By 6-8 months your baby is fully ready and capable to be completely done with eating at night. Dr. Sears suggests that some parents really enjoy feeding their babies at night and will happily continue offering night feeding sessions until the child stops waking up on their own. If you are one of these mythical “I love waking up in the middle of the night” parents, best of luck to you. Personally I don’t know any people like this. And I think they’re really rare. Like unicorn rare.
But my point is that by this time your baby no longer needs to consume lots of food at night and is fully capable of getting all their calories in during daylight hours. And while a few babies will organically drop all their night feedings without any assistance from you, the vast majority of babies will continue to wake up routinely for a nursing session or bottle for years. So you can live with night feedings for the next 3 years, or you can take some simple and effective steps to gently wean your baby off their night feeding habit.
If you think you’re ready to stop night feedings you must have already read and done your homework from Sleeping Through the Night Part 1 and Sleeping Through the Night Part 2. Otherwise my no-fail night weaning strategy will fail miserably!
Start by choosing the feeding that is the least fun for you (typically this is the “dear God why are you awake it’s freeking 2:00 AM” feeding). Use the relevant process outlined below to completely wean off one feeding. Repeat.
Night Weaning for Breastfed Babies
- Gradually reduce the amount of time baby gets on the breast by 1 minute every 1-2 days. For example if your baby nurses 10 minutes a side (for a total of 20 minutes), start popping him off at 9 minutes, 8 minutes, etc.
- By the time your baby is only nursing for 2-3 minutes he may stop waking up all on his own. WHOOPIEE!
- If your baby STILL wants to nurse then you have a few options on how to handle it:
- A) Send daddy in for 1 minute of low-key soothing. Daddies are miraculously good at this. Also? They don’t smell like food. Babies are much more adaptive at getting the “no more food for you buddy” message from Dads.
- B) Let him complain. This should NOT be a nightmare CIO scene. Most babies who have been gently decreasing their milk consumption are now USED to not eating at this time. Left to their own devices they typically complain for 5-10 minutes and then fall back to sleep.
- When you are done feeding your baby at X time of night you are DONE. Don’t let teething/colds/travel get you back on the night feeding menu. If this happens you need to start over again. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.
Night Weaning for Bottle-fed Babies
- Offer 2 oz less of formula. So instead of an 8 oz bottle, offer a 6 oz bottle. Then a 4 oz bottle. Etc.
- -OR- Dilute the formula by reducing the amount of formula in the bottle by 1 scoop but leave the amount of water the same. So instead of 8 oz of water with 4 scoops of formula you would offer 8 oz of water with 3 scoops of formula.
- Continue decreasing the dilution of the formula until the bottle is 100% water. (Or continue offering less formula in the bottle – 6 oz, 4 oz, 2 oz). After 1-2 days of “only water” bottles, no more bottles.
- At this point your baby will probably stop waking up for this feeding all on their own. If not read the tips above (for breastfed babies) on how to proceed.
- When you are done with a given feeding you are DONE. No more bottles at that time of night. The kitchen is closed.
I’ve done this with many families over the years and it works shockingly well. Don’t believe me? Try it. Then come back next week and share your success story in the comment section!
There are a few small caveats to night weaning that I want to share….
The Dreaded Early Morning Feeding
It’s really common for babies to wake up to nurse in the early morning, say 5:00 AM, and then fall back to sleep for another 1-2 hours. When starting the night weaning process I suggest that this is the LAST feeding session you tackle.
Why?
Because babies often respond to giving up the 5:00 AM feeding by deciding instead to start the day. I think the problem is that a) it’s close enough to their normal wakeup time b) they’re used to waking up at that time already and c) they’ve gotten enough sleep that basic exhaustion won’t just whisk them back to dreamland.
I have no magic solution to this dilemma. Try weaning off the early morning feeding and see what happens. Your baby may continue to sleep happily until their normal wakeup time. Your baby may figure out how to fall back asleep at 5:00 am with a little gentle soothing encouragement from you or your partner. Or your baby may flatly refuse to go back to sleep without being fed.
If the latter then you can decide if you want to simply concede defeat and continue with the 5:00 AM feeding rather than wake up in the early dark of the morning. Personally I think an extra hour or two of sleep is worth dealing with the 5:00 AM feeding. If you’re nursing I would strongly encourage you to give your baby a bottle instead at this hour so you and your partner can take turns.
Night Weaning Isn’t Working
Night weaning is not always a simple, linear process. If it’s going smoothly – YAY! If not, there could be loads of reasons why things aren’t going well. This is pithy post will work for many but not all. If you’re struggling with issues not covered here and need help troubleshooting, or developing a plan that works for your specific situation, you’ll find those answers spelled out in the book. There is a whole chapter dedicated to night weaning as well as a substantial troubleshooting guide, so check it out.
What worked/didn’t work for you? Leave a comment below!
{photo credit: DonkeyHotey and Stephen Heron}
Great post and very timely for us! We’ve just gotten through using CIO to get my 6 month old fall asleep during nap and for bed at night. We used lots of your tips and have had great success! It has CHANGED OUR LIVES! We now have a baby who naps and who can get to sleep on her own!!! I am SO GRATEFUL.
Problem is, she’s still waking up quite a bit throughout the night… anywhere from 3-4 times. I am feeling like we should just ride the wave and be happy with the gains we’ve already made, but I know that she needs to learn how to sleep longer. For her own sake. And, of course, for my sake.
I am anxious to try your tips, but the problem is that she’s very inconsistent about when she wakes up… sometimes 10:30, 12:30, 3 and 5… other days just 11 and 4. Any tips as to how night weaning might work for us given the inconsistency of the frequency and timing of her wake-ups?
Which is more normal (the 4-5 X a night or the 2 X a night)?
Two things you might try….
1) Can you figure out when she is REALLY hungry vs. just needing some soothing? I mean if she’s waking up every 2-3 hours she’s probably not literally starving because she JUST ate. Plus you know she can go for long stretches because sometimes she does. If you can figure out when the wake up is hunger vs. soothing you could stop feeding her as often at night through some parental detective work.
2) Otherwise….start cutting short her first feeding of the night whenever it happens to be. 10:30/11:00 seems sort of regular? So start working on the first one. Thus she get’s all the time she wants after midnight but the pre-midnight feedings are going to start getting shorter.
Does that make sense?
Alexis
Hi Alexis! Thank you for your fun to read and empathic posts..
Today is my daughters first birthday! Oh and happy new year to you all!
Well she’s one but we still have almost the same wakings and feedings since she was 7-8 months old..the only big change is she skipped her afternoon naps and now she has one nap for 2.5 hours at 9:30-10 a.m. And she lasts for 8 hours until she goes to bed for night sleep at 20.00, oh and she goes to sleep after her breastfeed.
Then we have the usual btw 23.00-24.00 wake up for breastfeeding again. And the rest is a guess everynigt – it might be 1 or 2 or 3 oclock in the night for the next breastfeed..
She wakes up around 6-6:30 am. (god is there any way to keep this a bit late?) And she wakes up almost as sleepy as we are but she wakes up and the day starts nevertheless..
So yes we must have made some accidental parenting somewhere along the road..I’m suspecting breastfeeding to sleep is not the best idea to start with..Well how can we make this all right for a 1 year old? I dont want to go coldturkey with breastfeeding all of a sudden, but she has to be sleeping allnight since she’s 1 right?
Thank you thank you..
Curious mom from Istanbul
My daughter just turned 9 months. I realized that on most days she was FINALLY taking enough food and could slowly wean breast milk. Watching her weight and growth percentile, I started with a “no fly zone” from midnight to 6am. Took a few days but she accepted the cuddles instead. After another week or so she kind of stopped her 10-11p feed too. Still have a 5-6am feed and plenty of night awakenings, but she doesn’t need/want to eat. Good luck!
Hello I have been teaching my daughter to put herself to sleep since she was 4 months.she is 6 months now She is very good at doing it now. At nap time I feed her put her in her crib and she’s out. But for some reason at bedtime she will cry and cry herself to sleep I have the same process as nap time I feed her and put her down as soon as I put her down she will start screaming and won’t stop until 45 min. So that’s problem number one problem number 2 is she wakes up 3 to 4 times at night I only feed her 2 oz at a time because I’m trying to wean off night feedings but she always seems to want more and if she doesn’t get the 2 oz she will be up all night so I don’t know how to fully wean her off the night feedings
She says to use less formula and change to water .. try in the 2oz to slowly wean to water
Hi! So I have done the CIO and at around 6 months my baby was sleeping from 9pm-9am without waking up. That happened for about a month around 7 months old she started waking up around 5 or 6am to eat… So I fed her and she went back to sleep until 9. Just recently, at 8 months old she is waking up around 2 and 5am to eat as well. I have tried to wean her off of the 2am feeding but she just cries/screams for so long after I put her back in bed. Is there anything else I can do?
This question might sound silly, but due to sleep deprivation I’m willing to risk it: what do you mean by ‘low key soothing’? anytime I approach the crib and do not offer the boob requested, my little one gets more upset – or so it seems. We are in the middle of the multi wake up problem, post CIO and I’m desperate to get more sleep but lose all common sense and wherewithal in the middle of the night. god help me, i pulled her in bed after the 5am er this morning, cursing myself all the way. . . how can I sooth her so i can ditch the middle of the nighter? please and thank you so much for this blog!
Jackie –
I just wanted to say thanks for your question because our house is dealing with the exact same thing. Been through CIO, & now we’re just struggling with our 6 month old waking up 3/4 times a night (he also wakes up too early & won’t go back down, thus throwing off a nap schedule). It’s really reassuring to read about others going through the same thing! Good luck!
My lil guy is 9 months old and wakes up at 11 everynight and every 2 hours afterwards. I did used to feed him at that time to get him back to sleep. We’ve recently stopped feeding him accept for one time between 3-4. Sometimes 230ish. But he is still difficult to get back to sleep…We go in tap him my husband often time bounces him or taps him. We are in need of help!!!!
I’m in the same boat. What did you do? My baby is 8 momths and she wakes up every 2 hours to eat. I’m so tired. Help!
Ditto for me as well…8 month old. Goes to sleep, awake, on his own…sleeps 2-4 hours, then he’s up every 2 hrs until about 2 am then it’s every hour! Desperate for advise that has worked on other sleep deprived moms?!
This! I am
Here!!! Help!!!
Same here! He sleeps for 3-4 hours then is up every hour and a half. I’m exhausted!
SAME SAME SAME! 8mth old. Consumes 12oz bottled breastmilk over the course of the night (approx 10 hours). Wakes every 1-2ish hours for feeding then back to sleep, generally, while sometimes taking 30m-1hr of wide awake babbly play. Habit? Actual hunger? I don’t knowwwwwwwww.
Did any of you figure a way out? Tips and tricks please?!
I would love to know as well. I am in the EXACT same boat!
I’m glad to know I’m not alone. My baby is 7 months old and goes down for naps and bedtime on his own, no problem. However he is waking every 1-2 hours! I have given in to breast feeding him every time he wakes. Working on not offering the breast each time because I know he’s not hungry. But he just refuses to fall back asleep and cries it out. When he does fall back asleep he wakes again shortly after.
Hi Joan
Not sure if you will see this but I JUST finished that phase by the skin of my teeth. LO is now 9 months and was sleep trained by 4-5 months. No clue why so many night wakings; each night likely different reason. She falls asleep from awake no problem but wakes often. I started night weaning only going every other wake time; after awhile with a “no fly zone” – a time like 12-6 with no more feeding but lots of soothing. Gave in a little in the beginning but less and less. She still wakes often but last night it was 6 hours between crying fits. I’m hoping she goes 12 hours straight soon. Hope it gives you more ideas.
Hi there, thanks for the post! We are dealing with a 4-month-old who suddenly started waking in the night after 1.5-3 hour chunks of sleep. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to them, and the times are all over the place. Instead of his usual longer chunks, they are getting shorter and shorter. He can fall asleep on his own, although we do give him a pacifier. But we leave the room while he is still awake…I noticed you don’t mention anywhere about this mysterious thing I keep reading about called the 4 month sleep regression. Any thoughts on this? Could this be the reason little man is sleeping worse, and if so, will he get better on his own or do we need to start some sort of sleep training? Sometimes (rarely) we can get him back to sleep by simply giving him the paci again or if he cries a little rocking (still putting him back down awake once he is calm). Mostly I have to nurse him to calm him down though.
My baby did that too, almost exactly at four months. I’ve been told there’s a developmental benchmark at that time, when babies’ personalities start to kick in — there’s a bit of a break from whatever pattern they may previously have developed, and they have to acclimate.
Good to know you survived, gives me hope! Do you remember about how long until your baby was sleeping a little longer at night?
For us it got worse before it got better. By six months he was waking up every 45 minutes to 2 hours and he was pretty sleep deprived (basically, Alexis’ cri de coeur — the raison d’être of Troublesome Tots, if you will). Our baby was struggling with reflux, though, and a bunch of bad habits that we had developed that we thought were necessary to get him to sleep. In desperation, at 6.5 months, we did some hardcore sleep training (which I would never recommend to anyone except in extenuating circumstances, as it’s horrible – I think Alexis details the whole decision tree leading up to this option in her posts) and only then did we see big improvements. Now he generally stays in his crib from 7:30pm to 7:30am except for feedings around 11:30pm and 4:30 am, and we’re trying to figure out how to eliminate the 11:30pm feeding using Alexis’ weening suggestions.
He’s certainly not sleeping the entire time he’s in his crib – he wakes up a lot, moves around, whines, etc. but generally puts himself back to sleep, so we feel very fortunate.
Matt – I have many reasons to love you. The fact that you just spoke French in a comment has just been added to the list 🙂
Minnie,
Matt is right that it could definitely be a sleep regression – Ask Moxie has a nice article about it:
http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/02/qa_what_are_sle.html
But here’s the deal – if 1-2 weeks have gone by and nothing has gotten better than either a) it WASN’T a sleep regression OR b) the way you handled things have resulted in a night-waking habit.
EX. if you have a baby who goes long stretches without nursing but then you start feeding him every ~1 hour all night long you’ll end up with a baby who NOW is used to eating every ~1 hour all night long and will demand to do so.
I’m not saying you need to do CIO per se but I am saying that:
1) Try to soothe him back to sleep without the boob (you know he can’t be THAT hungry ALL night long right?). Have your partner do it – he doesn’t smell like food and thus will have more success than you will.
2) If he’ll only take the boob start working on popping him off sooner so that he isn’t consuming as many calories. We don’t want to get used to getting all his calories at night. Does that make sense?
Actually he hasn’t gone long stretches since he was about 5 weeks old. And those long stretches lasted about 6 weeks before they dwindled to a halt at around 3 months old. Since then there have been a few 5 hour stretches, but not many. These days we’re lucky if we get a 3 hour stretch. I don’t always feed him, especially when he has only slept an hour or 2 before waking. Hubby will give him the paci, and sometimes he’ll go back to sleep. Other times he acts like we’re beating him, crying so hard, and that’s when I’ll break down and feed him. But last night I didn’t let him suckle long after it was clear he wasn’t eating anymore. I will keep working on that! Thank you both for the advice!
So – not a sleep regression then but a generalized “baby sleep problem.”
Have you tried the swing? Check the article below. If he has been waking up 5-6 times a night for the past 3 month (that’s what is happening yes?) then it’s time to do something different. And my first suggestion would be to put him in a swing. The angle and soothing motion often help “up all night” babies sleep longer stretches. Good luck!
Also, little bubs goes around 3.5 hours between nursing sessions in the day. Pediatrician says he “should” be going 4. It just doesn’t work out to go that long with naps and the length of time he stays awake. Also, I’m worried getting that few of feedings in during the day will result in more night wakings. He’s so distractible these days I’m lucky if he nurses for 10 minutes at a time.
Hi Minnie, I’m just replying to a question about your little guy distracted during daytime feedings… I have 6 month old twins who are VERY distracted and so I’ve come to terms with having to go into the nursery for pretty much every feed, and rocking in dim light on the glider. Now, they both just concentrate on the boob and have good feeds and I’ve noticed that the nighttime feeds have decreased since doing this. I hope this helps?
Fina (see below) is totally on the mark. Also I agree with YOU – more feedings during the day is better than more at night. Personally my suggestion is let them feed at will during the DAY while gradually weaning at NIGHT.
Just wanted to comment where you said your ped said the babe should be going 4 hours between feeds… My doc would certainly say this is WRONG and says that most babies will happily breastfeed every two hours all day so that they are full enough to have long stretches of sleep at night. The magic 6 – 8 feeds a day are not designed to be spaced equally, but “front loaded” with a couple very close together before bedtime so that they will sleep longer without a feed. I think spacing feeding out too much during the day could be backfiring on you.
Hi there,
I have a 4-1/2 old son who eats breast milk via the bottle due to latching problems. From about 6 weeks on, my baby slept through the night (7-10 hours at a stretch). We did begin adding rice to milk around 12 weeks which kept him sleeping.
About 4 weeks ago, he began waking in the night. I found that a pacifier worked well and he went back to sleep easily (no rocking or picking up). Then he needed help at nap times to stay asleep. Alas the pacifier again. Now he’s waking up every 45 minutes to an hour. How could my perfectly sleeping baby for months morph into this sleeping zombie?
He’s been in his crib for about 6 weeks. He did originally sleep there just fine. In some of these latest sleepless nights, I’ve tried putting him back in his co-sleeper next to my bed as we used before. But he still wakes up all night wanting the pacifier.
Plus, I always put him in the crib awake and he goes asleep fine on his own (although he is swaddled). Usually he uses the pacifier when he goes asleep in his crib but wakes after a couple hours to no pacifier.
Ive asked my pediatrician with not much help.
