out of habits a bit better.
3) Offer her milk at night. She’s hungry? OK send in dad with a bottle/sippy of cow milk. Gradually decrease the amount of milk you put in the bottle to wean off her night feeding. Probably not that hard because she’ll be PISSED by the change up 😉
But you follow my thinking right? If she’s drinking like she ran a marathon she’s hungry. OK offer her something that’s less amazeballs than the boob. Because she loves the boob and if the choice is sleeping (bah who wants that?) or the boob she’ll choose boob every time.
ps. My friend said I’m using the word “boob” far too often and upon reflection, she may have had a point.
My son is 10.5 months old & will not sleep more than 10 hours a night (7:30 – 5:30) he then naps 30 mins at 9am then again 30 mins at 1:30pm. Have tried putting him down earlier/later but never sleeps longer. He self settles & in a great routine. He’s very content with this but 11 hours total in 24 hours!?!? I need him to sleep & nap longer but he doesn’t seem to need to…. even though he weighs 30lb & is growing quickly & nearly walking. I’m baffled.
Are you quite confident that his bedtime isn’t too late? Because 2 pm – 7:30 PM is quite the stretch for a 10 month old. If he can easily go to bed at 7 or even 6:30 and continue to sleep till 5:30, that would be a great way to increase his day sleep even if you’re still up at the crack of dawn, no?
Totally agree that 11 hours at night is a terrific target! Our 21 month old sleeps from 7:45pm – 6:45am and is VERY consistent.
Just thought I’d share a little anecdote on baby sleep. Our little one is a really good sleeper. She doesn’t need much of a bedtime routine and goes to sleep right away. She typically takes a 2 to 2.5 hour nap between 12:30 – 3pm.
One night recently, we needed to go to the emergency room since she was wheezing and having trouble breathing, probably brought on by a cold (she’s now totally fine). We were there until 11:45pm! I have never kept her up that late. Surprisingly, she did fine and was a happy camper, and in fact, a little wound up and hyper (possibly from the medication — they gave her albuterol several times). As soon as we started to drive home, she fell asleep. What I wanted to share was that she woke up exactly the same time as usual in the morning, so she effectively just lost out on 4 hours of sleep. She took her nap as usual and didn’t sleep more. The next night, usual bedtime/waketime.
I just find it surprising that babies won’t make up sleep in these situations…they just lose it.
Just wanted to add that we’ve put her to bed late a bunch of times (or when we’re on a trip, she typically falls asleep in the car about 1 hour after her bedtime), and the same thing happens…still wakes up early at around the same time as usual.
Most kids get up the same time each morning and won’t sleep in to make up for a sleep debt. This is why I dread July 4th (yes my kids are old enough to desperately want to go but we all pay the penalty the next day).
If you keep babies up late you know for the occasional ER trip (sorry to hear about that – ghads) they’ll do just fine. If it is something that happens consistently, it’ll blow up on you.
Tons of research supports that having kids go to bed at the same time 7 days a week is huge. This doesn’t relate to the “off night” issue but to older kids who stay up late on weekends and have early “school night” bedtimes. Apparently that whole thing has a lot of negative effects so…
I was so hoping this was your response! I am not sure if my guy has EVER slept 12 hours straight through but at 21 months he falls asleep on his own and usually get between 10 and 11 hours at night so I feel good about this! Naps are another story but I just keep working on it!
I know right? How crapy would it have been if the answer to the 12 hour night was that “YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PARENTING FAILURE!!!” HA!
Congrats on your triathlon training. I’ve done a few sprints and by done I mean “finished in a feeble manner.” But good for you!
My 16-month-old daughter sleeps 10.5 hours every night without fail. She usually goes to bed at 7pm, so she’s wide awake and partying in her crib (which she’ll sleep in until she’s a teenager … just kidding, but no “big girl bed” for us for a loooong time) by 5:30. It doesn’t matter if we put her to bed a little earlier or later, it’s ALWAYS 5:30am. It doesn’t even matter how long she napped the day before.
I’m totally fine with her schedule. I’m much more interested in learning how I can get my husband to NOT set his alarm for 4am, hit the snooze button three times, finally get up at 4:30, leave the house at 5, and then leave me 30 minutes to fall back asleep, which usually happens about a minute before my daughter wakes up. SIGH!!
Before I had kids I was a TOTAL snooze alarm junkie. TOTAL. Of course research shows that snooze alarms are a bad call because it just shortens the amount of quality sleep you’re getting. So you can tell him that a baby sleep lady on the internet told him to stop 🙂
When you’re daughter is a little older (2+) try one of these: http://www.troublesometots.com/how-to-use-a-toddler-alarm-clock/
You might have some luck moving the needle from 5:30 to 6:00. Then you’ll have 60 minutes to sleep after your husbands snooze buttoning 😉
My 5-month-old has been sleeping 9-10 hours straight + 2 more hours after nursing for the past two weeks. I obviously couldn’t be happier! I hope we can keep it up!
However, I still nurse and/or rock her to sleep. She cries and becomes very active when I put her down awake. Do I need to insist on this right away, or will it get easier when she’s older? She also needs her paci to help her fall asleep, but losing it later during the night doesn’t wake her.
Hey Rocio,
Working on a post on this exact issue. Younger is easier. Right now you’ve got a rock/nurse/suck association. Odds are good that this will backfire on you within the next 2 months (some small % of babies won’t have an issue with this but 97% will). So this would be a GREAT time to really focus on her sleeping without the paci and to put her down awake.
Does this mean CIO? Not at all! Do you need to do this instantly? Of course not! If you can you may want to work on rocking her to sleep sans paci. When she’s in the crib, wake her slightly. That would be a great place to start. good luck!
My 14 month old sleeps from 8:00 pm to 6:30 am when he is good! We have a religious bedtime schedule with lights out by 7:45 pm. He has been teething big time this last month and I have found he is waking up at night sometimes and needs more medicine. It also is causing him to sometimes wake up super early (like 5:00am). 🙁 He does take really good naps during the day. We have to wake him up usually so he won’t sleep too long! I think 10-10.5 hours of sleep a night and 3 hours total of naps during the day is okay for him?
Hey Kathy,
Why do you have to wake him up? As a rule of thumb you shouldn’t have to wake sleeping babies. What happens if you just leave well enough alone?
I’m a big fan of proactive medicating when teething is at it’s worst. Check this out:
http://www.troublesometots.com/teething-and-not-sleeping/
Maybe a little proactive medication would help get you sleeping bast 5:00 AM when it’s really going rough?
Good luck!
I don’t wake him up. He has been waking up on his own from his mouth hurting. I give him medicine before bed. I am all about the medicine! Thank you for the link. I have read this article before. I am waiting for the day when he is done teething!
Sorry to hijack this comment but I am wondering Alexis your opinion on waking babies up from their morning nap to protect the afternoon nap? If I don’t wake my bub from her am nap her pm nap is a major struggle, she goes down late and then only catnaps. But I feel like I am fighting her natural sleep rhythm by doing this.
Tough call Jess,
I generally stand by the “don’t wake babies” rule. But sometimes (and I wonder if this is your case) babies are transitioning, as in from 2 naps to 1, and for a while they need a little adjustment by Mom to make it work. So maybe this is just what you need to do until she’s fully ready to move to 1 nap a day?
I’m so happy to read this! My twin girls go to sleep at 8pm and wake up anywhere between 6-7am (so 10-11 hours of sleep at night) but I kept reading 12 hours, 12 hours. So glad to hear they are just normal on the sleeping. Now if I could cut out my overnight pump maybe I could get 10-11 hours of sleep!! The one thing I’m worried about is when they drop the 3rd nap if we move up their bedtime what that will do to their waking time….thankfully that’s not happening for a little bit!
Night pumping is only slightly worse than night dental surgery. I’m so sorry to hear you’re having to do that. Hopefully not for much longer?
8:00 PM is actually on the late end, usually when they drop the 3rd nap it shifts up to 7:00 ish so I would expect they’ll go 7PM – 6AM. Which is actually sort of awesome because those few hours of “adult time” at night are FABULOUS!
I could probably stop night pumping even though I’m trying to go a full year on breast milk but I get the most overnight so I get up and do it. I’ve got it down to a science where it takes me a total of 35 minutes from start to finish to back to sleep.
The one thing is this week our girls (twins) have colds so they’re not sleeping as well as normal and we’ve had a small sleep regression – including 1am wake-ups and swing sleep for one, so even if I wasn’t pumping I still would be having a bad week.
I think they’ll drop the third nap in the next month or so. They still take a short cat nap sometimes between 4:45 and 5:45 so I’m not ready to give it up entirely. When they don’t take the nap they’re tired but not unbearable and still go to sleep without a huge fuss. Looking forward to the 7pm bedtime but last time I put them to bed before 8pm they were up at 5 so I’m a bit hesitant right now to go earlier.
What is a good age to start an earlier bedtime? I have a 6 week old.. and boy, are we struggling.
6 weeks old are a TON OF WORK. They cry a ton, need to eat constantly, etc. Don’t worry – it gets better.
Hopefully this will help you figure out your bedtime stuff. It’s really normal for a newborn to have a wicked late bedtime though….
http://www.troublesometots.com/bedtime-what-time/
i felt a lot better when i concentrated on total day-to-day sleep of 11-13 hours. my 14-mo seems to wake up between 6 and 6:30 am no matter when we get her down, so she usually gets 10-11 hours at night. dropping to 1 nap didn’t extend night-time sleep, but it definitely made her daytime nap total longer! (1.5-2 hours single nap now instead of 2 short-ish ones.) she sort of bucks the “sleep begets sleep” saying because when she was younger and took crappy short naps she would sleep way longer, up to 13 hours at night. i think weaning played a role — that last 5 am nursing used to get her to sleep past 7 am but that never happens now that she “just” gets a warm bottle in the morning.
Well if she’s getting 10-11 hours at night you’re right there for sure. And yeah – night weaning often cuts a bit off morning because some babies would snooze for another hour or so after nursing but skip it when the whole “nurse and cuddle” part get’s cut out 😉
Hello Alexis! I love your blog. I’m a new mom with a 6 month old who isn’t a big fan of sleep. I relied on your posts to get us through these first 6 months. We swaddled, white noise, varsity swing approach (for naps) and we are still around 11-13 hours of TOTAL sleep in a 24 hour period. Yikes! Our strong little guy rolled over in his swaddle at three months so we had to ditch it. Unfortunately he still loved being swaddled so he has been sleeping(swaddled)in his rock n play until this week. We removed the swaddle (kept him in the rock n play) and he has been sleeping unswaddled (yay!) for the same 11-13 hours. We put him down at 7 and he wakes up at 4-4:30 am (it makes for a very long day at work!). His naps are just starting to get better (1.5 hrs/1.5 hrs/.5 hrs) and he is no longer in his swing. We’ve really tried to put him down drowsy but awake in this past month. The whole EASY schedule doesn’t work for us so I try to feed him as close to when I put him down as possible, but I also make sure that he is aware that I’m putting him down. I feel like we are following all the “rules”, yet we work really, really hard to get him each minute of sleep. Also at night, he wakes up every 1.5 – 3 hours. He eats 3-5oz each time he wakes up. We are transitioning to the crib this week (we are dreading it). Is any of this normal? What are we doing wrong? Are we destined to be awake a few times a night until he is a teenager? Will you move in with us? Help!!!
I will definitely move in with you as long as you have HBO. That is non-negotiable.
He’s eating a TON at night. If my calculations are correct he’s getting almost 50% of his intake during the night no? So the question is – why?
For starters, I’m not a fan of EASY. Have you read this?
http://www.troublesometots.com/eat-play-sleep-fail/
I’m wondering if part of your EASY “rules” are causing you to have a baby who doesn’t eat enough during the day and is tanking up at night. He’s napping like a champ and you’re putting him down awake-ish so the day part is rocking and rolling.
But 3-5 oz all night long sounds like an issue. Personally do you NEED to move him to the crib this week? I would really focus on getting more food into him during the day and night weaning some of those feeds before you introduce the crib. Thoughts?
My 18 month old sleeps well at night but is never consistent in the amount of time slept at night. Sometimes she will sleep 12 straight hours. Sometimes she will wake after 8-9 hours and play in her bed for a LONG time and then eventually go back to sleep (will play up to two hours or so). She is developmentally delayed (she’s 18 months, but more on a 9 month old level in motor skills and 3-4 month old in verbal skills) so my question is this. . .
In your experience do you find that for children who are developmentally delayed, their sleep habits also follow suit? Should I be expecting 18 month old sleep habits or more like a 9 month old?
She is on one nap a day that ranges from 2-3 hours depending on the day. I’d say most days 2 is pretty standard.
Thoughts on the delayed development and how that impacts sleep?
Hey Brittnie,
Honestly I’m not qualified to say. There are so many variables that can factor into a child with a delay that it’s probably hard for anybody to really say.
It sounds like you’re doing great with sleep however. If we assume her sleep should be more closely aligned with a 9 month old then the 2 naps is probably a great target. I suggest that only because – in theory – sometimes long windows of night waking can be a signal that babies are getting too much day sleep. So I’m hypothesizing that she may be letting you know that she’s getting ready to move from 3->2 naps.
As for the nights when she plays in her bed for a long time, that also sounds like typical 9 month stuff a la separation anxiety. It’s really common to see previously solid 8-9 month old babies wake up at 2 and be awake for 1-2 hours (usually less happy but OK) because they would rather be WITH you.
So take the fact that I’m just throwing out some guesses here but my best guess is that it sounds a lot like typical 9 month old stuff.
Hope that helps?
My daughter (5 months old) sleeps 12 h + at night ever since she was 8 weeks old. I did nothing in particular to make it happen, it Just happened. 😉
Well then it’s DEFINITELY time to start buying those lottery tickets 🙂
In the past few weeks, my 11-month old has been sleeping longer – 12-13 hours. I know I should be ecstatic, but her sleeping later interferes with us being ready for morning activities. She sleeps until 7:30 – 8, so she goes down for a nap about the same time morning playgroups and story times start. 🙁 She’s also always taken long naps, and I’d still like her to have those, too. I want it all, lol!
Would I be crazy to get her up a little earlier so she can squeeze in a nap before 10?
You are crazy to go in print in complaining that your daughter sleeps too much as the Gods of Sleep love to punish those that do!!!
I would say you could wake her up a little early now and then for a particularly amazing playdate but as a general rule I would let her sleep and light a candle to appease the sleep god for your transgressions here 😉
No, no, I know it! I hesitate to post in any forum about my girl’s sleep! I will say, though, that she doesn’t go down at night as easily as she used to. I know a part of it is teething and approaching developmental milestones, but a part of me also wonders if she’s sleeping too much during the day or if her last nap is too close to bedtime. Her last nap might end around 5 and she goes to bed between 7:30-8. We’ve put her down sleepy for ages, and I thought we’d “trained” her gently months ago, but lately she’s been very fussy at bedtime. Is it possible that we’d need to “re-train” her at 11 months?
I will go light that candle, though! 🙂
Apparently, I didn’t light that candle fast enough! A combination of teething and maybe reflux kept our girl up screaming until 11:15 last night! I am about to read your posts on teething and medicating! 🙂
My 15 month old daughter sleeps ~12 hours a night and will occasionally grace us with a 13 hour night. Weirdly, these usually fall on Saturday into Sunday – almost as if she knows it’s A Day Of Rest.
I followed your CIO advice to a T when C was about 7 months old and co-sleeping was no longer working for us. She’s been a champion sleeper ever since, but I think the continuation of this is mostly luck 🙂
And with that, I’m off to buy a lottery ticket!
Fantastic! Man I wish my kids would sleep in an extra hour on Sunday. Nope they’re banging on my door at 6:15 wondering if pancakes will be forthcoming.
Definitely go get that ticket!
I now have a 12 hour a night sleeper (16 months) but that didn’t happen until he dropped to one nap a month or so ago. AND he only naps for an hour.. maybe hour and a half if I run him like crazy all morning and make burnt offerings to just the right gods that day. But he has never, ever been much of a napper although he’s mostly been pretty good to us at night. When he went down to one nap (from two hard-won and semi-consistant two hour naps) I thought.. oh, here comes that 2 hour nap I have heard so much tell of! But no, after an initial period of adjustment with some longer naps, he eventually settled right back into sleeping for about an hour. But then, miracle of miracles, one morning he slept until 7!!! Instead of the 5:30-6 routine I’d been hating for months. Who knew 7 could feel like such a luxury? So, you know what? I’ll take it! The mothers of long nappers always look at me in horror when I say I just get the one hour. However, he goes to bed happily and I almost never hear a peep from him for HALF A DAY. I’ll take it kid, I’ll take it.
Hear hear!
Plus if you had to choose, a fabulous night always trumps giant naps. And 7 AM IS a fabulous luxury.
Before I had kids I thought luxury meant fabulous spa treatments and fancy dinners. Now it means “any day I don’t have to wake up at 6:00 AM.”
Everybody is going to hate me so much… My baby (3,5 months) sleeps so well that I’m worried.
She usually goes to sleep around 18:00 in her bouncy chair in the living room while we watch tv.
Around 20:00 she wakes up to eat (sometimes 21:00) and I put her in her crib after. Around midnight, or when I go to bed earlier a bit earlier, she eats again.
Then she usually sleeps either through the night (until 7:00ish) or sometimes wakes up at 4:00 to eat.
Then she goes back to sleep for another hour or two, to start the day around 9:00.
That would be about 15 hours of sleep at night, with only some nights waking up for half an hour to an hour somewhere before midnight.
And she naps. About 45 minutes per nap, 3 naps per day…
She seems happy and on track developmentally, she can almost sit on her own, for a few seconds anyway, is grasping things, laughing and generally a happy baby.
I’ll bring it up on the next visit with the doctor, but is this something I should be worried about? Or just count my blessings?
I think whenever something bothers you, definitely bring it up with the doctor. Although I’m guessing it’s just who your baby is. I’m also guessing it won’t last forever 🙂
You didn’t ask but I’m going to toss out some advice anyway – this is a great time to establish a bedtime routine beyond hanging out in the bouncy seat in the living room. For many reasons. At 3 months you can get away with most anything but at 5,6 months it won’t be like that.
Also? Even though you’re there keeping an eye on things, bouncy seats aren’t awesome places for babies to sleep – they present a tipover hazard and as she gets older it becomes more of a risk. So this would be a great age to start doing the same wind-down every day and putting her awake in her crib (where she’ll spend the night) so that you don’t bump into issues in a few months.
In the meanwhile enjoy your chunky nights!
My little guy will be 5 months old next week and his night sleeping is pretty good, 7:30 to 5:30 a.m., sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. We just moved off middle-of-the-night breastfeeding which has been a godsend for me. We have a couple of issues that I want to try to tackle (I just found your website by looking for some answers for napping) that would make night sleeping so much better and maybe help napping too (he’s a crappy napper). One of the number one things is that he’s a restless sleeper. And when I say restless, I mean really restless. We keep him swaddled at night because he flails his arms around and hits himself in the head which obviously wakes him up. And he repeatedly lifts his legs and lets them crash into the mattress. Imagine a beaver slapping his tail on the water to alert danger and you’ve got little Miles every night. He seems to mostly sleep though it but not always. The same thing happens with naps but he is such a light daytime sleeper it definitely wakes him up during the day. His daycare provider and I have been trying to strategize on that since the day sleeping is not good at all (I’m talking mostly 5 to 20 minute naps with an occasional 45 minute nap thrown in to tantalize us).
Anyway, I’m going to keep reading to see if I can figure out anything we can try that might help. I did feel much better after reading one of your earlier posts that some kids just aren’t biologically ready yet to nap in big chunks and to give it some more time.
You just described my 3-month daughter!! She USUALLY sleeps from about 7:30pm – 5:30am with a dreamfeed at 10:30pm. But she starts making a ton of noise (beaver tail crashing mainly) around 2:30am and since she’s in our room, my sleep suffers quite a bit. Her naps range from 5 – 35 minutes and she always seems tired. 🙁 Why do they fight something they NEED??? I haven’t been swaddling her much during the day hoping she’ll learn to control her arms but it doesn’t help things at all…I know I need to patient b/c she’s still young. However, it’s sad to see my baby fussy all the time because she’s so tired! Good luck with your little boy!!
It is frustrating, isn’t it, when you know that they are the ones getting in the way of their own rest. Does she wake up when she starts with her legs? Miles is mostly still asleep when he does it but if it goes on long enough, he will wake himself. The arms thing, there’s no good solution, I think, except to wait until they grow out of it stop moving so dang much. I’m sure hoping he grows out of it!
Hmmm…by 5 months a 5 minute nap is officially crappy. I’m wondering myself if there isn’t something else going on and the “crib drumming” is just a red herring?
I mean TONS of kids kick the bed – it’s super fun! It’s loud! It’s exciting! It’s an awesome toy!
Swaddling is fantastic and I strongly encourage it. But you can’t tightly swaddle the legs (I’m sure you aren’t doing this anyway) because it can lead to hip displasia. So…you can’t mechanically prevent your baby from booming the bed.
Although you can use LOUD white noise to help keep the noise from waking YOU up.
I’m wondering if there isn’t something else that’s leading to the short naps. Not enough soothing? Awake too long? Not awake long enough?
Yes some kids aren’t ready biologically to sleep for a big chunk but generally that would explain a 30 minute nap not a 5 minute nap.
Sorry, no easy answers. Just more questions 🙁
We definitely don’t swaddle his legs. Thanks for the comments, I’m thinking now more about your questions. It’s easier now that he’s older to catch the red flags of tiredness; he’s really rubbing his eyes before he gets tired, both at night and during the day. Plus, he pretty much wants to sleep 2 hours after his last nap, no matter short or long. So I think I have the awake too long/not long enough mostly figured out but maybe I’m too late catching it by the time he’s rubbing his eyes?. I’m also really starting to ponder his sensitivity to sound. At least for naps, he’s pretty responsive to sound. This is so unlike my daughter who is four years older than he is and could, even as a wee one, once you got her to sleep, sleep through anything. He seems to be able to rouse himself pretty easily during naps (he is restless but usually still mostly asleep at night). More white noise? Louder? We are trying loud white noise all night again tonight. Mixed success last night but guess there is no magic bullet.
I just found your website and I hope you can help me. I have a thirteen-month-old baby boy who still wakes up – always once, but often two to three times a night – to nurse and snuggle. He goes to bed awake, and has for months, though I do nurse him as part of his bedtime routine. I’ve tried night weaning cold turkey, and that has been a disaster. I don’t mind letting him nurse again for shorter periods (as I was just reading on one of your posts) but I know he mostly wants the comfort and wants to sleep in my bed, and when I do put him back down awake in his own bed in the middle of the night, it will still take him a long time to settle back into sleep. He’s my fourth baby, and the other three naturally dropped their feedings and slept through the night at a year. I don’t really believe in cry it out, though I am willing to let babies “complain” a few minutes at a time as they adjust to a new routine. Do you have any tips or suggestion?
Hey Stephanie,
Check the link below – Why Sleep Training Didn’t work. I know the subject doesn’t speak to you but the contents, I believe, answer your question. You need to switch up what is happening AT bedtime to set the stage for successful gentle night weaning. Once that happens you’re efforts to shorten the amount of time he feeds at night will go more smoothly.
Or at least I think it will 😉 Good luck!
Alexis
Hi!
I just found your site a few weeks ago and I love it!
Here’s the situation in our house:
8-month-old twins (boy and girl). We have a couple of issues:
1. The babies REFUSE to stay awake past 5:30 or 5:45 at night. I mean REFUSE. So, we put them down. Which leads to problem No. 2 (at least I think it does.)
2. A couple of weeks ago we did CIO and got everyone to sleep through the night, for the most part – they would both occasionally squawk, but not really wake up. The last few nights, though, it’s been up at about 2:45 and cry until about 4. I’ve done change the diaper, leave and go back in 10 minutes to soothe, but to no avail. I’m happy to let them CIO, but I have trouble getting back to sleep!
So, my questions are: how do we keep them up later – and hopefully sleeping later in the morning; and, how do we get rid of the night waking?
Thanks in advance!
Kate
Do they wake up excessively early? Or are they sleeping 12-13 hours at night (ie ~6PM – 6 AM)? Also how are naps going – do they take decent naps or are naps a bit of a mess and then they’re so exhausted they just can’t stay awake.
PS. The 1 hour awake thing is sadly pretty common at 8 months (PEAK separation anxiety). It’s not about the diaper, it’s about the fact that they want YOU. Sometimes there isn’t much you can do. Sometimes your well-intended check-ins are “rewarding” the crying (follow me there?). What happens if you don’t go in for 2-3 nights. I would play around with that and see if things improve.
Well, since I wrote that here’s what’s happening: I’m leaving them alone unless the crying is so hysterical that I can’t stand it. The last few nights have been better – no waking until about 4. My son is the instigator with this. He’s up and happy to play. But I don’t get them until 5:15 or 5:30. I figure eventually he’ll figure out that 4ish isn’t a good wake up time.