What should I do?
I didn’t know that I should reduce the feeding time with my baby especially with the breast feeding session because as I previously know, breast feeding is best for babies. Which is better breast feeding or bottle feeding?
Thanks for the information. I learned a lot!
-Wilma
Um…I’m not getting into the “bottle vs. breast” debate BUT…
Nobody is suggesting that you stop nursing! What I AM saying is that as your baby get’s older they don’t need to consume calories (from either source) at night and are fully capable of getting all their food during the day. So nurse to your heart’s content all day long but use the night for sleeping.
Keep in mind that many people “bottle feed” their babies breastmilk too. I certainly did so my hubby could help out by giving our little one pumped breast milk.
I have an 8 month old that I am going to try and wean. She goes to bed at 6:45 awake (we’ve already tackled the sleep training) after having a bottle and sometimes cereal. She then wakes up somewhere between 9:45-10:30, 12:30-2am, and 4. The feeding that I would like to initially eliminate is the middle feeding. Would that also be your suggestion?
It’s really up to YOU. It probably makes sense though as you are probably still UP for the 10:00 feeding and would rather NOT wake up for the 2:00 feeding 😉
So yeah that’s probably where I would start too.
I’m pretty positive I should be the CIO mom poster child. I see so many other people talk about emotional distress etc; I find that ridiculous. We cry about everything and we are still fine. Babies cry when they want to eat, need to be changed it’s just what they do to communicate. I would nurse my daughter and make sure she was full.
The first night I decided to try the CIO method it was hard she cried for an hour straight and was very angry. I told her every 5-10 minutes “It’s ok mama’s here time for bed” Before that point she would just fuss and be so frustrated because she needed to sleep. Here are my results:
Night ONE : Cried for an hour straight passed out.
Night TWO: Cried for 10 minutes fell asleep. I couldn’t believe it I looked and yup sure enough she was passed out.
Night Three , four, five and so on? She goes to bed every single night without fail around 8:30 PM. She sleeps through the entire night and has without fail since she was 3 months. (I did not attempt the CIO method until she was 6 months)
It’s too late to tell me that it doesn’t work I know it does and she is a much happier baby because of it.
Oh and I was nursing and still am in case anyone wondered and she is fine to sleep through the night. I do give her some cereal right before bed also to make sure her belly is full.
Hey Lisa,
So I’ll be the spokesperson and you can be the posterchild and we can travel the world as the face of CIO 😛
Actually what you describe (nights 1-3) is TOTALLY what happens when you do CIO right. Night one blows and then everybody is shocked when night two goes surprisingly well. So good for you!
Hmmm, maybe I need to hear about the “right” way to CIO. I thought we were being pretty darned consistent with my son, but he would do something like this (though I’m sure my memory is probably foggy at this point):
Night 1: Scream to the point of almost vomiting 2.5 hours.
NIght 2: Scream to the point of almost vomiting 2.5 hours, mother takes a walk outside and cries too. Thankfully husband listened from the other room and heard son get stuck under covers and need rescuing from suffocation.
Night 3: Scream lustily for 1.5 hours.
Nights 5, etc.: Scream for 1 hour, throwing himself against crib.
Nights 7 and on: back to 2 hours…
Night 10ish: We gave up.
Every couple of months, we would try a round again. Finally, I stopped caring whether or not he slept in his own bed. We gave up. And brought our kid to bed. And we slept most of the night. And our marriage and sanity was saved.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to crying it out in certain circumstances (I like your “are you ready for CIO” post), but the method just plain didn’t work for our kid. Even day time weaning took us from 15 months to 17 months for it to be successful (I know that its different from the sleep issue). He protested vehemently every day. He is one strong willed child. (Whom I love dearly.) Unless maybe we did it “wrong?” I’d love to hear your method. Maybe we were missing something.
Abagail,
So sorry I just noticed your comment 🙁
What was wrong? I would need more information to tell you. How old was he? How tired was he? Why did he have covers in his bed? (Makes me think he was an older kid?).
In general the biggest things I see for doing it “wrong” is:
– lack of consistency (not your issue but for completion sake)
– REALLY overtired kids (maybe this was you?). Kids who are severely overtired literally can’t settle down because when they are sleep deprived their body produces stress hormones (ironically the same ones they produce when crying) that can make it all but impossible for them to sleep
– intermittent reinforcement (aka check and console)
I’m sorry you guys had such a horrible experience and I’m sorry I can’t give you a quick and easy answer for why it was so horrible. But I am glad to hear that you found a way out that works for you?
Even when you do “Cry It Out” right, it may not work as “perfectly” as it did for Lisa. I have twin daughters (now 2 1/2) and a 7 month old daughter, and they were all different in how well / quickly CIO worked. With our most recent daughter, it took a good 2 weeks before she finally started sleeping well. The first few nights involved crying periods of about 1 – 1.5 hours. Then it gradually got better. She also was learning to roll over at that time, so during week 2, we actually needed to go in to turn her onto her back because she wouldn’t fall asleep on her stomach. Just wanted to add the comment that it’s not always picture-perfect, but for us, CIO definitely did work for all our children…eventually.
Thank you for posting this! I’m 7 days in with my 7 month old. Our nights are hit and miss. I feel like we have some improvement because even though she woke 3 times last night (it’s usually once or twice), she settled much quicker (within 10 mins) than she usually does. Somehow I’m more exhausted from the 3 short wakes than being up for an hour doing pop-ins, but I’m trying to reassure myself it’s a step in the right direction.
hi,
i have a moth old and have started CIO, it has started to work in the day but wen it comes to night time it takes me an hour or even more every night. i have started it 5 days ago and am struggling, i start her bed tim routine at 8.30 and she sleeps at 10 then gets up every 2 hours after that….what can i do??? before this she used to sleep at 11.30pm so iv moved her time a bit ealier…can you help me
A month old?!?!
Yikes! A month old is so young! Young babies NEED to eat all the time! CIO is for babies over 6 months, at least. I have a 7 month old and I’ve JUST started to feel comfortable with doing CIO.
Make sure you read all of Alexis’s stuff on CIO….there’s a handy link at the top of every page that says “Sleep Training” that has it all. Check out the Baby Sleep Guide for 1-3 months too (again, handy link at top of every page). Has a ton of helpful info.
Hey Jaz,
I can tell you are really tired and confused about what to do. It’s really confusing – the internet and bookstores are all filled with conflicting and confusing advice. It can be really hard to know what to do.
I know in some cultures people are told that running to the baby every time they cry or want to eat “spoils” them and so Moms are encouraged to let younger babies cry. And maybe that is where you are coming from. Hundreds of thousands of people visit my site from all over the world so there are many different cultures coming together here!
But I think you should consider not letting baby cry just now. When babies are newborns they need a LOT of soothing. They will cry a lot if they don’t get it and this will make you and baby sad and stressed. Have you found this?
http://www.troublesometots.com/newborn-baby-sleep-survival-guide/
There are lots of helpful ideas in there and I feel that you could do ALL of them.
Newborns also have a tiny little tummy the size of a walnut. So it’s not at all surprising that your baby is awake every 2 hours looking to eat. Again this is what newborn babies do. When she is 3-4 months old it will get easier but for now, I hope you’ll consider feeding her and giving her the soothing she asks for when she wakes up.
If you’re exhausted (and you probably are!), is there any way you can get help? Some family to take the baby for a while during the day while you nap? I know this is a hard time for new Moms and you’re probably feeling a bit tapped out. But crying at 1 month is your baby’s way of saying she needs your help. And I would listen to that.
I hope that gives you some more tools to work with? We all wish you much luck in finding a way that works for everybody.
Lisa I am green with envy 🙂
I have a 6 1/2 month old daughter that is used to consuming the bulk of her calories at night. She’s with my parents during the day and they do not encourage her to eat/drink much so when momma’s home in the evening and night she eats like there’s no tomorrow. She’s also been waking more often the last two weeks, every 3-4 hours and will not go back to sleep until I nurse her.
I am ready to cry it out but am wondering about swaddling. She is currently swaddled for each nap and bedtime though she’s been busting out if her kiddopatamos velcro wrap this last week. Should I continue to swaddle with crying it out? I’ve tried to wean her with the one arm out but she was not having it. Do I just go cold turkey and hope for the best? Also, after she falls asleep, should I nurse her the next time she wakes? What if it’s only 2-3 hours? I know night weaning is another obstacle I will need to tackle after she learns to sleep on her own.
Wonderful website by the way!!!
Viladda
Sounds good to me LOL. Actually I’ve been having peaceful nights ever since. My friends who actually do try the CIO think it’s a miracle and frankly so do I!
Hi Alexis,
Thank you for the wonderful information you’ve got on your site–especially the reflux info and links! My 6.5 month old was diagnosed with GERD and a double ear infection when he was about 5 weeks old, and now I’m wondering if it really was/is GERD….or just the double ear infection….or a cow’s milk allergy. I’m into week two of no dairy for me, and I’m really reluctant to just wean him off his Prilosec to see what happens. His sleep, in general, used to be absolutely wretched, and now I’d say it has improved to just mildly wretched 😉 He doesn’t really have a schedule yet, and it’s driving me nuts, as I feel completely cooped up in my house (I think my 2 year old daughter is starting to feel the same way, too!).
1) Is it still “normal” for a 6.5 month old to be erratic with bed/wake times? My little guy goes to sleep for the night (puts himself to sleep) sometime between 7:30-8:30pm and wakes up anywhere between 5:00-8:30am. If he wakes between 5-6am, he’ll eat and then go back to sleep until 7:45-8:30ish. I’m going to start trying to wean off the early am feeds–they just kill me, because by the time I’ve held him upright for the GERD, it’s practically time for me to get up with my 2 yo for the day.
2) Is it also normal for a 6.5 month old to have erratic nap times/lengths? He used to nap for no longer than 30 minutes at a time–thank goodness we’re past that!!! And yet, I never know exactly when he’ll go down, based on his wake time. He’ll get tired in anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 hour chunks, and the first two naps of the day are getting to be 1-1 1/2ish hours, with a shorter nap near the end of the day, but there’s no predictability in their timing. (And sometimes he’ll throw in a 30 minute nap in the middle of the day, just to throw me off, and he’ll end up having 4 total naps……or 2 total naps, like today, which meant he was awake from 2:30-8:00ish–with two failed nap attempts in between!).
3) Any advice on transitioning a younger sibling to an older sibling’s bedroom? Currently, our little guy is in his crib in our bedroom and my husband and I are sleeping in the guest room (it was easier than moving his crib twice….because where we really want him is with his sister in her/their room).
Thanks!
So sorry to hear about all you’ve got on your plate there 😛
Just to be clear I hope you are going cassin free (vs. just dairy free) because it’s the milk protein (which crops up in almost ALL processed food) which causes issues. Thus no lactose-free products either as these also have milk protein in them. It blows for you but hopefully will help him a ton?
Reflux kids have a harder time sleeping because they are generally LESS comfortable than non-reflux kids. Also they tend to be so challenging as little babies that we parents turn to all sorts of bad habits which often persist even after things have sort of settled down in their tummies.
So yes it is sort of normal but no it’s not great that it’s happening. I mean – clearly if he starts his day at 5:00 am then obviously his night was a bit short and he’s probably a bit sleep deprived.
My general advice is to wean off those night feedings ASAP! He’s a healthy 6.5 month old kid right? Given that feedings for refluxing babies are generally a bit of a mess I would gradually wean off night feeding as gently but quickly as you can. As you noted – holding him upright after feedings BLOWS at 4:00 AM.
As for transitioning, I just want to suggest that it may not be entirely wise to have a 6 month old and 2 YO in the same room (is this what you’re talking about)? Basically from a safety perspective I’m not hugely keen on toddlers and babies sharing a room if it can possibly be avoided. I’m not saying your toddler will hurt your baby. But toddlers don’t understand the rules. For example she may want to give a “toy” to the baby and inadvertently but a small choking hazard in there. These are the issues that make co-rooming challenging with tiny kids.
I know – not the helpful advice you were hoping for 🙁 Good luck with the reflux and everything else!
Hi again, just saw that someone replied to me but I can’t find the reply button anymore so I figured I’d follow up down here at the bottom.
Well, my guy is now 7.5 months old and I have to say, rather than going the CIO route I actually went more towards the attachment parenting route, going to him when he cried before cries got too intense, and nursing to sleep when he needed it, which usually only happens for the cat nap and sometimes bed. Things got dramatically less stressful for us, and I am sure he’s a happier baby without those 3 hour cry fests in the evening. Also, he’s going longer stretches at night on his own. In fact, last night he only woke up once to nurse and then was back to sleep. So just for anyone contemplating CIO as a last resort but feeling really yucky about it, there is hope that things will get better on their own if your are patient and willing to let it develop. Hang in there!! 🙂
Minnie,
Yeah comments only “nest” so many levels before it can’t go any further. So unfortunately the people who were part of the earlier discussion might not see your update. But I did! And I’m so happy you’re feeling better about things! Sounds like both you AND he are happier. And you sound a lot more confident in your parenting (at least that’s how I read it) now 😉
So happy for you both!
Alexis
Hi Alexia
We followed Minnie’s route and chose to not let our daughter CIO. Thus nursed her for the nap times, bed time and when she woke up once at 2:30 / 3:00 am. However, with my lil one being 1 year old now (8 days ago) weaning her has been rather difficult with her crying incessantly for the breast to sleep ( even in the car!). Walking and rocking her just don’t help n niether does she lie down and attempt to sleep. Pls help me with easy weaning solutions! Am really lost on this one!
Pooja
I wasn’t sure which post I wanted to comment on, as I’ve been going back and forth between this night weaning and CIO stuff 🙂 all morning. So, for a couple months now, our baby has been falling asleep on his own at night, still swaddled, mind you… at 7.5 months. We pretty much used weissbluth’s method + solid routine for that. I would respond to night wakings, which generally were 1-2 times a night, with the second one being at 5am (back to sleep for another 1-2hrs as you mentioned) This week (every week seems different) he usually wakes up between 2:30-3:30am, and I feed him. And then just seems to wake up earlier, like 6am, difficult to get back down, and then cranky in the morning, with sh**ty naps all day. It seems that the days of me getting up to feed him, laying him down in his crib and leaving without protest are over. Regardless of the time of wake up, he pretty much has me for 1-1.5 hrs until he is in the deepest of deep sleeps, whether attached to my nipple or rocking, I am starting to hate the night time again (and the daytime naps too). Last night he did it twice, at 11pm and 2 (bedtime is usually 7:30/8) I sent my husband in, and basically he calms down when picked up, you rock him, think he’s asleep, lay him down, he screams … multiply that by 3, and you get the gist. Also, our naps have started to get inconsistent again, after transitioning out of the swing, I started rocking and or nursing him to sleep out of frustration while on vacation, and now things suck again. WTF? I was so frustrated the other morning at 3am that I just let him cry … it was the battle of wills, and he won after an hour of screaming, I couldn’t take it anymore, so bam … on the nipple he went. I’m sure this will guarentee more crying the next time. This sucks, What do I do? I can handle feeding him for 10-15 minutes in the middle of the night (though I’d rather be done), but I really do not like the rocking for 1 hr afterwards. Ahhhhh!!! Do I need to CIO at night wakings and nap train in the crib, and is it going to suck because of my inconsistency the last couple weeks? Will it still work??? I don’t want to feel so on edge about baby sleep, I am so sick of thinking and talking about it. I just want both of us to be happy 🙂 ON that note, I will stop now. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent.
Of COURSE you’re frustrated. You’re probably thinking, “Hey we made all this great progress, things were getting better, and I was thinking of a day when getting everybody sleeping wouldn’t consume 90% of my brainpower and now BAM we’re right back at the beginning! WAAAAH!”
I get it. It sounds like you are suffering the after effect of vacation. And it’s payback time 😛 My kids were the same way. Which is why we went on our first real vacation in 6 years this winter. Not a lie – that is the absolute truth. It was easier for me to hang out here than it was to pay the post-vacation penalty.
So you put him in his crib awake + swaddled yes? So all is good on that front. But then the night wakings are a mess and it sounds like he’s just not falling back asleep on his own. You said you let him cry for 1 hour and it was a big mess. What happens if you nurse him 1-2X a night (as you were) and THEN put him in his crib awake? My assumption is that he might cry also but it would be a lot less. Regardless that’s what I would do. You can start the gradual night weaning after but hanging out for 1.5 hours isn’t helping anybody. It’s also cutting into his night sleep which is going to work against your goal of better naps. (Tired babies take crappy naps.)
Temporarily you could try the swing for naps again. But I’m guessing that nursing to sleep for naps has put you back into short napdom territory (if not then hey, game on).
But I would nurse 1-2 times a night then put him back in his crib. Yes he will cry but I suspect it will not last as long. Let me know what happens – OK?
Thanks for the reply. He has done relatively well the last two nights when I put him down after feeding and walk out, so that’s good. Except for when he woke up at this morning at 5:30 and then didn’t go back to sleep … ugh (I don’t know how I’ll ever get rid of that feeding … but I can handle it if that’s the only one). Anyhow … question about night weaning. Since he has been waking up twice a night lately 11-1am and then 4-6am, which is more than it used to be, I know you suggest limiting the time of feeding. My little guy is pretty quick anyway, especially at 11pm, when my sacks are pretty much empty 🙂 If I send Daddy in for some rocking or something, is that sending mixed messages?? I don’t want to have to rock him to complete sleep again, multiple times a night. In the past when we’ve tried that, it seems like he gets pretty mad and then my husband will rock for a while, put down, he’ll scream, pick up and rock … then hand him to me out of frustration..ect ect. I just don’t know quite how to go about it without destroying our progress. All I know is my sleep is suffering big time with him waking up shortly after I fall asleep and then again early in the morning … where I then only get at most 1.5 hrs of sleep after. Blah!!! If he keeps waking up this early … it seems I’ll have to move him bedtime earlier too … erg, this baby is tricky and smart .. and super, super cute:)
Options:
1) Make daddy soothe him when he wakes at night (seriously this often works). But yes you’ll create a new Daddy habit (and no you can’t just say “Who cares at least it’s not me!”) so the goal would be to have daddy gradually reduce the amount of time he’s in there intervening.