To answer your questions. They are sleeping from about 5:45 p.m. to about the 4-5 a.m. mark. Naps are erratic at best. Today, we got about an hour and 15 minutes in for the early nap. Thomas has just gotten up from another hour and 15 minute nap. Audrey is still asleep. So, I’m guessing we’ve got some exhaustion happening, but even on the days when they nap well and go to sleep around 6 p.m. they are still up no later than 5 the next day. Even Tgiving night when they were up until almost 7, although Thomas did sleep for about 30 minutes during our dinner, they were still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning before 5:30.
We’ve pretty much decided to embrace a 5:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. schedule for now unless someone can help me figure out how to change that. I would go for 6-6 anytime now. 🙂
Kate
Hi, my 11 month old daughter wakes up every hour, hour and a half when she’s in her cot. This happens every night until I go to bed and then she comes in bed with me. I’m fed up, I get no time in the evenings to myself and being a single mum it’s not working for me! Do you think you can help? I’m not a massive fan of the cry it out method. Thanks 🙂
Hey Eva,
It’s ALL about what is happening at bedtime. I’m assuming you are nursing/cuddling to sleep? Until things change AT bedtime, the “awake every hour” and “co-sleeping” (which I gather you aren’t keen on) isn’t going to improve. I’ll also say this – I hear that CIO isn’t ideal (trust me, it’s not ideal for ANYBODY). But the reality is also this – the gentle “no cry” methods work best for younger babies. Your daughter is rounding the curve on her first birthday so chances are good, gentle isn’t going to be that effective. Plus you’re parenting solo and probably pretty run down.
Personally? I would really consider CIO. Not knowing all the details of your life I see:
– Solo parent
– run down
– nobody is sleeping
– older baby
And frankly, I think that’s going to be the most direct, effective, and overall pain-free (honest) method to make a dramatic positive improvement in your situation.
Good luck!
Thank you for your advice! Yep at the moment I nurse to sleep, if I try and put net down slightly awake she cries straight away. Don’t mind co-sleeping but even in my bed without me there she wakes every hour and before really waking up tries to crawl out of the bed, so unfortunately she has to go in her cot. She’s a terrible sleeper all round, I’m lucky to get an hour nap out of her during the days unless she’s in the car or walking in her pram. Should I use CIO for nap time too? Today is the first time in weeks that she’s gone to sleep at bed time (7) and that’s because she’s had one half hour nap all day! What would your advice be on how to do CIO? Iv heard different ways – go in every 5 mins, go in 1 min then 2 then 5 ect, don’t leave the room at all and just lay her back down every 5 mins….. I don’t know which variation it for the best! One last thing, if I’m going to do CIO (which I will try) should I move her into her own room and do it all at once? Or ease her into her cot then into her room? Thank you in advance, I really appricate this!
Ok so iv just read two post you’ve written about CIO which answers a lot of my questions, so now I have new questions (sorry!) My little girl stands up when she wakes up and cries, how will that work with (was it called vanilla?) technique? Would she just lay herself down? And night time feeds…she is on my boob the whole night, dream feed and apart from abit of tossing and turning she generally doesn’t wake up, but should I nurse her at certain times like you said or is she too old? And should I move her into her room and start CIO all at the same time? Thanks again 🙂
Quick answers:
Everything on the subject can be found here:
http://www.troublesometots.com/cry-it-out/
For now, leave naps well enough alone. If she stands up she can lie back down (she’s almost 1 she’s more than capable of getting back down). When to feed is a whole different thing but my bottom line is this:
Don’t let her cry and THEN go nurse her. Whenever she wakes up decide within minutes if it’s nurse or no nurse. If she JUST ate, ignore it. (I know I know). If it’s been 3-4 hours and your gut says she’s hungry, go to her.
Remember her hanging on your boob at night is not about hunger so I would err on the side of NOT going in.
And lastly – if your goal is her in HER room then do it. Her in her room. Full stop.
Good luck!
Thank so much! I’m doing it tonight…. Fingers crossed!! Il let you know how it goes. Thanks again for your advice and support, it’s given me loads of confidence to do it 🙂
Hello Alexis, I’m sorry to bombard you! The first night went AMAZING! She cried soild for 10 mins then moaned for 15 then slepted for 9 hours!!! (Could not believe it!!) but since then she’s started waking up twice in the night (which I’m sure is still pretty good) one I ignore the next I feed. But she’s become unhappy every night near to bed time, she used to love her routine but now as soon as she’s out of the bath she starts crying, I can hardly get her nappy on let alone massage and story! Is this normal? She’s started teething which is making me feel uneasy about leaving her, and tonight she really cried, I duno I’m just starting to feel really bad about it. Thanks for your support, it makes me feel better knowing I can come on here
Eva, I don’t have much to add to all of Alexis’s excellent advice, but I wanted to let you know I have been there too and it’s so very hard and you are doing great! Hang in there and give her all the love and cuddles and nursing you can during the day. Bedtime will likely get better very soon! It did for us.
P.S. If she’s teething right now, give pain medicine 20 min or so before bedtime so you can feel sure she’s not in pain. Then probably another dose when you nurse later (I would often switch between ibuprofin and acetaminaphin to get through the night without giving too many doses of one or the other, if that makes sense.)
I think I may need to post on a different page as I seem to be taking up a lot of room! (Sorry guys!) thank you Kate for your encouraging and supporting words. She cried so hard tonight and for longer then usual, I just feel so guilty! Today was the first time since I started that shes acted like her usual self, other days she’s been clingy and unhappy compared to usual. How long did it take with your little one? I was so close to going in and picking her up tonight!
My little one is 13 weeks today and going well. Routine – sleeps at 9am for 1 hour, 11.45/ 12 to 2pm and the 4pm for 45minsto an hour. At night sleeps from 7pm and dream feed (almost) at 10.30pm. The sleeps until 4am – dummy to settle usually to 5am then dummy to settle and then we wake her up at 7am. Does not require dummy to go to bed 90% of the time. We are to sure what to do about 4 and 5 waking as not hungry and has circ 32oz a day and weighs 13lb 9oz. Is our approach okay and will he her go
Pinger when she is ready or creating an issue with dummy? To be fair probably has the dummy a total of20 mins a day as needs to help sooth her sometimes. Routine at night is bath, feed, cuddle and bed – we are thinking of introducing story now? Thoughts – guesi just need some reassurance.
Thank you so much
Mary
Hey Mary,
To be honest I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking? But here goes…
Your baby is 13 weeks old which by my measure is itty bitty. Personally whatever works for you is fine! If you’re only using the dummy on rough nights (10% of the time) then great! Bedtime routine sounds great. And everybody struggles with the 4/5 am wakeup so do what you need to get through it. Lots of crib sleeping babies go into the swing then, if that helps.
You’ll be just fine 🙂
Alexis
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Sorry for any confusion, but probably just looking for reassurance, LO is now sleeping from 7pm to last feed at 10.30pm and then 6am. Give dummy and usually settles to 7am. I was concerned that by giving dummy I was stopping Erin to self settle. I am more relaxed now and use it when needs some help. I love your website and find it very helpful. Really appreciate you taking time to help so many people. Sometimes we just need some reassurance that doing the right thing for our beautiful babies. X
Hi,
My 11 month old currenely averages about 9 hours of sleep per night plus 2 to 3 hours during the day. Eleven hour nights would be amasing but I feel he should get a min of 10 hours at night? He has never been a good night sleeper but we have managed to get him to sleep an initial 7 to 9 hour stretch through CIO for night wakes (usually from between 7.30 and 8 pm), after which he will go down for another hour or so if I settle him ( usually involves a quick 2 min feed ). However the methods we used for when he woke at 10 pm and 12am etc are not working for the later wakes! , I am not sure how to manage the early morning wakes. If he wakes at 3 am he will usually cry for over an hour, fall asleep then wake 30 mins later, I then settle him to get him through to morning. I find if I settle him at 3 am he will wake again at 5 or 5.30 am. If he wakes after 4 am I usually just settle him as if not he will just cry until morning. He falls asleep by himself at night but usually involves him crying for 20 to 30 minutes.
He naps well in the morning, usually 1.5 to 2 hours but unless he is really tired I can not get a long nap from him in the afternoon, only 35 to 45 mins.
Any tips on extending the night sleep to even 10 hours?
Thank you
I’m not sure I understand entirely what is going on. What happens at bedtime?
Can you clarify this a bit more, “after which he will go down for another hour or so if I settle him ( usually involves a quick 2 min feed )”
When is that happening? How are you settling him when he wakes up here?
I think there is an issue with consistency and the fact that he still has a sleep association (not sure which – something related to how you settle him) that is persisting. This is why he’s crying so much in the AM and why it’s increasingly hard to settle him as it gets closer to morning. Also I’m wondering if his bedtime isn’t too late. He takes a 30 minute nap in the afternoon and the his bedtime is when?
Hi Alexis, thanks for your reply.
Earlier in the night we have let him cry with checks. However, in the early morning I was getting nervous that he was going to be awake from the day from 4 am so I was patting him to sleep or feeding if this did not work. I think you are right about consistency as the last few mornings I have just let him cry and he is slowly sleeping a bit longer. I have also put him to be earlier and last night got a 10 hour night (yay!) think I will just keep going and see if I can hit the magic 11.
He goes to bed awake no feeding so I don’t think that is the issue. He has also had a couple of days this week where he has refused the afternoon nap entirely so he may be starting to transition to one nap?
11 months is really early to go to 1 nap. So while he COULD be transitioning I would tend to vote against it.
Just be mindful of how you’re handling his early night wakings (those that happen from bedtime till 3 AM or so). Even if you do all the right things AT bedtime, soothing to sleep for those subsequent wakings can sometimes keep your sleep associations (whatever they are) an issue. And I suspect that’s what is happening with you guys.
Good luck getting to 11 hours – I know it’s not easy!
Hi dear
My baby 8 months and 3 week. Now .She sleep every night from 19:00 to 7:00 morning .
She wake Up at 2.30 midnight each night now if I change her sleep night to 8.30 night to 7 morning you think she don’t wake up at night any more ?.could you tell what’s the reason she wake up ,when is gonna be ok this 1 hours wake up at midnight.she sleep 2 hours in the day aswell .
Thanks
I desperately need help.
My soon to be 6 month old is a crappy sleeper. He gets one good nap, 1.5hrs, in a day then about two to three 30min naps during the day. I try to make sure it doesn’t nap past 6pm. We have a routine down, 7:30pm bath time, 8pm last bottle of the night where he normally drifts off to sleep for about 4 hours tops, them he’s up for a mini feed. Then if we’re lucky he’s up again at 4/5am for a full 4.5 oz bottle. ( most nights he’s tossing and turning all night, my husband quickly grabs him and rocks him to sleep each time). He’s in his crib, in our room.
I work, I’m up pumping at 5:30am, out the door by 6:45am three days a week. Most days he’s up too but I can tell he’s still sleepy. I get home at 6:45pm, he’s home with his dad all day.
Not sure if my son will ever sleep through the night, I need him to though. It’s really effecting our every life! I’m at a loss, and will try anything. Any advice please?
Ok so after reading ALMOST all of your posts I now know what my issue is. It’s him falling asleep with the bottle. So tonight, I came home to a sleeping baby at 6:45pm, my mom let him nap late. So that push back his routine. I gave him a bottle then bath, book and tried to get him to relaxed to somewhat sleepy, pssft! It all went to hell, it was 9:30pm, he was waaaay too overtired and my mom is here visiting for another week so she’s telling me I’m doing it all wrong. So I ended up giving him the bottle, but that didn’t even work!! I had to rock him to sleep another 10 mins!
So I have decided to change up the routine once my mom leaves. This process is stressful as it is, I really don’t need her telling me I’m a bad mom & she’ll take my son home with her when she leaves if I can’t handle his sleeping habits since ALL babies fall asleep with either a paci or bottle. I want her to leave on a good note, so we’ll wait a week. My son will officially be 6months then though 🙁
Just wanted to thank you for this site. I no longer feel alone but I do feel like I’ve screwed up my child & now because of my ignorant mistake (bottle at bedtime) he now will have to suffer the CIO method! 🙁
Hey Martine,
Your mom says she’s going to take the baby because you aren’t a good Mom? Wow – by my standards that is an extremely not-cool thing to say. No new Mom needs to hear that from anybody, you’re little fledgling confidence took a real blow there.
Sorry 🙁
As for sleep let’s do this:
– Keep bedtime the same every night. If it’s 8:00 PM then it’s 8:00 PM. You’re right to not let him sleep past 6. Even 6 is a bit late, he may need to be awake longer between his last nap and bedtime. You may want to experiment with not letting him sleep past 5 or 5:30. As he gets older the amount of time he’ll be awake prior to bedtime should stretch longer – something to be mindful of.
– Yes it’s the bottle AT bedtime. But it also may be about the rocking to sleep?
– He’s not actually a crappy napper – he’s a GREAT napper! One long nap followed by ~45 minute naps is actually sort of excellent. Plenty of people are envying your long AM nap 🙂
Good luck with everything. Glad you feel less alone!
Alexis
We are hoping for some nap help! Our guy is 13 weeks. He goes to bd on his own 75% of the time. Nursing is our last step before bed. We swaddle with arms out (had to stop full swaddle because of rolling), do sound machine,dim lights, and half hour of quiet time before bed. I nurse him around 6:30pm…sometimes he falls asleep while eating, but more fen than not he wakes up as we are putting him in the crib and he looks around, sucks on his hands for 15 minutes or so and falls asleep. He has done this for night time since 5 weeks. He was sleeping a consistent 6-8 hours for the first chunk until 9 weeks when he got his shots. Now sometimes he wakes up at 2:30, then 5:30 ( on a good night ). On a bad night ( about 4 times a week) he wakes up at 12:30, 2:30, 4,30, 5:30, and up for the day at 6:30. I try to only feed him at 2:30 and 5:30 but sometimes that is the only way to get him down. Otherwise I bounce him on the yoga ball. Some nights I will hear him at midnight and he will put himself to sleep, other nights he fully wakes up. I would love to have more nights where he does an 8 hour stretch.
Now for naps, we got in the awful habit of holding him so he sleeps longer…1-2 hours for three naps a day. If I try to transfer him to the crib e only sleeps 20-30 minutes and then we usually have a bad night. I am thinking of making sure he has great naps all week and seeing if that affects his night time sleep positively while also weaning him off night feeds. He is 15 pounds and our pediatrician recommends CIO at 8 weeks but I am not looking to try that until 4 months, or maybe after I try everything else. Thinking of trying the Magic Merlin Sleepsuit or Mamaroo or crib mattress vibrator for naps. Are three 1.5-2 hour naps too long? When he was younger e would do 4-5 thirty-forty minute naps? Looking to wean him off nap holding and improve length of crib naps and get better night sleep. Thanks for any help!
Your pediatrician recommends CIO at 8 weeks? Ooof…OK well I wouldn’t but that’s just me. I mean you’ve got a LOT of runway left still and honestly the problems that CIO aren’t really happening at 8 weeks. But please don’t tell your pediatrician I said so – I try really hard to stay on good terms with pediatricians 😛
I have a few thoughts:
1) Have you considered that this is simply the dreaded 4 month sleep regression? http://www.troublesometots.com/the-thing-about-sleep-regressions/
2) What about using a swing for naps and maybe (temporarily) at night? Sure beats bouncing on an exercise ball no?
http://www.troublesometots.com/the-ultimate-baby-swing-sleep-guide-for-swing-hating-babies/
It’s also your best bet to gently wean out of the “holding for naps” thing.
And lastly I don’t think he’s napping TOO much but I wonder, with ~6 hours of napping during the day, is he getting enough opportunities to nurse? There’s lots of reasons he’s likely eating so much at night (hello sleep regression!) but one of those reasons is likely that he’s not eating quite enough during the day.
Get him off your body for naps if you can because this is a hard path to get off LATER so now is the time.
Good luck!
Thanks!
I tried our Mamaroo again and sat behind him and jiggled it and did white noise and paci. He screamed for 15 minutes and I took him out and we went back to putting him to nap in the carrier. Should I let him cry longer? I need to install our darkening shades so it is even darker. I feel like if I am going to let him scream in the swing I might as well let him scream in the crib for naps.
The crazy part about all of this is that for night time sleeps he falls asleep on his own…he has done that since 5 weeks old. Why can’t he put himself to sleep only at night but not for naps?
We are nervous to stop holding him for naps because on days I transition him into the crib, he wakes up and takes 30 min naps.
We must have had a sleep regression. Now we are back to our normal…asleep by 7:30… Woke at 2:30 for feeding #1, and 4/4:30 for number 2. Up for the day between 5:30/6….today he slept from 5:30-7 in my husbands arms…is this bad, or will it help teach him he can sleep longer in the morning?
So our typical schedule this past week was:
Bath, pjs, sleep sack, books, nurse, asleep by 7:30
Wake to feed at 2:30
Wake to feed at 4/4:30
Up for the day between 5:30 and 6:30…sometimes I feed him again at 5:30 and he will sleep for another hour
He naps around 8:30 for an hour
Nap around 11:00 for an hour
Nap around 1:30 for an hour
Nap around 3:30/4 for an hour
He sometimes only lasts an hour between naps…sometimes 2, and he sometimes sleeps up to an hour and a half or as little as 45 minutes. He still does 4 naps and is 14 weeks old
Does this sound ok?
Thanks for your help!
Hi Alexis,
I need your help! I have a beautiful 8 month old daughter who is the light of my life! Thanks to your website, she is an awesome sleeper at night. She is in her crib (awake, unswaddled) by 7:30pm and sleeps until 7:00am. It took awhile to get here (and we had to go down the CIO road), but we are celebrating every good night while we have them (you never know what tomorrow will hold)!!
My question is about naps…we have a crappy napper for sure! Everyday, she takes 3 naps, each on average 40 minutes (although we have had as short as 20 minutes and as long as 1.5 hours…and then I usually have to check on her to make sure she is still breathing haha!) She’s awake for 2-2.5 hours between her naps.
I know exactly why she can’t nap for very long. For her naps, I swaddle her in her nap blanket, bounce her on the exercise ball, and then put her in her crib when she is fast asleep. All of the things I shouldn’t be doing! Yikes!
Now that her nighttime sleep is going so well, I am ready to work on her naps. I would love some advice as to how I break these awful nap time habits (which are totally my fault!) I’m not opposed to CIO (since it worked so well for her nighttime sleep), but I’m not sure how to go about it for naps.
Thank you in advance for all of your wonderful advice! I appreciate any help I can get!!!
I hate to be a downer and I hope Alexis has something more useful to say, but in my experience CIO was not useful for naps. It took absolutely ages for my son to master fall-asleep-on-his-own during the day and naps longer than 45-60 minutes. I think it’s largely developmental, and day is just harder than night for long chunks of sleep. The good news is he’s now 2 and he goes down very happily on his own every day for his 2-2.5 hour nap. I think we got there at about 18 months, which maybe isn’t that helpful for you to hear. 🙁
WONDERFUL that you’ve had such success at night! And I do hope Alexis has more helpful advice than mine, which basically amounts to nothing.
Congrats on a night sleeper! Yay! I wouldnt worry too much about day naps myself as long as shes sleeping at night. DS is 15 months now and just takes 1 nap in the day now but can only fall asleep in the stroller. Hey ho thats life…and I have to walk the dog anyway so it works.
Kate is right in that nap-CIO is a mixed bag. It definitely works sometimes. But it’s not something that reliably works – you’re welcome to try but sometimes it’s a rough unproductive slog.
My advice is this – GET A SWING. Yes she’s “old” for a swing but you may only need it for a few weeks. She loves motion – you bounce her to sleep. GREAT use it! Then wean her off it/transition to a crib. Honestly the whole thing – if you’re lucky – could be a 3 week process.
Honestly get thee to craiglist and find a decent swing. You can resell it on craiglist after christmas!
Gah!!! Please help!!
5 month old. 2nd child (my boys are only 17 months apart – i think sharing this tidbit is relevant). he is a big boy (90% for weight).
we put him down AWAKE in his rocknplay. so, about 90% of the time he puts himself to sleep AND he isn’t used to “motion”. and he is still waking many times throughout the night!!!! ugh, i don’t know what to do. My older son didn’t sleep through the night until he was 14 months old and that was a combo of him being “ready” and a little CIO. Now the older one sleeps like a champ. I mean, 7pm on the dot every night and we wake him at 7am during the week and 9am on the weekends and he takes 4 hour naps at home on the weekends. But, i literally CANNOT go another 9 months with the up and down all night long with baby #2. i just. can’t. do. it. i haven’t slept in over 2 years – pregnancies this close together, not sleeping while pregnant and not sleeping after my 1st. and now with the 2nd it is just as bad.
tell me what to do. just tell me. i beg you. i will do whatever you say. i just. NEED. SLEEP.
I will also note that my 5 month old is STILL (i feel like “still” is warranted at the 5 month mark), VERY VERY GASSY. He is formula fed – Gentlease and on Dr. Brown’s bottles.
I just don’t understand why he will put himself to sleep repeatedly, he just won’t STAY ASLEEP!!! Sometimes he wakes up, i hear him talking and he goes back to sleep on his own.
Alright, this post is getting long and scatterbrained. sorry.
Hello,
I would really love some advice on dealing with our 10 month old’s looooooooong night wakings. There aren’t very many of them – normally only 1 per night – but it will normally be around 2 hours, or on a bad night, 3 hours before everyone is back in bed. She has been like this for months. In fact, I don’t think I can remember EVER having a stage where her “proper” wakings were under 1 hour.
A typical night will go something like this:
1. bedtime routine (solids, bath, breastfeed, story, song) and then she’s normally in bed between 7 and 8pm (though may be earlier if second nap was short or skipped altogether – which happens occasionally, though other times she has crazy-long naps – like 2 or even 3 hours). At bedtime she sometimes will go to sleep “on her own” (which for us at the moment means a parent on the other side of the room, which I know isn’t properly on her own, but it’s progress from where we were a few months ago) but typically these days needs her hand held whilst she falls asleep. (Hello, separation anxiety, nice to meet you. How long were you planning to stay?)
2. from bedtime up till 11pm, she might or might not have a couple of very short wakings where she doesn’t seem to wake properly and we can soothe her back to sleep within less than 5 mins.
3. from 11pm-ish (or very occasionally earlier or sometimes much later) she will typically wake up and cry until we go in. Then she’ll toss and turn, or fidget, or babble, or scream and cry, or appear to fall asleep for 5-10 mins, only to wake again the moment we leave her bedside. I will typically breastfeed her again at some point during this wake up but this doesn’t help speed things up. Even when we do all the same things that we do at bedtime (singing, hand-holding etc) she’s still awake for 2-3 hours.
4. Everyone goes (back) to sleep eventually and we sleep through till roughly 7am (unless the long wake-up started at 4am in which case we sometimes sleep till 8 or even 8.30am!)
There will be the odd night where she sleeps right through (e.g., 7.30pm to 7am – amazing!) for which I am always extremely grateful when it happens! I WISH I knew what we did differently on these nights so I could replicate it!
I know we need to get to the point where she she’s falling asleep without needing her hand held and without us in the room – but right now we just want to get the night wakings down to a manageable length (< 1 hour) so that we are all less sleep deprived and can handle a bit of crying whilst she gets used to self-settling. Any thoughts on how to do this would be much appreciated!
I am sorry i cant really give any advice but Im in same boat more or less so sympathise. DS doesnt have long night wakings particularly but I have fallen back into the trap of taking him into bed with me to avoid it and just get some sleep. I think the route of both our problems is the dependency on us to fall asleep and the underlying seperation anxiety at their age. Good luck and if you find the magic easy way of fixing it let me know. Im planning on doing a gradual retreat because I cant do CIO.
Oh my goodness you have just described the two months of hideousness we have just endured with my son. He was an awesome sleeper, sleeping thru at 11 weeks, we passed the 4 month regression relatively easily, I got into the habit of feeding to sleep and all was good. Until it wasn’t!
At about 9 months of age after illness, ear infections, teething and travel the wheels fell off. His day naps went haywire as he transitioned to 2 naps and the night wake ups began. Firstly multiple night wake ups, then wake ups lasting up to 2 hours and then still waking at 4am and 5am.
I purchased a ‘no cry sleep plan’ and while it was comprehensive and got me started, it was Alexis who got us to the end result. The best advice in the plan was to do whatever it takes to get the day naps back on track and to bring bedtime forward to 6pm to get try to combat his over tiredness. This worked while I would rock him to sleep, but when we transitioned to drowsy but awake in the cot it all went pear shaped again.
I wanted to avoid cry it out at all costs, so I sat beside the cot, shhhhhing, patting, hand holding and slowly losing my mind. It was horrible to watch my over tired baby take 45-60 minutes to go to sleep and then still have night wake ups.