2) Go cold turkey – no more night feedings. If your sacks are pretty empty (how do you know? do you have a gauge? and if so can I get one too?) it may not be so horrible as he isn’t really eating much anyway.
Also the 5:00 AM wake up is rough. Personally I would stick with the feeding just for that extra hour of sleep. The day is LOOOONG when you start it at 5:00 AM. Most babies will eventually settle on 6:00 AM wakup. This is your new norm. Welcome to the “it’s too damn early” club!
Early bedtime may help if he’s overtired. May not but definitely worth a go 🙂
It’s been ~2 weeks so hopefully you’ve recovered! (PS. Now do you get why we didn’t leave the state of VT for 5 years?!?!?!)
Sarah & Alexis,
I loved reading your exchange! Sarah, I’m curious to know how things ended up working out, though you probably don’t remember because it’s now 5 months later and mommy memories are short, especially when there’s sleep deprivation involved! Sarah’s post really resonated with me, because the situation is very similar to what I’ve been contending with this last week with my 7.5 month old. She had been doing just one feeding for the past 2 months or so(all variable times at night), with a rare 2x/night (I think this happens when she hasn’t had enough during the day). However, this past week and half, she’s been waking up twice (around 12am and 3am or 4am). Historically (for her one feed), if I don’t feed her, she stays awake until I do (upwards of 2 hours). Once fed, she would stay asleep until morning (this was the case even if she woke up at 12 or 1am). As I mentioned, lately, this has not been the case, and she’s been waking up a second time. So, to try to reduce back to one/night, I decided last night not to feed at 12:30am when she woke. Unfortunately, it was 1.5 hours of the rock, crib, sit up, cry, rock, crib, etc. I finally fed her after an hour, and then, it still took a little rocking before she was ready to be put in her crib. (She slept until 6:45am at least – normal waketime is between 6:30am and 7am). We’ll see how I continue to make out, but I just wanted to share that I’m living in a parallel universe. Alexis, any suggestions you have would be helpful. I’m assuming I’m doing the right thing by trying to not feed her for first wake-up.
Thanks,
Johnette
Alexis help! Months on I am still having some sleep issues with my now 6.5 month old. He seems to go through phases of good and bad. He goes to sleep after a feed – put down awake and self settles. He has done that since about 3 months. Lately he is stirring every 40 mins for about 2-3 times after he goes to bed. Some times self settling other times screaming the house down an needing some cuddles for about 20 mins. Don’t know why this is happening. He feeds once between 11 and 2am. Biggest problem is 4am. He wakes up and in inconsolable. Me or partner go in and he settles eventually say 15 mins later. Then is awake again in 20 mins and the process repeats until we give up around 6am and get up. He doesn’t feed until 7am. Do u have any ideas why he is doing this?
Well it could be lots of things.
1) Mild reflux food allergies (general tummy issues, teething, etc.) – http://www.troublesometots.com/medical-problem/
2) Is he chronically sleep deprived? I know it’s a vicious circle – tired babies sleep poorly. Hard to break out of this cycle but that does lead to frequent night waking.
3) My best guess given age and what you are describing is that this is an object permanence issue – you put him down awake but the feed NEAR sleep is so connected in his bed that it’s essentially feed TO sleep. I would try separating food from bedtime by a solid 20-30 minutes and make sure he’s awake and you’re out of the room before he is asleep.
Why do I think this is the issue? Because if you go in and cuddle him to sleep he has no problem falling asleep. If it were medical the cuddling wouldn’t solve the issue. So I would take another pass through this one:
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/
And see if you can’t make sure he’s REALLY falling asleep alone, is not connecting feed=sleep, and doesn’t have any night surprises (mobile shutting off, etc.) Hope that helps!
I am so glad I found your website! My daughter is 6.5 months old and we are On night 3 of CIO and hoping things continue to get better. It is a tough process, but I know I cannot give up because then all the crying thus far will be for nothing. It is nice to know that I can continue to feed her in the middle of the night. I know she is hungry and not yet ready to night ween intirely, and I think I can only handle doing one thing at a time. I have read other books that say if you feed sometimes and let cry others, then it is confusing to them, so I wasn’t sure what to do, but your advice has reminded me to trust my instincts and listen to my baby. I was wondering though, when I feed her in the middle of the night, is it ok for her to fall asleep while eating, or should I try to lay her down awake and let her self sooth back to sleep. Thanks!
In my experience babies who fall asleep nursing do OK as long as you aren’t nursing to sleep at bedtime. Also you’ll want to separate nursing from bedtime by at least 20 minutes. So if you put her in her crib at 7:00 pm then you’ll want to finish nursing at around 6:30 then continue on with the rest of your wind-down.
Anyway it should be fine.
Hi Alexis, thank you for having this blog. I am grateful that you are offering your expertise to those of us who are desperately looking for solutions to our children sleep problems. I read your blog religiously.
My son is 7 months and has not been sleeping well since day 1. He is exclusively breastfeed. He has frequent night wakings from 11 – 5am every night and ready for the day by 5am and sometimes 6. His naps are getting shorter and shorter. We are ready to let him to learn to sleep by himself.
Our routine has been bath, boob, and bed. He usually fall asleep while eating. You suggested that boob, bath, and then bed. Disassociate boob with sleep at least for 20 minutes.
Today is our first night training, I’ve tried to feed him before bath but all he does was looking around and play. I couldn’t get him to concentrate in eating. After bath we just put him down in his crib and walked out. He was ok for 5 minutes trying to figure out what’s going on. Hard cry for 5-10 minutes, stop, and hard cry again.
My question is how to put him drowsy but awake if I move the feeding before bath?
Second question is the night wakings, I’ve been popping him on the boob every single time he’s up. I have a 6 years old sleeping next room and don’t want to wake her up. You suggested to night wean by reducing his feeding time 1-2 mins every 2-3 days. I have a hard time popping it out sooner. He seems to suck harder if I try to pop it out. But he’s not sucking either unless I try to pop it out. What other option do I have to night wean? The 1-2 hours waking from 12-5am is really killing me.
Is there a quicker way to cut some of the night wakings?
Thanks in advance
1) If he’s diddling around at feeding time he may not be hungry. I would try to force the issue by bringing him into a dark dull quiet room where there is nothing to really distract him. Lots of distractable nursers need to be in a dark dull room (no fun siblings to watch are allowed!).
2) YES soothing a 7 month old to sleep is really hard because he’s USED to nursing to sleep. I would add some things to your routine – maybe boob, bath, massage, books, songs, loud white noise. But basically you’re asking him to not fall asleep in really the only way he knows how. Sadly there is no quickie fix to this – this article represents really the only 3 options.
3) How long did the cry hard – stop- cry hard thing go on? Am hoping you did not do this for a while and then go nurse him (yes?). If so it should be much better already!
4) Talk to your 6 YO. For starters older siblings are pretty remarkably about NOT waking up when babies cry. Tell him what you’ll be doing and why (it’s important for the whole family to get to sleep, your brother may cry at night, we are there for him, hopefully it won’t wake you up but if it does just wait quietly until you can go back to sleep, Mommy/Daddy really need your help for a few days, etc.). Don’t parent based on “what if my 6 year old wakes up” do what you need to for all parties involved.
5) If he’s not really sucking then he’s really just suckling because that’s how he falls asleep. You can’t expect him to drop the habit instantly because he’s spent 7 months developing it. Sadly I don’t have any quicker way to drop the night feedings other than stopping cold turkey (only a good choice if you really think he’s diddling around and not really eating). This might involve some night crying but see point #5 above – might be the answer and your 6 YO will probably be pretty awesome about it.
Sorry – no magic baby sleep juice for you. Course if I did have magic baby sleep juice I would sell it. For $1M ;P
Thanks for the prompt respond. Plan for tonight: I’m going to try to feed him in a dark room. If he still not eating I guess it’s ok for him not to eat before bedtime? Will have daddy read him a book after bath and put him dowaston bed.
Last night he fell asleep after 45 minutes (yah!) but got up at 11pm which I fed him but then he got up at 2,3,4,5,6 am. I’m going to cut off feeding tonight for any wakings between 11pm-3am and 3-6am. Or should I start with 11pm-3am first? Fingers crossed for 2nd night.
Alexis, thank you so much. You are an angel.
Forgot to add we always have loud white noise in the room that play all night
“then he got up at 2,3,4,5,6 am”
Ooof. Definitely a sleep habit/object permanence thing going on there. If things are still going on this way it may be time for CIO. Not saying you NEED to but it is an option to consider. Because up hourly isn’t good for anybody 🙁
I have a similar routine with my little lady. She is 6 mo. I call it the 4 B’s; Bath, Boob, Book and Bed (as I see has already been suggested). I start her bath around 6/6:30. Sometimes I may bathe her as early as 5:30 just to get it done and then play with her a bit to pass the time. I found that by reading to her between feeding and putting her down, that there is a good enough spacer so that she isn’t feeding to sleep. I put her down drowsy or even awake. I’m fortunate that my little lady doesn’t cry but rather just babbles and rolls around her crib. She may only cry if she gets stuck at one end or frustrated that suddenly she can’t find her paci.
I am so glad I found this website as It now seems clear that my little one doesn’t need to CIO but rather may bennefit from night weaning. Currently she wakes 3-4 times a night. First time around 9:30-9:45, then 11, 3 and 5/6-7. She starts out in her port-a-crib which is next to my bed, but inevitably ends up in bed with me where I can feed her with ease. I want to try night weaning her but I am not so sure how well she will take it. As it is, she wakes with a wailing cry and when I have tried to soothe her or offer a pacifier first, she won’t have any of it. Additionally my little lady is often congested (thank you day care) as well as bouts of teething, so she has what to fuss about. However, I’ll try shorter feeding periods first and see if I can’t eliminate a feeding or two from there.
I have to say however, I’m not all too bothered with co-sleeping. I like the cuddle time and we both fall asleep much faster. I guess I’m asking will she ever grow out of it or am I creating a monster?
My son Henry (5.5 months old) has been sleeping through the night w/o feedings since about 8 weeks old-ish. But both my husband and I work, and get up around 5am to get ready for work. We have to leave our house by 6, so I feed Henry around 5am Mon-Fri. Oftentimes he will wake up on his own around 5, probably just because it’s ingrained in his internal clock. Sometimes on the weekends he’ll sleep in until 6 or 7, but its usually between 5-6am. We’re fine doing this for now, but I want to know if somehow its damaging his sleeping habits…? I already emailed you with one of my current pressing issues, this is more of just a curious questioning thing. Thanks for your input. I love your website and recommend it to all my friends!
I don’t think I quite follow what is going on. Are you worried that by waking him up earlier than he would organically wake up that you’re messing him up?
As a general rule I don’t like to wake sleeping babies. But there is another rule that says the whole family has needs and everybody needs to give a little to make it work for the team. So if that means cutting off a little bit of his sleep so that it works out then so be it.
I mean really – what’s the alternative, quit your job? Probably not a valid choice. It may be that his day is going to need to be shifted a bit earlier to accommodate his 5:00 AM wakeup. So hopefully you guys are able to maintain an early bedtime for him so he can still have a solid night of sleep. But if he’s napping well and going to bed early, shaving 30 minutes off his morning probably won’t matter much to anybody.
Hi…my son will be 7 months in a week and has a lot of trouble sleeping. He gets very sleepy by 8 pm and we start his bed time routine (bath) by 7.00 pm and give him a bottle of milk. Sometimes he would be very sleepy and fall asleep as i lay him in his cot but most days he struggles to fall asleep and cries out…very often when we pick him up he has burps so i am scared to ignore his cries in case he is very uncomfortable…we eventually end up giving him a paci and he falls asleep..he wakes up several times during the night and we either have to pat him down or give him his paci…sometimes he cannot be consoled and then we give him a bottle. His day time naps are awful..very short and he has to be patted down and only then will he sleep for a little longer than an hour…please help. Thanks.
Two things jump out at me from what you share here…
1) If gas/burps are throwing things off then you want to put more space between the last bottle of the day and bedtime. This will give him ample opportunity to burp out any bubbles that might be tripping you up. I would generally think that 1 hour is long enough but maybe it isn’t? Maybe you need to do a bit more burping post bottle? Although to be honest with you I think the root cause of your bedtime problems, night waking, and crappy naps are…
2) You have an object permanence problem. Have you read this?
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/
What you’re talking about (patting him to sleep, paci use in older babies) is the underlying problem. Check it out and let me know what you think (but I’m 98% sure I’m right). Good luck!
OK, this is very timely as we are tired and I just want our 8 month old to sleep. He was not a great newborn – adorable, but colicky and screamed a lot until we realized it was a dairy issue. I went off dairy, we switched to soy formula and he got older and the colic waned. So here we are and he is still not sleeping through the night.
He goes to bed awake, puts himself to sleep for bedtime and naps with a paci. He’s old enough to get his paci’s strewn around the crib and can resettle. But he still wakes up at least twice a night screaming for food. He gets 4oz of formula at each feeding. We don’t CIO then as we are sharing a room (2 bedroom apt, 2 kids. My 2 year old was and still is a champion sleeper).
He is eating solids like a champ, still downing about 25-30oz of formula a day and is thriving. He just wakes up at 11am and 3am. And 5am but I am happy to keep that feeding for a few more months as I am up then for work anyway.
So we need to water down the formula? Will he ever get out of our room in to the kids’ room?
You can water down the formula or decrease the volume (I would try watering it personally). The truth is that 4 oz is a bit of a snack (I’m assuming he’s guzzling 8 oz bottles during the day right)? So hopefully he’ll be down to just water and then will stop waking up relatively quickly (1 week!).
What happens if you go in with 4 oz of water and he’s STILL waking up? Then it’s a habit. What are you going to do then? Personally I would encourage you to think about CIO if he’s still waking up for a bottle of water. It’ll likely be relatively brief and probably won’t wake up your 2 YO. Hopefully it won’t come to that! But just in case, you’ll need a backup plan, no?
I’m impressed he can find and replace his own paci. Most kids don’t figure that out until 1.5 years. So clearly that’s a smart peanut you’ve got!
Why can’t you get him out of your room? If he’s falling asleep on his own then couldn’t he go into the kid’s room whenever you’re ready? The only issue I would be concerned with is to make sure the 2 YO is capable of making safe choices for the baby. Sometimes older siblings think they are “helping” by giving the baby toys (which may or may not be safe for the baby) so you need to do some education with big brother about what is and isn’t OK for the baby. If you’re comfortable on that front, why couldn’t baby go into the kids’ room this weekend?
Just a thought (I know these things are more stressful than they seem from the outside ;).
Alexis,
I have a month old,who at 5 month was only waking up 1 time to nurse aorund 3 or 4 for about 2-3 weeks, then we took trip. Now on this trip she started crawling as well. After our return she started night waking again. She was not even nursing, but sucking. I started to do CIO a week before she was 6 months. We did this for a few nights. She would wake up and cry for a bit then go bak to sleep. Then one night she kept waking up and crying frantically. My husband had to go to her after 1.5 hours. The next few nights she was still waking a 2-3 times a night and fussing for a bit. Then last night she woke up at 3:00 and cried for an hour and then I heard 2 loud bangs. I had to go to her. She banged her head on the crib. She was sittting up in the corner of her crib and was having trouble moving without hitting her head. She was so upset and wanted to be nursed- I caved. She went back to sleep until 6;45. She naps 30 minutes all the time. I give her 3 naps a day. Once in awhile she will nap longer. Maybe we will get a longer nap inthe morning or the last nap may be longer on some days-but it usually either or, not both and not the middle nap. Most days are 3 30 minute naps. We are avid readers os DR. weissbluth and it worked like w charm with my 5 year old son. My daughter is antoher story. Believe me when I say mu like revolves around her napping. I study her for drowsy signs , look at the clock. I do no nurse her to sleep any more. We bath her, nurse, read books, and then sing a couple songs and then in the bed she goes. At nap time, my husband started doing, but he rocks her a little and puts her down pretty quickly drowsy, but not a sleep. I think maybe she might be more drwosy than awake though. She goes to bed between 7-8 depending on the day and wakes aorund 6;30- 7:15. She seems like a happy girl and goes down easily to sleep.Her napping times are so inconisistent though. One day it could be 8:30 thenext 9:45 and so on. Please advise on the night sleeping waking and the short napping and inconsistency.Oh , on top of it all she is crawling, and beginning to pull up and she just turned 6 months. I feel like I missing something, but not sure what it is. Thank for you help.