Once our naps were under control the night waking a stopped, but the 45-60 minute getting to sleep continued. On a few occasions I would leave the room and he would scream like his world was ending. Once he vomitted after 3 minutes of crying. So I wouldn’t do it again.
One week ago I realised he was now 1 year old, I has been shhhhing for 3 months and we were going nowhere. So I re-read this blog, changed the routine to feeding then stories and set myself for CIO. One night after 45 minutes of the usual routine I left the room, he screamed like a madman for 5 minutes, then he wound down and had a break before ramping up again. It took a total of 18 minutes.
Night 2 was 17 minutes on and off, night 3 was 12 minutes on and off and night 4 was, wait for it, 90 seconds. He wasn’t asleep in 90 seconds, but the crying stopped and he put himself to sleep within 15 minutes. Every night since we’ve had the same result, with no night wakings and his morning wake up has gone from 5 am to 6 am so I’m thrilled!
I think our timing was good – the separation anxiety had passed, the routine was well established and I was ready to tackle it. I didn’t want to be the parent saying “he’s only 3” and still sitting beside his bed until he fell asleep. I just wanted to share my story so you know there is a light at the end of the tunnell.
Thanks for your replies. I have been trying a gradual retreat so that she can learn to fall asleep on her own. This has helped in one sense, in that she can now go from awake to asleep on her own with me sitting outside the door (usually with door open), though she does seem to need help with getting from standing to lying down (so I’ll lay her down with some soothing words and then walk out of the room).
However, it can still takes over an hour for her to fall asleep (naps as well as bedtime) and we are still getting ridiculously long night wakings (last night we were all awake from 3.45am until 6am….!).
Her naps are actually pretty good – possibly too good in fact. She takes two naps a day (has never really had three so we aren’t dealing with that transition) and they are often 2 to 2.5 hours long. This does mean that her second nap is often late which pushes bedtime back e.g.,
7.30am awake for the day
9.30am start trying to get her to nap
10.30am finally asleep for first nap
1pm awake
4pm start trying to get her to nap
4.45pm finally asleep for second nap
6.00pm awake
8.00pm finish bedtime routine and start trying to get her to sleep
8.30/8.45pm finally asleep
Is it possible that too much daytime sleep is causing the long night wakings…? Should we wake her from her first nap after 1 to 1.5 hours? I am reluctant to do this (“never wake a sleeping baby”).
I know her bedtime is too late but given her nap pattern, the only way I can see that we could bring bedtime forward would be to find a magic way of getting her to sleep within 10-15 minutes and/or wake her from her naps…
TL;DR: is it plausible that too much daytime sleep can lead to long night wakings and if so, should we wake baby from naps after 1.5 hours?
Hi Donne- something to consider…our daughter happily dropped to one nap at 11 months. It was taking forever for her to fall asleep at naptime (even though she acted sleepy) and so one weekend we just tried pushing naptime back to 12, letting her sleep as long as she wanted, then keeping her up until 700 bedtime. She was sleepy in the morning for about 3 days and then it fell into place. Schedule was wake up at 700, nap 12-3, bed at 700. So maybe something you could try!
Good luck!
Paige
11 hours.. at 3 – 4 months?? What kind of sorcery is this? It’s a miracle if my almost 5 month old sleeps 4 hours. What am I doing wrong? I will gladly sell my soul to whomever to get a few more hours of sleep a night.
Hi Alexis,
For the life of me I can’t figure out why my 5 month 3 week old has started waking at 3am (seemingly hungry) after sleeping 11-12 hours for the last 10 weeks. I successfully dropped dream feed 4 weeks back. This has been happening for a week now. Following a feed she will go back to sleep until 630am-7am.
She started solids 2 weeks ago (we’re going very slow, rice cereal, veg and fruit) and only has 2 small meals.
Her awake times are 1 hour 30, 1 hour 40, 1 hour 45 and then it depends on whether she takes the last nap as to whether she’s in bed earlier, 6pm or on time, 7pm. She sleeps 1.5-2.5 hours max, with last nap 30-45 mins, if it happens at all.
It’s quite warm in Sydney currently but I feel her bedding is appropriate and her day sleeps haven’t been affected during the hottest part of the day.
Any ideas?
I should also say baby has been put to bed awake since birth, no pacifier and generally a chilled out baby.
Help! I have been searching your blog for an answer and can’t find the topic that pertains specifically to my situation. My son is 13 weeks and has been sleeping through the night from around 3 weeks (10pm-5am) then from 6 weeks we started doing (8pm-5am). But this week he has been constantly waking up around 12, 2 and 4am. He is exclusively breastfed and naps great through the day. We are on a 3 hour schedule with an hour-hour and a half wake time. His naps are pretty consistent of an 1-2 hours. He has been able to put himself to sleep since 3 weeks so that had never been a problem and we use a sound machine. I believe his waling is due to teething for various reasons, but how should I handle it?? For the past few nights I nurse him for a few minutes then put him back in his crib. He will fuss for a few seconds then he’s back to sleep.
*consistantly waking up
Ashley- my now 7 month old did that- same story…slept through the night at 3 weeks, then that gosh darn 3 -4 month sleep regression hit me! Thought I was losing my milk, so I nursed her throughout the night, same times as you listed. Well that turned into nurse-to-sleep and co-bedding, because she got consistent colds, then teething, etc… That’s why I am reading this blog now. My daughter is a week short of 7 months and I just did the cry it out last night. Worked like a charm, but I am interested to see what Alexis says for you to do at this age. I wish I would’ve known too! Then I wouldn’t be here. Good luck to you and your son!
That’s an easy one:
http://www.troublesometots.com/the-thing-about-sleep-regressions/
There you go!
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!! I did it~ I let my 7 month old cry it out last night! I established a routine- dinner, play, bath, nurse just enough to make her drowsy, then I sang her a song when I laid her down in her crib. I said goodnight, shut off the lights, shut the door and she cried. Daddy went in twice just to comfort her. She only cried for 35 minutes then she slept. For 4 hours!! Woke around 11:30, cried for 15 minutes. I did not go into the room. And Ouila! She fell back asleep. Till 5 am! Then fussed for literally 2 minutes and went back to sleep until 730 am! 11 hrs. AMAZING! Thank you again! My only question is, should I be establishing this for naps too? Shes a boob- to – sleep baby, and I don’t want to ruin what I did last night by giving her boob to sleep for a nap. Also, say down the road she hits 9 month sleep regression, or teething agai, or sick… should I do the same and soothe her cribside, without picking her up?
Did I say thank you? What an amazing thing for you to give such wonderful advice out of the goodness of your heart 🙂
🙂 Hooray! Sounds like our story exactly when my son was almost that same age. Such a hard decision but we have a happier healthier better rested child as a result.
One piece of advice: we had trouble with continued night wakings for a LONG time after mastering “put down awake,” and my biggest mistake was nursing too close to bedtime. You will have better long term success if you make sure you have 15 minutes or so between the end of nursing and going into the crib. This is a hard and scary change, I know, but you’ll end up with less waking and less crying overall if you start that right away. Good luck!
Dear Alexis —
your website is extraordinary. I think I have read every popular baby sleep book available, and your website far surpasses all of them in clarity, compassion and sleep solutions. Your advice to put the baby down more awake was like a revelation that solved all of our sleep issues … until now. Disaster has struck and I am totally lost.
My little girl will be 8 months old next week. She started sleeping though the night 8pm-8am (waking up once to eat at 6-6:30 am, after which she would move to our bed, which I loved) on her own at 10 weeks. No night weaning, no sleep coaching. Things were marvelous — until the 4 month sleep regression. It took a few weeks, but we successfully used the sleep shuffle to get her to sleep soundly again — until the 6 month sleep regression. This one also took a few weeks, but the sleep shuffle got us through eventually. I should note that we never actually got to the final step of leaving the room. She still sleeps in our room, and it was never necessary.
Then, at 7 months, we moved. This destroyed her tiny world. We coslept for a week or so, because she seemed afraid and in complete distress, then transitioned her back to her crib. Things were just improving (we were down to 1 or no night wakings), but this past week, it all went to hell.
She is now awake screaming EVERY hour and a half. It usually takes her 30 minutes to fall back asleep. She starts drifting to sleep and after 5 minutes wakes up screaming again. Just for extra fun, at least one of these wakings (3am) will last an hour and a half. Two nights ago, she screamed every 10-15 minutes for 5 hours straight. She calms down if I pick her up, which I have done for the last two nights, and starts yelling immediately upon being put back into her own bed. She is still going to sleep on her own, with us in the room, although last night she screamed hysterically for 45 minutes while going to sleep for the first time in weeks and weeks. She just got a tooth two days ago and another one seems to be coming in, but Motrin does not help and she doesn’t actually appear to be in any pain during the day or in the evenings. What is going on??? Is it too early for the 8 month sleep regression? Is it teething? Separation anxiety? A trifecta of terror?
I don’t know if we should sleep train. Advice on sleep training during a regression seems decidedly mixed: don’t create any bad habits, but do whatever it takes. Any thoughts on what might be happening? Even just some advice on what is going on with her would be so very appreciated. I feel like I am losing my mind, and it is awful to see her so unhappy.
Hey Abagail,
I’m so sorry you’ve had such a rough time. Moving is the worst, I can’t imagine moving WITH a baby 🙁
I will throw out one small suggestion which is that while moving blows horribly – for most kids “a new place” is not that traumatic a thing. When you say you “destroyed her tiny world” I’m wondering if you might be projecting a little bit? Maybe moving is a rough transition for you (it certainly is for me) and you’re having a lot of feelings about it that you assume she is also having?
I’ve also noticed that babies are ENORMOUSLY in-tune with their Moms (particularly) so if you’re super stressed, she’s going to pick up on that vibe. Not that there is anything you can do about this (yoga?) it just is what it is.
As for why she is screaming – I’m not entirely sure. Yes separation anxiety peaks at 8 months but typically doesn’t manifest at the level you’re describing. Nor does teething.
It does sound like classic object permanence stuff. You say she’s falling asleep alone yes? But I’m wondering if she’s really alone or if you’re there and then you leave? My gut tells me there is something going on AT bedtime that is leading to the wakeups. If you’re in the room when she falls asleep and aren’t there all night long that could definitely be the culprit.
Sleep training “aka crying” my not be necessary. What if you gradually move farther and farther away each night until she is used to falling asleep with you out of site? Thoughts?
Hi Alexis,
thanks so much for your response! A couple of days after writing my post, I tried doing exactly what you suggested — slowly moving away from my daughter’s crib as she fell asleep. I think you are completely right about the stress issue. I caught up on some sleep before starting our new sleeping regiment, and I think it allowed me to be calm and collected at night, which made all the difference. A few days (and two new teeth) later, I was out of the room and my baby was back to sleeping through the night for a blissful 8 days. Unfortunately, two days ago she caught a cold and is completely congested, so we are back to waking up every 2 hours and then yelling for 2 hours straight from 3-5. Sigh. I think that basically whatever discomfort that she is experiencing at night is then exacerbated with object permanence. What really confuses me is the screaming, which is terrible. It doesn’t stop even when we are rocking and holding her from 3am onward, and now seems to be happening for naps as well (not at the start of the nap — she wakes up halfway through). She is such a happy, smiley baby during the day and I have never heard screams like this until she hit 7 months. We’ve seen her doctor and there is nothing medically wrong with her other than a slight cold. I guess if we got through it once, we will get through it again following your advice! Thank you again! It sometimes seems that sleep training is not a phase, it’s a lifestyle. It’s nice to feel like you have support.
Is this total sleep? Or the amount of uninterrupted sleep? I have a 17 month old that goes to bed around 7:30 a.m. If he wakes up before 6 a.m. we give him a sippy of milk and then lay him back down and he’ll go back to sleep until 7-8 a.m. If he wakes up after 6 a.m. then he’s usually up for the day. So on average my son gets probably 11 hours at night, but it’s not always uninterrupted sleep.
Oops I mean goes to bed at 7:30 p.m. 🙂
I wrote to you a few months back about how my baby wakes up very early in the am… And he doesn’t even sleep straight through until then. My baby is 9 months old and goes to bed around 7 and wakes up at 4am. Nothing works to get him back to sleep. Feeding doesn’t work, nor does any type of “assist” to go back to sleep like rocking or butt patting. He’s UP. So he’s only getting
9 hours of sleep at night. He used to get about 10 at least or 10.5 so I don’t understand what’s going on. A couple days this week he was up at 345!!! He goes to sleep alone completely wide awake. He nurses once a night (twice if you count me trying to get him back to sleep at 4 and failing miserably.). What’s the answer here? I’m at the end of my rope!!
Hi Alexis! I’m back again for some quick advice if you can give it! Thanks again for all of your help in the past! We have enjoyed awesome sleep with our little guy the past few months because of you!
Anyway, he is about 8.5 months old now and for probably the past month his morning wake time has shifted earlier and I’m wondering if there is something that needs to be changed. He goes down awake at 7:00pm with a great bedtime routine. He used to sleep a ton – until 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning (I know – we were so lucky!). That shifted to about 6:30 or 7:00 for a little while, which was still great! Now for the past month or longer he has been waking up between 5:00 and 5:30 consistently.
I’ve been patient and given it some time to see if maybe it was teething or just a growth spurt or something, but now after a month or so of this, I’m wondering if it’s something else? He doesn’t cry – he just wakes up and rolls around/babbles in his crib until I go get him. I always give him quite a bit of time to see if he’ll go back to sleep but he doesn’t (I’ve left him in there for over an hour before just to see). I wouldn’t think as much of this, but when I do finally go get him up he still seems tired so it leads me to believe he is waking before he is fully rested.
Also, the past few days now he has been struggling with his naps a little. He seems tired but then when I put him in his crib to nap he cannot fall asleep or takes FOREVER to fall asleep (45 mins – 1 hour). Then he’ll be awake for too long (4 hours sometimes) and finally crash. I’ve actually started wondering if maybe he is ready to transition to 2 naps (right now he still takes 3 a day)? Could waking earlier in the morning be a sign that he needs less naps during the day? The only thing with this is that he still seems tired after 2 or 2 1/2 hours max of being awake, so moving to 2 naps would require that he be awake longer than that. Wouldn’t that cause him to become overtired and make things worse? Should I temporarily move bedtime even earlier to make up for it?
Also, I’ve noticed that when I do finally go get him in the morning, a lot of the times he still seems tired. I nurse him right away and he will be almost dozing off (but not quite) while he’s nursing, so I feel like he’s not sleeping in as long as he needs to. Another thing I’ve thought of is maybe this is due to separation anxiety – I know you’ve said it peaks right about this age. If that’s the case, is it just a wait it out issue?
Just wondering what I should do about the earlier wake up (if anything). Should I go get him soon after he wakes up at 5:00 or 5:30 or continue to leave him alone for a half hour/hour to see if he’ll go back to sleep (even though he doesn’t)? I usually try to wait until at least 6:00 before I go get him. And should I move to two naps even though he seems so tired or let that happen on it’s own? Hope this all makes sense!
Thanks again!!
Our 17 month old is finally sleeping thanks to Alexis and the sleep lady. But no matter what we do she will only sleep from around 6:45-7:15 pm until 4:15-4:45 am. Luckily we get up at 5 am so it isn’t that big a deal to us, and we are just so thankful that she finally sleeps all the way through the night since we didn’t get here til she was 15 or so months old (and I found this blog!).
Hi Alexis – your site has been so helpful, I’ve recommended it to many friends. Thank you! …my 16 month old sleeps 12, sometimes 13 hrs at night and she’ll nap about 1 1/2 hrs in the day. However, every so often she’ll wake at night. We’re not nursing anymore and she has no interest. We can’t sooth her to sleep. IF she wakes, we’re looking at 2+ hrs before we can get her back down. Do you have articles on methods about this issue? Thanks!
Great info! We have found that our 8 month old son wakes up at 6:39 a.m. no matter what time we put him to bed. I would love to be able to keep him up later so my husband could play with him after work, but I put him down at 6:30/7 to give him enough rest. The nights we let him stay up later are awful and end up with more night wakings. People often don’t believe me when I say he has to go to bed early, but it’s the only way to get him to sleep well.
Is 6months old too young to expect my baby to sleep 12 hours at night?
I have been trying everything I can to help my daughter sleep better and things just seem to be getting worse. She wont nap more than 30mins (if she even naps! She fights naps all the time no matter how soon I putbher down after seeing tired signals) and went from waking 1-2times to eat, to 4-6 times just because!
Im pretty sure she is chronically sleep deprived, which makes my husband and I sleep deprived too. Getting enough sleep is key for me since I struggle with depression. I really have tried just about everything!
Is there such a thing as a baby that is just a bad sleeper?
Please help!
Are you putting her down awake? This was the point we were at before deciding to sleep train. My son got progressively worse from the very promot 4 month regression on. It was like he was asking me to sleep train. Hes 8 months now and aside from teething and milestones he sleeps7:00/7:30 pm to 6:00/6:30 am
Yes, i do. I usually stay with her until she is drowsy, and then I out her down. She’ll toss and turn until she’s asleep. I tried doing the progressive waiting sleep training but it didnt work. She’d just cry and cry, and i didnt see improvement even after 4 or 5 days. Im at the end of my rope. Im so exhausted.
Beth, this sounds like my six month old son. Same thing. I got on Zoloft, and it has helped. Also, I don’t know if you have the funds, but we make financial arrangements so that we can pay a night nanny three nights a week. It’s a life saver. I, too, have done all the “right things” to little avail. Yes, we do put him down awake, let him cry (he can Ferber for six hours), keep a schedule, don’t use a pacifier, don’t nurse to sleep, etc. Several of my friends, moms of all ages, assure me there are kids who are just bad sleepers and it will eventually end. I was beating myself up, which didn’t help my depression. It has helped to hear that other moms say its not all my fault. Just do your best and get through it. If you have any success, I’d love for you to reply to this and you can bet ill try that too.
Hi Beth, i am reading your lines about a year after you have posted it. I hope that by now you dont even remember this problem:-) I am at tbe exact stage now with my 6 month old. Can i ask how you managed to turn your baby’s sleeping pattern around? We are exhausted by now…he wakes up 4-6 times a night and sometimes he is up for 1-2 hours… Any suggestion from you would be much appreciated. Many thanks, Zsofia
Sofia,
I see Beth never replied, but perhaps you could tell me if you have made any progress? I’m on the same boat right now…
I’m in deperate need of help (I imagine you hear that a lot). I have a 9 month old girl who is still waking every 2 hours at night. She is a great napper, taking 2 naps a day with the first one being 2 hours and the second one being an hour and a half. We have been doing CIO for over a month now and she cries for about 10-30 minutes before falling asleep. I don’t know what else I can do to encourage longer sleep. At this point, I would leap for joy at 4 hours.
Hi Whitney,
Not sure if you will check this as it has been so long since your original comment. My son woke every two hours all night long until he was 11 months old. We finally had success with a longer bedtime routine. Bath, books for 30 – 40 minutes in a dimly lit bedroom and then nursing for another 10 – 20 minutes in a dark bedroom. We also turned the heat up and put a humidifier in his room. This way I knew he was warm but not completely dried out and thirsty. We put on music for the first 30 minutes after laying him down. Also we had to do the cold turkey method. Do not go in once you have laid her down. Everytime I went in to comfort him it would just wind him up again. 5 nights of this and he started sleeping for longer periods. Good luck!
Thanks for the reply! I’m always needing all of the help I can get 🙂
Our bath routine looks like this:
Nurse, bath, clothe, book, song, bed by 7. I put her down wide awake and she puts herself to sleep fine. She’ll sleep for about 3-4 hours that first stretch then she’s up every 2. When you say you did the cold turkey method, was that for night wakings as well? Or just the falling to sleep? The heat and humidifier sound like good ideas. I’ll have to start trying that!
Thanks again for your help!
My son is now 11 months and is not sleeping well at night anymore. He is put down awake around 7/7:30 and falls asleep on his own, chatting to himself. He is good until after midnight, then its a guessing game. Most nights he wakes around 12:30, 2:00, 4:00, 5:30, and waking for the day by 6:30. He was only waking at 4 for a long time, as I would nurse him then, trying to wean him from that one but I figured if that was all it was taking to get him past 6 a.m. then I was okay with it. But now he wakes up all the time. He is still only nursed around the 4:00 wake up. Sometimes he will put himself back to sleep but after fully waking up and talking for a few minutes. And now he wakes up more and more. How come he is waking up so much? He takes two naps a day (9:30 & 2:30) that are both around an hour and a half. And seems to be pretty tired when we are putting him down. I’m now pregnant again and so excited, but I’m just exhausted. Even though my husband goes in to help him back to sleep I’m still awake. We use white noise still, and he has a blanket and a lovey. Help!
Hi Kati,
I know this was posted so long ago but I am going through EXACTLY what you explained. Did you ever figure out why he kept waking up? I really.hope you get this message!!
Dear Alexis,
I hope you can help, I’m due to go back to work in a month and so worried that my 8 month old isn’t getting enough sleep.
She has quiet play, bath, feed and bed for 7ish, and goes down awake relatively calmly, like clockwork within 1.5 hrs she is awake again, loudly! Often distressed and desperate to get back to sleep. We don’t nurse, rock or fuss her but she will remain awake sometimes happily sometimes distresssed until midnight! Once asleep again she sleeps through with some murmurs until 8am, I have to then wake her as otherwise she’d sleep til gone 9am but I’ll have to be in work by then.
I know to some people this later waking sounds amazing, it’s just not practical or possible once I go back to work and I’m just so worried that’s she’s not getting anywhere near the sleep she needs with this giant awake time before midnight.
Please help – would really appreciate your advice. She naps ok in the day, 2 x 1 hr naps and sometimes a 45 min nap in the afternoon but never any later than 4pm.
Thanks
Hi! I’ve commented on here once before but didn’t leave a whole lot of information so I thought I’d try once again.
I have a 9.5 month old who is still waking every 2 hours at night and I’M EXHAUSTED. She’s a great napper, taking 2 naps a day and each one averages 1.5-2 hours. I put her down wide awake and she puts herself to sleep fine. We have a bedtime routine that starts about 6:15 and it looks like this:
Nurse
Bath
Change clothes
Book
Song
Bed by 7
I put her down wide awake and depending on the night she’ll either not fuss at all or cry for 30 minutes but she does eventually put herself to sleep. I’m a little nervous to night wean her because she’s refusing all solid foods (which is a whole other issue in and of itself) so I’m worried that she is genuinely hungry at least once during the night but I can’t imagine that she actually needs to eat every 2 hours! I would LOVE some help so that my family could actually get some sleep! She wakes up between 6:30-6:45 no matter what time we put her to bed which I’m actually fine with. I’m a morning person so that wake time doesn’t bother me. When she wakes at night I nurse her and put her back down so the night waking are short, there’s just a ton of them! Her naps are at 8:30 and 1 and she normally wakes from her 2nd nap around 2:30 or 3. We’ve tried putting her down earlier (around 6:15) but that doesn’t seem to help the frequent night wakings.
I’m obviously doing something wrong because all of the other moms I know with kids her age say they’re sleeping through the night. I just don’t know WHAT I’m doing wrong. ANY help is much appreciated!
Thanks!
Whitney, this sounds similar to my son. Not every 2 hours every night but some nights can be like this. Do you go in to him everytime he wakes at night? What I have started doing is letting him fuss (or at times cry) himself back to sleep if he wakes up before 1. Then I won’t feed him again until at least 3 hours after that feeding (so if he woke up at 3:00 I would let him fuss or cry himself to sleep again but if he woke up at 4:15 I would go ahead and feed him). IF he gets good naps and is not sick (he went through a bad virus last week) this seems to work fairly well. Before he was sick he was only waking up to eat once, sometimes twice, a night and going right back down. Now that he has been sick we have a had a couple bad nights again, but I am continuing this and hope it works again! GL to you!!
P.S. I know that every child is different, my daughter sleep trained in 3 nights, my son not so much! Just hang in there. We have been at it 1.5 months with him and his sleep is not perfect but significantly improved!
Thanks for the response! I actually love this idea because it still allows me to feed her at night without completely night weaning her. I’ll give this a try! Thanks again for your advice 🙂
My son is sleeping 12 hours, but the sleep is broken into 1.5-2hour increments. I am a walking zombie! He was sleeping through the night from 1month-3months from 8pm-5am, but right around 3 months he started waking a few times through the night. Now at 5 months we never sleep longer than a two hour stretch. He goes down around 7pm awake and with a sound machine. He will then wake up at 9,11,1,3:30,4:15,5:30,6:30,8. Out of fear that he was hungry, I always nursed him. He will eat for 2-5 minutes and then goes right back down. I have tried letting him cry, but in the middle of the night nursing him for two minutes seems so much easier. Is he too young to for me to wean some of these night feedings and try CIO?