Julie
Alexis,
I have a 6 month old,who at 5 month was only waking up 1 time to nurse aorund 3 or 4 for about 2-3 weeks, then we took trip. Now on this trip she started crawling as well. After our return she started night waking again. She was not even nursing, but sucking. I started to do CIO a week before she was 6 months. We did this for a few nights. She would wake up and cry for a bit then go bak to sleep. Then one night she kept waking up and crying frantically. My husband had to go to her after 1.5 hours. The next few nights she was still waking a 2-3 times a night and fussing for a bit. Then last night she woke up at 3:00 and cried for an hour and then I heard 2 loud bangs. I had to go to her. She banged her head on the crib. She was sittting up in the corner of her crib and was having trouble moving without hitting her head. She was so upset and wanted to be nursed- I caved. She went back to sleep until 6;45. She naps 30 minutes all the time. I give her 3 naps a day. Once in awhile she will nap longer. Maybe we will get a longer nap inthe morning or the last nap may be longer on some days-but it usually either or, not both and not the middle nap. Most days are 3 30 minute naps. We are avid readers os DR. weissbluth and it worked like w charm with my 5 year old son. My daughter is antoher story. Believe me when I say mu like revolves around her napping. I study her for drowsy signs , look at the clock. I do no nurse her to sleep any more. We bath her, nurse, read books, and then sing a couple songs and then in the bed she goes. At nap time, my husband started doing, but he rocks her a little and puts her down pretty quickly drowsy, but not a sleep. I think maybe she might be more drwosy than awake though. She goes to bed between 7-8 depending on the day and wakes aorund 6;30- 7:15. She seems like a happy girl and goes down easily to sleep.Her napping times are so inconisistent though. One day it could be 8:30 thenext 9:45 and so on. Please advise on the night sleeping waking and the short napping and inconsistency.Oh , on top of it all she is crawling, and beginning to pull up and she just turned 6 months. I feel like I missing something, but not sure what it is. Thank for you help.
Julie
Julie,
I’m really behind on comments so my advice may be far too late to help you and I’m really sorry about that. However in case somebody reading this has the same issue here’s what I think:
The timing of your travel and all was unlucky as it probably coincided with the 6 month sleep regression/growth spurt. I think people get tripped up by growth spurts because they feel that once their baby sleeps 12 hours without eating that they are DONE. Baby has gotten all calories during the day and thus doesn’t need any at night. However as you have an older kid you’ve probably seen your 5 year old going from eating a handful of grapes at dinner to wolfing down half a cheese pizza and then asking for desert. Why? He’s having a growth spurt and thus NEEDS MORE FOOD (at least temporarily).
So my first guess is that you were trying to do CIO at an unlucky time (sadly babies don’t come with gauges so it’s hard to tell) and she probably legitimately needed more food at night.
Hungry babies will not easily fall back to sleep.
Also babies DO get stuck sometimes and need physical help, which is why I’m a big proponent of using night vision monitors even though they are $$$.
I’m also guessing that your instincts are right – you’re putting her down “too drowsy.” So from your perspective she is awake when she leaves. But from HER perspective she’s already asleep. So the object permanence thing is keeping you stuck in short-nap land.
The answer would be putting her down less drowsy or more obviously awake. Which is not always easy but it is the solution.
It’s been a month – where are things at now?
oh and she i have been feeding her arounf 5-6 then back to sleep until 7:15,
PS. this is really common. I would keep the 5:00 AM feed because often younger babies will simply start the day AT 5:00 AM unless fed or given a lot of soothing. Personally I would rather feed & sleep for 2 hours.
Wish I had read your post a few days earlier! We are in the midst of using CIO (Ferber style) on our 9 month old baby.
She breastfeeds once overnight and goes back to sleep fine ( I usually put her back in her cot drowsy). However I think this is more of a habit than real hunger and decided it was time to nightwean. Unfortunately we’ve taken the CIO route to nightwean! Doh!
We’ve only been using it for a couple of nights now. My partner has been going in to soothe her ( usually for a minute). The first night was ok. I could tell from her feeble cries that she was very tired and my partner went to check and console three times. She eventually slept until 5:45 which is about the time she gets up.
The second night was a disaster. Her cries were louder and she cried for about an hour and a half. My partner going in seemed to make things worse. Then she woke my todler up who then proceeded to chat to herself for the next two hours! When my toddler finally settled the baby woke again and cried for about half an hour. My partner didn’t go in this time as she seemed to be worse if he did.
Not sure what to do now. Earlier today we decided that we’re best off going for extiction then I read your post about CIO and nightweaning. Believe it or not it worked with my first child when she was 8 months. She was a terrible sleeper and woke 4 or 5 times a night to be breastfed to sleep. I was so exhausted one night I just didn’t go to her when she woke up and cried. She cried for about 30 minutes and slept through the morning and from then on. I do remember being stunned that it was that easy (I’d been opposed to CIO until I was lacking in so much sleep I was no longer enjoying being a mother).
Obviously all babies are different though and my second born does seem a little more clingy and stubborn.
Hmmm, so what to do? If I start breastfeeding her again I’m concerned it’s going to confuse her ( I know, it has only been two nights). Maybe we should keep going with the Ferber method so at least she is getting some form of comfort?
She really does struggle with sleep and like my firstborn I used Dr Weissbluth’s book to implement a sleep routine. Managed to get her from about 3 overnight feeds to one when she was 7 months old using CIO ( I only responded to her once). For a while she was comfortably waking once for a half hour feed and falling asleep until (annoyingly) 5 am’ish, sometimes 6. But over the last week or so she has been waking an hour or two after her feed ( which is usually between midnight and 2am). I thought I would use the CIO method to eliminate these nightwakings altogether.
Your input would be helpful.
For the last couple of months my partner and I have been sleeping in our living room as she seemed to sleep alot better without us there. We are getting pretty desperate to get our room back and put her in the room with our toddler but that won’t happen until she sleeps through. Unfortunatley, her terrible sleeping habits have now affected our normally great sleeping toddler who is starting to wake during the night now 🙁
Shona,
My feedback is a bit late but here it is…
If you’ve committed to 2 days I would just do it. I think her freaking out on day 2 is an extinction burst (see link below). It IS harder when you’re in the room so I’m glad you guys are sleeping in the living room (even though it blows for you – things will likely go more smoothly without you there).
Also, MANY MANY older siblings start sleeping poorly when the new baby arrives. Rarely does this actually involve the noise and bustle of night parenting. More often this has to do with attention and power. Because the baby gets a ton of attention so older siblings are seeking ways to carve out their own attention, and night waking is an enormously effective way to do this.
So you didn’t ask but because this is SO common I would be aware that the older sibling night waking may be unrelated to what the baby is doing and may in fact continue after the baby is STTN.
I hope things are going great now and that baby and older sib are happily in their own room and you guys are back in your own bed!
Hello,
My son is just over 6 months. We tried to do CIO (check & console), it started off well the first few days but then went downhill, and I’m hoping you can help.
He had been waking 4-6 times a night, but I would only nurse him 2-3 of those times. The timing of his wake-ups was very irregular. I would nurse based on how long it had been since he went to bed or last nursed (ie no sooner than 4 hours after bedtime, no sooner than 3 hours after that, etc). Sometimes sooner if he wouldn’t be consoled any other way.
We did not try to night wean before or during CIO, and I think this may have caused problems. After the first 2-3 days, bedtime was much better. But he was still waking just as much at night, and when it was not time to nurse he would often cry for extended periods (1hr+). Sometimes he would cry long enough that it would be the time when I would normally nurse him. We were not sure what to do, because we didn’t want to give him the wrong message and nurse him after letting him cry for so long, but at that point he was probably hungry – or at least used to eating – and I would think that made it even harder to get to sleep?
What should we have done in this situation? I haven’t seen this issue addressed in any of the reading on CIO I have done. Or for him to still be waking up & crying so much during the night, several days into CIO, is that indicative that something else is wrong (either with him or how we did CIO)?
Basically after a few days of good progress, it seemed to stall out, and then things got worse (more crying). So we stopped. Now we’re almost back to where we were before we started, and it’s very frustrating 🙁
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Exactly our problem with 9mo kiddo. Post CIO, bedtime is EASY; night wakings are very hit and miss. Many nights he goes 4-5 hour stretches without a problem, so I know he can do it. We are down from 20 to 8 minutes on the first night feed.
Last night he woke up less than 2 hours after his first of the usual 2 night feedings and claimed to be starving to death. How do you do the night weaning plan with nights like this?
The fact that he CAN go 4-5 hours before the second feeding makes me worry on the bad nights that something else is wrong. Teething? Sore throat from his little cold? Who knows?
Looking forward to your answer on this one! Thank you!!!
Intermittently feeding IS confusing for you and baby. Is he waking out of habit? Is he really hungry? I just fed him 2 hours ago so how hungry can he really be?!?!
From his perspective: Sometimes I cry and mommy comes and other times she doesn’t. What’s up with that?
Sadly intermittent reinforcement is the worst possible scenario for everybody. Lots of babies who were using mom as a human pacifier, or who had a snack habit (woke up frequently but only ate a little bit at a time). So night weaning for snackers is a huge challenge.
Also? Intermittent reinforcement is the BEST way to get the MOST crying. Which obviously is not what anybody wants.
Depending on how much he was nursing (long gulping nursing sessions or little bitty snacks) – you might have tried just going to him every time he awoke and then gradually shortening each feeding (even if there were 5).
Lots of babies who figure out how to fall alone at bedtime AND have a solid separation of nursing from bedtime (at least 20 minutes) will drop a few “night snacks” after that happens organically.
If your baby continued waking up for 5X snacks (2-3 minute nursing sessions) you might have considered full night CIO. This is a bit rough for a few nights but babies quickly adapt and drop the night snacks in favor of more eating during the day. This isn’t a great thing to do but it DOES give a clear path and avoids the penalty of intermittent reinforcement.
Basically you are exchanging 2-3 bad nights for months of nights where baby will cry 30 minutes here and there EVERY night. Does that make sense?
Totally makes sense, and pretty much the conclusion we came to after our experience.
It is just frustrating, because much of what I read related to CIO seemed to imply that it could be done while maintaining night feedings, but didn’t explain how. And also, while I know many experts say babies should be able to sleep through without eating at 6-8 months, I personally don’t know of many breastfed babies who have done so.
We decided that we weren’t ready to totally night wean, and tried some other methods to reduce the amount of nursing and waking. It seems to be working – or he’s just outgrowing it. We’re usually down to only 2 wake-ups, and I nurse him back to sleep… for now, I’ll certainly take that over 4-5 times.
Thanks!
I don’t mean to suggest that you CAN’T night nurse if you want to. That’s totally your option and if you dig it then go for it (personally I never dugg it and counted the seconds until I could stay in my own bed all night long).
But the reason so many breastfed babies aren’t sleeping through the night by 6-8 months has NOTHING to do with the fact that they can’t. They absolutely can. And it has nothing to do with the fact that their breastfed,
What it has to do with is that most breastfed babies are fed to sleep resulting in an object permanence issue so that they’re waking up all night long to recreate their sleep association/object permanence of boob=sleep. If you nurse to sleep, your baby will seem hungry all night long. (You can do the same thing with the bottle it’s just not as soothing and thus not quite as common).
So it’s not about the food or that they aren’t getting enough calories during the day. It’s the boob=sleep thing which is wonderful when they’re newborns but leads to bad sleep places when they’re older.
FYI
Hi Alexis! First of all, bless you for sharing everything you know. I would listen to you before Oprah any day 🙂
Our 4.5 month old is sleeping like a champion at night- even starting to consistently put herself to sleep with only minor fussing! All thanks to what we have learned from your site. She has been waking consistently around 5-5:30 to eat and then will go back to sleep until 8-9 am. I am thinking that last feeding is more of a habit b/c when she wakes up she’s not interested in eating for at least an hour or two (ex: eats at 5:30, back to sleep until 8:30, eats again at 10). Her daytime feedings are generally 2.5 hrs apart and she is above average for weight. I am considering using your weaning technique (realizing that she will probably get up for the day earlier which is fine). What do you think? Am I just being sleep-greedy? Thanks so much!
Nevermind… She has slept 11-12 hours straight for the past 5 nights. Must have heard me talking about it and wanted to prove me wrong. Like how she never fusses at bedtime when company is here 🙂
My baby (OK he’s 5 now but whatev) used to take 3 hour naps for the 16 year old babysitter who would come over as a mother’s helper. He would NEVER do this for me. But I would essentially pay her to sit on our couch and read magazines for 3 hours. There was no way around it however because if she weren’t on our couch he would sleep 30 minutes and that would be that.
So I get it.
If she DOES go back to eating I would say this, just because she isn’t hungry at 8:30 doesn’t really mean anything. She just had a big meal at 5:30 so it’s only been 3 hours since she had turkey dinner. So she’s not quite yet famished.
That being said you are always welcome to try to night wean the 5:30 feed. I know I don’t want to get up at 5:30 either! Give it a try and see what happens. If she sleeps through to 8:30 (or even 7:00 frankly) without eating then GREAT! If she starts her day at 5:30 (without a feed) then you have a choice. Would you rather start your day at 5:30 or feed her and then sleep till 8:30? (Hint: go with the 5:30 feed 😉
Thank you so much for your reply! I have totally been paying a teenager this summer to sit on our couch while I work at home and the baby naps. Best money I have spent in a long time!
We are really lucky- our little rock star has kept on sleeping through. She goes to bed between 6-8 pm (her naps are still quite variable but her awake tolerance of 2 hrs is absolute) and wakes up between 6:30-7:30 am. Honestly I think a lot of it is that we have been working hard on teaching her to put herself to sleep and she is doing really well (totally b/c of your instructions). So when she wakes in the night, resettling herself (without rocking or eating) is a familiar thing. We’ll see what happens when object permanance hits b/c girlfriend LOVES her binky 🙂
You know what is interesting- she generally eats between 23-30 oz a day (which seems like a lot of variability but the ped laughed and said she’s obviously getting enough to eat and so he’s not worried about it). And we have found that a low-volume day does not affect length of night sleep. Babies are so weird…
Great to read that others have been experiencing the “sleeps longer with other caregivers but not with parents” phenomenon. All of our 3 daughters (twin 2 1/2 year olds and 7 month old) have done this where they sleep longer for the nannies, but not for my husband and me on the weekends.
In the stroller my baby will sleep for 30 minutes (40 if I’m lucky). With grandma he will sleep for 1,5 hour. Obviously my stroller-pushing technique is not up to his standards.
Alexis,
I have 6.5 month old who goes to sleep on her own for naps and bedtime- no issues there. After a trip she bagan waking up a lot again and we did CIO and got through that. Now the problem is that she usually wakes between 4-5 am for a breastfeed and then back to sleep until 6-7am. The issue is that every few days she will wake at 2-3 am and cry for an hour. What to do? I feel like she is confused. Please help. Do I try to wean her from the early morning feed so she has no feeds at all or do I continue to go to her at 4-5 am? And what to do about that 2-3 am waking, ignore it, go to her. I feel so bad when wakes up at that time and she cries for an hour. I feel like a bad mom, but I know I have already weaned/CIO that feeding and she does not need it Or does she? Please advise. Thank you.
JJ
I don’t know that she doesn’t need the 2:00 am feeding. Sadly babies have no food gauges (although my husband has a PhD in fluid dynamics and I keep telling him that if he could invent one we would make serious bank!)
It sounds like she is used to eating 1X a night and that 1 feeding floats around a bit. I’m assuming of course that if you feed her at 2-3 am she’s not then waking at 4:00 am. So she’s looking to eat one time at night. If she cries and you go feed her and then another time she cries and you DON’T this is intermittent reinforcement (see comment above).
She doesn’t know it’s 4:00 AM or 2:00 AM or whatever, right?
And regardless in either scenario you need to schlep in there at some point to feed her, right?
So I guess I would bypass the crying (which isn’t really accomplishing anything) and go to her for her 1X a night feed even if the time floats about a bit. Cool?
Is it really alright to use the “gradually change from formula to water” technique in a baby younger than 6 months? Aren’t babies under 6 months not supposed to have water because it can cause water intoxication? I think this article needs to be revised. This article implies that it is fine to try this technique with a young baby… very dangerous.
Hey Kate my reading of this article has always been that these methods are for babies older than 6 months due to the opening line – that babies are fully capable of not feeding at night by 6 – 8 months. I have never thought that it was in support of reducing feeds at night in under 6 month olds so I was surprised you did!!!!
Yep – Janey is correct. In fact in the first sentence I talk about babies 6-8 months of age. I don’t really advocate trying to wean off babies under 6 months (even though some will organically do this on their own).
Hi Alexis,
My God. This website is brilliant. I can’t believe you reply to every post. Incredible.
I have a 6 month old baby who has been a terrible sleeper from the word go. Well not when he was tiny of course (he was just a newborn!) but as we got more used to having a baby we made a lot of decisions that caused us major problems later on. It all came to a head about a month ago when we had been getting up for hours every night and rocking him back to sleep as even the boob wasn’t working anymore. He was waking every 45 mins blah blah blah. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. Anyway we had major success with our version of controlled crying (going in and soothing when we felt the need and gradually going in less and less until we pretty much left him to it) where our little boy basically went from waking every 45mins – 1 hour to only waking once on the first night!! He woke twice on the second but we just stroked his hair for 5 mins and he went back to sleep, then he gradually stretched out his night waking from 2 to 3 to 4 and one night only woke at 5am, then went back down. Excellent…. then it all went belly up. He learnt to roll over from front to back. He’s a tummy sleeper but he can’t get back by himself so he’s waking every couple of hours in the night again looking a bit like a woodlouse that’s been flipped. Plus he just cut a tooth. We keep flipping him back over (he can’t fall asleep on his back, I’ve tried he just screams his head off)I just don’t know what to do as the more I go in the more reliant he is becoming on me again but he just cannot fall asleep on his back. He wants to be on his tummy. I’ve tried ‘practicing’ rolling with him in the day and given him plety of opps to do so but he refuses to practice his rolling skills and saves them for when he’s supposed to be sleeping. CIO worked for about a week and now we’re heading into a living hell again and I don’t know what to do. HELP!
And another thing… sorry, just thought you could do with more info. We decided to tackle naps at the same time and it worked brilliantly. He went from being a 30 min catnapper to now sleeping about 1 1/2 for 2 of his naps and then a couple of 30mins ones later in the day. His bedtime is 6pm (we would love it to be later but that is all he can manage) He sometimes even has a short nap at 5pm to get him through his bath as he’s knackered by 5.30 and really wants to be in bed then but that means a 5am wake up! Eek. He can only stay awake 1 1/2 to 2 hours max between naps which I know is not very long but he just gets soooo grumpy if I don’t put him down when he wants. It’s just not worth it. Hope that paints a better picture. Thanks. x
Claire,
Well the early wakup isn’t really THAT early (6:00 am is probably the norm) but I think you’ll see that as he gets used to longer naps he’ll be able to hold out for a later bedtime, closer to 7:00 PM. Which would set you up from a night of 7:00 pm – 6:00 am which is awesome!
I wouldn’t try to force it though. If he’s tired put him to bed! Keeping a tired baby awake just causes a whole mess of problems. But short nappers who become long nappers often sort this out all on their own.
Also I’m really glad CIO for naps worked for you guys! I find it doesn’t consistently work for naps but I don’t have a good sense of how often it does/doesn’t. Like does it work 50% of the times for naps? It’s a mystery I’m trying to solve. Anyhoo…I’m glad it worked for you 🙂
Sadly I can’t solve your flipping issue. Definitely stick with as much practice as possible during the day. Most babies figure out the bi-directional flipping within a few weeks. And other than practicing a ton OR strapping them into a swing (which doesn’t help your tummy sleeper) there isn’t much you can do in the interim. Hopefully he’s a fast learner!
Hi Alexis,
Thanks so much for your response. I suspected that we were going to have to ride it out with the flipping over malarchy. It’s just a massive pain in the arse having finally made progress after having such a terrible time with our boy’s sleep. I thought all might be lost but things have been slightly better. He only woke at 4.45am last night for a feed which was brilliant, totally happy with that. I’m not counting my chickens though as every time I say something positive out loud it’s like the sleep gremlin hears me and decides he’s not having that and comes back with a vengeance.
As for the day naps, we’ve had consistent success since we tried it alongside bedtime. I know that we are probably pretty rare with this and I’m not saying people should try it, but I’ll try and explain why I think it worked for us. I tried many a time before, to put him down ‘drowsy but awake’ but he screamed the house down for a good hour until I picked him up. I always tried during the day not at night as I thought it would be easier… WRONG! I got to a point where if I heard the words ‘drowsy but awake’ from anyone I honestly thought I might punch them. Sorry but I was pretty angry about the sleep thing. Isaac (my son) required a ridiculous amount of rocking to get to sleep. At one point he was demanding that I fed him standing up whilst rocking as this was the only way to calm him down! He still often wasn’t happy and going to sleep resulted in a lot of crying from both of us! He didn’t know what he wanted and we didn’t know what he wanted. Once we decided enough was enough we put him in his cot at bedtime – by far the best time to do this as he was so tired he only grizzled for about 40 mins instead of screaming bloody murder for an hour or more which he has the energy to do during the day. Once he had actually fallen asleep in his cot alone at night it all kind of slotted into place. It was like he was saying ‘thank god you’ve finally figured it out, all that rocking was really pissing me off!’ I had just been so afraid of putting him down awake because of the day sleep I had avoided it. But it was fine. I know this isn’t the case for everyone but it worked for us and the day naps quickly followed.
Thanks again for you help. Oh one more question, it’s been about 3 weeks since he started having really good naps in the day, do you have any idea roughly how long it might take before he starts staying awake a bit longer during naps and maybe even going to bed a bit later. I know this is probably a how long is a piece of string kind of question!
Thank you!!
Claire,
I’m a little fuzzy on what you did and how it worked for you but what I GATHER is that you gave up on CIO for naps, but you used CIO to sort out some night-sleeping issues which worked wonderfully. And that after he started sleeping well at night the nap stuff sorted themselves out fairly organically (no more back-breaking rocking, crying, sleep goblin stuff). Yes?
Anyhoo congratulations! Lots of nap stuff will sort themselves out if you get the night sleep going in the right direction. You’re totally on the money. They’re MORE apt to put up a struggle during the day (when everybody is frustrated and overtired) than they are at night. And once they’re sleeping better at night, nap things go more smoothly due to the whole “sleep begets sleep” thing.
So yay for you!
My baby sleep forecasting crystal ball says “try again later” so I can’t really answer your question about when your baby will be able to stay awake later/longer. He will when he does. But this should give you a rough idea of what to expect:
http://www.troublesometots.com/baby-sleep-what-is-normal/
Great work and congratulations!
Sorry I meant stay awake longer between naps not during naps!! That wouldn’t be fun. (He’s 6 1/2 months and can only stay awake for about 1 1/2 at a time)
Thank you for all of the info above. I was hoping to get your input on my son’s sleep habits. He’s nearly 7 months old and has never slept through the night (by MY definition). Things have been tougher for the last few weeks, helped in no way by our vacation (time change, crib change, routine change, etc.), teething, and probably a growth spurt.
We were in a pretty good state around 3 months–he’d sleep for about 5-6 hours in one stretch, eat (he’s EBF), sleep for another 3-4 hours and then be up around 6am. Then I guess the 4 month sleep regression hit, and he started waking up a lot more often. At one point, I think around 4.5 months, I tried letting him cry himself back to sleep–not actually CIO, because I would stay with him and rub his back, sometimes rather firmly to keep him from rolling over onto his back (he’s a belly sleeper). This worked and seemed to snap him back into a better cycle of sleep at night for a little while, though it never got back to 5-6 hour stretches.
Right now he goes to sleep around 9pm, and a typical night involves feedings/wakings at, say, 1am, 3:30am, 5am, 6am. Particularly the last couple of wakings he has a really hard time staying asleep, even after falling asleep while nursing, so sometimes I give up and bring him to bed.
Last night he woke up after 3 hours of sleeping, and I got him back to sleep without feeding him (just walking around and humming), but the second his little body was in the air on the way to the mattress, he woke up. After repeating this a few times, I FINALLY got him to sleep (he was tired enough that I could keep him lying down and rubbed his back while he fussed slightly), but he woke up ~45 min later, and I tried again, but the crying got too insistent and I finally just fed him.
After re-reading your article, I’m sure that his nursing-to-sleep habit is part of the problem. How would you suggest breaking that habit? Right now his bedtime routine is to take a bath and then nurse to sleep. Do I just suddenly STOP and, say, wake him up after he’s finished eating? I hate to stop him before he’s done (he usually pulls himself off the breast) because I want to make sure he has a nice full belly! I’m afraid if I switch the order–feed (then wake him up probably) and then bath, he’ll just be all worked up. Is it something where there might have to be a lot of repetition, i.e., rock/nurse him to drowsy (or wake him up from sleep), put him in the crib, he fusses too much to sleep, then rock/nurse him, put him in the crib, etc…?
At nap time, I’ve tried to put him in the crib when he’s awake (but sleepy), and wow, he pops right up like “okay, well, I’m not asleep, so that must mean that it’s time to be awake!” Sometimes that alone just cancels the whole nap, so I’ve been avoiding doing so anymore, with the thought that the most important thing is sleep, however it arrives.
Also, do you have any thoughts on the not-staying-asleep-once-in-the-crib behavior? I just don’t know what to do when he’s so sleepy while being held, and then wakes up the second he starts moving towards the mattress. I don’t want to do CIO, and now that he’s crawling/sitting up, just rubbing his back isn’t an option any more (he’s too fast/strong and just pops right up).
I’m sorry this is so long. I’m just kind of out of ideas, and tend towards just getting everyone back to sleep at night. But he’s starting daycare this week, and I go back to work part-time next week, so addressing the sleep issue is starting to be more crucial. Thanks for any advice you might have.
Okay, let me start by apologizing–I feel like I’m just overwhelming this comment area. But I’ve been reading and re-reading many of your posts (and it always helps me when I read about other people’s experiences). So…
Yesterday my husband had an important morning meeting, so I spent the preceding night keeping our son quiet, which meant that he went to sleep at 8pm, and woke up to eat at 11:30pm, 2am, 4:15am, and 6:45am before waking up for good at 7:30am. Fun stuff. So, I consider that kind of a baseline.
Last night I tried to change our bedtime routine. I took him upstairs before he started to look tired (about an hour after waking from his last nap–which started at 6pm; I had to wake him up from it at 7:30; maybe I shouldn’t have?), we played in a dimly-lit room for maybe 10 min. I let him nurse on one side, but made sure he didn’t fall asleep. Then a bath, a little rocking. And I let him feed on the other side, but pulled him off when he looked like he was about to start drifting (so it was a short meal). When I laid him down, I patted him gently but enough to make sure his eyes opened, and said goodnight. He looked like he was going to go right to sleep, but then he thought better of it and popped up. I rubbed his back and hummed while he sat up, then stood up. He finally started crying some, and eventually I picked him up and carried him around to get him sleepy and put him back in the crib; he wasn’t having it, and started the crying again. We repeated this process–rock to sleepy, go in crib, cry and stand up–a couple of times before he was finally tired enough to stay lying down, and then he fell asleep with some whimpering.
I thought great!, maybe this’ll solve it! That was at 9:30pm that he fell asleep. And then he woke up at 11:40pm, 12:40am, and 1:45am. I picked him up and got him back to sleep without feeding the first two times, and figured that it wasn’t unreasonable to feed him at 1:40am. Then he slept for 3.5 hours (the longest stretch of sleep I’ve had in a while), woke up around 5:30am. I remembered you said that this is often the hardest feed to break, so I didn’t even try. He got up for the day at 6:30 (although many times I can get him to go back to sleep for another hour or so…)
I know this was just the first night of a “new” routine, so I hope that tonight will be better. But I wanted to check and see if you had any suggestions. It’s not easy to soothe a baby who can move around so much! Nothing I read addresses how to soothe when they’re sitting up and crying or leaning on the crib trying to grab your shirt. I don’t know if I should have avoided picking him up altogether, but I don’t think he was going to calm down organically by himself, and I wasn’t prepared to start cry-it-out. At least not yet.
His napping is pretty good–although he still usually nurses to sleep. I tried to work on that yesterday (by pulling him off the breast before he was catatonic), but he would wake right up. I even got him to sleep without eating once, but as soon as he hit the mattress, he was awake. Then I rocked him, but even when it looked like he was asleep, he would wake up every time I tried to put him in the crib. Eventually I caved (once his eyes were WIDE open and he didn’t look tired at all anymore), and I fed him to get him to sleep, recognizing that he needed a nap of some sort. He still protested a little when I put him in.
I’m working on getting him to use some of our flannel burp-clothes as transitional objects (they helped get him to sleep when I was rocking him for that nap–he’d just suck on them). Maybe I shouldn’t worry about naps right now and just focus on bedtime though?
How long is it worth giving this new approach before I move on to cry-it-out? I don’t mind getting up once a night. Even twice would be better than where we are now, but getting up to deal with him every 1.5-2 hours is wearing me down, and settling a crying baby after only an hour of sleep is so hard, especially knowing that I COULD have him asleep and peaceful if I were to just feed him a little. Am I reasonable to expect that if I’m consistent in not feeding him until 4-5 hours after going to sleep that he’ll eventually just sleep through? And then can I slowly start to extend that time period? Or maybe he’ll do it naturally? I think the central problem is his breast-to-sleep association, but geez, what a pain to fix!
Again, I’m sorry for my excruciating detail. But I really appreciate your insight. Thank you!
Holy Cow – you’re comments were so long I started reading them YESTERDAY 😉
Ok there is a lot going on here but I think I have a handle on things so let me break down what I’m hearing & give you something to chew on OK?
1) Don’t sweat “put down awake” for naps right this second. Yes this is a problem and yes something will need to change there but for just now let’s table it and focus on some other things that are going on.
2) You must be fracking exhausted! Your baby is 7 months old and eating more at night than most newborns (by my count 3-4X a night). Physically he’s 110% capable of a 12 hour fast. So – why is he doing this? For a few reasons:
a) Your nursing to sleep. This creates both sleep association/object permanence issues:
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/
b) Habit. We don’t know quite how much he’s been consuming but presumably he’s eating something so he’s probably legitimately hungry because he’s used to it. We need to get him un-used to it.
c) He’s using you as a human pacifier. Which is totally reasonable when he’s a newborn. But it’s not working for him or you now (his disrupted night sleep is no better for him than it is for you).
3) Bedtime is too late. http://www.troublesometots.com/bedtime-what-time/
By 7 months you shouldn’t be waking him up from his 6:00 nap because there shouldn’t BE a 6:00 nap. By 7 months a more typical day would involve 3 naps where the last one occurs at ~3:00/4:00 setting him up for a bedtime in the vicinity of 7:30. Your baby is sleeping about 10 hours at night which is a tad low (11 is the norm) but not a huge concern or anything. 7:30 PM – 6:30 AM would be a great goal.
The reason he wakes up the second his butt touches the crib and why he wakes up with increasing frequency through the night is because you are surprising him – he falls asleep with you and wakes up without you. From his perspective this is pretty alarming so he’s becoming hypervigillant – he needs to keep an eye on you so you don’t mysteriously disappear.
If you can finagle a way to put him down awake that would be awesome. Because that gives you a nice clear way to then gently wean off the night feeds using the method in this post.
CIO (see link below) is also a fair strategy given where you are at and you should definitely keep in your back pocket as a backup plan. The only challenge I see is that as he’s been eating SO often at night he may be legitimately hungry during the night. So when he wakes up 2 hours after bedtime crying it can be hard to suss out – is this protest crying or legitimate hunger? Going in some times but not others can unfortunately turn into intermittent reinforcement which results in even more crying.
My other piece of advice at bedtime is to separate nursing from bedtime by a good 30 minutes. Putting him down awake solves your object permanence issue – YAY! But nursing him directly before he goes down doesn’t necessarily solve the breast-to-sleep association.
For example, I read right before bed. I don’t read until I actually fall asleep but it is hard for me to fall asleep if I don’t read. I have a read-to-sleep association. However unlike a baby I don’t wake up needing to read more all night long 😉
Oh thank you for your thoughts. I really appreciate it. (And again–I’m sorry they were so long! I didn’t realize how absurdly long they were until after I submitted them!)
Well, starting tonight we’ll try cold-turkey with no breast right before sleep. Poor little guy is in for a shock!
Hi Alexis, thank you again. I just wanted to follow up (I promise that I’ll keep it shorter!). We started with CIO (full extinction) at bedtime with GREAT success (I’m still stunned). He cries for ~10-15 min, and most of that time is him winding down into moaning-to-sleep. I’m thrilled.
The first couple of nights he slept from 7:45 till around 1am (again–thrilled!), I fed him and boy did he eat! Then he woke up ~4am (rocked him back to sleep), and at 5:30 (fed). That put the start of the day around 6:30, which was fine. And I was hoping that the 4am wakeup would gradually disappear as he got better at going back to sleep.
For the past couple of nights, though, he’s woken up for his first feeding earlier (11:30pm–I tried to CIO the first time he did this, and after an hour of increasingly horrible crying, I gave in and fed him–I didn’t know what else to do!). This earlier feeding means that he wakes up, ready to eat ~4am, but still wakes up at 5:30. Since he’s not hungry then, he’s up for the day!
I guess more than anything, I feel trapped sometimes with thinking he shouldn’t need to eat yet (I know he can go longer!) so I try to rock him, but after 10-20 min of crying, I’m disinclined to feed him and reinforce that behavior. But there’s no other choice. Should I just give in right now and feed whenever he wakes up, and then try to address each feeding separately?
I’m nervous about the night weaning–he has a 6th sense and wakes up (really MAD) when I try to disengage him before he’s ready. Also, his naps have gotten more touchy now that we started the CIO at night, like he’s even more hypervigilant about me putting him down after he’s fallen asleep. But naps should get better as he gets better at putting himself to sleep at night, right?
Few things for you to consider…
1) YOU shouldn’t be rocking him to sleep when you are trying not to feed him, your partner should be. He/She doesn’t smell like food and will have a lot more success than you will. You rocking him is like sticking a cheeseburger up his nose but saying, “NOT FOR YOU!!!”
2) When you try to pop him off of course he gets mad! He has a HUGE nursing sleep association so you’re trying to cut off (what he feels anyway) his path to fall asleep. I would stick with it. However if you feel like you’re getting absolutely nowhere, what about this.
For now (not forever) you give him expressed milk in a bottle. This gives you the option of having your partner deal with it which is an added bonus 😉 Then you let him have 8 oz (or however much he will take) but you gradually water it down. Anyhoo it’s an option to consider.
3) Don’t reinforce the crying. If you can, try to feed him before he wakes up (dream feed). so if he’s waking at 11:00 AM go offer him a dreamfeed at 10:30. Then if he wakes up at 11:30 you ignore him fully. Same thing at 4:00 (maybe you go in at 3:30). This can be tricky if he’s not waking up at consistent times but it gives you a way to keep his tummy full while NOT reinforcing the crying.
The problem with ignoring some wake ups but “rewarding” others with a feed is that it’s confusing from his perspective. He has no idea what time it is so you’re locked back into that intermittent reinforcement cycle. I hope I’ve given you some maneuvers to try to break out of that.
If things continue full extinction night CIO is an option. Would be rough since it sounds like he’s eating a lot but hopefully also brief (2 rough nights).
Naps should get better but it’s not a guarantee – once things are a little smoother at night you’ll have to work on “put down awake” for naps. The hypervigiliant thing is probably more about his object permanence than anything related to your night challenges.
Good luck!