Hey Ashley,
My 5 month old used to sleep through the night when she was younger as well. But now she wakes up a few times during the night, she does still get about 10 hours of sleep though. I was wondering about weaning her off some of the night feedings or just giving her some time to start sleeping through the night again. Have you figured anything out as yet?
Mattie
Hey Mattie! Yes, I’ve started trying some new things. I have started letting him CIO anytime he wakes before 11pm. It’s usually around 9:30 and 10:15. He will usually only cry for a couple minutes, at most. I think I was running in to get him too quickly. After a few days of doing this he stopped waking up at 11 and is now making it to 1am. I feed him at 1 and then usually again around 4:30. Sometimes he wakes up again around 6:15 but not always. If he wakes at 6 he will go back down until 8, but if not, its usually around 6. This is so much better than what we were doing! I’m going to give him a few more days then I plan on cutting out the 4am feeding. Hope this helps!
Hi Alexis,
Your website has been of immense help as we sleep trained our 9 month old daughter two weeks ago. She no longer needs her binky to sleep and is able to put herself to sleep successfully during bedtime and most naps. She doesn’t nap for very long during the day, never has. She usually naps for a half hour (not including her first morning nap, see below). For the past week, she has been waking up at 3am and goes in and out of sleep until she starts screaming around 4/430. I give her formula at that time and she seems very hungry. She then stay up for all of 20 minutes and goes happily back to sleep for an hour and a half. We put her to bed at night between 630/7 depending on where her final nap falls (usually around130). Am I making the mistake of not trying for one more nap and putting her to bed a bit later? We have a great bedtime routine and she falls asleep after talking to herself for a couple minutes. I am hoping I am not doing something wrong with feeding her at 4 and putting her back to sleep for a long morning nap. I would appreciate any adivce you can give. Thank you!
Hi Amy,
Have you found anything that’s worked? My daughter has also been waking up screaming at 3am and we can’t get her to settle to sleep without holding her after she goes back to sleep.
Hi Nicole,
My daughter ended up growing out of this. It just took time, which I know isn’t very helpful. She still sometimes wakes up in the night / early morning crying. I just comfort her the best I can, usually giving her a teether or milk. My doctor recommended not taking her out of the crib unless she is screaming. They also said no milk, just water in the night to make nightime as little fun as possible. This is a long term process and commitment and was hard for me to achieve because sometimes you just need to comfort them and do what you and the baby need to get sleep!
I am just returning to this site after referring a friend who is hitting the wall with her 6 month old. Oh how I remember those horrible, horrible non sleeping nights. My boy was an awful sleeper and I added to it by unintentionally making him chronically sleep deprived. By 6months I was crying every day and reading this blog all through my own sleep deprived nights.
So most importantly, THANK YOU troublesometots.com!! You made me feel human again!!
My sweet boy began sleeping better as soon as I applied all that I learned here, and at 8 months he slept “through the night” from 8p-6a
Now, at almost 18 months, I am happy to say, he sleeps from 7p-8 or 9am every…single….night!! YAHOO!! He usually wakes up around 6:45a or 7a, but only cries for 2-3min and goes back to sleep.
We’ve got double black out blinds, weatherstripping for the doorframe, constant lullabies, and he still uses his pacifier. But hey, we’re all getting sleep now, which makes for a much happier family!
I will say, he doesn’t nap longer than an hour unless he’s sick or in a new place and exhausted from excitement. But he does lay in his room during nap time for 1h30-2h total, cuz we both need a quite break during the day, even if naps aren’t very long.
It seems to me, that kids who sleep ~11hrs take great 2-3hr naps in the middle of their day which amounts to the same amount of sleep my 13hr night sleeper gets, with his 45m-1hr nap.
Best wishes to all you mamas struggling with or celebrating your babies sleep!
Hi, I am so glad you got it sorted but what did you do that made your son sleep better? Would be so great to hear because I’m at my wits end with my 4 month old!
Thank you!
We did exactly what this are recommends! We chose the weissbluth method of total CIO, because I just knew my boy would not enjoy me going in repeatedly to pat his back without being picked up completely. We have his room blacked out with a black out shade, foil on the windows, and a window covering. We’ve even bought foam weatherstripping for the doorframe because that let’s in a lot of light too. He has a constantly playing speaker connected to our iPod with a lullabye cd playing (in the early days we used white noise tracks). There’s also a humidifier that makes a constant quiet purrrr in the background. We also had him swaddled during CIO which helped. The only light in his room is the glow of the night vision baby monitor. He also used a pacifier which we clipped on. While he was swaddled this didn’t help because he spit it out to cry and then it was gone. But now that he’s no longer swaddled, te pacifier clipped on is great. Creating a consistent night routine was probably the most effective in teaching our boy sleep cues and he really loves it now. We do a 15-20 min bath. Then on the changing table for lotion, diaper, massage, pjs. (5-10min). Last, we sit in te rockin chair and say our prayers and give him kisses goodnight before laying him in the crib. (2-3min). Like I say, it was a 2 month process to sleeping through the night (I slowly weaned night fb between 6-8months old) but he made little improvements every week! And I feel ya, 4 months was my hit-the-wall point of sleep deprivation! My husband wasn’t ready to do CIO until shortly after 5 months old, so that’s when we did it. It definitely takes a 100% commitment and support of both parents to work, otherwise it’ll make your baby crazy if you go back and forth. Good luck!
My daughter is almost 16 months old and we finally started sleep training after her first birthday to stop the 2-3 middle of the night wakings/feedings. She would go back to sleep after 10-20 minutes of nursing but I couldn’t handle the 2am wake up anymore. So we saw a popular sleep specialist at a local hospital, got a plan, and eliminated the middle of the night nursing using dad and timed visits.
But those middle of the night nursing sessions were quickly replaced by a sleepy hour long session at 5am. Traveling to grandparents’ houses for two weeks at Christmas didn’t help and when we used our “lifeline” calls to the sleep specialist, she said to stick to the plan and only go in once, right after she wakes up the first time (5am, sometimes 4:30am). Then don’t go in again. But by 5am, she has slept for at least 9 hours and doesn’t go back to sleep, so after 1.5 hours, I go in to get her. We nurse for a long while and by then it’s time to get up. I don’t know what to do. I understand the logic of treating any waking before “wake up time” of 6:30am as a night waking but she doesn’t go back to sleep. I don’t remember the last time she just woke up calmly at 6am.
I’ve convinced myself that she will “eventually” figure it out (eventually is my favorite word of parenting so far) and her molars are coming in so I went in at 4:30am when she woke up this morning (bedtime was 7:10, fell asleep by 7:30pm). She sleepy nursed for 2 hours then was up. I tried to put her down a couple times and she screamed, so of course we just went back to rocking/nursing. I can’t do this forever. If my husband goes in first, she just stares at the door waiting for me.
Aside: After 10 months of the same bedtime routine, will the 10 minutes of crying after we leave the room ever stop?
I’m afraid we’ve confused her with sometimes dad going in first and sometimes mom and she’s getting too smart to trick her anymore. Any ideas on how to get her to sleep longer in the mornings?
It seems to be a common problem that when you eliminate night feedings, baby wakes up hungry in the morning when they are not as tired and cannot get back to sleep. I wonder if she was actually ready to give up all night feedings?
I really don’t know. I told myself she was fine at the beginning because the wake ups before 4-5am went away so easily. For now I’m going to force myself to go to bed earlier and roll with it (this morning she was up at 4 and 5:30, and I was able to get her back down, instead of staying up for 2 hours). We’ll see where we are in a few months.
Hi Katie,
I’d be interested to know how the early morning wakings are going for you now?
We have the exact same prob with our 13 months old. I was thrilled when we finally got her sleeping through the night about a month ago using Alexis’s advice, but she was consistently waking up and crying for an hour or so at 5/5:30am. So in the end I decided to feed her then in the hopes of getting another hour or two of sleep. That worked well for a couple of weeks, but now she’s waking up crying multiple times from about 2am onwards, seemingly wanting a feed. Like you said, I think she’s confused. So I feel like we’re slipping backwards, but I’m not sure what else to do short of getting up and starting the day at 5!
Juanita, have you found anything that’s worked? I feel like I’m having the same problem and don’t know what to do! My baby had slowly been waking up 30 min earlier and now is up by 3:30 am. Which is way too early for her for any of us to have gotten enough sleep!
When my daughter was this age she did this. We figured out (through experiment) that she really just wanted to be with us. She was not hungry. What we finally did was get a night light and put it on a timer to come ON at 6:30 in the morning. We spent a lot of time talking it up. When she would wake up before 6:30 we would not go in but tell her “the turtle light is not on, it’s not time to wake up yet” sometimes she would fuss but after about a week she would wake up and look for the light and if not on would lay back down (sometimes falling asleep sometimes not). If the light was on she’d call out for mama.
Hi! I wonder, can anyone share their experience with a younger baby? My son just turned three months a week ago, started napping during the day on a somewhat predictable basis, which is good, and we are successful in putting him to sleep while he manages to fall asleep on his own in his crib. We go to him several times but eventually he makes it. The nights have turned worse for us, however.
Originally two rather brief nursings a night changed into four thorough ones, besides that he requires a diaper change and two times he’s awake not wanting anything but fuss. I’m well aware that at three months there is not much we can “train” but I’d like to know, what is this shift towards “napping” at night? I also admit I resorted to bribery which has been working pretty well so far: a drop of herbal essence for his tummy (mint, fennel and aniseed oil, just that, no sweeteners or chemical bliss whatsoever) on his pacifier helps loads, but then can I spoil him by doing that? Could this have anything to do with the time I put him to sleep?
He’s not particularly happy staying up till 11.30 p.m. but earlier bedtime is a no-go. I only wish he could back to sleeping at least 3 hours a stretch, each hour and a half is a tad harsh. Thanks for your experience!
On the weekends my 8 month old can sleep up to 14 hours overnight, is that normal? Seems a bit much…
Our 8 week old daughter took a 5 hour nap yesterday. I couldn’t believe it. She then napped two hours later for a little over an hour. My husband thought she might be ill or going through a growth spurt. I said she probably wouldn’t sleep through the night because of all the napping, but she fell asleep last night at 730pm, woke to feed at 230am, and is still sleeping…it’s 845am!!! 13 hours at night! I had to find your blog to feel like this is ok. I feel like I should wake her, but know to let a baby sleep, as she probably needs it. I also know this probably won’t last!
My son is 4 months old and sleeps 12-13 hrs straight at night (not waking at all)
He wakes up happy as can be!
He is 16lbs do he’s a big healthy boy!
He usually falls asleep around 8 and wakes between 8/9am.
I was worried this was too much sleep but I guess it’s normal.
He just loves his sleep!
He usually takes a short morning nap around 11, just for like a half hour. Then he takes a long nap in the afternoon like from 2-4.
My son is almost 3 and up until about 2 had been a good sleeper usually sleeping from 7:30-6:00am. The last year he has started having a harder time going to sleep and staying asleep. He’s always been on the same routine. Dinner…bath…brush teeth…read stories and bedtime but it never fails that around 4:00am he’s coming into my room. Every night I get up walk him back to his room and usually he goes right back to sleep and then he’s up for 6:00 ( which is our time to get up and start our morning routine during the week so that’s no problem). I just wondering if anyone else has this problem? He usually goes back to sleep fine but once I’m up getting him back to bed it takes me awhile to settle back down and in 3 months I’m due with baby number two so every minute of sleep counts at this point.
Hi! My 2 yr. Old is the same she sleeps in her bed but gets up early morning to move ibto our bed. I just let her sleep with me too since my husband works at night but when he gets home and she feels crowded she goes back to her own bed haha.. i hear my niece and nephew age 5 and 6 does that too they said they miss their mommy..
Helllp! My baby is 4.5m old. Bedtime used to be a ridiculous ordeal. He’d fall asleep easily in my arms, but would always wake up when I put him in his crib. I’d settle him again, he’d wake again, etc. It usually took 2-3h. He was getting to sleep til 10, I wasn’t getting to eat dinner or see my husband- it sucked all around. I knew I needed to put him down awake, but it didn’t work, blah blah blah. So after reading a few books and doing some research, I’d armed myself, and was all set for CIO this fri. But then on wed he didn’t fall asleep in my arms during his last feed. And I decided to try just putting him down. And guess what- in 5min he was sound asleep. So, for the last 4 nights he has slept in his crib for 11-12h. The last two of those nights have been without any feeds. It’s amazing. I actually woke up on my own this morning, feeling rested, for the first time since he was born. And he’s happy and delightful int he morning. So now my problem is- the nap. HELP!!! He’s never been a great napper. 40-45min 3x is a good day. 2-3h nap has happened maybe 3x ever. Then recently he’s only been sleeping 10-20min. So I’ve tried to cio for naps the last few days. No dice. I let him scream for 45min yesterday, before I couldn’t take it anymore. Today he slept for 1.5h- in my arms, after I let him cry for 30min. Why won’t he nap in his crib? he’s proven to me that he CAN put himself to sleep in his crib, pretty easily, at night. I use the same routine (dark room, white noise, no blinky/musical toys, etc). Why are naps so different? I know he’s tired… I try to put him down 1.5-2h after waking up, or when he’s starting to act tired. Everything I’ve read says bad naps are a symptom of bad nights, but… his nights aren’t bad (anymore). I guess for now I’ll go back to nursing/car/stroller naps, because at least that works, and he NEEDS a nap. Enjoy my nights and work on naps in a little while? Maybe 4m is too early to expect good naps? ANY thoughts are very welcome! (and forgive me if this has been addressed ad nauseam somewhere- I can’t find it!)
My LO is 5.5 months old. She is fed 100% BM – either nursed or pumped. The last few days, she has been waking up at night (I’m talking like 6 times) — each time, she is like a starvin’-marvin’ …. we started her on solids Saturday but this behavior started Friday night. What gives? Up until Friday night, she was waking 2 times a night, and before that, she was sleeping through the night (10+ hours). Help please!
Most likely a growth spurt of teething. How is she doing now?
This week she has had a fever so we can’t count that. But up until Sunday night, she was still getting up a lot at night. Any home remedies you can think of?
Hi,
I have a 6 month old son who hardly sleeps at all, most of the people posting on here can at least count on naps to ensure that their babies are getting some rest, I am not one of those people. My son has two 20-30 minute naps per day and wakes every 3 hours all night long. He goes to bed at 9:30 and is up for good at 6am after waking at midnight and 3 am. We have zero support where we live, our family is all at least 4 hours away and I have two older children to care for. I’m going to loose my mind. By the time I finish making dinner I feel like a crusty eyed troll, I have no time to get anything done for myself, seriously, I haven’t showered in a week. Even now I am eschewing my household duties to write this comment in the desperate hope you have some ideas for what the heck is going on with my kid. I put him to sleep awake, I do not nurse him to sleep, no rocking or patting, mobiles etc. I have a fan running in his room at all times for that lovely white noise everyone is all excited about. I feed him “solids” ie: Rice and oatmeal cereal, apple sauce, bananas, baby biscuits. At his before bed feeding he has 4 TABLESPOONS of rice cereal, 2 tbsp Apple sauce and 6 oz of formula and is STILL up at midnight. How can this be?! What can I do? My husband wants to ferberize him but, I don’t think I can do it.I’m at my wits end 🙁
9:30pm is way too late for a 6 month old to go to bed. Try 8pm.. He still may sleep until 6am but you will have an hour and a half to yourself
My 10 month old will not get more than 9-10 hours of night sleep. When he wakes after 9 hours, I nurse him and try to put him back down to sleep but he stays awake for at least 2 hours before he will nap. He is never achieving the 11-12hour sleep cycle. This has been so frustrating for so long now. I don’t know what I can do to stretch his night sleep.
He naps well during the day. Usually twice for 1 1/2 to 2 hours each. Should I wake him from his naps earlier?
Hi Jennifer.
I’m in the same boat with my 10 month old right now. Did this ever resolve for you?
My son is 9 mos old and sleeps 11 to 12 hours a night. He gets up at 8 or 9am takes a 30 min. To an hour nap 2 hours later then takes another 2 hours nap around 3 or 4pm and i put him to bed for the night at 9pm. I think my son just loves to sleep coz when he was born he sleeps 4 to 5 hours and it got me worried at first coz my other child didn’t sleep that long as a newborn. But i say i am very lucky with my kids. They both sleeps by themselves without being rocked or sang. I just put them into their cribs and they just fall asleep on their own and sleeps all night.
My almost 7 month old boy used to sleep 7pm – 6am but has started waking up at 5:15/5:30.. I know it’s still OK (10,5hrs, right?) but should I move his bedtime to 7:30/8pm just for the sake of my sanity?
We did CIO a month and a half ago and during some nights he even did full 12 hrs but not lately.. He wakes up once to breastfeed around 1-2am
Help. Or….?
somebody please tell me if this is normal. so I started sleep training my 10 month old. i would bathe him and nurse him and when he fell asleep i moved him to a different room in his crib. he cried for hours!! he only got a total of 4 hours of sleep. and all day today he was just extremely cranky!! so today I decided to do something different after reading this article instead of waiting for him to fall asleep I waited til he was drowsy but not fully asleep n moved him as soon as i moved him he whined a little but remained quiet the whole time its been 3 hours n not a peep. but i check in on him n hes just standing there looking around in the dark. is that normal?? will he eventually fall asleep???
So my 5 month old is sleeping great at night. Down around 8-9 (sometimes 10) because husband and I both work and don’t even get him home until 6. He wakes up around 2-3am for one feeding and back down until around 6am. But is this enough sleep? His naps are brief (20 mins) if at all except when he takes a nap on me (a guilty pleasure for Saturday mornings) which makes it about an hour or so. I feel like he is fine, but everything I am reading says he should be getting more. We have started to put him to bed on his own and generally he will fall asleep and stay that way. Am I just being a paranoid new mom?
Can I nominate you for a Nobel Peace Prize? Everyone knows that the first year of life is difficult for parents because we aren’t sleeping which leads to lots of fights and you bring wonderful peace to many lives. Or at least you brought harmony to mine at least. Baby FINALLY slept through the night last night for the first time, it was amazing! Was I sleeping, no not at all because I kept expecting him to wake up, but he slept!! Granted I’m sure it will storm tonight, but it’s possible, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, I’ve seen the unicorns, and I just might now play the lottery to see if my luck holds out! Don’t worry I’ll share some of my winnings as a huge thank you:D
I am loving your information on baby sleep. I have been obsessed with getting my baby into a good sleeping habit since she was very young… not sure if it makes any differences but she sleeps from 7:30pm – 8:30am, so that’s 13 hours. My baby will nurse twice between these hours, usually around 3:30am and again at 7am. Both time she rolls back to sleep. She was doing this since she was about 10 weeks old.
I follow the advice of putting baby down sleepy but awake, but I’m wondering… just because a baby’s eyeballs are closed, could they still be technically “awake?” Like in the light sleep zone?
My 16 month old sleeps 12 hours a night and has since about 11 months (before that sleep was a nightmare that only a lot of CIO could solve). BUT he dropped to 1 nap a day around that time, too, and some days he only naps for about 45 minutes (most days, 90 – 120 minutes). He seems to like to do most of his sleeping at night, and it just works for him.
My 9 month old’s schedule is off kilter by an hour. She has been regularly early morning waking at 4:45-5:00am. I nurse her at 5:00am, then return her to her crib. She does not go back to sleep, plays in her crib, then starts wailing at 5:40am. I can deal with this disgusting wake time (by ignoring her and putting a pillow over my head…. not that I can EVER return to sleep), but the problem is that she needs a nap by 8:00am. The nap usually naps an hour (sometimes an hour and a half) I then put her down for an afternoon nap around 12:30 or 1:00pm. She sleeps for an hour (or an hour and a half sometimes). Problem is… she is exhausted by 5:30 or 6:00pm. I put her to bed.. and then the vicious cycle starts again. Is there some secret to adjusting the schedule by a few minutes a day, until I get to where I want to be? I am dreading the up-coming daylight savings time. If her schedule “falls back” by an hour, I’m totally screwed. Help? Anyone?
Just commented and then saw your post-we are having the exact same issue-did you get any advice?
my 6 month old baby sleeps at 12am – 11pm. is it to late to sleep train her? she NEVER cries. she only whines. i’m a first time mom btw. any advice?
Love your site! I’ve sent it to quite a few first-time mommies over the last few months:) I would love to get your suggestions for my 9 and 1/2 month old! Overall she does really great..She goes down for naps easily and usually naps around 45 mins to an hour in the mornings and 1.5-2 hours in the afternoon. She is still using a paci during naps, but not at bedtime. A little over a month ago, she cut out her 3rd nap (wouldn’t take it no matter what we did!). She was sleeping from around 7:00/7:30pm-6:00/6:30am without making a peep all night:) Now that she has cut out that 3rd nap, she gets tired and fussy earlier in the evenings (cries when we put her down when she used to go right to sleep), and we have to put her down around 7pm at the latest. But for the last month she has started waking up around 5:30am and won’t go back to sleep. Some mornings it’s even 5:15 or 5:20am! She is getting less total sleep at night (was getting 11 hours or more, now only gets 10-10.5 hours at best). We are stuck in this cycle of her getting up early, being tired earlier for naps, and then having to go to bed earlier at night (which equals another early wake up time), and so on and so on….any suggestions for helping her in the mornings?
Hi Allison,
The vicious cycle continues… I so fear daylight savings time when the wake-up begins at 4:00am. Although maybe the elusive 3rd nap will return then. I try to ignore the baby until 5:45am, but once she wakes me up, I can’t get back to sleep. She never goes back to sleep. Let me know if you find anything that works. …I just hope it won’t go on forever…but if it does, I’ll just have to accept that 9:00pm is my bedtime.
My 17 month old takes 3 1/2 hour naps during the day, but at night is up every. single. hour. and crying like she’s in pain. I’ll give her a sip or two of her cup and she’ll generally go back to sleep, but then she’s up again 45 minutes to an hour later again. She only takes 1 nap a day, noon to 3:30, goes to bed at 8, and does this every hour thing until 8am. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m at my wits’ end!
Sounds like a classic sleep association/not falling asleep alone issue. Have you read this?
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/
I’m 98.3% confident it answers your question.
Yes, I have, and I always put her to bed awake. Even during the night when she gets a drink she doesn’t go to sleep with the cup. We do room-sharing, and some nights we co-sleep just so I don’t have to wake up fully to tend to her.
Things that happen “near” to bedtime can result in sleep associations that result in her needing your help to cycle through sleep all night long. This could be her getting a drink anywhere near bedtime or some other aspect of your bedtime routine.
I would take a look at substantially re-arranging what is happening at bedtime because that’s most likely the root issue.
Our bedtime routine starts 6:30pm with supper, then bath, then reading a couple of books. Then I put her to bed awake ans walk out. We did controlled crying to get her to go to sleep at bedtime without any crutches. I even went so far as to have her doctor try her on Zantac every night, in case it’s an issue of reflux, but that was when her naps were short too. So the only difference I can find between bedtime and the middle of the night is that during the night her 4 year old sister and I are both in there too. I’m getting desperate. I can’t really do CIO during the night or everyone will be up. Plus if she wakes up enough to CIO during the night, then she’ll stay up (I tried sleeping in a different room a couple of nights). The 4 year old didn’t sleep through the night until after the 17 month old was born, so I haven’t slept for more than 4 hours in over 4 years. I have kids who are age 26 on down and never had these issues until the last 2. Maybe I’m just too old for this.
I thinks it’s natural for babies to want to suck on something while they are sleeping and if they don’t have something to nurse on, they are uncomfortable and cry. I am surprised to hear that some put their babies to sleep without nursing on milk or anything at all. My son will only sleep when he is in a soft bed nursing with a bottle of milk. I guess this is sort of how he’s trained to sleep since he was born.
…
My son is 4 months old and always sleeps from 1:18am till 12:30pm sleeps right through (11 hours) ive tryed putting him down early after his last feed but won’t settle till 1am im happy he’s sleeping for 11 hours but im not happy with the times im worried it will effect him later in life. I don’t know what to do I need some advice. Thank you.
http://www.troublesometots.com/bedtime-what-time/
Read that and do what it says 😉 Namely start waking him up earlier (12:15, 12, 11:45) and shifting the rest of his schedule up with it.
Clearly you and he will both be much happier once you aren’t all staying up till 1:00 AM. Commit to waking him up increasingly earlier, it takes a while but I promise it’ll work!
Out little girl has been sleep 10 hours at night since 4 mos old and 2 2 hour naps, now at 13 mos has been sleeping 13 hours since 11 mos but naps are a nightmare! 20 min or 30 once a day on a good day or if we have a lot of car time it’s longer or if she is held the whole time 😳 Is it possible that she doesn’t need them since she is sleeping the straight 13 hours at night??