So glad I found this site! My issue is that we have been doing CIO for several weeks now with varying degrees of success. I am extremely consistent with the bedtime routine. As soon as I see my 7-month-old start to rub her eyes, I know that’s the sign to start the routine and usually that happens at about 7:30 p.m. and she’s in the crib by 8:00 p.m. I put her in the crib awake/drowsy. My issue is that sometimes she rolls over and is asleep in seconds. Other times she’s awake but quiet and will fall asleep soundlessly. Other times, she’ll fall asleep after about 10-15 mins of fussiness/crying. And then there are the nights where she is screaming/crying/angry and will not fall asleep. She screams for 30+ mins and I usually end up going in there and calming her down and then putting her back in the crib awake. This will go on 2-3 times and then eventually, she gives in and goes to sleep. So her response is very inconsistent even though I feel like I’m being consistent. So what am I doing wrong?
Lar,
Well I don’t have a ton of information to go on but here’s what I think is tripping you up – I think she’s already TOO tired at bedtime.
When she’s rubbing her eyes she is now ready for bed – not 30 minutes later – right when that happens. I’m guessing if you dialed back your bed timing so you’re starting your awesome routine so that you’re plunking her into bed WHEN she rubs her eyes things would go better.
Also when she IS crying and you go to soothe her I suspect that your loving intervention is only making things worse. For starters if you go in every 30 minutes and it takes 2-3 times then she’s crying for 1.5 hours which is a rough night for all of you. I suspect the fact that you go to her after 30 minutes is intermittently reinforcing the crying which is probably resulting in more crying than if you didn’t go in at all
For example, instead of crying for 1.5 hours with your soothing every 30 minutes, I suspect if you didn’t go in she might cry for 45 minutes. Also without the intermittent reinforcement I would hope that instead of having these occasional rough nights she might fall into a pattern of mostly good nights with the occasional 10-15 minute night here and there (which I would consider a blip and mostly ignore).
So I would slide bedtime up so that you’re putting her down WHEN the eye rub happens and I would stop going in at 30 minutes. Try that for 4-5 days and let me know how things go, OK?
Thanks for the response, Alexis (you are so good about replying to comments – love it)! I can definitely try to move her bedtime a little earlier and see if that helps. Part of my issue is that I try to load up on feedings before she goes to sleep. I am bf at 6:00 p.m. (as soon as I pick her up from daycare) and then we have solids around 6:30 p.m. I then was feeding her again at 7:45 p.m. (right before bed which I know is a no-no, but I don’t let her fall asleep during and always put her in bed awake/drowsy). If I put her in bed at 7:30, how do I eliminate that last 7:45 feeding? Do I just try to feed her more at the 6:00/6:30 feeding?
And I agree with you that I am probably making it worse by going in to calm her down… I’m usually pretty strong when it comes to CIO but her sometimes crying/sometimes not started to trip me up since she was initially doing so well. I will try your suggestions and definitely let you know!
Lar,
Solids are filling but calorie deficient SO if your goal is to “tank her up” before bed then doing solids at 6:30 is probably working against you. Solid baby food is full of fiber (filling) but has hardly any calories. So that meal will curtail her interest in breastmilk.
I would skip it and just go with breastmilk in the evenings (feel free to have the daycare peeps play with solids if you want to have her “eating”). So maybe you have a “welcome home” feed at 6:00 and your final feed of the day at 7:00?
Hi Alexis,
I wanted to give you an update (and ask for more advice of course). Baby is now 8.5 months old. She is going to bed GREAT! We put her to sleep awake and she barely makes a peep before she’s in dreamland. So, things are good there.
The problem is night feedings. She goes to sleep at 7:30 p.m. and usually wakes at 11:30, 1:30, 3:30, and is awake for the day at 6:30. I got in the habit of feeding her at those wake times because she’d eat for 10 minutes, go right to sleep, and I could place her back in her crib to sleep.
I just want to know exactly how to properly wean her of these night time feedings. I know I should eliminate one feeding at a time, gradually as you suggest. I’ve started doing this and am gradually reducing the amount of time I feed her at the night feeding. What’s tripping me up is that she won’t be fully asleep now that I’m shortening the feeding and she cries when I put her back in the crib. She stands up and yells and yells. I usually end up going back in there and feeding her a little more and then she’ll go back to sleep and be fine.
My question is – When she cries after her shorten feeding, do I just let her cry and eventually she’ll figure it out? What exactly am I doing wrong? And can I only eliminate one feeding at a time? Or can I shorten all her feedings at the same time? Thanks for your help!
I’ve got a VERY similar issue with my 6 month old daughter. She wakes up ~ 4 times a night to eat, will easily fall back asleep if I let her nurse as long as she wants, but resists when I try to shorten the nursing sessions. I am confused about how it is possible to wean one night feeding at a time. Doesn’t that lead to intermittent reinforcement?
Hi Alexis,
You are a saint for answering every single comment. I am at a breaking point. My 5 month old has never slept well and lately it’s got to a point where I am not enjoying being a mom :(. I have taken to co-sleeping just to get some rest but I’m really not comfOrtable with it. The problem is he has a nursing to sleep association, I know that. But I don’t know how to fix it. He’s always fallen asleep nursing no matter what I do. I don’t know how I can separate nursing and sleeping. Please help! Thank you.
Ellen,
Well 5 months isn’t the ideal time because now you really have 2 sleep associations you probably aren’t loving – the nurse to sleep and the co-sleeping, right?
I know you’re going to tell me he’s to old and/or he doesn’t like it but this is what I would do:
– Start swaddling (if you stopped or never did it – regardless I would go back to swaddling)
– Use LOUD white noise
– DARK room
– CONSISTENT wind-down sleep routine
I would nurse him until he is almost asleep (sleepy blink, unfocused eyes) while he is swaddled in the dark room with the white noise. Then I would put him in his crib. Hopefully he falls asleep – if not then you pop him back on the boob and try again (till he is 98% asleep) then back in the crib. See if you can’t get him IN the crib. Then you gradually work on less “boob to sleep” – so that he’s 95% asleep, 90% asleep, etc. The ultimate goal is to have a ~20 minute gap between nursing and sleep but that will take a while. So your short run goal is just to have him fall asleep IN the crib.
If he wakes up after hardly any time has passed – say 20 minutes? Repeat the whole process, see what happens. If you have NO luck then that blows, move on till the next nap.
Do the same thing at bedtime. At bedtime however if he wakes up 20 minutes later then see if Dad can soothe him back down (Dad doesn’t smell like milk and will probably be more successful). Try to not nurse again for a few hours as you know that when he wakes up 1 hour later that it’s not about food, it’s about his sleep association. Send Dad in to do some mellow soothing – rub his back, use your words, maybe jiggle the crib so that his head rocks a bit which can also be soothing.
Anyhoo that is what I would work with. Nothing is going to change overnight but it puts you on the path anyway. Good luck!
Thanks. I will do my best. I feel kind of lazy resorting to the co-sleeping as I know it’s not the long-term solution I want, but it’s hard to find the energy to work on breaking the sleep associations. I will muster up all I can and give it a go. Thanks so much for the response.
I love your website! I was at my wits end trying to work out how to stop breastfeeding my 9.5 month old at night. He goes to sleep by himself every night (no paci) and has done from a very early age. No rocking, feeding to sleep etc. But he was waking anywhere between 1am and 4am to breastfeed which I really felt since about 6 months was a habit but didn’t know how to go about changing it! I’ve sent my husband and my mum in there to re settle which is just disastrous and he will just cry for hours until I give up and go feed him. I am now following your advice and down to a 6 min breastfeed at night. Tonight goes down to 5 mins. I am really praying it works for him! My question is it takes 2 mins for my let down to happen so im a bit scared when I get to 2 or 3 min feeds I will be popping him off just as the milk starts flowing. Is this even an issue? Or just keep going with the plan?
Go with the plan. Ideally he’s making up those “lost” calories during the day so if you get down to the foremilk (which has fewer calories) you’re actually helping him get USED to not eating at night, yes?
So tally ho!
I have a question for you… slowly weaning off night feedings worked magically well 2 years ago for my daughter. Now that I’m trying it with my son, things aren’t going as well. He is older now than she was (6 mos vs. 3), so I don’t know if that’s contributing.
A couple of months ago, he was sleeping through the night with 0-1 feedings. That slowly increased back to 1 feeding consistently at 4:00 on the dot; I could have set a clock by his routine. About 2 weeks ago, it started to creep earlier and earlier and his morning feeding followed, so that now he gets 2 night feedings at about 10:30 and 5:30. Every time I try to cut down the 10:30 feeding, his 2nd feeding just gets earlier. Last night, for example, he was down to 6 minutes of BF at 10:30 and then he woke again at 2:00 for a feeding.
This is really frustrating to me, because it worked so well for my daughter and because I’m convinced that he doesn’t really need these feedings. As a side note, I plan on moving his solid “supper” from 5:30 to 3:30 today, last BF is at 6:30, bedtime at 7:00.
Am I on the right track to continue to try weaning these feeds? Or is this just habit and I should try something else? I’m totally willing to try CIO when the time is right – that also worked like magic for my daughter!
Thanks for your help!
I have also had my son refuse to drop below 6-7 minutes on his night feedings, which he STILL DOES EVERY THREE HOURS at age 10 months. We asked the pediatrician about it and he said based on his height, skinniness, and super activeness, he really seems to still need to eat at night. So we’re sticking with it for now. I was surprised when he said that because this doctor is definitely not afraid of cry it out. We’ve tried it for night wakings, and he doesn’t exactly scream, he just goes back and forth between light sleep and phases of whimpering/crying for a very. long. time. Like hours. Then when I feed him he eats fast and goes right back to sleep. Hungry.
Alexis might disagree, and I’d actually trust her opinion at least as much or not more than the doctor. But anyway, thought I’d share in case it’s helpful to you.
Kate,
Your 10 month old baby eats 3-4 times a night and your pediatrician thinks that you should continue? I don’t mean to be alarmist and I’m NOT A DOCTOR so don’t take anything I say as medical advice.
But I would be wondering – why does my baby still need to eat like a newborn at 10 months? All 10 month old babies are pretty active. So that doesn’t seem like a good explanation to me.
One fairly common possible explanation is low milk supply (again please don’t be alarmed, this could be totally WRONG). I had this issue. And if you’re just a tad low, supply generally decreases at night. So maybe instead of tanking up at these night feedings he’s just getting a snack which is why he’s waking up 3 hours later.
Have you tried offering a bottle post BF? This could be a really worthy experiment to see what happens. If he shows no interest that is good information. If he guzzles down 6 oz and then sleeps for 7 hours that would ALSO be good information.
Also make sure you aren’t filling him with solids right before bed. Solid food is filling but low-calorie so a big bowl of peaches and rice at 6:00 will make him not so hungry for milk at 7:00 which would also explain why he seems like he’s starving at 10:00.
Let me know if you try the bottle experiment and what happens, OK?
Hmmm. I will consider this. I work full time, and he gets pumped milk from Daddy during the day–usually somewhere in the range of 14-16 oz total between 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., and I’ve never had trouble keeping up with that. He was totally uninterested in solid food until very recently but he has been was more into it over the past few weeks. I don’t feed him much of it in the evening usually though. He seems to get a good nursing in before bed. We do one side before the bath and the other side after. I do notice that on nights when he’s overtired and ends up nursing not enough, he does wake up sooner and hungrier.
That change or add anything to your thoughts? I guess I can try the evening bottle idea, although I don’t love the idea since he gets bottles all day.
Kate,
Curious how things are a month later. Just want to let you know that we had the exact same situation with one of our twin daughters who is now 2 1/2 years old. She’s always been 5-10% for her weight and is highly active. The same exact thing used to happen with me and night feedings for her (I think at 10 months, she was down to one or two feedings though). She would cry/fuss/low-level whimper for hours if I didn’t feed her, but if I did, it would be a quick 15-20 min in the middle of the night. Given our concern for her weight and the fact that it really seemed like she was hungry, we just kept going with the night feedings (since they were quick and far preferable to the long time awake if I didn’t). She ended up sleeping through the night (12 hours) at 15 months on her own. Her twin sister did this a 9 months. All babies are different!
Johnette-Thank you so much for sharing! I really appreciate it. We STILL have feedings at 11, 2, and 5 almost every night. He has been able to fall asleep easily on his own at bedtime for months, so I’m a bit at a loss. I tried Alexis’s suggestion and offered him pumped milk after nursing for several nights in a row, and he refused every time. So I think my supply is fine. But still, awake and eating a LOT 3.5 hours later. I worked the 2 am feeding down to 7 minutes AGAIN, and AGAIN he refused to go back to sleep if I tried to make it any shorter. After 8 minutes, he plops back in the crib without a wimper and goes back to sleep. 7 minutes? Pissed off. “Mama I am NOT DONE.” He even signs “milk” and “more” at me!
Sigh. We’re all getting enough rest so I’m not freaking out. I know this will not go on forever, and there are worse things than cuddling with him for a few minutes at night.
Kate,
My daughter is doing something very similar to your son. She is almost 9 months old and she usually wakes 2-3 times a night to eat. As I try to gradually wean her, she fights and fights if I don’t feed her long enough. She needs about 10 mins then goes down without a peep. If I don’t feed her long enough, she will scream for an hour or more. She, too, seems like she’s really hungry. I’m also breastfeeding. My daughter is very active and also pretty skinny (in about the 15% for weight) so I thought maybe she really is hungry. I am experiementing trying to figure out how to get her enough food during the day so that she is satisfied enough at night that she doesn’t wake but we’re not there yet. I’m trying to give her more milk during the day and have even added a bit of formula in the evening just in case I was having supply issues. Nothing is doing the trick just yet. Just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone!
I’m so confused by the nested comments I can’t even really tell WHO I’m responding to but….just in case not everybody knows this…
You need to put baby down AWAKE before you will be successful with night weaning.
Also if you’re feeding too CLOSE to bedtime, even if you put down AWAKE, you can still have a baby with a strong nurse=sleep association which will lead you to adamant repetitive night nursing.
I don’t know if this describes anybody in this thread, I’m just throwing it out there in case it’s a nurse to sleep association issue as the root problem.
Also, Lar–thanks for sharing! Hope this gets better for both of us soon. I think you and Alexis are both right that more food during the day is the answer. Sadly my kid apparently thinks day is for playing with Daddy and night is for boobs. 🙂
Just wanted to chime in with a new thought.
One? Johnette it is super cool of you to share your story. And maybe you’re right – he’ll just grow out of it in a few months! Sometimes these things that drive us nutz just go away on their own and the answer to the question was, “wait it out.”
But I had another thought – let’s assume (based on formula calculations which I KNOW are not entirely representative of breast-fed babies) – that the average 10 month old baby is going to consume in the vicinity of 24-32 oz a day.
If your baby is asleep from ~7-7, and you feed him 14-16 oz a day while you’re at work, that means he’s got to get 10-16 oz in the 3 hours of “awake” time left during the day. It’s not realistic that he’s going to guzzle that volume in 3 hours so from THAT perspective, it totally makes sense that he’s eating so much at night, doesn’t it?
If I’m right the theoretical answer is to get him to eat more during the day. Which can be hard. Some babies just have smaller tummies and snack round the clock. Some babies are too interested in what is happening in the world to bother eating more than the minimum. Some babies just don’t dig the bottle and will “get by” eating just enough to take the edge off and wait for Mom to come home so they can really strap on the feed bag directly from the source.
I suspect your baby is probably doing the latter?
Anyhoo the answer probably lies somewhere between Johnette’s thoughtful input and “get him to eat more during the day” which may or may not be possible.
Not sure if that helps…
Thanks. I think you’re exactly right. Which is a little unfortunate because I want to be pumping less at this point, not more.
I think I’m close to getting him to elimiate the 2 am feeding. I’m absolutely fine with tanking him up at 11 pm and 5 am. Beats the hell out of trying to pump 20 oz in a work day, which for me is impossible. I’d be happy with 2 night feedings, and I’m guessing he’ll drop those sometime by 18 months or so as he eats more and more big people food and moves toward weaning.
Will keep you posted. Thanks so much for the advice!
Oh and p.s. Yes, he goes down very much awake, every night. We had huge success on that front once I figured out how to fully separate nursing from bedtime. That was a big challenge because he didn’t want still to nurse until he got pretty sleepy. But once we got the eating-while-awake routine down, bedtime became an easy and beautiful thing. Thought that would lead organically to longer stretches of sleep, but no such luck.
Kate, Lar, and Alexis,
Happy to offer my input, and thanks for all your notes of appreciation! It’s interesting actually that I’m now going through this same situation that you guys are facing with my 8 month old (twins are now 2.5 years). The difference is that she’s not small for her age (probably 75%). Similar to Kate’s baby, she is consuming about 10-15oz during the day while I’m at work (3 feedings), then I BF her before/after work and 2 times at night. She was doing one feeding for about 2 months, but I think she had a regression/wonder week and now she’s back up to 2. I’ve tried to reduce the time, but everytime I do, I experience the same thing as Kate’s and Lar’s children — complaining for a long time until I feed again to full amount that she was expecting/needing (or if I don’t feed at all, complaining until I finally give in). And she is hungry and gulping. She’s a quick feeder (4-5 min…and that’s the case when I’m home on the weekends and feed her during the day). I hold/rock her for a few min and put her back in the crib, and she’s good to go back to sleep on her own. At this point, given my multiple attempts at reducing time (which is hard because she’s already such a quick feeder), I’m just going to continue feeding because it’s far preferable than staying up with a hungry baby protesting. When the feed is said and done, it’s about 20 min total (about 5-10 min to see if she goes back to sleep, 5 min feed, 5-10 min hold), so I’m ok with it. I’d love to go back to the 1/night…guess I’m just going to wait it out.
BTW, Alexis, we do put her down awake, although I do a little rocking ahead of time to get her in a more sleepy state. We did sleep training (for the most part, Weisbluth extinction CIO…and it was a nightmare experience that took a couple weeks — not the “text book” 3 days, but it definitely worked) at 4.5 months when I went back to work. The nannies actually put her down and just leave the room for naps, and she gets herself to sleep, but it takes longer. I do a little rocking/holding, and then put her in sleepy (but still awake). She finds her thumb and strokes her blanket until she’s fully asleep. I could just put her in like the nannies, but I prefer accelerating the process with the holding and don’t mind the cuddle time.
Any additional insights from you all or an update on your experiences would be much appreciated!!
BTW, I should add to the above that originally, my daughter was waking up anywhere from 12am – 4:30am for one feed and now she’s up around 12midnight first feed and 3:30am or 4am 2nd feed(bedtime is 6:30-7pm, and waketime is 6:30-7am).
Johnette,
I’m going to suggest to you the same thing I suggested to Kate above – I think it all comes down to consumption.
So you have a big healthy 8 month old baby. She’s going to be eating a LOT at this age. IF she’s only getting 10+ OZ a day while you’re working she’s going to get 14-20 OZ from you in person. Is it reasonable to get 20 OZ during 2 “awake time” feedings during the morning/evening? Nope.
So from that perspective it’s pretty understandable WHY she’s nursing 2X a night. She’s simply making up her daily tally.
I would do whatever you can to increase her intake during the day. Solids are tricky because they are really filling but calorie light. What about replacing a “solid” meal with breastmilk during the day? That might be just enough to easily get you back down to 1 feeding a night.
Let me know what you think and if that works, OK?
Alexis,
Wow – again, I can’t keep thanking you enough for your website and your responses. I appreciate how quickly you answered my comment — you rock!
With regard to your analysis on the caloric intake being the issue, I think you’re right. It does make sense that she’s feeding at night to get her total fill for the day. Maybe she increased from 1 to 2 in the night because she’s getting bigger and needs more? She’s definitely hungry, and she’s definitely eating. When it comes to food, she’s pretty strong-willed. The nannies have mentioned to me if she’s hungry and they don’t feed her in a timely manner (b/c they’re taking care of the twins), she gets angry pretty quickly. I typically don’t have that issue because my hubby is great during the weekends taking care of the twins when I have to tend to the baby.
So, great recommendation on extra calories during the day! Unfortunately, not exactly sure how to make it a reality. I’ve given the nannies instructions to tank her up as much as possible during the day. They’re responsible for 3 feedings, and then like I said, I’ve got the other 2 (wake up and bedtime), as well as the 2 in the middle of the night. I think it will be hard for us to go to 4 feedings in the middle of the day because she is just not that hungry within 2 hours (feedings are 6:45am, 9:45am, 12:45pm, 3:45pm, and 6:30pm…then at night it varies when she wakes up.) 3 hours has always been the right timing. Our solid feedings occur about 30-45 min after she’s drank her milk, so replacing one of those doesn’t necessarily work. For solids, she’s getting about 2-3 oz of combination of foods (veggies, fruits, meats) In the morning, we do 1oz breast milk combined with oatmeal + fruit so that’s some additional calories with the milk. I was thinking of upping the solids, but like you said, they’re not calorie dense, so I hesitate to do that.
Such a conundrum. It’s interesting that the twins just spontaneously reduced over time and then got to the point where they stopped night feeding. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one stopped at 9 months without that much intervention from us. She would have a couple nights where she slept through, and then a night needing to feed. But once I knew she could do it, I just tried not to feed, held her, and put her in to see if she’d go down. Sometimes, she’d still want, but other times not, and then eventually, it was more “not” to the point where she was just sleeping through and I wouldn’t feed her at all. With our other twin as I said, it was many times trying to wean her and finally resigning myself to the 1x per night until around 15 months when again, she just stopped on her own and would sleep straight through.
For now, I guess the plan will be that we’ll just keep trying to up the calories during the day and hopefully, that will help with the spontaneous reduction back down to 1 feeding (which I can deal with for now). I’ll keep you posted!!
Wow! Thanks to Johnette, Kate and Lar for sharing. My son will be 8 months tomorrow and we are in the same boat. He’s always been in the 50th percentile for height/weight and still wakes to eat 2x a night. He puts himself to sleep and goes down between 6:30 and 7. He eats shortly before then. He sleeps 1 long stretch (usually 5-7 hours, but lately it’s been more like 4), and then wakes around 4 or 5 to eat before he’s up for the day between 6:30 and 7. He’s EBF and I work, so he gets ~10oz. of milk between 8 am and 4 pm. Like Alexis suggested, I send all of the solids to daycare to keep them earlier in the day, and he loves them. Always finishes the solids but sometimes leaves an oz. of milk…or, he will split the milk into 3 feedings instead of 2. I nurse when he wakes up, at 4:40 or 5pm and again before bed. I can’t pump more than 10oz. at work, and I often have to combine the work milk with what I pump before bed to get 10 oz. (I usually get 3 or 4 oz. per pumping session).
I agree that, though I am tired, I like the cuddles and know that it won’t go on forever. It’s so nice and reassuring to know that I am not the only one experiencing this. Thanks again for sharing. 🙂
Hey Angela,
I think moving “supper” up to 3:30 is a good call. If his tummy is full of calorie-light “food” he might not be really tanking up at 6:30.
In fact I’m wondering if supper is throwing you off more than the weaning. The late-evening solid would keep him from eating as much at bedtime and THAT would explain why he is now hungry at 10:30 far more than weaning off at 4:00.
Also I would make sure you are offering him more opportunities to eat during the day. It sounds like he’s not cut back on night consumption at all – he’s just split his DINNER into two mini-SNACKS. Which is hardly the direction you were hoping to go.
It’s not entirely out of line for a 6 month old to require 0-1 feeding a night. If he eats at 4:00 am and then sleeps for a good chunk (wakes up after 6:30 or so) it might be a manageable compromise.
But feeding at 10:30 is not – that’s a scant 4 hours after his last meal and you’re right – he’s WAY beyond that point. Few options to consider:
– Don’t feed him prior to say 2:00 AM. This is the compromise. Whenever he wakes after 2:00 AM you’ll feed him – this is the one you are weaning off of. Anything earlier than that is off the table.
– If he wakes prior to 2:00 AM send Dad in. It’s no longer your problem – YAY! Seriously Dad doesn’t smell like food. Take a few minutes, use your words, and try to soothe him back to sleep with minimal intervention. See what happens – Dads are often surprisingly effective at this.
– If ~5 minutes of Daddy time is getting you no where you could TRY CIO. But at 6 months I’m not inclined to suggest some big horror show night cry scene for 1 night feeding. See what happens though – he may surprise you. Maybe he complains for 10-15 minutes and falls asleep? Feel it out and go with your gut.
I’m not trying to suggest you are stuck with the 4:00 AM feed but that is basically a 10 hour fast (6:30 – 4:00) which is pretty good for 6 months so if things aren’t going easy for you, it may be that you stick with the 10 hour fast for NOW and try again in 4-6 weeks. Just something to think about if the daddy soothing and such doesn’t make things better for you?
Thanks Kate and Alexis for your replies. I’m not sure why I hadn’t moved up his supper time days ago… I’ve said to my husband everyday that I think that’s contributing!
Two nights ago I tried sending my husband in at 9:45. After an hour of screaming (like purple in the face, lost his voice screaming) I fed him. And he went right back to sleep until 5:30.
When he first started waking up earlier, I had thought that maybe he was just shifting his night feeding time and that his big stretch was going to be the hours when I sleep… too much to hope for, eh?! 😉
Okay… the official plan is to shift supper time, not feed before 2:00, and send daddy in if necessary before that. I’ll let you know how it goes!
So, he woke briefly at 10:30 last night, whined for a minute or two and went back to sleep. Repeated this at 1:15, but at 1:40 was really crying. I decided this was close enough to our arbitrary 2:00 “cut-off”, so I fed him and he went right back to sleep. However, he still woke up at 5:30… fed him for 6 minutes only, which he wasn’t thrilled about, so I walked with him for a few minutes and put him back to bed. He then slept until 7:45. I am really hoping that we’re on the right track now, I’ll keep trying to wean that 5:30 feed and see how it goes. Hopefully I’ll be able to post back in a week that it’s gone! Cross your fingers for us 🙂
I would wean the 2:00 am feeding first if you can 😛
Often babies will start the day early (5:00, 5:30 AM) but as you noticed, a soothing feed + cuddle will make morning a more civilized 7:45. So while you can try to get out of that 5:30 feed I’m just throwing out the possibility that doing so will have you all starting the day earlier than you may like 🙁
Much has happened suddenly in the last few days. I have been putting him down awake (but groggy) and he rolls to his side and falls asleep. Until 3 days ago. Now he refuses to nap. Two days in a row he has screamed for an hour and a half in the morning before passing out, despite all of my best efforts. He started the same thing at bedtime last night and I realised that I wasn’t helping him. I had tried singing, rocking, walking, shushing, feeding… you name it, I did it. I finally decided that maybe I was inadvertently keeping him awake. So I put him down and let him cry. I checked on him after 10 min (check & console worked great for my daughter), but he just screamed louder. He cried for a total of 30 minutes before falling asleep; woke at 10:30, cried for 10 minutes (after my husband went in to try to soothe – no luck). And then he slept until 5:30. That’s right. He skipped the early night feed.
I’m at a complete loss as to why he is doing this, but tonight he put himself to sleep in under 5 minutes. I plan to continue this way for night, since it seems like this is working, but it is not working at nap times. At all. The only way he slept for more than 4 minutes today (and I timed it!) was in the car. My concern is that I cannot continue to spend a ton of time with him trying to wrestle him into a nap… I have a two year old at home too who essentially cared for herself two mornings in a row now. Not acceptable. Please help! Any advice would be so appreciated!
I don’t understand the nap screaming either. NOTHING changed in your nap routine? Were you putting him down asleep before and are NOW putting him down awake?
I’m also wondering if there isn’t some unrelated wrinkle in there (6 month growth spurt/sleep regression). Obviously having him cry/not sleep all day is setting you up for a rough bedtime. Although 30 minutes is not horrible it’s not awesome either.
Is there anything you can do to force naps just for a few days? Stroller walks? Car rides?
I know you have a 2 YO and it’s not fair for her to watch TV 8 hours a day. Could she have a playdate with a friend while you push the stroller? Can you take a car ride somewhere fun (baby sleeps in car, 2 YO gets to play at park after)?
I’m sorry I don’t have a magic answer but I’m smelling sleep regression/growth spurt and am thinking you just need to power through. Wish I had a better solution for you….
Fortunately, my daughter goes to daycare twice a week still, but everyone I know either works during the day or has a baby at home too. In the last 8 days, he’s had 3 that didn’t involve a ton of screaming, 2 car naps (my daughter slept through one of these too!), and 1 stroller nap (before which my daughter got to ride the train at the mall – one of her favourite treats). I’m trying to be creative, but it’s hard to get showered around here, let alone out of the house! 🙂 As far as I can tell, nothing changed in my nap routine. Prior to the onset of this, my husband had a few days off work and did a lot of the naptime stuff, but he swears the baby was awake when he left the room.
I’m wondering if he’s just easily stimulated to not look tired. My daughter never gave clear “sleepy” signs, and I’m wondering if I’ve been missing bed time lately. It seems that if I start his nap routine at 1hour & 30-40 minutes after his last waking that I have WAY more success. Prior to this, he was going ~2 hours. Maybe he’s just overtired? Maybe to go along with a growth spurt like you suggested? I did notice he was eating a ton of solids last week but barely touching them again in the last few days…
On a positive note, he’s sleeping great at night again, fussing for less than a minute when I put him down, waking once between 1:30 and 5:30 to be fed, then waking about 7:00 or 7:30.
I sure hope this settles out soon. I swear I can hear my ears ringing by the end of the day!
Your gut will be right 99.9% of the time so if your gut says he needs to go down sooner then I vote YES!
Tons of babies give -0- sleepy signals or they wait until they’re WAY too tired. So the clock is generally a more reliable guidepost so go with it.
If nothing clears up in a few more days you may want to run it by a pediatrician. Sometimes little stuff will sneak up on you (ear infections and stuff) that will make it hard for him to sleep but have no outward symptoms.
Good luck!
So things have drastically improved. If we miss his sleepy time for his first nap of the day, the rest of the day is a disaster. But if we get him down early (like 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours of up time, including a short bedtime routine), things are going smoothly. He often still likes only 45 minute naps, but today so far they’ve both been close to an hour and a half. I’m so relieved!
I had moved his “supper” to 3:30, and his early night feed disappeared, but he was still getting up once to nurse. While it was often 4:00-5:30, that has started to creep earlier and earlier again, ending up closer to 1:00. So, last night I introduced a solid bedtime snack after his last BF. He woke up screaming mad at 10:00 (I still have no idea why!), but my husband was able to soothe him a bit… funny baby won’t fall asleep with us in the room anymore though, so our option is to calm him & walk out. But he fell back asleep about 10:20 and made it until… (drumroll, please!)… 7:30. I haven’t felt this good in months! 🙂 I’m hoping this wasn’t some fluke thing and that we’re starting to see some real progress.
I know that, overall, we’re making progress. It’s just hard, because I feel like he’s finally back to where he was at 4 1/2 months old. He just had a massive backslide in the middle! But thank you for all of your advice, I think it’s amazing that you respond to everyone! And I’m hoping that things will be so good that we won’t need your help in the future! 😉
That’s EXCELLENT progress. Also excellent detective work on your part.
You figured out three critical things:
– Blowing the AM nap sets up the whole day for a rough slog.
– He can’t be awake as long as you thought.
– Babies do not improve in a linear fashion – they backslide here and there over the first year and the key to success is to figure out how best to navigate it.
All awesome insights so congratulations on all your success!
Please help me! My five-month old is finally not so fussy during the day, but since about two months old he stopped having any long stretch at night and now wakes up every 45-60 minutes all night long. During the day he will nap for about the same duration 3-4 times a day. I always have to get up and walk him to sleep or bounce him on an exercise ball. He definitely needs (or thinks he needs) movement to fall asleep. I tried to put him in the swing to sleep but he just cries until I pick him up. I breast feed him, but it only puts him to sleep half the time. Most of the time he wakes up and doesn’t want to eat. He just wants me to move him around. Also I already co-sleep so he knows that I am near, but he really is only satisfied with the moving. I am at my wits end! Your website seems so true, but the problem is that I would settle for co-sleeping and him nursing to sleep, if he would. I just can’t keep getting up and walking around or bouncing all night.
Have you tried all the techniques in my swing post? (see below)
At 5 months I would slap that kid into a swing so fast it’ll make your head spin. If you happen to be traveling through VT I would even do an in-person demonstration. If you are bouncing your butt off on the big blue ball, it’s time to REALLY embrace the swing.
I would swaddle him (I know he’s 5 months and I don’t care – would do it anyway), use LOUD white noise, and use the swing to help him fall asleep. Use the gentle head jiggle technique in the post if you’re struggling.
If you’re getting NOWHERE with that (and seriously – try for a solid 3 days before you concede defeat) you could try nursing to sleep THEN putting him in the swing. That is a fair backup plan. But I would try to use the motion junkie stuff to your advantage.
Check the post below. Do ALL of it. Commit for 3 days. See what happens!
Alexis,
Thank you sooooo much for your help. I followed your advice the first day and we had a four hour stretch which was a miracle!!!!! The next day did not go so well, but then the following did. Last night was bad again, but I think if I keep being consistent I should start to have more good days than bad, right? I just have to train myself now to sleep more instead of being on the verge of wakefulness as usual.
I have another question about napping and sleeping at night. My five month old is napping really well in the swing, so well now, that I wonder if it is contributing to night waking. It seems the good nights we had were when the naps were shorter, and the two bad nights had one three-hour nap (again had never happened before sleeping in the swing).
It’s a hard call – sometimes newborns will nap a TON and be up all night in which case sometimes the answer is to nap slightly less.
What you describe in your initial comment sounds a lot more like a kid who is a quart low on sleep. Because that level of disrupted sleep is no better for him than it is for you. So while you could be right – the 3 hour nap is messing him up at night – I’m inclined to lean towards -> he’s got some catching up to do on sleep. (I don’t think you’ll see 3 hour naps in the long run although the AM nap will organically be longer than the PM naps).
I think you are teaching him a new way to sleep and you’re right – consistency will be key. It takes a few days to learn a new way and it sounds like the early indications are promising so I would stick with it!
Also I don’t know how bad a bad night is but if he’s swinging and you just fed him 45 minutes ago, I would try to leave him in there for a few minutes to see what happens. Give him 5-10 minutes – he may surprise you. Some of his waking at this point could be habitual.
My 2 cents…
Hi there, Can you please give me some advice re our 10 month old baby girl. She is currently waking around 4 times a night and as I am exhausted (I also have a 3 yr old), I usually feed her and pop her back in the cot. The wakings are at different times. I put her down for her day sleeps and walk out of the room, she protests a bit but then settles to sleep. However when putting her to bed at night (at 7pm), my husband or I stay in the room with her until she goes to sleep as she yells when we leave the room. I then take her out of the cot at 10pm and give her a feed (dream feed) and cross my fingers that she will go through to 5am. These days she does not go through to 5am, she is waking multiple times. For the first time, tonight I put her to bed at 7pm, and walked out of the room instead of staying in the room with her. She cried out for 10 mins and then went to sleep. Do you think its time to drop the dream feed but keep feeding her when she wakes and in a week’s time look at dropping all the night feeds?
I think you have the right idea…
Leaving the room BEFORE she falls asleep is the first step. She cried for 10 minutes – GREAT! Stick with it. You are done hanging out while she falls asleep.