I could buy that she’s ready to go down to 1 nap a bit early, but even with a 13 hour night (which is awesome) I have a hard time believing that an 11 month old kiddo is OK being awake for an 11 hour stretch. Usually at this age 4-5 hours would be a singularly large stretch and that being awake far longer than that is going to lead to bad times all around. I do believe there could be lots of other reasons why she’s struggling to take longer naps though 🙁 If it were me I would focus on:
– making sure she naps at the same time every day
– that those times are the right time
– falls asleep on her own
– she has a dark, quiet space and maybe a lovey
– a consistent wind-down routine
Hope that helps, good luck!
Alexis
Thank you!! She’s now 13 mos, at 11 mos I would just hold her through a nap because I knew she needed it but wouldn’t sleep in her own. It is very strange that I can’t get her to nap because bedtime is clockwork simple no fussing. Does nap time light/sound need to be like bedtime? If so maybe it is too bright in her room for nap… At 13 mos, could she be ready for no nap? It sounds like a stretch to me but any input would be a blessing! Thanks all!
I probably have the worst horror story of them all. My 5 year old never slept more than 6 hours a night ( waking up 2 hours in between) for the first 4 years of his life. I’ll spare you the I tried everything bit since I know you mommies know what I’m talking about 🙂
want to know what worked? When he was 4.5 ( and I was at my wits end) I once put him to bed at 4 pm. He asked me why, to which I replied ” well baby you need a lot more sleep than you get. If you’re going to wake up at 4 in the morning no matter how late you go to bed, then you may as well go to bed early.”
He stayed in his room the 12 hours. The next night wasn’t a school night so I allowed him to stay up until 930pm. He slept till 9 the next day 🙂
I’ll add and has continued to ever since. Now no matter what time he goes to bed he sleeps anywhere from 11 to 12 hours. Although sometimes he will need a reminder of when I put him to bed at 4 PM and then agrees that he’ll sleep LOL
Alexis,
My 6 month old is tired from day care when he gets home so we don’t force him to stay awake, I put him down between 6:30 and 7:00 every night. He sleeps pretty solid until around 4:30 am, which is has been asleep for 10 hours already. At this time, he struggles to get back to sleep on his own. After 10 hours of sleep, it is difficult for him to go back to sleep at 4:30am because he realizes he is a little hungry as well. I let him stir for as long as possible, but eventually feed him a quick bottle and he goes back to sleep just fine. I am a teacher and have to get up no later than 6 am so you can see how him waking up at 4:30 is difficult. He doesn’t want to get up for the day at this time, he just can’t settle himself after he has slept for 10 hours. Any thoughts? I’m afraid to make him go to bed later at night because he is so tired from day care, it almost would seem impossible to do that anyway. You can’t force a tired baby to stay awake.
Please help me!! I’m am past sleep deprived. My son will be 6 months in a few days. and every since he had his 4 month shots his sleeping habits have drastically changed. He is completely breastfed. When he was. Newborn up until the 4 month shots he would only wake up 2 times a night and would take excellent naps. I thought I had the perfect baby I was getting plenty of sleep. Then it all changed! A few days after he got his 4 month shots he wasn’t the normal happy go lucky baby that I had before. He would cry constantly and was never happy. He started waking up ever 30 mins to an hr. He is finally started being happy again but still isn’t sleeping. He wakes up constantly a night and it just keeps getting worse. He won’t take naps. If I’m lucky he will take a 15 min nap twice a day and then is wide awake ready to go. The majority of the time at night he doesnt open his eyes but he will start moving and kicking and grunting. Almost like he is in pain. I have tried giving him Tylenol, teething tablets, and gas drops incase he is hurting. I have tried everything anyone can think of to try to get him to sleep. I usually lay him down for bed at 7:30-8. I usually nurse him change his diaper and out him down. I have tried giving him baths to try and comfort him at night to see if that helps (it didn’t). I’ve tried giving him cereal because he acts like he’s staving when he does wake that didn’t help. I’ve put him in the stroller and pushing him around to go to sleep. Pretty much if you name it I have tried it. I am on the verge of insanity! I have constant headaches and my milk supply has gone down due to not sleeping. I’m out of ideas and I am starting to get frustrated with him. And I don’t want to feel like that towards my baby. I dread bed time because I don’t actually get to sleep. I just pretty much cat nap. before the shots. He would stay the night with my mom in the weekend and then after the shots he won’t stay at all. He cries and cries until I get him so I don’t even get a break then. It’s horrible!’ Please help me!!
Hi Alexis. I’m not Jessica Alba, but I wish I had her great hair instead of a sopping-wet ponytail. I call my look “New Mom.” Anyway … our daughter is 16 weeks old. She was an easygoing baby starting at about 3 weeks of age (don’t talk to me about the first 3 weeks), and started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. By “sleeping through the night” I mean 12 hours, from about 7pm-7am, with no interruption for feeding or soothing. We were consistent about a nightly routine, etc, but for the most part, I’m sure we just got lucky. Then, we went through a hellish, though brief, period from about weeks 12-15 after she became a paci addict and woke up every 45 minutes – 3 hours demanding her beloved paci. When no other attempts to soothe her to sleep worked, and when she started crying at all hours of the day and even vomiting due to the lack of good sleep (heartbreaking), we pulled the paci cold turkey. I know you say to wait until 6 months for CIO, but we felt like we had to do something that worked, and quickly, because it was really making her sick. After a mere day of CIO for all naps and nighttime sleep, her tummy problems were history, and she was back to 12 hour stretches again, and no crying before bedtime. Then, 13 hour stretches. Now … 14 hour stretches. No joke. I fed her at 6pm then put her down to sleep at 6:30pm last night. It is now nearly 8:30am. She is still sleeping happily. She stirs a lot in her sleep, but does so silently, or pops her thumb in her mouth to soothe herself back to sleep, and I never see her eyes open. Is she just working on erasing her sleep debt after those 3 weeks of bad sleep? Is it unhealthy for her to be sleeping this long? Or am I just a lucky b**** who should keep my mouth shut and enjoy my morning coffee and newspaper, or maybe do my hair while I wait for her to wake up?
Enjoy that coffee and let sleeping babies lie 😉 I’m guessing the 14 hour stretches won’t last forever so enjoy them while you can!
Will do! Thanks, Alexis 🙂
My son is the same! Usually 13 hrs but often 14!! We are just lucky. We didn’t do anything amazing that isn’t suggested here. We also weaned the paci cold turkey at 4 months because we knew him and what he needed and it worked like a charm after 3 days of CIO. I know it was early but he was so so ready.
YHV… I have a the same situation like u. We are blessed. But when people say it won’t last forever it’s like that makes them feel better about thier situation or something?!?My 6 month old girl has been sleeping 13 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I think a lot of it is in the routine. I don’t see why it wouldn’t last. She’s been consistently doing great which I attribute to sleep training… And a dash of luck!☺️
Just note that there are alternatives. I co sleep and get a great sleep. I breast feed on demand and have done since my lo was born, he’s 14 months now and happy and thriving. Check out attachment parenting sites (aha parenting) for other ideas. Not saying what you guys are doing is wrong just saying this is another option and one I’ve personally felt more comfortable with especially when I’m not sure if my lo is in pain with his teeth or a tummy upset.
Hi! My 8 month old hates to sleep. He takes 3(ish) naps per day, two in the morning and one in the afternoon. These naps are 45 minutes long. Always. He will not nap for longer than that. EVER. We still swaddle and rock for naps. Bedtime we have a nurse, bath, books, song routine at 6 pm and he goes down in his crib by 630. Awake, unswaddled, he falls to sleep on his own. Then the 2 hour cycle commences. He is up EVERY 2 hours like clockwork. He does not respond to CIO (will cry literally forever) and if I go in to soothe without nursing him, his crying escalates to shrieking. So I’ve been nursing him or listening to him cry until I feel like he is probably dying of thirst, then nursing him. I can live off of little sleep…but he looks so tired during the day, so I worry. He’s happy as a clam, but not napping well. Is this a teething/learning to crawl-brain-overload 6-8 month crazy-time thing? I keep hoping he’ll outgrow it but he never does…he never got any teeth either :/
One of the lucky ones, I guess! My 10 month old sleeps 12-13 hours a night with 2 2 hour naps daily. My 3 year old son also sleeps 12 hours a night, no nap. We started both of our children early on with the same sleep routine. They were in their cribs by 5 months in a swaddle sleep sack,black out shades and a CD player that ran all night playing lullabyes. By 2 months they were 5 hour stretches, 4 months 8 hours and by 6 months they were sleeping 12 hours. My son went through a phase at 9 months of waking around 11 p.m, CIO for one night for 1 hour did the trick. Also, at 16 months my son was switched to a toddler bed (after repeatedly diving out of his crib one night), there was an adjustment period of one night there as well. My 10 month old is a late teether, only getting her first tooth at 9 months and one tooth per week in the last 5 weeks, but has managed to maintain her sleep schedule. She’s a very happy and active baby! I like to think it was our routine with them, but I think we’re just lucky!
Edit^ in their cribs by 5 weeks!
Hi all,
First time mommy here with a nearly 8 month old baby girl. For the past few weeks she has been going to sleep around 930pm and waking around 845am with 2-3 1hour naps during the day. I’m happy with this routine but am wondering if this sounds like too much sleep or a poor schedule. My sweet girl seems happy while she’s awake unless she’s teething then that’d a whole other story 🙂
Ps she still eats 2-3 times during the night but I am able to feed her without her waking.
Hi all,
First time Daddy here with a nearly 11 month old baby boy.
I need your help as my wife and I have the same aruments EVERY morning when our son wakes up after just 10 hours… i.e. 5-5.30am.
We have a good night time routine…. he has a bath, massage and bottle ready to go down to anytime from 7pm-7.15pm.
He wakes up screaming at the times mentioned – I believe he isprobably hungry but my wife wants to leave him the hope that he will go back to sleep. The difference of opinion is causing a huge wedge between us and I need advice!
Is 10 hours enough? Is he likely to go back to sleep if we leave him for a few days (or more) – or is he just likely to be hungry?
Thanks.
If you feed him at 5:00 AM DOES he go back to sleep for 1-2 hours?
Some kids just sleep 10 hours. Most sleep more so you’re wise to wonder, “Is this enough?” I think its worth an experiment. He wakes up EVERY morning at 5 AM. If you run with a bottle or nurse him – what happens?
I sometimes call this the snooze button feeding. If it buys you an extra 1+ hours of sleep great! IF not? Ehhh…
Do you think he’s starving? If you go in there at 5 AM does he act starving? How long have you been ignoring his 5 AM wakeup? Have things improved or is everybody just awake and unhappy until you get him?
My friend’s baby has woken up at 5.30 am for 2 years. That’s just her wake-up time.
We never co-slept, but when our daughter would wake up at 6am or whatever, we’d bring her to bed with us, feed her and she’d doze off. It was heavenly and didn’t seem to effect her going to her own bed at night.
Just to add – he naps well during the day.
45mins at least in the morning and then usually 1 and 1/2 hrs in the afternoon.
Thanks again.
From Day one, my daughter was an amazing sleeper…. By 2 months she would only wake once in the night for a feeding. By 3 months she was sleeping through the night, at 5 months she was sleeping from 7 pm to 7:30 am…. Gosh..What a great baby….. Bam… She turned 10 months on Christmas Eve and now wakes up crying every 2-3 hours then falls asleep, and is fully awake, crying non stop at 4:30…. WHY????? Does anyone have advice that could possibly help?
I have a regular 13hr/night sleeper starting from about 4 months old. We let him cry it out a few nights at 4 months old when he started rolling over all the time and couldn’t be swaddled and after those three nights it was amazing! He refuses to eat at night also. Sometimes he sleeps 12 hrs, sometimes it’s 14 hsr but I can typically count on 13, 6:30pm-7 or 7:30am. Good napper too. Talked to the doctor and there are no health problems, kid just likes his sleep. I know I am lucky. But, he was the WORST breastfeeder ever and is not a great eater so we all have one problem or another to worry about…
I hope this doesn’t end like the above poster. I would cry.
Lily – my daughter had sleep regression at exactly 10 months. I’m still not sure if it was a big developmental change happening with her or what. Maybe try a white noise machine, make her room cooler, try some diluted lavender spray on her sheet, try putting her down earlier (or later). Just tweak things.
She was sleeping 12 hours a night by 2 months. We finally had to do cry it out. We couldn’t stay in her room, comfort her or anything or she wouldn’t go back to sleep. It would take 45 minutes for 3 nights in a row – I would literally sweat the whole time. Their sleep issues suck, but it passes. She loves her bed, rarely puts up a fuss about going, and is content.
She’s still an amazing night sleeper (now is 3 years old). But she stopped napping at 18 months. She’s never been a good napper. You never know what you’re going to get.
My 11 month old daughter goes to bed at 10PM and wakes up at 7AM. If I put her to bed earlier, she wakes up earlier. She takes a nap from 11AM to 1PM and another from 5PM to 6PM. This is a schedule she has set for herself based on when she got tired. But she’s only getting 12 hours of sleep, and I’ve read she should be getting 14 or 15. Should I be worried? She doesn’t seem tired or cranky during the day.
I feel you there! My lo is 5 months and despite everything we’ve tried, he consistently gets only 8 hours of sleep night. It’s actually less than this, because he wakes up to nurse several times. We’ve tried so many things; purchased sleep plans, have every miracle and special swaddle blanket and sleep suit, white noises and sleep books. He takes 3 short naps and goes to bed at 7 or 8 pm sleeping until 5. I know it’s so much sleep than he’s supposed to be getting, but I just have to stop stressing and hope that he just needs less than most children.
I would try pushing her naps back. The 5-6 o’clock nap may just be too late in the afternoon. You could try waking her 30 min earl y from her first nap too
My LO is 5 months and sleeps no where near 3 hours at night.. I don’t know what to do. HELP!!
I think the key is a predictable schedule! Your baby has no idea when to sleep and eat…you set that for them. They’re like a clean slate you can schedule how you want! I have two babies (one is 18mo now and one is 11 weeks old) They both slept 10 hours at night by 10 weeks old. They both slept 8 hours at night by 8 weeks old. By 16 weeks my youngest little boy will be sleeping at least 12 hours at night, all because the way I schedule them. My husband and I like a 7pm bedtime so we have “us” time in the evening and we don’t want to get up before 7am on the weekends. So that is the schedule we went with! It can be different for everyone, depending on if/when they work, etc. My 18 month old may not necessarily sleep all the way until 7am but he stays in his crib until at least 7am. He stays content jibber jabbering, or laying there quietly awake until we come get him because he learned how to be content in his crib. Babies NEED a long (~12ish hours) chunk of sleep at night for brain development and growing. Your LO should not need to eat during the night at 5 months and only keeps waking because you’re allowing it by either feeding or going in your little one’s room and responding. It’s just a habit that needs breaking! Good Luck! I hope that helps somewhat!
I used to think just like you until my son was born. My daughter was a baby that I believed I had ‘put’ into a schedule. She had a bedtime of 7pm and slept through at 5 weeks and has had a beautiful bedtime routine for 10 years. My son was born and although had the same routine and scheduled bedtime still does not sleep at night or during the day several months down the line. Both children are polar opposites, and I have learnt that it is a lot to do with individual development and temperment and not all down to parental influences and most of all never to pass judgment.
Rose, your situation sounds a lot like mine, but you are far more gracious in your response than I could be.
Of course individual development and temperament play a role in any area in a child’s life. I’m sorry you assumed I was passing judgement. We as moms can also be enablers to poor sleep habits because of guilt, etc. It is a known fact that babies need long stretches of sleep at night for brain development, attentiveness and learning. Good, uninterrupted sleep is a gift to them and should be the goal of every parent for their child eventually! I was commenting in line with this post and to a mom that asked for help. I’m sorry I did not preface my original post with “this is my opinion and experience with my now 3 babies under 3 that all slept 12 hours by 4 months old.” They all have very different temperaments outside of sleep, so I still hold to my belief that babies can be molded into good sleep habits early on if it is something you value. Sleep for our babies is something my husband and I value greatly.
Lisa,
You’ve had 2 children who’ve conformed well to a schedule and hit the ideal averages, congratulations. But are you a sleep therapist, a pediatrician, a PHd in children’s development with a researched thesis on children’s sleep habits. The whole original post is geared towards mom’s who are struggling with their children not sleeping 12 hours and yes, many of us have kept strict schedules, invested in sleep machines, followed routines. We came here looking for guidance not to be shamed. You don’t know what children need, so don’t write that LO DON’T need to eat at night after 5 months. You don’t know what my child NEEDS or anyone else’s. Don’t shame mothers and make us feel like failures, especially because I haven’t had enough sleep to deal with “perfect” mothers, like your self.
Well said!
My little girl Is four months old and she NEEDS at least 2 feeds in the night and she NEEDS to fall asleep on my breast because she’s my baby and she wants to be with her mummy. That’s nature!!! Sometimes she needs resettling ever hour because she’s teething or unwell or simply feels lonely. She’s meant to be with me. I am designed to sleep cradling my little one (I don’t for safety reasons but boy would I love to). She has never slept overly well but is setting her own little routine. Last night she went down at 7, woke at 12 and 5 for feeds and is still sleeping now. I will wake her at 9. I work my day and night around her because she is four months old!!! These babies are not objects that we can mould. Each baby is completely different and personally, I don’t mind waking up in the middle of the night to cuddle and feed my baby. That’s what she NEEDS and that’s what she’ll get. She will sleep through eventually, I know the night wakes are only temporary, but until she does, I will enjoy my night wakings with my angel, my sleepy cuddles, because one day, she won’t NEED them anymore and boy will I miss that.
I don’t mean to be condescending or rude, but I have had quite enough of reading about perfect parenting and opinionated mums! Every Mum is doing a dam good job (with some disgraceful exceptional of course) whether she’s breast feeding OR bottle feeding/ sticking to a strict routine OR going with the flow, weaning or child at 4 OR 6 months… every person has a preference when it comes to raising their children. As long as these babies needs are being met, they are happy and loved, then you are doing it right!!!
Keep up the good work mums. We’re tired but these days won’t last forever xxx
No, I am not a sleep therapist or pediatrician. Just a mom of 3 under 3 that all slept 12 hours at night by 4 months old. Just sharing my opinion and experience to a mom that asked for help. I’m sorry you were offended. I sought out a lot of advice from my children’s pediatrician and others with my first child and was told healthy, normal children do not need to eat multiple times during the night once they hit that age. It is not something I made up. Obviously there are exceptions, there always will be and I never claimed to be perfect, but thank you 🙂
Lisa you writting:
My 18 month old may not necessarily sleep all the way until 7am but he stays in his crib until at least 7am. He stays content jibber jabbering, or laying there quietly awake until we come get him because he learned how to be content in his crib.
So they might not sleep this golden 12 hours? You dont know how long the oldest one is slepping. It’s just your guess its 12hours, because that’s how long he/she stays/you keep him in a crib.
We have a video monitor so we can see when they wake up. They typically sleep the whole 12 hours, maybe waking 15-30 mins early but they lay there and either fall back asleep until 7 or quietly talk to themselves 🙂
Lisa. Thank you for answering. I have further question. So both you LO were good 12hr sleepers, or did you train them, to stay in the crib? If so maybe you could share how?
I have very early waking up baby usually 5.30am sometimes 5 am and i tried to keep her in crib till 6am, she also sometimes jibber jabbering or play with her feet,pillows,blankets, but i saw her falling back asleep , only once. Mostly she is geting impatience waiting for us coming.
Whats the key?I m not aiming for 12hr its impossible for my baby i guess, but till 6am i would be happy.
We putting her to bed 7-7.30pm
I m thinking about buying some really darkening curtains and working more with her last nap, its sometimes too late, 3hr before bed time or less, maybe it should be 4hr before bedtime? My LO is 12months.
Thank you for any tip
Her last nap may be contributing…my kiddos last nap is 1:30pm-4:00pm and they go to bed at 8pm (used to be 7pm but they are now 2.5 and 18 months so they do 11 hours at night and 2.5-3 hour nap) They did sleep 12 hours (now 11) at night and I guess over the course of time just learned to fall back asleep. We started when they were 4 months old with sleep training the 12 hours and occasionally they would wake at 6:30am or a little earlier and fuss/cry a little/be impatient/call out when we were first letting them learn to be content in their cribs and we would let them be impatient and call out for 5-10 mins before getting them, or go back and find their paci for them and then leave the room. We gained 15 min increments of contentedness at a time and eventually, they would stay in their for 45 mins to an hour, maybe longer awake and content. (Sometimes my 2.5 year old doesn’t nap, but he stays in his bed for 2 hours resting). Hope this helps! This is just our experience and opinion that it is important for babies/little kids to learn to be content in their beds awake if they’re not sleeping. If you think about it, when i wake up in the morning, I love to just lay there awake for a little bit before getting up and tackling the day, I think thats important for little ones to learn. Good luck! 🙂
Same here
My baby is 1 year old.. she sleeps at 10 pm n keep waking up at night every hour for feeding until 6:30 am.. during the day also she sleeps for 40 mins in the morning n 1 hr in the afternoon.. how to make her sleep all through the night..
Our daughter was like this for quite a few months. I had become quite exhausted and I knew she did not NEED to be nursing this often at the age she was. So we decided that it would be best for all if we let her to cry for a bit longer each hour. Starting with 2 mins, then 5 mins, then 10 mins. It helped us push her wake times closer together. In a week or two she went from waking up every hour, to waking up three times in the night. She is now 12 months and goes to bed at 7:30 and wakes up at 5:00am. We give her a drink of water (as she has weined herself from the breast) and put her back to bed, she cries for a few minutes and then sleeps until 6:30am. We do give her a hearty snack before bed to help us know that she’s not hungry, and the best thing for her is to get the proper amount of sleep.
I am so relieved after reading your post. My daughter is the same in terms of going down by 7:30 and up by 5:00am. I cannot seem to get her to make it to 6:30am, but I do get her to take some water or milk (depends on the morning) and sleep another hour. But then she’s up and refuses to go down again until her morning nap. She typically takes one nap at 9:30am for an hour and another at 2or 3pm for an hour. My challenge now is for her not to walk in the middle of the night, which she’s been doing for the past few weeks since she caught and recovered from a cold. At 3am she’ll scream away and then it takes at least an hour to get her down again – if I’m lucky. It is taking a toll on me and I would love to figure out how to get it to stop, but the girl hates sleep…
My daughter wakes every morning at 4:30. And screams for an hour. I usually give in and I let her nurse and we usually fall back to sleep. But it’s such bad sleep for me I have been running in zombie mode for the past few weeks. I am so exhausted!
@kaby At that age a baby is capable of sleeping all night without night feedings. If she is waking every hour its due to her wanting you (separation anxiety and sleeping ques) My son went through this as well and the only way we got it fixed was to let him cry it out, sometimes up to 2 hours while going in every 30 mins to lay him back down. It took 2 weeks of struggle but hes slept 13 hours 7pm-8am ever since.
Hi,
I’m so curious. What time do you get off work and what is your schedule at night?
It is impossible for me to put mu kids to sleep by 7pm. I wonder if i’m doing something wrong?
Jean and Amanda, I’m right there with you! My 9 month old only sleeps 8 hours a night (less because of night time feeds or periods where he awakens and needs help going back to sleep). Everything I’ve ever read is contradictory to this! He naps for 1-2 hours upon waking, and again for an hour or less in the afternoon. Occasionally, he has a late 20 min nap. I’ve done everything I can possibly think of. He seems fine and healthy, just doesn’t sleep as much. :/
my LO is 10 1/2 months old.. she sleeps around 11-12 hours straight, but without feeding! is that ok? im worried, coz shes already underweight…
I would say you might need to speak to a health nurse or doctor. My LO was loosing calories because she was sleeping all night and my health nurse suggested to do a dream feed to increase calories and as she is now 5 MO I have also introduced solids.
I would ask your pediatrician their opinion. I will say that there’s a difference between “small” and “underweight.” If you mean she has a failure to thrive issue then your pediatrician will be able to help you. If she’s just small then chances are your pediatrician will be fine with the 11 hour fast at night. Good luck!
You decide the schedule not your baby. You are the parent. My babies took two two hour naps every day and slept 12 hours at night. Eating and sleeping need to be on a schedule. 11 is late for the first nap and 5 is definitely too late for a nap to start. I did 10-12 and 2-4 and by 7 at night they were ready for bed and slept all night. Make sure they eat enough during the day so they aren’t getting up to eat. My babies ate at 8, 12 and 5 when they were on solid food, but as very young babies they ate every three hours.
Wow! What did you to enforce your schedule? We’ve been having our 4 mo baby screaming like crazy when we put down for naps. We’re working to fix some bad sleep associations and have been creating new routines. Going down at night never an issue, but daytime even with dark room and routine is a battle 3x a day. Would love to hear what you did with your babes to make their daytime sleep so great!
Of course we are the parents, but all babies are different and some wake after 11 hours of sleep no matter what you try. And some wake up in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason, at different times each night, after a month of no night waking at all. And some babies fight a nap here and there. And so, in short, some babies need parents who are a bit flexible with how the day rolls out. If the morning nap happens at 9:00 because old boy woke up at 7am today, and clearly he can’t hack being up longer than two hours after he starts his day, then i need to adhere to the two hour rule in relation to when he woke up. 7:00? 6:45? 6:10? Don’t matter. Two hours from then is the control i have, when he wakes up (between 6-7am, earlier gets put back to sleep) is all up to him.
What we do to parent our children has much to do with their developing personalities. Maybe your kids are great with a set schedule. I have a kid who guides me a bit in what he needs and when. Other people have other kids that other things work better for.
Everyone loves using a baby swing for new borns, right? Yeah, my kid hated it. I had to teach him to bal using the car twice a day for a month an a half, but it worked.
That’s the answer – whatever works to get everyone as much sleep as they can get.
Used the car to teach him to nap. Not bal. bal is not a thing or a word that exists.
Hi Wendy,
Can you share about how you achieved the settled schedule? How old were your babies when you started to set this? I have a 3.5 mo who I know is too young to SLIP but I know she could be sleeping 11 hours at night…not there yet! Thanks for any insight!
My 10mo son falls asleep at 10p & he’s up around 6:30a. He has a couple naps throughout day. He’s been like this since 2mo.
If I put him in bed any earlier, he’s up earlier!
Same! It’s so frustrating!
My son sleeps so much. He is 9.5 months old. He goes to bed around 10:30 and will sleep until noon. In fact I had to go and wake him up today because he was sleeping past noon and he was still out the whole time I carried him downstairs. Sometimes he is in such a deep sleep after 13 hours that I can’t even wake him up if I touch him or say his name over and over. After all of that sleep about two hours after he wakes up he will sleep again for two hours!!! I wonder if I should be waking him up after a certain point?
He started sleeping this much after about 8 months. Has slept through the night since he was 3 months but no matter what would not exceed 8 hours.
I only ask this because you said his sleeping so much is new- have you checked with his doctor to make sure he doesn’t have any medical conditions making him so tired?
Then why on earth are you putting him to bed at 1030?! He needs to be in bed at like 6pm it would seem!
Kelly even if she put him to bed earlier he would probably still sleep 13 hrs… or putting him to bed earlier may cause him to wake up 2 hours later thinking he had only took a nap… my 3 y old can not go to bed before 930 if he does he will wake up 2 or 3 hours later wide awake
My son used to do similar but we slowly made his bed time earlier by being militant with his nap schedule and bed routine. We did this first by following what he did then, making it solid and super consistent with a very clear bed time routine which involved reading the same story every night, bottle, then bath then singing a bedtime song as we put him down. This anchors the fact that this is the BIG night time sleep. Then we proceeded to do everything 15 minutes earlier for 10 days. Then 15 mins earlier the next 10 days… and so on. Over time and with patience we get him to a 7:30 bed time. Just in time for me to go back to work!
I would still go to the doctor to check his bloods… but maybe he’s oversleeping is because his circadian rhythm is totally out of whack.
We were also advised to go tor a morning walk every day to get sun on the skin to help re set our sons rhythm.
My 11 month old little boy will go to sleep at 8pm and not get up till 11am the next day. All i do is give him a little something to drink before bed, make sure he is dry, lay him down, and sing him any song that comes to mind. He usually likes country or church songs best.
My 8 month old girl used to be the champion of sleep. When she was 7 months old, she’d sleep through the night 12-14 hours, then nap 2-3 hours during the day…Alas, those days are LONG GONE!!!
She now has a bedtime of 8pm. She’ll sleep until maybe 9, wake up and whine or cry until midnight, sometimes longer. Then she’ll wake up in the morning at 630-730am. (This is after falling asleep at midnight-1am). Eat, play, etc…obviously doesn’t want to nap, and if I’m out of sight, it’s the END OF THE WORLD!!!! I’ll put her down for a nap between 9am-11am. Normally when she starts to rub her eyes, so it varies.
(Is that wrong? Should it be a set time every day?)
Then another nap between 1-2pm. Naps are anything from 20 minutes to 2 hours. Then she gets tired around 5pm and wants to sleep. I refuse to let her. (Should I let her nap that late? I’m exhausted and worn out from her staying up so late and I figured if she took a nap at 5pm she won’t want to sleep until even later but even refusing her the nap at 5pm, she still stays up forever.)
I put her to bed at 8pm. My routine for bedtime is something I’m trying to change, because it’s giving her a 6oz bottle of formula and getting her almost to sleep while holding her and then putting her to bed. Yet still she wakes up after an hour.
Also, we go on trips to my parents’ house about twice a month. They live almost 2 hours away so we’ll (me and baby-husband at work) spend the night for 2-4 nights every 2 weeks. They have a crib etc, I put cardboard and blankets over the sides so she can’t stick her arms or legs through the slats (I don’t know who the brain-dead freaking idiot was that designed cribs but they’re obviously made to make our lives as parents even harder by putting slats in in the first place so babies can roll around and get stuck in between the slats and wail half the friggin night through) and so the room doesn’t seem so big. I’ve also done this at my house, it’s helped since she started rolling at 4 months old.
She won’t sleep well, won’t nap well, and I don’t know what to do. I try to formulate my schedule so she can get naps in but A. She doesn’t want them. B. She wants to nap later, like when we’re out somewhere and I’ve nowhere to lay her down for a nap. C. I don’t do anything at home so the entire planet can revolve around her and whatever she feels like doing at that time. But when I’m out, like at my parents house, I make plans, try to work her nap schedule in, and she just doesn’t nap, or wants to when I’m out and about and there’s nowhere for her to nap. The only other option I see is to do nothing-no shopping, don’t go to parents house or anywhere else, no walks, no friends, GO NOWHERE AT ANY TIME so she can do whatever she wants when she wants to.
So: crappy naps, bedtime at 8pm, up at 9 until midnight-1am; sometimes she falls asleep between 9pm-1am but she always wakes up, about 3 times between 8pm-1am if she sleeps during that time, and then up for the day at 630am-730am.
I’m whipped. I quit my job to stay and care for her because it was too much on me to take care of her every night and then my husband doesn’t get home from work until about 2am so getting up to take care of her at 630-730am was killing him (I was already at work by that time). So I’m staying home just caring for her but I’m not getting enough sleep which is making me irritable and with husband working, I don’t have help.
I just need her to sleep longer than 5.5-6.5 hours a night, and hopefully until 8am if possible…though I doubt I’ll be that lucky anymore. She still uses a pacifier, which I’m going to cold-turkey her off of. This is my first. Please help me. Please
Sounds to me like she is overtired and possibly also at the 8 month sleep regression. I would try starting nap time routine before she generally starts showing those tired signs. Check out this link from a baby center forum for good schedules:http://community.babycenter.com/post/a51116617/sample_sleep_schedules_faq?cpg=1. Have you looked into getting those mesh crib bumpers?
Kayla- That 5pm nap you’re not wanting her to take? She is taking it at 8pm! I’d let he take the nap and see if she will sleep better at night. She may sleep a little later at bedtime (10 or 11 pm?), but just restrict her nap time later in the day to 30 mins to 1 hour. She clearly doesn’t need to sleep as much as the average baby and it must be lonely/boring being up from 9pm to midnight. Also, I’ve read that babies this age take 2 to 3 naps a day. Hope it works out for you! 🙂
Hi Kayla, I don’t know how you feel about child care services, and she might hate it for the first couple of weeks, but the socialization she gets in association with Ali the extra interaction might do it for her. My son’s is 7.5 months and had been in daycare since 8 weeks. He goes to daycare 5 days a week from about 8-9am to 4:30-5:30pm. He gets home, we play for about an hour and his normal schedule is bath around 7, play while getting dressed because he’s that fussy lol and then an 8 oz bottle before bed while rocking most of the time out in the living room. Sometimes I eat while rocking him but the TV is almost always on. And sometimes I do have to take him into his room and Rick him a bit before putting him down, almost always while he still awake. And he sleeps til about 7-8am. Sometimes longer. Depends on diaper status, which I also change about midnight before I go to bed and he doesn’t stir much from it. On the weekend is a little different, he plays all day, up at about 8, 8 oz bottle first thing and meals in between other bottles daily and just play play play Ali day long. I try to bath him about 8 and get him down then because he naps later on the weekends but still ends up going down for the night about 8:30 because he’s so tired from playing. But if this could goes more than 3 days out of daycare, he’s a completely different baby, up 3 out 4 times a night and very short naps during the day and doesn’t want to play as much as be held and wiggle all over mommy, or daddy but soon as he starts that daddy puts him down and let’s him fuss, which is OK with me. Serious though, try daycare, find one you like and can trust and at least try it for a month, let her get that routine schedule and guess what, you and hubby take a weekday off and can both just sleep all day! Or get housework done, whatever you want. Most good daycares will work with you for payment too, letting you pay so much a week if that works for you, our trading favors(computer repair or yard work and the such) for payment, that’s my experience. Try it, maybe it will wear her out enough that she sleeps good during the night, and gets on a regular schedule. What will probably happen is she’ll be so upset that first day and not sleep at all and by the time you pick her up she’s so tired she just wants to go to sleep, but getting her into the bathing habit then a bottle before bed seems to be good. Hope this helps!!
My baby is IDENTICAL!! IDENTICAL. I’m also at my wits end and feel like a complete failure. Please tell me, did you ever get any improvement and how?
My 6 month old baby sleeps 13 hrs at night (7:30-8:30, no wakings). But, he does not nap well. He only takes 3 little 30is minute naps. So, I have a baby who is up allll day just about. Don’t know which kind of baby is better lol.
Maybe your baby is refusing to nap during the day because he is sleeping too much at night (13 hous you said?) .The same was happening to my 4.5 month old. He was sleeping 12 hrs at night, and taking a morning nap of almost 3 hours, but the rest of the day was a battle to make him take more naps (he was clearly tired and fussy but unable to sleep)…. A baby of my LO’s age has an average sleep “quota” of 14 hours a day…. So my solution was to “re-distribute” all those sleeping hours over one day (night sleep and naps) I cut down his night sleep to 11 hours, and the other 3 hours I distributed them in 3 naps of different duration (one long, one medium and one short)…. This implies that I have to wake him up from his naps to avoid oversleeping and get him active and tired enough for the next one: it has worked WONDERS for me! He fights less to nap, wakes up happy, and still has a pretty awesome night sleep…
By the way I also had to cut his night sleep to 11 hours instead of 12, so he would “use” that extra hour during the day for naps. I go every morning at 7.30 to open the courtains, talk to him very softly and wind up his favorite musical bunny, breaks my heart to wake him up but is for our own sanity at home. Everything was madness before that…
I much prefer having a baby that sleeps all night. I Love spending time during the day with my LO and not having to keep to a strict sleeping schedule makes it easier to be out and about and I get some quality time to spend with my OH when she goes to bed. She has 3 short naps during the day and sleeps 7pm til 6:30am.
It is nice for a baby to sleep all night, but they also need naps. They should be on a strict schedule. Their needs come first. Dont worry about going out whenever you want. That is selfish. Instead of three short naps give one or two bigger naps and work around going out when they are up.
If you want your child on a “strict sleep schedule” then good luck with that. My little girl gets all the sleep she needs day and night! I am not selfish, Who are you to judge me? I was simply stating what was best for me as a mum.
Wendy, I didn’t realize there was a perfect way and you were the judge sent here to tell us all how wrong we we’re all raising our children.
Hi, we got ourselves in a bad sleep pattern that we can’t break. Our 23 month old get ~9hr of sleep at night. Bedtime is around 9-930pm and then wake up around 6-630am. His naps are usually long – anywhere from 2.5-3.5 hrs. So, I’m not as concerned about total sleep. But I would love it if we could get him to have longer night sleep. We’ve tried pushing bedtime earlier but he will just roll around the crib and fall asleep at his usual time. I’d love any insight or advice. Thanks!!
As I said above, maybe breaking those long naps into a bit shorter and more regular naps might work… Or if he has several naps and all of them are long then the problem might be that he is sleeping too long naps during the day, 1-2 hours is a very good duration for a nap. Every baby has a “sleeping quota” to complete in one day (24 hrs) divided in night sleep and day naps: if he fills the day nap quota in one nap, he wont sleep more during the day, and will be overtired at night, which clearly leads to poor night sleep.
Maybe if you cut down the duration of her naps
Obviously you should shorten the naps and make them early in the day naps. Naps are great but sleeping at night is more important.
So I have a 9 month old who sleeps 14 hours at night but wakes for 1-3 feeds. He is really good at going down on his own and going back to sleep after a night feed, but he always sleeps so late. If I wake him at 7:30am (in order to fit 2 naps into the day) he is a grouch. If I let him wake up on his own (9:30am) he is a gem until 12:30 when he goes down for his lone 2 hour nap. I am working to get his bedtime earlier so that maybe he will wake earlier. My toddler is up at 7:30 so sleeping in is not going to happen either way.
He doesn’t sleep 14 hours if he is getting up to eat. 7:30 is a normal wake time. This worked for me. Up at 7. Breakfast at 8, lunch at noon and dinner at 5 and milk in between if needed. Early naps. Mine slept from 10-12 and 2-4. Make sure your baby eats enough during the day so he won’t get up at night.
Hi, our seven month old son has started to wake up in the middle of the night around 3 AM consistently and won’t go back to sleep till almost 4:30 – 5. We put him down awake around 7 PM everyday after feeding him and changing/reading to him. He typically cries for 5-10 mins (sometimes doesn’t) and goes to sleep quite well. We then do a dreamfeed around 10-10:30pm before we go to bed but he’s recently started waking up at around 3 (5 days consecutively now). We don’t pick him up hoping he’ll go back to sleep but sometimes 30mins to an hour goes by and he’s up and he starts crying even more. We’ve tried to pick him up and rock him and even feed him to see if that helps him go back to sleep but he barely has any milk at that time so hunger isn’t possibly the issue. Eventually we let him be in his crib and he goes back to sleep around 4:30-5 and then wakes up between 7:30-8. He’s still getting around 10 hours of sleep at night and during the day, he takes 2-3 naps for a total of 2-4 hours (depending on the day).
Any suggestions on what we should do when he wakes up? We got a sound machine around 2 weeks ago because before that, he was waking up more frequently. We have the sound machine running constantly through the night and that seems to have helped a bit. He’s a very happy baby otherwise but the night waking is troublesome.
Seeing at all the posts look as if i hv a problem
My daughter usually sleeps 8-12 hrs in the daytime with small naps till 11:30pm. In the night she never sleeps or naps for 10-20 mins at max. Is it a problem? My baby is 3 months old. Can any mom or father has an advice.
Regards
FATHER
I know this post is old, but for anyone who might have the same problem, it sounds like you LO has nights and days mixed up.
I’d try talking/singing/playing with her during the day, setting a schedule with about 1.5 hour of awake time between naps (which will include a feeding) and limiting her naps to 1.5 -2 hours.
Also try a clear bedtime routine. We do bath, bottle, books, bed. We have twin boys who screamed through the routine for the first 3 months of their lives but now (6months) love the predictability.
Good luck!
My 7 month old goes to bed between 6.30 and 7.30. She consistently wakes up for the day at 5.40. I have been leaving her until 6am and then we start our day. At a difficult point as I’m not sure whether I should try feeding her at 5.40and then seeing if she will go back down. Also wondering if putting her down at 6.30 will always result in the same wakeup time. I put her back down for a nap at 8.45am and can be 1 to 1.5 hrs. Then afternoon nap can be anything from 30 min to 2hrs! Usually around 1.30 to 2. So I’m wondering how to push back her wake up time and also how to get a more consistent nap in the afternoon. Could she be dropping her 3rd nap?
Hi,
We have the same issue but our 3 month old wakes at 4-4:30 daily and he insists on going down between 6:00 and 7. He also is waking 2 to 3 times at night for feelings (bf). Mountaingirl, did it get better? If it did, did you do something or did it get better on its own? Anyone else have suggestions
My 8 week old sleeps roughly 10 to 11 hours a night. This has been a routine for the past two weeks. I am hoping this routine continues. I am worried that she may be sleeping too much. I will be asking her doctor at her two month checkup. What is your opinion?
Hi. My daughter is 15 weeks old. She sleeps 10-12 hours at night with 1 feeding in between. Should she be sleeping 10-12 hours STRAIGHT at that age?
When I look at charts that say “average time for sleep at night”, I get confused as to if that means straight through.
If the answer is yes, that it is straight through the night, I find that really impossible. I just don’t know how to do it.
I have a 7 months old who used to sleep from 7:30p-8pm to about 3am then nurse then sleeps til abt 7am. He takes 3 naps, 1.5hr/1.5 hr/0.5 hr. He puts himself to sleep sucking on his fingers at night in his crib. For naps, I shush him to sleep in his rock n play with him sucking in his fingers (trying to transition him to crib napping with no luck yet). Just recently he is starting to sleep longer stretches. If he wakes up around 4am I am able to nurse him and he would go back to sleep til 7am. But if he wakes up closer to 6am, he would not go back to sleep after nursing. We also tried just letting him stay in his crib til 7am (without nursing) hoping he would fall back asleep, but he usually just talks to himself until we go get him at around 7am for a whole hour!!!! so he is only getting abt 10 hours of sleep at night. How do I make him sleep longer than 10 hour stretch? I am also hoping to wean him off the night nursing. Thank you for your help
Please help me! I am absolutely desperate!!!! For the first two years my baby slept all day and night (well almost) but as soon as she turned 2 it’s like she went completely the opposite way. One and a half years on, I’m still battling with her sleep. I have tried absolutely everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) but on average she still only sleeps about 7-8 hours and this is broken up as she wakes up 3-4 times. I get so frustrated cos I can’t understand why she isn’t tired. Her diet is very healthy and I try to get her to be active during the day. She doesn’t watch tv and the iPad usage is not a daily thing and when I do allow her to go on it its for a short period of time.
When she wakes up the first time, I’m very calm etc but by the fourth time I’m shouting and very frustrated with her.
Like I said I have tried everything from early / late bedtime, shower/no shower, milk/no milk, early dinner/ late dinner and the list just goes on. I also tried the breaking up her sleep before I go to bed which seemed to work for everyone else except me!
She doesn’t seem tired during the day, and is flourishing.
I guess I just want someone to tell me that the amount of sleep she is getting is enough for her so I can stop stressing and pulling my hair out.
Pleeeeeaaaase help me!
Mo, I feel much the same way about things going pear shaped, but not quite as bad as your situation. My 2.5 year old was a reliable 7am to 7pm sleeper with a 1.5-2 hour nap. She dropped the nap (despite 6 weeks of persisting with it) a few months ago and things have gone down hill from there. She is not consistently getting about 10hrs.
She’ll go to sleep at 7pm, then wake up in the middle of the night for 1-2 hours, and that awake time will determine whether she’s awake at 4.30, 5.30 or 6.30am. If she doesn’t wake up (rare) then it’s a really early morning. When I do manage to get a nap in, because I can see she’s dog tired, the time of the nap impacts on the time she will go to sleep even with the bed time routine being identical.
I’d love to know whether this amount of sleep is adequate too.
Claire, I can 100% relate to your circumstances esp the waking up in the night and staying awake for 2-3 hours!!! I read on the internet about waking up the child just before you go to sleep just to break up their sleep. Then they are supposed to sleep for the rest of the night. Of course, as I’m desperate I’m prepared to try anything. And although it didn’t work for us (actually it did for one night), loads of people found success in it. So I humbly suggest u give it a try. What have u got to lose eh?
I never give my Daughter a nap cos then it will just have a knock on effect whereby she will sleep late at night etc. Anyway, I hope things improve for u soon.
My daughter has never been a good sleeper so I have sympathy for anyone in this position. from about the age of 2 months she rarely slept in the day. if she does, her nap consist of nothing more than 1/2 hour at best. she abhors routine. The only routine she sticks to is her bedtime where she will want to fall asleep at 7pm. However, it is a battle every night where she will fall asleep at 7pm and wake every half hour screaming up until about 9ish pm. I tried giving her extra food (she’s bottlefed. I tried for 24 hours to breastfeed her when she was born but she would not latch on. in the end i resorted to a bottle as she was starving and very angry) but if she’s not hungry then she won’t take it. Even if she does, she will still wake up within 1/2 hour. At present i am giving her a feed at 10.30 pm but i may move this earlier to 9.30. if don’t feed her after 7pm she will wake several times during night very hungry and very angry. I have tried in the day to get a nap routine going to get her used to it – nothing overly strict – but she hates it. I’ve stopped the routine now as it was a losing battle. Her feeds are at set times. I’ve never got her used to being rocked to sleep as i didn’t want to start any bad habits. I know controlled crying won’t work as she is extremely spirited and when i have let her cry for a while just to see how long she will go before she stops, she doesn’t. I’ve put her in her room with curtains drawn and white noise in background, but it don’t work. I am exhausted every day and hope this won’t last. My mother in law told me that her sons didn’t sleep through night till they started full time school! I don’t think I can go for 4 years of this especially when i have to start back in work in another few months!
Hi! So my LO is 13 months old and still waking every 4-5 hours for a bottle he will usually go to bed at 8/8:30 awake by 11/12 abd again about 4!! I’m do tired after a year of not sleeping one whole night lol I think its more of a sucking habbit then hungry… He never finishes a bottle hardly and if he has one in arms reach hes sometimes good but still wants me up and to pass it off usually. Then straight back to sleep! Please!! How do I break this habit without a screaming baby every night
I had the same problem. I read that you have to stop giving them milk through the night wakings. If he wakes up after 5 AM I do give a little milk 4-5 oz and then put him back down to sleep. I started the put down and cry to sleep method. I am very impressed with it. First night and day was hard, it got easier after that. I got this baby nap tracker to help make sure he’s getting enough sleep. I learned to get him on a schedule is the best. Aim for the same nap times, feed times, bath times, bed times. Limit milk so that the baby eats more solids. I know I’ve been there and had to do this too. You can do it. I have faith in you.
I need to try and let my LO cry a little when she wakes up at 4am. Sometimes it’s 5 min but when it stretches into an hour I can no longer sleep so I am just exhausted.
Hi Alexis,
My 2.5 month daughter sleeps from 11.pm to 8:00 am.. Almost 9-10 hours of long stretch of sleep.. Is this normal . do I need to wake her up i n between.
Love
Veena
Do. Not. Wake. That. Child! Let her sleep as long as she wants, you’ll regret it if you don’t
you cannot let a child that young sleep as long as they want. Duh.
HAHA!
I agree with Brooke. If your daughter is sleeping happily, eating, growing, and producing wet diapers, then she’s doing great with a long stretch of sleep.
The only caveat I would make is that if you’re nursing AND you find that a 10 hour gap impacts your supply (it may or may not) you might need to add either a dreamfeed or pumping session to break up that gap. That’s about breast supply however, not sleep. From a sleep perspective, she’s doing great!
I’ve read these posts so many times. I have 2 children (oldest is almost 3 & youngest is 5 months) and neither one of them has ever slept 12 hours. I don’t even know where to begin. Currently, my 5 month old is taking 3 decent naps of the day most of the time. She’s a happy baby. Smiles and rarely fusses and no medical concerns. At night, she’s a different baby. Screams at the instant she is set down. Will not take the pacifier or her thumb (which she does during the day). I’ve resorted to letting her sleep with me because. If I don’t she SCREAMS and won’t settle until I’ve rocked her and/or nursed her for at least 20 minutes. I’m at my wits end. I realize I’m creating a negative sleep association, but nothing else works. Nothing. Swaddles, white noise, etc.
Hi there, I read this post one week ago and in that time my 7 month old has gone from waking every 1-2 hourly and needing breast to fall back asleep; to self settling and only requiring one breast feed overnight. I was a mess last Friday and now I feel like a new person. I’ve devoured every article since and I have so strongly related to your advice in a way I haven’t with other websites and books. I think you have saved me from developing PND and my marriage is now stronger. From discussing your advice my partner and I got on the same page and would have nightly meetings to make sure we were a united front. Thank you.
My son is almost 8 months old and goes to bed at midnight and wakes up at 6:30am. I have tried everything. If I put him to ved early he just wakes up in a couple hours and stays up till midnight. Anyone have advice?
I am having the same problem!!!!!
My 3 month old goes to bed at 7 fine but wakes for a feed about 3 then every 45 mins until I get him up at 7. He also won’t nap. I keep going to put his dummy back in and I know he needs to self settle but don’t know how to do it in the morning when he’s just a bit tired not really tired?!?
I struggle with naps as I have to take and collect my daughter from nursery so can’t put him in his cot 🙁
Should I take his dummy away? Sorry I just don’t know what to do xx
You have a lot of nerve to complain your 9 month old only sleeps 8 hours. Only. Wow! Try having a 9 month old who still wakes every 45 minutes all night long since birth.
And then the lady complaining her 7 month old only sleeps 11 hours staright. Yah .you poor thing. I cant even right now..
Poor Sara….somebody sounds tired. wish I could make your baby sleep for you. My 8 month old has been doing this lately with teething, but not since birth! I feel so bad for you. I turn into a dragon after about the 4th night of waking every 30-45 min. Have to take time off work and get a baby sitter so i can take a nap. I work from home typing rxs and it is so hard to stare at a computer, alone, maintain quality and stay awake! Though I’m thankful to have a job, my son and to occassional 4 hour stretches of sleep. Wish i could help you get more sleep
Hi there, I have a 11 month old who has been goes to sleep 8:30-9:30pm and wakes usually 8-8:30am. She usually gets 11 hours of sleep but does wake during night to nurse still. She takes 2 naps a day usually 11:30-12:30 and 4-5.
This has been pretty routine but should I be concerned about her going to sleep too late at night???? Everything I read says 7:30pm but she will not go to bed that early. She is still cosleeping even though I try to get her in crib with no luck. Is a 9pm bedtime too late even though she is getting the right amount of sleep while being a pretty happy baby during the day?
My baby used to Co-sleep with me, (but daddy rolls around too much) so she was pretty much on my sleep schedule because I didn’t wanna leave her alone in that huge bed. She is still on that sleep schedule so she goes to bed pretty late. 9-11pm (Sometimes midnight) but she is a very happy baby, healthy healthy and sleeps the same amount, regardless of how late/early I put her down. So I think you’ll be ok. Mine sure is!
To me, your schedule seems fine. I read that one feeding a night is still normal for some babies until they are one. I also rest l read that they’ll sleep a little better if nap is before 4pm. Try to put baby asleep for basis one hour earlier for each nap. This may help from a night waking.
My lo started sleeping through the night around 2.5-3 months. I got super worried because she got up through the night for the first two weeks, and then it trickled to her only getting up once a night to eat. And then she just started sleeping through the night. So I figured if she wasn’t up all night like most parents go through that something was wrong, but everyone says to count my blessings. She’s six months now and I know I should have her on a set schedule but honestly she molded to mine. She naps twice a day, once around 1pm and again around 6. So she goes to bed around 10:30 sometimes later if I get a little forgetful, (seriously guys she is SUCH a good baby) that shes still up with me, and pretty much sleeps anywhere from 8-12 hours. More often it’s twelve hours through the night, and I was worried again that she was sleeping TOO much. It’s a relief to know that it’s just the right amount. I always worry something is wrong, but she is just fine! 🙂
I have a 13 month old daughter that goes to bed around 10:15pm & sleeps till sometime between 12:15pm-1pm the next day. I may sound a bit weird but I’m worried she’s sleeping TOO long. Is there a such thing haha??
Hello there.
My baby is now 4 months old since she was a new born she always sleep 10:30 to 12 noon straight!
I’m so happy I’m not alone in this.
All the best
This is the same problem I’m having
Hi, my son is 10 months old and he still wakes up at night every 2 hrs.. Need help!!!!
I see your comment was from 5 months ago. Please tell me if your still experiencing this? I’m going through the exact same thing.
Are you still having trouble? If not, congratulations!! If so, how are you putting lo to sleep? With a pacifier? Rocked? Sounds like a sleep association problem to me, if you can change that out for something more positive you should be good to go.
My baby slept from 10:30 or 11pm to 12 noon! 🙂 sometimes until 1 or 2 pm. I wonder if it’s normal though?
My little girl is 11 weeks and she’s sleeping 8pm – 8am she has 6-7oz every 3-4 hours during the day she’s gaining weight and so happy so strange after having 2years of waking up 5-8 times a night with her older brother never felt so blessed to have a great sleeper and it’s by the clock too 8pm bottle 10pm sleep and nothing till 8am next morning the best part is she did it all herself by 8 weeks I didn’t even have to try
love my little sleeper so much lol
We’ve been sleep training CIO (extinction/weissbluth??) for the past 5 days. Little man is 5.5 months and we hit the extinction burst day 4 in the afternoon. INTENSE crying for 20 minutes at nap 3 but we held our ground, minus some tears from mama. After which, last night he went to sleep on his own, no crying at bedtime for the first time EVER!
My question is now regarding too much sleep (who am I with this question?! lol I would have slapped myself with such things a week ago)… he’s been asleep for almost 13 hours now, having gone down at 8PM on the dot last night. He woke briefly at 3:30AM, fussed, not really crying for 5-10mins and back to sleep. He’s been rolling around her and there for the past hour or so, but definitely still asleep. Do I wake him??? I fear naps being a mess now.
Also, I should mention this is the first night he’s ever not eaten at night. It’s as if he may have weaned himself???? (also weird to type that knowing our child). I can’t imagine he’s not hungry. When do I get him??? Or do I “Let sleeping dogs lie”??? Thanks!
ps: had to pump when I woke up in PAIN due to the no night feeding… was almost like the milking scene straight out of “Neighbors” LOL
Ideally bedtime sticks to roughly the norm so I wouldn’t wake him up unless it’s vastly LATER than usual.
Also nap #3 is the roughest of the day thus 20 minutes is not necessarily a burst or a crisis but may just be him struggling to fall asleep because it’s nap #3.
He’s not hungry. He would let you know if he was hungry!
I found this because I was researching about my child sleeping to much. She sleeps about 13 hours at night and that was a concern because none of my other kids have done this before
13 is unusual but within the realm of normal. If he’s eating, growing, producing wet diapers then 13 hours is likely just his thing.
My 22 month old has always been a really great sleeper. He’s consistently slept from about 7:30pm-7am since about 6 months. He has also been at one nap of 2 hours since about 18 months. He goes down for naps and bedtime with no problem at all. He has been SO predictable, which is why this last few weeks have been really confusing. About 3 weeks ago he woke up at 530am, and as continued to every day since. He hasn’t been sick , teething, or experienced any big changes in life. We’re still putting him to bed around 7, his nap is still from 1-3pm. We have tried letting him CIO in the morning, tried giving him some milk in his cup in bed, etc. He just seems wide awake. A flip switched and he went from getting about 13.5 total hours of sleep in a day to about 12 hours (night + nap). He wakes up happy, but has been getting really crabby by 9am. Please help!
My son is 11 weeks old and he finds it really hard to settle. I watched out for the cues and try to get him to nap. Sometimes this works other times it really doesn’t. Even when he does nap during g the day it’s only for around 20mins or so. Night sleep is worse because I think he’s so overtired he cannot sleep properly. He is up every hour or so at night. I am literally at my wits end! I see all these posts and information that babies his age should be sleeping for 15 hours a day and I feel like a failure. Can someone please tell me where I’m going wrong.
I’ll tell you what I wish someone would have told me at 16 weeks. If they are not sleeping yet in their own, let them CIO. Our LO would scream and vomit and poop when we tried CIO, thankfully that drama passed within two days. Anyway they HAVE to figure it out now. Our son should have had his pacifier taken away at this point, in hindsight. Now he’s eight months old, I’ve had to Co nap with him three hours every day for months. We’ve sleep trained three times and because he likes to wake up and play with his pacifier, I’m staring CIO in the face again–only this time he won’t have something to suck during sleep for the first time ever and it’s an ugly place to be. So. Be strong for your LO. Develop a plan of attack and stay consistent. This is a skill your child needs to learn now. Best wishes.
CIO and LO?
CIO is cry it out, LO is little one.
I am not good at nap time. My daughter will fall asleep on me but after 30-40 min I get restless and it wakes her up. If I try to put her down she wakes up immediately. I pay for full time day care so if something comes up or if I want her to have some social hours she goes to school. She naps like a champ there, she even lays on a cot and they have a full room of 1 year olds sleeping! It’s amazing. I used to sleep when she sleeps but that is rare for me anymore….
My 7 month old son has never slept through the night. He gets up every 1-2 hrs. He sometimes eats an oz and sometimes a whole bottle. He will scream if I don’t have milk ready for him. Letting him “cry it out” isn’t an option, I’ve tried. He will cry literally yhe whole night if I’d let him. Any advice?
Your baby needs a set schedule. You are in charge. Your baby is old enough to sleep all night. Have set meal times and make sure your baby is eating enough. By now, I hope your baby is on solid food and not just milk. Set nap times. I did 10-12 and 2-4. Dont let your baby nap when it wants and dont let them nap late. Be strong. Let your baby cry it out. It wont kill him. Dont spoil your baby by picking him up every time he cries. Try the Ferber method where they go a little longer each night before you go to them and eventually they are through the night.
Wendy,
I have read a couple of your reply’s you are such a mom shamer…. I exclusively breast fed my daughter until she was 9 months. So your snide comment that you “hoped” the writer’s child was on solid food has no scientific researched meaning or merit…. Just thoughtless mean replies. My daughter is now 14 months and is doing fine on the growth charts and is doing fantastically well cognitively, and very ahead on her milestones. You preach on here like its the gospel. If your child is so perfect then get off websites for people searching for help, whose children don’t fit your perfect mold and strict schedules.
My daughter never sleeps. She will never finish a bottle fully, even if you hold her. She sleeps about 3-4 hours A DAY. My wife is going insane, she wakes up every hour and stays awake, falls asleep for about 2 minutes, then starts crying. My wife keeps rushing to her within the first few seconds of a cry, but she’s a wits end. Problem is, she REFUSES to even try cry it out, stating it’ll psychologically damage her. I keep reiterating that lack of sleep is far more damaging to a baby than 20-30 minutes of crying, but she won’t listen, stating it’ll pass, she’ll sleep full time by 2 years old. If it doesn’t work then we’ll try it then. How can we get this little monster to sleep? It’s effecting my job at this point, I’m living on caffeine.
Sorry to hear that you’re having a hard time…. my little one was and still is like that gowevwr he is sleeping much better at night now. I tried the “natural baby sleep solution” you can get the book or ebookversion from amazon. Basically the theory is that the more naps the baby has during the day the better the baby will sleep. What you do is time 90minutes from when your baby wakes up. By the end of that 90minutes the baby shoild be having a nap. Look out for sleep cues such as sucking hands or rubbing eyes or fussing and crying. Once u see these cues thats ur window of opportunity to try and get ur baby to sleep. Rocking or singing whatever you have to do but the baby should fall asleep. According to this theory if the baby misses this window of opportunity they get overtired, and the wake cycle will again last for another 90minutes, however it will get harder to get ur baby to sleep. The first week is hard and ur baby may only nap for about 20minutes but it does get easier and your baby will settle down into her own routine. It took me about 2weeks to get this and now he sleeps much better. My son also has reflux which effects his sleep. Good luck and hope i have been of some help x
Hello my name is Laura my son is nearly 2 years old I do not get enough sleep at all so my son doesn’t either he will have a nap about 3 to 4 in the afternoon then have his dinner I will try get him to sleep around 8pm but he doesn’t go to sleep he refuses and around 1 o’clock in the morning he will finally go to sleep I’ll take him to bed and he will wake up around 4 to 5am I’m really struggling to get a good night sleep an it’s not working out I’ve tried everything ….he goes to sleep in his rocker (he won’t go to sleep or lye down without going into it ) he has a dummy an blanket an it seems like I’m fighting a losing battle has anyone got any suggestions what I could do I would love to be like all the other mom’s that have 10 hours asleep with there little one I’m barely getting 3 hours a night please help !
Hi, I have a 10 month old baby girl. She is sleeping about 9 hours at night. We go to bed at 830-9pm and she wakes up 6-630am, sometimes 5-530am. Usually she wakes up to breastfeed and sometimes to drink her bottle and most times she goes back to sleep for about another hour. She takes 2 naps during the day most days, for about 45-60min. It lately her naps are getting longer, like 1.5 to 2 hours long. My questions is, since she sleeps about 9hrs at night, can she sleep longer naps? So far I don’t see any changes on her night sleeping pattern
1) I think you answered your own question there
2) 9 hours is on the short side for night duration but I think she actually sleeps (from your post) 8:30 – 7:30 which is closer to 11 hours. Thus 11 hours at night + 2 chunky naps is what we, in the sleep business, call AMAZEBOOBS
Im having issues with my 7 month old sleeping now im lucky if she gets 7 or 8 hour sleeps at night she only takes 3 naps during the day first one is at 10 for maby an hour sometimes second one is at 2 for 50 min and 3rd one is at 5 for 40 min and i still cant get her to go to bed earlier than 10pm i have tried everything i need some advice please. I do co sleep with her in my bed she will not sleep in her crib since day one including the bed at the hospital.
I used to cosleep with my LO… She would wait for me to go to bed to sleep…. I ended up on her schedule- going to bed at 8 and getting up at 6. I finally got her to sleep in the crib…. But she hated it for awhile!
Shes 15 months old now has a better sleep schedule but doesn’t sleep in her crib she has a problem with being confined to a small space she doesn’t even like being buckled up (carseat or high chair) i turned her crib into the day bed and put it next to my bed and she sleeps in it sometimes. I originally tried the cry it out method for the crib and she would scream hours on end so that didnt work lol.
My daughter crawled out of her crib and playpen at 13 months old! So we tried the Montessori method and tried to open her room and put a mattress on the floor…. she sleeps on a cot no problem when she goes to day care… I thought she’d love the open space but she started sleeping next to door 🙁 on the floor. Now she sleeps in her crib but wakes up EVERY SINGLE NIGHT at 4am. I just think we have to try different things to find what works and most everything is just a phase.
I have a 19 months old baby. He usually has been sleeping from 8pm to 8am but recentrly he began to wake up around 630-7am. He takes one nap from 2-3:30pm or 2:30-4pm. I wonder why he began to wake up earlier, or maybe I need to put him to sleep ealier. He usually goes to bed by 730 but falls asleep after 10-20 minutes. He doesnt have any problem to be left in his room alone. He just chat and falls asleep by himself. I would like some advise please.
Hi! it could be that as he’s getting older, his body needs less sleep. He’s still getting close to 11 hours of sleep overnight, which is great!
I have a 13 month old that for the last three months has woken up at 10:30 and 4:30 because he wants to breastfeed. In addition his diaper is full and so he wants a new diaper. I put him to bed between 6 and 630 and he wakes up between 6 and 630.
How to make this more clear this is 10:30 and 4:30 at night an early morning. He takes two naps during the day as well
5 month old daughter used to sleep through the night then the 4 month sleep regression hit and now she’s waking every 2-3 hrs to eat and I’m so drained. I got so used to her sleeping thru the night that I feel like we’re back in the newborn stages. How can I help her and myself get more sleep at night? I put her to bed between 8 & 9 p.m. but tonight I put her to bed around 745 p.m. she usually naps 2 – 3 times a day btw 45 mins to 2 hrs. It depends on her mood. I’m out of ideas…. Help!
I have an 11 month old son that doesn’t go to sleep until midnight, he tosses and turns all night and wakes up every few hours, then he wakes up between 7-9 am. He won’t take a nap during the day no matter how long I try. We start the bedtime routine at 8 every night.
Just recently my 2 mo. old FF started sleeping between 7 & 8 hours in one stretch. I usually put him to be at about 8:30 / 9 pm. (Sometimes he doesn’t fall asleep until 9:30 but that’s rare) and he sleeps until 4:30 or sometimes it’s been a little later, like 6 a.m. (that’s when it’s closer to 10 at night) He eats on average 28 ounces / day and weighs about 11.5 lbs. (give or take) at the moment. With is morning bottle – it’s usually 5 ounces, and the rest during the day are 4. He likes to feed every 2 to 2-1/2 hours (which I think is too soon in-between feeds but I do everything in my power to hold it off and he screams bloody murder.)
Today he woke at 4:30 a.m. with a wet diaper — after falling asleep around 8:45 last night. (and mommy fell asleep shortly after!) Then he was asleep again from 5 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. This is much better than the 2 a.m. feedings we were having. But he is a ‘cat napper’ — I never, ever get a 2 hour nap out of him during the day. Usually they are 45 mins or less, but he takes more of them.
I didn’t know if this was hindering his ability to sleep longer at night or if he is doing OK? I know as he gets older and is on more solids and/or baby food it will sustain him longer. I do try and put him down for a nap at the same time each day so that he is in a ‘routine’ but the hardest part is that he always fights it and cries in his crib. And I have been reading that the ‘cry it out, self soothe’ method is too soon for how little he is b.c. emotionally he wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Thoughts?
My daughter crawled out of her crib and playpen at 13 months old! So we tried the Montessori method and tried to open her room and put a mattress on the floor…. she sleeps on a cot no problem when she goes to day care… I thought she’d love the open space but she started sleeping next to door 🙁 on the floor. Now she sleeps in her crib but wakes up EVERY SINGLE NIGHT at 4am. I just think we have to try different things to find what works and most everything is just a phase.
I have struggled with getting my 11 month old to sleep through the night and have resorted to accepting that she will grow out of the night wakings eventually (or at least not cry when she wakes up). When she was around 3 months, she started sleeping in longer stretches in a co-sleeper on our bed, but when I read they were unsafe, I moved her to a pack n play. I think that was the first mistake, ever co-sleeping. After she moved to the pack n play, she would start waking every 3 hours and I would nurse her back to sleep. Second mistake, creating a sleep association that means getting her out of her crib and needing mommy to go back to sleep. So, we’ve been in that routine for many months now. I work full time, so I try to get her back to sleep at night with what works the fastest, nursing. Now, she’ll usually only nurse for about 5 min after waking and then sleep for another 2-3 hours. When she was teething, she would wake up every hour, sometimes more, until I realized it might help to give her a little pain reliever before going down. Then, we had one glorious night of a 6 hour stretch, which was after travelling cross country and staying in an overheated room. I think that was shear exhaustion, because she has never done that since! Her naps are a little erratic, but she has good days and bad. For the most part she sleeps 10-11 hours at night and naps 1-2 hours during the day. I think some babies are consistent with their sleeping and some aren’t, I just think mine sleeps when she needs to. I used to think she couldn’t nap in her stroller, until we went on that cross country trip. She learned to nap everywhere! On the bus, plane, car, etc. But, I also know she can relearn routines, because when we changed time zones, she changed her sleep schedule. It was more difficult to switch back when we got home, but we learned to gradually adjust her bedtime and a little over a week later, she was back to her usual bedtime, 7:30-8pm.
My 6 1/2 month old sleeps 11 hours straight (7:30pm-6:30am) every night and has since he was 4 months old. With this said, he is terrible at naps. We call him the cat nap king because any sleep during the day is anywhere from 20-45min, not very long at all. When I asked the Dr. She basically told me he is fine and because he is getting all his sleep at night he is not as tired in the day. He’s pretty easy and does not cry much so honestly it doesn’t bother me in the least and works for my life. He is also at daycare four days per week so really its amazing teachers that are dealing with the no naps not me. I truly believe every child/mom is different and that is a beautiful thing. Breastfed, formula fed, CIO whatever works at YOUR home is good for you. We are all mom’s and we all rock it. I do very much believe in a set schedule, again this works at my home and may not for all. No matter where we are 7:30 is bed time. I give him a bottle right before (8oz) change his diaper and put him down immediately. If he cries it is extremely short lived (5/8min.) If I feel his cry is extreme I will go up rub his back or tummy for a min or two and then head right back out. I have always been a believer in a child needing to learn how to self soothe, again cannot say enough works in my home may not in yours. I also started him in his crib very early (3.5 months.) He has never slept in my bed as this is another big thing for me. This has been his schedule for months. Hope this helps and again the most important thing is we are all doing an awesome job no matter what our “schedule” is. =)
My almost 6 month baby girl is the same. She is a great nighttime sleeper, about 7/7:30pm until 6am or so. She gets put down almost asleep, unless it seems like she needs extra cuddles and then we hold her until she is asleep. She also, has never slept in our bed, no bed nursing either, and she transitioned to her crib from the rock and play right before 4 months old. Sometimes she’ll get up around 4am and eat, and go right back to sleep, but she is phasing this out and this morning got up at 5:45am and was sleeping by 7:15pm last night. However, she is not a good napper. She takes several short naps, and rarely in her crib. She naps on the go or in a lap. We both work, so we don’t mind holding her on the weekends, we are also on the go a lot, so it works for us. She naps the same with the sitter – we use an in home sitter and they get out and about a lot. I am thinking that once she becomes more mobile and only needs one nap, she’ll be tired and will take one good afternoon nap. Until then we’re not going to fight it, because I got really sick of spending the precious time we have together fighting for a long nap in the crib. She is a happy, perfect baby.
Now, back to the night time sleep. I really think the secret to good nighttime sleep is that we put her to bed really early, It took some time for us to realize just how early she needs to go to sleep, but when she starts showing any signs of being tired, we start our routine, no matter what time it is. If she’s cool, we wait until about 7pm to start it, but usually she is getting tired around 6:15pm so we start then. We do a quick bath, only takes about 15 mins, then jammies and kisses. I nurse her in the chair in her room, and we cuddle until she is very sleepy, then in her crib. We use the same noise machine and turn on the humidifier every night. She knows exactly what to expect, and we pay close attention to her sleepy cues, and we try to never let her get overtired. While we do follow the same routine every day, the time does vary a little, after all I don’t fall asleep and wake up at the exact same time every day, why should she? So, my advice is early to bed, predictable routine, and follow baby’s sleepy cues. Good luck, and I really feel for all those parents having a hard time with sleep.
I would love to get some advice! I am a FTM and my 6 month old baby is exclusively breastfed. He almost died at birth so I wonder if his need to be comforted by me is heightened? Anyway, he has never been a ‘good’ sleeper unless he is held or nursed to sleep. We started sleep training with a professional at 4 months. We created a very strict schedule for him and we have seen a little improvement from waking up every 2 hours to waking up twice a night. He wakes up screaming bloody murder with tears streaming down his face. I’m not even exaggerating, this is every time he wakes up at night. If I don’t go in a comfort him or nurse him right away it can take an hour to get him to calm down. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on sleep training and still my baby cannot sleep through the night. I am trying anything and everything in my power to help him sleep longer at night but nothing is working. I don’t know what to do, I just want him to get the rest he needs. Please help me out!
I’m so sorry that it has been a rough time of sleep for you and your little one! I remember that feeling of sleep deprivation from when my first was like that. My second is 8 months and got very sick at 2 weeks. After that he would no longer sleep well on his own and woke up every hour. Like you I spent money for help at 4 months. The rigorous schedule was impossible to follow (especially with big brother interrupting) but I did my best and didn’t see improvement. Anyhow, after I gave up on the crazy schedule, I made a safe co sleeping bed with a mattress on our floor and have never looked back. He sleeps great! Maybe try this if you are still having a hard time?
Hi Jasmine,
I am so sorry you are having a hard time. I have a 7 month old Daughter. She usually sleeps 10 hours at night but sometimes wakes up at 2:30am to eat. I have included her routine and I hope it helps.
2:30am- bottle
6:30am- wake up
7:00am- Breakfast
9am- bottle
Nap: 9:30am(sleeps 1.5hrs to 2hours)
11:30- Lunch
12:30pm-
2pm- Nap(2 hours)
4pm- snack
6pm- Dinner
7pm- Bath
Massage, pjs, sleepsack
Read book(change book every week)
Bottle and 1 nursery song
Bedtime: 8pm
Make sure you put baby down drowsy. Also, when baby wakes up a couple times during the night try patting him/her instead and picking up or feeding. You can try a stuff animal as some babies find comfort in them instead of a pacifier. Also, I have a friend who had troubles with her baby and she purchased a sleep sack called Zen sack and by the third night her baby sleep 7 hours straight!
I agree with all of this but not the stuffed animal
Absolutely nothing should be in the crib with your baby. It is a SIDs risk. All babies are different too so something like that should never be suggested. My 5 month old will take a blanket or stuffed animal and shove it in his face. If I wasn’t right there he would suffocate himself to death. Giving a baby anything other than a paci goes against the aap standards for safe sleep. Not worth the risk to your precious baby.
Hi Yasmin, my daughter who is nearly 4 used to wake crying/screaming after every sleep or nap. We worried quite a lot about it but she grew out of it eventually (I think she was over two when she did), she needed the words to express that she was alone and scared. Good news is it didn’t stop her sleeping through the night and she wasn’t a good sleeper at all. It took a night of controlled crying which was horrendous but from then on she slept much better. P.S getting her on a routine for her naps was next to impossible and her nightly bath just seemed to excite her more, so don’t expect your baby to necessarily conform to what the experts say they should do. My second child is completely different and all the advice works much better with her. I firmly believe there’s a lot of luck to how well a baby sleeps.
I know post is old now but for any one reading now please know that at only 6 months old, waking twice a night is biologically normal and highly protective against SIDS. Always go to baby that is scream feed and calm and they will sleep with less wake ups eventually being secure in the knowledge that is they need you you will come.
may he be intolerent to something in your diet? i breast feed my baby and find that certain thing dont agree with her e.g. spicy food, pickles, sweetcorn, soya.
goodluck i hope everything gets better for u boyj
Yes
Hi, I’m sorry I have a few things some people told me mixed with my own ideas , maybe it can help you never know. First I’m a music lover , have my own specific music I get into where I close my eyes and really feel and sing it. My LO loves to feel the vibration of me singing every single hymn of my favorite slower tunes, lol foo fighters slowed acoustic versions are my fav! Then i plug in Vick’s vapor plug ins that puts out a soothing smell in the room I also have a lamp that projects stars on the ceiling . Deep blue is great . Of course we all have noise machines too I like a simple white noise in the background. So all these elements together work well . And if we’re having a really tough night and he really can’t get to sleep honestly the best invention ever is the baby shusher . This is an amazing little sound maker . Try it all to gather song to your LO , get into it and connect it really works like cheek to cheek and sing! Good luck hope it gets better for you!
My baby is 4.5 months and sleeps 12 hours at night without a feed. He is exclusively breastfed. He almost died at birth and was in the NICU for 3 weeks. There they are on a strict routine; every 3 hours they get fed, nappy gets changed etc and in between they sleep. I sort of continued with that schedule when he came home and he gradually started sleeping longer and longer. The last feeding of the day is at 18h. In the beginning I would feed him at 22h again, but it gradually became later and later until he slept until 3am for a few weeks. After that he gradually slept longer until now where he sleeps from 7pm to 7 am. He might wake up once or twice a night, but falls right back to sleep within 5 minutes. I sometimes don’t even go to his room anymore cause he falls asleep himself. So my rule is to stick to a consistent day nap and feeding routine (he sleeps about 3 to 3,5 hours in the day), prioritise the bed time routine and if he wakes up at night I first give it a minute or two (unless he is screaming), then first check if he’s too hot or cold, is his nappy okay, etc. IF he still cries after 3 times of putting the dummy back in then I feed him. But this doesn’t happen anymore; he falls asleep immediately after I put the dummy in (he is able to put it in himself now). He wakes up happy and is gaining weight well. He feeds every 2,5 hours in the day with one short nap mid morning, 2 hours over lunch and one short nap in the afternoon. I can’t stretch him for longer than 2.5 hours awake time in the day.
I’m a first time mom so also don’t really know what I’m doing. But I read a lot and pray a lot. I’m a christian and believe prayer is vital to my son’s well-being.
Also I use a cloth nappy in the night woth extra layers in the nappy and this lasts him the whole night so he doesn’t really wake up in the night because of a dirty nappy.
Hey, how much does your LO feed for each bottle or do you breast feed?
Do you have advice for getting a baby to nap? I put mine down consistently 2 hrs after he wakes- then he naps for 45 min max. I’ve tried letting him cry for about 10 min but he looks wide awake! He is 3.5 months old. Then he takes one more 45 min nap and MAYBE a third nap but not usually. Then, of course, he is dead tired at 6pm (and often cranky). He sleeps about 12 hrs at night waking up once maybe twice. We just want to work on the naps so he’s not so cranky at the afternoon and refreshed! He’s had good naps maybe once or twice and he was such a joy! Thank you in advance everyone!
Hi! 2 hours might be a little too long for a 3.5 month old. Can you try about 1.5 hours?
Also, it’s very common for young babies to only take short naps. As they get older (6 months and up) they learn to consolidate a little more and can nap longer. So it may be a wait and see game. Good luck!
My son is six months old and only did catnaps like that for the longest time, then I started doing a slightly different nap routine than bedtime, a bit more soothing..extra snuggles and I give him more time to fall asleep..it seems to help, if he wakes up cranky after only 45 min (sometimes he’s content with just that!) I cheer him up and then leave the room, he falls back asleep if he needs to. Maybe try that? I think they have a hard time falling back asleep after one sleep cycle when it’s daylight and there’s so much to see and do, so they need a little extra help!
My little girl is 16weeks and sleeping anywhere between 10hrs and 13hrs a night without waking to be feed. She is exclusively breastfeed. At 8weeks she started doing 7hrs straight then each week got longer and longer. At 14weeks she woke every 45mins and would need help resettling but back went to her big sleeps again after 5 nights. I’m pretty causal with rountines. Basically when she is tired I offer her the boob and she feeds or doesn’t then goes to sleep. During the day she usually does a 2 hr sleep after big night time then it’s just a couple of 45min naps. Depending on when she last woke up is to when she goes for the night. She has a play, bath then we go into bedroom and feed sometimes she is tired and wants to sleep other times we play and read books then when I see she is tired I put her in swaddle and I do have to hold her and sing ‘goodnight sleeptight’ over and over for a couple of minutes then I pop her down and she wakes up 45mins later for a quick cuddle and sometimes top up then out to it until the morning. She even wakes up happy and doesn’t have to feed straight away. The odd night she might wake at around 2am and need a feed, I just do a feed, nappy change, other boob, back in swaddle and she will go to sleep within 5mins by herself. After giving birth I decided to change my diet and give her the best chance of a good immune system and healthy body so I eat 70% organically (it’s too hard to do 100%) and I cut out sugar and coffee from my diet. – not sure if this has helped her with sleeping or not but I’m too scared to go back to all my sweet treats incase it’s the secret!
I have 11 month old twins. They still wake up 2-4 times a night. I have a memory foam mattress topper on the floor that I will sleep with them on and they sleep better with me next to them but will still wake up at least once or twice. They aren’t waking up hungry wanting bottles anymore so they’re just waking up for comfort or something. I’m so sleep deprived its affecting my health (I have cystic fibrosis). I had them sleeping 12-13 hours when they were 3-4 1/2 but then they started teething and haven’t slept through the night since. I have tried letting them cry but it just gets them more worked up and harder to get them to calm down and go back to sleep. Not really sure what to do anymore. Need help
Katy, what is their bedtime routine/how are they falling asleep? That is the key – if the environment is changing (i.e., you lay with them at bedtime or they get drowsy with a bottle a few minutes before falling asleep) they will wake up expecting that same situation to be happening middle of the night.
Our 28 month old sleeps maybe 8 hours at night and we are lucky if that’s straight through. Lately she has gotten gone down anywhere between 9-10 (we try to start unwinding at 8) and is up anywhere from 12-2 most nights wanting to play sometimes and is up for 1-3 hours. We have tried to keep the same routine, bath around 7-730 and lay down to read books around 8-815 to try to get her to sleep. She naps from 12-1 to 130-2 we try not to let her get more than hour and a half and never past 230. This has gone on now for about s month of her waking at night and wanting to walk through the house. Any help would be appreciated
Hey… definately try an earlier bedtime! That works wonders!
Hello.
My baby who has just reached 8 months has trouble going to sleep. Her father comes home by midnight and she started to stay awake till then so that he will come pick her up. She stays awake for an hour more.
Since her sleep is already disturbed entire night she screams and wakes up every few hours. She was a wonderful sleeper from 2 months, we did have have some off nights but now it’s been over 2 weeks I am not well and losing my mind!
And she only takes 1 nap for 4 hours if disturbed in between she takes another nap to cover this.
And requires me to be with her all the time she is sleeping
My 6 month old will not sleep longer than 9.5 hours straight at night. He has a strict bedtime routine and is in bed by 7:30 pm. He knows how to fall asleep on his own as well. We have just started introducing solids into his diet
I started bed time routine with my 2 month old. She is doing great… but, when she sleeps at 730 she doesnt stay asleep and only sleeps for an hour as if it is a nap. Then I feed her again at 10ish when we go to bed and she sleeps to 530 or 6pm. Question: what do I do when she wakes after 730? We currently keep thi gs low and quiet and keep her with us as we do out evening routine. Wondering if this is ruining the bed time routine?
Hi, I’m not an expert but I’ve read Alexis’s book and a lot of her posts, and I think you’re doing just what you should do. At two months, the most important thing is to get sleep however it happens. She’s not going to sleep for long stretches for another month or two.
I would love to get your thoughts on our situation. Over the 2 months, our baby has either been sick or been traveling. The sleep routine is destroyed. On top of that, he is now finally starting to get his molars, and he has a canker sore after biting his lip. If that’s all not enough, he’s 18-months old and the pediatrician thinks he’s developmentally starting the terrible twos. For the last few weeks, we just CANNOT get him to sleep beyond 8 hours at night. Because of his teething and canker sore, he almost always needs to be breastfed to go back down.
We put him to bed at 7:30, he wakes up a few times a night, we spend 10 minutes to an hour each time trying to put him back to sleep, and then sometime between 4:30 and 6:30 he’s awake for the day. We’ve started giving him Ibuprofen at night as recommended by the Pediatrician but so far it hasn’t helped much, and he always still wakes up after about 7-8 hours of sleep. Naps are atrocious, he’ll often cry for 2 hours straight while we try for a morning nap, and an afternoon nap he may only get 45 minutes of sleep.
We’ve got a fairly established bedtime routine, and he does go to bed reasonably well (by comparison, ugh) but our problem is the waking up several times and not sleeping long duration. We want to re-train him on self soothing but he’s got so much going on at the moment.
Our poor little guy seems to be racking up a sleep deficit. He seems very obviously tired with his behavior but we can’t get him to sleep more. Is there any way to correct this awful pattern that’s developed recently?
We’re at the end of our tether – our gorgeous little girl is 4 months old. She has quite bad reflux but it was particularly bad as a newborn and we’d have to keep her upright for an hour after feeds (she’s bottle fed) which inevitably meant that she’d fall asleep on us and we’d then transfer her to the crib. She eventually managed to sleep 6 hours straight through until the sleep regression hit just over a month ago. Now she will only sleep on us, and will manage an hour – max – in the crib a night. We don’t like to co sleep so my husband and I split the night and get only 4 hours sleep max a night. So she’ll fall asleep on us and when we try to transfer her she screams bloody murder. None of the awake but drowsy, comfort to sleep seems to be working and she tends to throw up if she’s awake and flat for too long. She’s on medication for her reflux and her bed is propped slightly. Do you have an ideas at all how we begin to tackle this? We’re beyond exhausted!
My boy has just turned 12 months, has rarely slept more than 10 hours a night. He has lately been sleeping less than 10 hours a night and waking between 4.30 and 5am with a morning poo! I’ve tried to give him milk and settle back to sleep but by 6.30 I give up. Infuriating because he is exhausted by breakfast time.
He naps twice a day for 2.5-3 hours total.
The early starts are taking their toll and we had this from 8-10 months I thought we had finally turned a corner a few weeks ago but unfortunately not! Any advice?
Hi Amy,
My fist daughter would wake up with poppy diapers sometimes. She also got it the habit of waking up at 5 every morning when she was around 12 m. This is what I did when she woke up with a poopy diaper. I would not turn on the light, I would change her with a deem light and not talk to her at all. Giving the cue that it was still night. After I changed her, I would put her back in her crib, if she cried I would soothe her by caressing her head, and or back, and whispered night night., and leave the room. Sometimes she would cry, so I would wait a few minutes, go back in the dark room, caress her head or back, and leave again. If she was crying I would wait a little longer to go back each time. Eventually the baby knew that waking with a poopy diaper was not time to wake up but a part of the night. When she started waking up at 5 AM I would not go get her if she was just talking and she would eventually go back to sleep. I would only go get her if she was crying, and feed her and say nite. If she continued to be awake I would take her out and just let her play. They eventually sleep longer as they get older and you just have to get through this. . Good luck! It can be so frustrating to have interrupted sleep.
My 7 month old baby girl sleeps between 12 and 13 hours a night. I cannot take credit for this, she kind of just did it on her own. I feel that maybe because she is my 5th baby God knew, that in my personal case, I jut needed a baby like her to survive. She takes shorter naps during the day maybe an hour or two and then around 5 and 6 PM she starts looking tired and just sleeps until 6 or 7 AM. The first time she slept 12 hrs was around 2 or 3 months old. I thought something was wrong and was scared, but then I realized she just needed that sleep. I don’t know that I have the answers to how to get your babies to sleep that long. But I can share what I do. When my babies are new borns I try to feed them every two to three hours. I do supplement, I have breast fed and bottle fed all my babies until they are 10 to 12 months old. I start on baby rice at 4 m, however most of my babies have not liked rice cereal, so I move to oatmeal cereal pretty quick. At 6 m I start on foods and I mostly just make my babies foods on my blender. They have all loved this. I give them, sweet potatoes, squash, spinach, eggs, chicken, salmon, chick peas, oranges, apples, pears,, mandarine oranges, bananas, beets, carrots, etc. By the time they are 9 m, they are trying lots off different foods. My last baby, has eaten more at an earlier age, I mean that by 7 she has already tried the foods that I mentioned above. I kind of just follow her cues, she just seemed to want to eat this foods and begged to try them. Literary would make desperate sounds and extended her hands to try the food. So I started giving her more varieties off foods So a daily routine would look like this,
6-7:30 baby wakes up
I nurse her as long as she wants which is about 10 min on each side.
Then she plays or we go on a walk and when she looks tired I lay her down for a nap. This is about 1 hr or two after being awake. She sleeps for about 1
Then she wakes up again and I nurse her and then give her some baby food she plays and I feed her some formula and put her down for a nap.for as long as she wants, which is around 1 to two hours. She wakes up and I nurse her, sometimes give her formula if she is still hungry and let her play. This is the same routine when she wakes up. Between 4-6 PM I nurse, baby feed and bottle feed depending on my babies cues, I give her a bath, put soothing lotion nurse some more, song to her and put her in her crib, with the lights off, Say nite, nite as I caress her head and back, I give her a blanket , and leave the room. I do use a sound machine that always has the sound of rain. She sleeps anywhere from 5:30 or 6:30 PM to 5:30 -6:30 PM. It varies. I just let her sleep as long as she wants.
All my babies except one have slept 11 to 12 hours, but I have to say that with my last one I really just followed her cues and she kind of did it on her own. With the other ones especially my first one I had to try to move her bed time slowly from 10 PM To 7 PM. By 3 M she was sleeping through the night. My fourth baby woke up once every night until he was like two years old. But I think it was just a habit because we had been moving a lot and he just wanted comfort. I’m not an expert but this is my experience. I wish all the moms out there best luck. It is hard trying to figure out how to be a mom, routines, sleep, etc. Just do the best you can and realize that this time will pass before you know it. I know sometimes it seems like it will never end, but it will. Enjoy your babies as much as you can and do take time for you. It makes you a better and a happier mom.
I came on here because with sleep training, my dad sleeps
12 or 13 (no feeds) hours a night at 18 weeks. While I know that was the goal, I get paranoid about it being ok. I feel better now. Thank you!
I meant my dd (dear daughter, but autocorrect lol)….
Oh!
I meant my dd (dear daughter, but autocorrect lol)….
Oh!
I meant my dd (dear daughter, but autocorrect lol)….
I don’t know if this will be of help to anyone but this is what I do to get my 4 1/2 month old to sleep roughly 11 1/2 hrs at night.
My son wakes around 6:30-7am and his last feed of the day is 6-7pm.
Backstory. I am exclusively breast feeding and have had issues with blocked milk ducts and stubborn blebs, yeck. My son is teething and his latch is poor at the moment, causing problems properly draining the breast.
Anyway I think the reason why I’ve experienced success is because I nurse to satiation. I nurse for about an hour and then pump afterwards to ensure there isn’t a significant amount left (typically half an ounce) and then immediately feed him the pumped portion. (I don’t think I’d pump if I didn’t have blocked ducts) I am also on a 4 hour schedule, feeding 4 times a day. As well I do put him to bed early and if he cries I only ever go in to pop his binkie back in his mouth (happens maybe once or twice as he’s trying to fall asleep) and never make any noise, eye contact (not that I could, it’s typically too dark) or engage in actual consoling. Sounds harsh but it seems to be working for me, at least for now. Knock on wood.
Oh and I forgot to mention my son has reflux/gas, always has. I used a few text books under his crib to elevate the head and magic! No more issues, at least at night. I know it’s not recommended..but you as a parent have to choose what you feel is right for your baby.
Hi! My 10month old sleeps 9.5 to hours at night and has 2 naps usually takes 2-2.5 hour nap. Should I be worried with his sleep pattern? He seems ok to me. Wakes up smiling all the time.
I mean 9.5-10 hours
Great! He’s taking huge naps and naturally then has a shorter night. This is fine if it works for you. He’s getting a whopping 14 hours of sleep a day – awesome job!
Hi! My 10month old sleeps 9.5 to 10 hours at night and has 2 naps usually takes 2-2.5 hour nap or sometimes shorter. Total sleep in 24hrs is 13-14hours. Should I be worried with his sleep pattern? He seems ok to me. Wakes up smiling all the time.
Hi! My baby girl is 7 months old, but was 6 weeks early, so 5.5 months adjusted age. We’ve been doing the 3 night sleep solution and we’re on night 4. She’s doing great with the naps and goes down like an Angel right at 6pm with no fuss. For the last 2 nights she then sleeps from 6-3/3:30am uninterrupted- 9hours! But then she cries for hours. I can tell she’s hungry and I lay there and debate feeding her the whole time she’s crying. I really want to help her sleep through the night, but I’m not sure if I’m unrealistic to think she can go from 6-6 without eating? Should I give it a few more nights if crying and this will pass and she’ll start sleeping through? I’ve read the dream feed can actually disrupt them and lead to less overall sleep, so have not tried that yet, but should I attempt a dream feed at 9 or 10 before I go to bed and see if we can get the 9 hour stretch later? Crying for 2 hours in the middle of the night isn’t something we can keep enduring.
Hi! I would go ahead and feed her at the 330am wake up- it’s like a snooze feed, and pretty reasonable at her age. Good luck!
Hi! I would go ahead and feed her at the 330am wake up- consider it a snooze feed and it’s reasonable at her age. Good luck!
Hi! I have a 4.5 month old who will sleep for 11 hours straight one night and then fall into a pattern of waking 1-2 times at night. He takes multiple cat naps (30 to 40 minutes) during the day because I can’t get him to sleep longer than that. I’m struggling to figure out why he will have such a good streak and then wake up multiple times per night. He’s breastfed and we put him down drowsy. Thanks!
Hi, my 14 week old son is a pretty good night sleeper, dropping his night feed at 10 weeks and sleeping from around 10/10.30pm to 6am though still some restless periods during that time. During the day he was napping three times, anywhere between 45-90mins and in no obvious pattern. Some of these seem to be lengthening out now whilst at other times he seems cursed by the 45min-only sleep cycle and we’re trying different things to help him go longer. In the last few weeks, his evening fussiness/witching period has all but gone and for the first time, he’s catnapping in the evening, anywhere from 20-60mins between 8 and 9pm. I’m wondering if this is the first signs of him wanting to move to a longer sleep, maybe 9/10 hours? If so, any advice on how to manage this and get this late evening nap joined up with his 10/10.30pm bedtime? Should I keep his 9.45pm bottle in the same place or try to push this earlier? Bit scared to do this because he often wakes up ready to eat your arm at 6am as it is so feel it would wake him up earlier? Similarly nervous about keeping it where it is essentially as a dreamfeed because we got away from that several weeks ago? Any thoughts very much appreciated x
Hi, I’ve got 2 babies, the little one is a boy and a good sleeper, he sleeps around 9:00-10:00pm and wakes up around 6:00-8:00am I’m really happy with him his daytime naps are also good… but I have a HUGE problem with my elder one… I don’t know she just doesn’t sleep. She barely sleeps 4 hours straight even at night if she sleeps at 10:00 pm she wakes up at 3:00 to 4:00am till 6:00 am and again sleeps till 10:00 am then wakes up and sleeps around 5:00 pm to 7:00pm. I try not to let her sleep whenever she wants but it’s just impossible, if she’s not sleepy she just won’t sleep staying awake in her cot for 3 hours but WON’T sleep and if she’s sleepy she’ll even sleep in the corridor… I feel like I’m having a taste of hell everyday it’s so frustrating it’s just driving me crazy I try my best not to put pressure on her but she just won’t cooperate.
When I was pregnant with her in the first few weeks ( I didn’t know I was pregnant) my breast used to hurt really bad so I went to doctor they thought it might be breast cancer they did a few test and gave me medicine but after a month I found out I was pregnant and thus stopped taking those medicine and during the whole pregnancy I had to go under lots of ultrasounds so I’m afraid that all theses complications may have had bad defect on her brain development… I’m so scared don’t wanna go to doc as she’ll once again be exposed to different tests she’s still only 2.
HI,
I have a one year old baby. I put him down at 7 am and he consistently wakes up at 5 am to 5:15 and won’t go back to sleep. At first he was sleeping close to 12 hours until 6:30 am but now 5 am is when he wakes. When he waking at 6:30 am I would put him down for a nap at 9 am and 1:30 am and he would sleep from 40 mins to an hour. Now that he wakes up so early at 5 am ish I put him down at 8:30 am and 1 pm. But no matter how much I try to make small changes so he can go back to sleeping close to 11 hours he wakes up at 5 am. I have even tried to push his bed time a bit later than 7pm, to 7:30 pm or 8 pm, but he still wakes up anywhere from 5 to 5:15pm which means he was getting close to 10 hours or a little bit less. Do you have any suggestions? I have the white noise machine and black out curtains, he was OK but now I am up by 5:30 am every morning! Help!
Hi,
I have a 10 month old (born premature by a month) hated being swaddled, hated being laid down as an infant. Took 3 months before he was ok with being put down. Then he moved to eating eating every 2-3 hours up until he was 7 months old. Then it just turned into waking every 2-4 hours to be put back to sleep. Now he is 10 months old, last heavy meal and bottle is between 6-8pm (He eats when he wants to eat). Won’t fall asleep until 9:30-10 sometimes later. Mornings between 5:30-8am. Naps in the day range from 30 minutes-2 hours twice a day. So far naps have no correlation with any earlier or later sleeping or waking up. It doesn’t matter if he does to be early or late there’s no correlation with him waking early. I’ve tried cry it out, less naps, one more late feed if he’ll eat it and so many more things. He won’t fall asleep on his own he has to be held to sleep, he wakes up every 4-5 hours and has to be put back to sleep. Tried cry it out, he’ll stand up in his crib and cry until my husband or I comes to get him.
I’m thinking at this point it’s just something he has to grow out of which I’m afraid of because I’m pregnant again due in January.
Any tips?
Hi,
I have met many mothers who said their babies do not sleep well, some of them helped a lot this program: https://bit.ly/3eQNRYE
This is every parent’s saviour. It’s an online program that teaches you safe and natural routines for getting children to sleep fast, efficiently, and easily. It comes with basic rules to follow to perfect your nighttime regime, as well as techniques and bedtime routines based on the sage of your child.
I hope it will be useful to other mothers as well.
My wife and I have a 7 month old boy who has never slept longer than an hour at a time since he was born.
My wife along with our son has not had a decent sleep for 7 months. It is the same during the night as during the day. We have seen plenty of experts / doctors but nothing has changed. My wife calls our son “ The boy who never sleeps”. We have tried to many things to list here but nothing has worked.
We worry greatly about our sons health. I also worry about my wife’s health.
I read comments from one reply stating prayer helps them. I gave up praying some time ago
Both my girls did 12hours straight at around 2 months old. It’s all in the routines
Hi Alexis, thank you for this post. The 12 goal is something that I previously thought unattainable, much like my little girl sleeping through the night without a feed. After reading PLS and implementing sleep training at 5 months and later night weaning it’s completely opened our eyes and then gratefully closed our eyes for gloriously long periods of sleep. By 7 months were solidly in the 10-11hr STTN + 3 x 1-2hr during the day. At 9 months he 3rd nap begun to meet with some resistance and a quick car nap happened 1-2 times a week to avoid a cranky overtired bedtime. It took looking at ww charts to realize she might be ready for 2 nap days. This change to 2 naps brought us a lot of very early 5am wakings at first, and short 45ish min naps. She no longer went through a nap cycle and woke up very unhappy about it. My girl loves her sleep it seems. Making her wait after a wake up has had no effect. This led to needing to bring back the 3rd nap some days but still no luck with the +45min nap. At 10mo (now) she’s made up a bit for the lack of day sleep and most days hits that precious 12hr night sleep regardless if it’s a 2 or 3 4 nap day. I know we are one of the lucky ones to have such a great night sleeper but I get hung up on her naps. I think if she was to wake up a happy little sausage from naps then I wouldn’t be bothered with short naps. I would count my 12hrs lucky stars and be fine. It’s just that I know when she gets (even) more sleep she’s better for it. Not sure where to go from this point but I’m hoping with good sleep habits it will sort itself out over time. If you have any input I would greatly appreciate it.
My baby is not quite 8 ‘months and can sleep 12-13 hours over night! Some days I have to wake him at the 13 hour mark… he’s been sleeping like this since around 7 months!!
He’s very alert and busy and active during the day… sometimes I worry it’s too much… fir his age
What are your thoughts?