I would probably drop the dream feed too. At 10 months your new goal is -0- feeds and clearly the dream feed isn’t making a dent. Fundamentally the reason she is waking up 4X a night has more to do with you being there at bedtime then her being hungry (you knew that already I know). So she’s definitely capable of fasting 11-12 hours.
I would put down awake, and leave. Full stop. Always. This is how you do it now.
If she wakes up hungry feed her. See what the new normal is. In a week you’ll know. Hopefully the change at bedtime cuts down the wakings but you still may have 1-2 to deal with. In a week then yep – it’s time to wean. If you get down to a few minutes and she’s STILL waking up then I would just cut it off cold turkey.
The fact that she only cried for 10 minutes makes me think that any night crying would be pretty minimal too.
Good luck!
Hi, Alexis, I appreciate all the great info on your site. My question relates to that last 5am(ish) feeding. Our son is now 7 months old. We’ve had a good bedtime routine for a couple of months, and he goes to sleep at bedtime (7:30ish) with minimal fussing most nights. Until about ten days ago, though, he was up four or five times a night, and I was nursing him every time because it was “easy.” Easy in that he went right back to sleep, but definitely not easy on me. My sanity level was plummeting, and we got the pediatrician’s ok to night-wean, so we went for it after reading your tips and the Sleep Lady book’s advice.
Overall, it has been a rapid, dramatic improvement. He’s sleeping at least an 8-hour stretch for the first part of the night, which I know is really good for him. This seemed impossible a few weeks ago! At first we said, “ok, no feedings until up for the day at 6:00.” But he was just too tired getting up that early. So we said, “ok, one feeding at 5am or later, then back to sleep.” The “back to sleep” is great, as he goes back out for another 2-3 hours and wakes up well-rested (though I don’t get to take advantage of it as I have to be up for work at 6. Husband gets to sleep in, the lucky duck). The hitch is that “5am” requirement… the first day he woke up at 5:30, the next day at 5:10. Then 4:40, then this morning 4:00… My husband goes in to soothe him, but today he fussed/cried off and on for an hour until the clock finally hit 5:00 and I went in to nurse him.
It seems so arbitrary (and, when he’s crying, cruel) to make him wait until the time we say is feeding time. On the other hand, if I feed him whenever he first wakes up, I can envision us backsliding into multiple wakeups again sooo easily. So what would you do? Stick to the 5am requirement and wait it out? See what happens if I feed him upon first wakeup, whatever time it is? We are just going around in circles weighing pros and cons. Thanks!
KT,
I just wanted to see how things have been going for you since you left this comment. We’ve been going through the same debate with our 8-month old son. For a while, he was waking up multiple times per night, and the only way to get him back to sleep was by nursing him. (Dad’s presence didn’t work at all… he interpreted it as play-time!) Now he’s a champ at going to sleep on his own at bedtime, and we’re down to 2-3 night feeds. We’ve been trying to use some of the ideas from this website (shortening the feeds) with Ferber’s method of pushing the time-to-feed back a little bit each night, and we’ve had some success. But there have been a couple of nights where he’ll wake up like an hour before the scheduled time and he doesn’t go back to sleep. He just cries. The whole time. And just when it sounds like he’s settled and is doing those little “ahhh…. ahhh…” noises, he gets a second wind and starts the wailing again.
I guess as we stick with it, it’ll get better (and it has been, little by little), but this process seems to be a lot more drawn out than simply addressing night-wakings with CIO. I.e., it’s not an “after the 3rd night it’ll be SO much better” kind of scenario.
I do wonder, too, what the babies learn from this type of set-up. I mean, my goal is to teach him to eat later and later, but at the same time, I’m making him cry for a long time and then going in, eventually, to feed him. Sure, I know what *I* want him to get out of the experience, but how do I know he’s not just learning that a lot of crying is necessary to get food? Sigh. I’m just crossing my fingers that his stomach is learning to push his meals later, and that’s the main lesson being transmitted.
I hope things have improved for you! Were you able to eliminate that last feeding? Or at least keep it consistently at 5am?
-LKB
Hi there, LKB- I don’t have much of reassurance to say, as we are still figuring things out. The 5am rule just wasn’t working, as he was consistently waking up before that. As you said, he would just cry the whole time, and it didn’t seem worthwhile to keep everyone awake for an hour. So we pushed the feeding back to “anytime 4am or later.” It was going reasonably well, in that he rarely woke up before then, or if he did he’d put himself back to sleep. But then a few days ago he got a cold. There have been a couple of nights now that I’ve fed him before 4am, mostly because he has produced so much snot, poor baby, that we felt he could probably use the extra fluids. Sometimes that means two feedings a night. So we’ll see where we end up once the cold has passed…
Good luck to you!
Yeah as a general rule I don’t like to let babies cry and cry and cry and THEN feed them. At the same point you’re stuck in the dreaded “creeping feed.” If he just woke up at 5:00 AM then no problem – GREAT! We’ll feed you at 5:00 AM and all sleep an extra hour.
As it is it starts creeping up so early that you start running the risk of backsliding into two feedings because the 5:00 AM feeding is now happening at 11:00 PM which means he’s ready to eat again at 5:00 AM which feels a lot like the pattern you were trying to get out of in the first place.
Here’s the deal (LKB this applies to you too) – your babies are WELL old enough to not eat so much at night. If you’re going to let them cry because you’re not feeding them at night AT ALL then that is a fine strategy and I fully support it. If you’re going to let them cry only to EVENTUALLY feed them then you’re inadvertently teaching them that crying works if they cry long enough. And this is a bad lesson for both you and them. It leads to lots and lots of crying which clearly neither of you want.
Your options are:
a) Stop night feeding at ALL which removes the “reward for crying” cycle. However because there has BEEN quite a bit of crying which then led to feeding, this will be pretty rough. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try it, or can’t consider this later BTW. Just giving a warning so there is no big surprise about it.
Also AM crying tends to go on and on for a while. If the crying is happening after say 4:30, there is a good chance that your baby won’t fall back asleep. So maybe you let her complain till a semi-reasonable wakup time (5:30AM?) and then go and get her. If you continue in this way for a few days babies generally will start sleeping through. But it can take a while.
b) Offer a dreamfeed BEFORE they wake up. This is not always easy because you can’t be sure WHEN they’ll wake up. But if baby is waking up at 4:00 AM for a feed, then set your alarm for 3:45 and go feed her BEFORE she wakes up, then shuffle her back into bed for the remainder of the night.
This does not help you necessarily night wean (which given the age of both of your babies is REALLY the goal) but it temporary gets your baby fed without rewarding the waking up & crying by feeding her AFTER. Does that make sense?
Once you’ve established a pattern of when to dreamfeed you can actually use the same night weaning techniques on the dreamfeed to try to move those calories to the daytime because by 7-8 months they’re totally capable of fasting for 11-12 hours at night.
LKB – especially as your 8 month old is eating SOOOO much, this may be a helpful technique for you.
The other component (especially for LKB) is to make sure baby is eating a TON during the day. This is a big age for babies to be so distracted by the fun of the day that they simply don’t consume enough calories during the day. Also solid food has almost -0- calories so don’t let your enthusiasm for feeding solids end up tanking your baby full of filling yet calorie light solid food during the day (leading to genuine night hunger).
Especially when you are nursing it’s normal to be excited to feed baby something that doesn’t require you to be there. But it can trip you up as most baby food is just fiber and water, filling but not REALLY filling. It’s like chinese food 😉
Hi Alexis,
Your advice has worked great to get my 10 month old to sleep through the night without night feedings. Thankyou!! But now he wakes at 5.30am ready to start the day! I know you suggest feeding to get an extra 1 or 2 hours sleep but if I put him back down after feeding at 5.30 he stays awake until Im ready to get him up and start the day. He alsooften wakes up with a dirty diaper so by the time I change that he is well and truly awake. Any tips? His room is very dark and a consistent temperature. Thanks!
Hi Alexis,
I’m having a similar problem with my 6 month old. He will wake up around 2 and eats, then wakes up at 5:30, eats, goes back to sleep (or sometimes just talks to himself for a bit), then has a dirty diaper. Once he’s changed he won’t go back to sleep even though I know he’s still tired! We also keep his room really dark, and now it’s not even light out at 5:30! Any suggestions would be really helpful!
Thank you!
Hey guys! i dont know if it would work with a 10 month old but with my DD (8 months) when she wakes up for her AM feed usually around ~6 after i feed and change her i stick her in the swing where she will sleep for another 2-2.5 hours…sunday she woke up at 645, i fed her and put her in the swing at 710 figuring there was no way she would go back to sleep but she did, until like 830…definitely worth a try if you have a swing! she sleeps all the rest of the night and naps in the crib with no problem so it shouldnt mess you up! Good luck!
Ruby and Maia,
Depending on what time your babies go to bed, they could have simply gotten enough sleep to start the day at 5:30 AM. Trust me, I get that 5:30 seems really uncivilized to YOU but MOST babies wake up at ~6:00 AM so this is pretty normal. If they’re going to bed at a reasonable hour, say 7:00 PM, then they’re having a solid 10.5 hour night which is pretty great.
And yes – when babies poop at inconvenient times the stimulation of the diaper change means they are well and truly awake. Sadly science has yet to solve the “make my baby poop at the right time” dilemma.
Sara is also right in that if this is TOO early for your baby (he’s clearly really tired, cranky, not ready to start the day) you can sometimes give baby extra soothing (swing, co-sleeping, etc.) and get an extra hour or so. I would say that her experience of a baby sleeping till 8:30 is pretty unusual because 8:30 is actually a pretty “late” wakeup for most babies.
But if you can get an extra 1-1.5 hours of sleep from using swing or bringing baby into bed with you then it’s definitely worth it.
Hi Alexis,
Love your site! You helped us so much get through CIO and I didn’t end up feeling like a horrible mother damaging my child long term.
I’m going through the exact same thing that Angela posted with my 6 1/2 month old son after introducing solids. He is waking up at 11 PM and 4:00 AM to feed when he used to just get up once at 4 to feed. We pushed back solids to 2 PM, but he’s still getting up at 11 and 4. He’s not interested in his bedtime bottle as much and takes a lot more milk at 11 now. And at 4 AM he doesn’t eat as much either. I want to follow your advice that you gave Angela but I’m worried of the CIO craziness of not feeding him before 2 AM. What do you think of weaning him off the 10:30 AM bottle by giving him less and less milk rather than to just send my husband him and see if he goes back down? I have a feeling he will cry for a long time and we will give up and just feed him anyway. If I know my son and myself weaning might be easier. And any advice on making him eat more at bedtime? Should I push the solids up even earlier in the day?
Thanks so much!
Khe
Hi Khe! I hope things are improving for you. I just thought I’d let you know what seems to be working for us lately…
I don’t know your son’s routine, but mine looks like this (give or take!):
7:00 wake up
7:30 BF
11:00 BF
11:30 solids
2:30 BF
3:30 solids
6:00 BF
6:30 solids
7:00 bedtime
I had debated moving the 3:30 solids to the morning, because my son was waking earlier in the night again, but adding the bedtime “snack” seems to have helped immensely. He woke (without a feed) at 10:00 last night, but other than that he slept until 7:30 this morning. So he went 12+ hours without eating. Maybe try a late snack? But always after milk, I’d think.
Good luck!
Khe,
Angela has some good thoughts below. Make sure solid food comes only after a solid bottle.
So your 6 month old is gobbling at 11PM and having a brief soothing snack at 4:00 AM. This could be due to a lot of things:
– solids means he’s not getting enough day calories
– the 6 month growth spurt
– too distracted to eat during the day
– a combination of all 3
If it were ME I would gradually water down the 11PM feed. This will probably result in the 4:00 AM feed sliding up (although maybe not, you never know!). But that would be how to approach getting out of the 11:00 PM feeding.
However if you’re awake at 11:00 PM, or going to bed near 11:00PM, another option would be to offer a dreamfeed at bedtime so you’re up anyway. Then try to wean off the 4:00 AM feed with the goal of getting him to sleep from 11:00 PM till morning. That might be preferable as it’s better to feed him when you’re UP then wake up at 4:00 AM to do so.
Both are legitimate options and you can try one, see what happens, try #2.
Eating more at bedtime is a tough one. Why is he not eating? Is he not that hungry? Is he too distracted? If the latter then you may need to start feeding him in a dark room, possibly while swaddled or even using white noise. Some babies would much rather play than eat and you sort of need to force the issue. If he seems like he isn’t hungry but should be, I would play around with feeding him in the dark and see if that doesn’t make him eat more.
Hi Alex,
Thanks for replying. We finally got around to start the weaning process this week. We had bouts of diarrhea, ear infections, allergic reaction to penicillin last months and so it delayed our efforts and probably put us back some because we reinforced bad habits during the illnesses.
So we’ve instituted the dream feed at 11 which I thought was working well but the past 3 nights he’s been waking up at 2:30 AM and again at 5 AM. I know the 5 AM might just be what it is and I don’t mind feeding him then. But I know for sure I should be weaning him off the 2:30 AM feeding. So I’m decreasing the time on the breast. My question is about putting him down awake. Once he wakes up I send in my husband to try to console him for a few minutes without feeding him. If he’s still whining I go in and then let him nurse. But he’s not sucking hard, not taking a lot down so I know it’s just for comfort. I’m at 8 minutes tonight. As soon as he starts nursing like within 3-4 minutes he’s asleep and still nursing So at this point do I let him continue to nurse to the 8 minute mark, pop him off and then lay him in the crib asleep? This is always how I’ve handled it with his late night feedings. Or Am I supposed to pop him off, wake him somehow and then put him down in the crib?
Thanks!
Khe
Hi Alexis,
Quick question about growth spurts (I think)…My son was sleeping from his 11pm feed until about 7am. Until he recently started waking up at 3am hungry. He did it two nights in a row, slept through the following night, and then again last night! I think he is probably growth spurting, which is why I added a feeding back into his day (he had recently sorta dropped one of his feedings), to amp up my supply and get him some more calories. I am hoping this will fix the problem. Like Tonight! My question is this: Say he awakens again around the same time. Should I try and get him back to sleep without feeding him? It’s hard for me to read his cues at 3am (wonder why :), and I’m not sure I’ll know if he’s hungry or not. I realize I can try feeding him and see what a happens, but I do’t want him waking up the next night thinking he can get a snack. He has proven he is perfectly capable of sleeping for a seven hour stretch with no food. Maybe just gotta trial and error this thing? Thanks for your thoughts. My hope is by the time you reply…this night waking will have gone away. Fingers Crossed!
You don’t say how old he is so it’s sort of hard to guess because growth spurts come and go and some babies legitimately ARE hungry at night! But yes you can definitely try to get him back down without a feeding. Generally non-nursing partners are more successful with this because they don’t smell like food.
Another option is to simply not go in and see what happens. Maybe he complains for 15 minutes and falls back asleep? Sometimes babies surprise you.
Does he seem like he is really gobbling or does it feel more like comfort suckling? Do you here him swallowing a bunch or is it just a few swallows and then sucking without swallows?
If he’s gobbling you could try gradually reducing the amount of time alloted (as per this post) to wean off the 11:00 PM feed.
I hope you were right and by now it went away by itself. If not here are a few strategies to play with 🙂
Btw…I’m on Cali time, so it’s not actually 1:30 in the morning, as my post reads. Thank Jesus.
Hi there, my son is 8 months and drinks bottles all night. I tried giving him 2 oz of water for the midnight – 4 am feedings and after a week of it, he was still waking up for the water but having a harder time getting back to sleep. If I just give him the bottle, he’ll go right into dreamland again for 2 hours. With water, he would snooze for about 3-45 min before waking up again. Needless to say, this made the midnight to 4 am stretch much harder. Any suggestions?
Also, I have a small bone to pick about one of your CIO defenses. Everyone says “there is no research to suggest CIO is harmful” but my question is, how would one even do this research? We would have to follow babies who Cried It Out and those who didn’t for years afterwards and somehow discount all the other intervening factors like how many times they heard I love you from their parents, etc. It would be near impossible to prove that CIO is harmful or not. I am not for or against CIO, but I am sick of hearing this claim. It doesn’t make any sense.
Sarah,
Without having read the research myself, there are many ways one could theoretically design these studies. Probably one of the easiest, in my mind, would be a retrospective cohort study (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrospective_cohort_study). They would look back at children who had been “exposed” to CIO and those that hadn’t, so that there would be no need to follow then for a significant period of time. Another advantage of this type of study is that a smaller group of people is generally needed to see statistically significant differences. While each type of research has its pros and cons, any study design would match 2 similarly paired groups, whose only noticeable difference would be the treatment exposure (in this case, CIO). If your groups are large enough, and this can be determined through calculations I don’t claim to understand, this should hopefully cancel out any other chance differences among the groups, such as demonstrations of love. That isn’t to say that such problems don’t exist in these types of studies, however they should still show an “association” or link between harm and one of the groups. Let’s say, for example, that CIO is more common among parents who are less likely to say I love you… (I hope not, I have used various forms of CIO on both of my children!)… when they look back at these people, they should show an association between CIO and harm, whether that harm was from CIO specifically or something else associated with it, in this case lack of love. The fact that research hasn’t found any associations with harm is very reassuring. And, I believe, the short term studies have actually shown some benefits in things like maternal depression (although I’m sure Alexis could speak more to that!).
I hope this helps clear up some of your concerns. I’m not claiming that the research has been excellent and fool-proof, but that if properly done, can certainly settle some concerns.
Angela,
There is TONS of research on CIO. Most of them looked at short-term outcomes where parents do CIO and then their babies are studied for months following looking at various chemical components, cortisol levels, etc. All have shown no negative impact and numerous positive outcomes. I just posted about the first long-term study on CIO which I’ve linked to below. This DID do both interviews and medical tests to look at parent-child relationships, health, cortisol levels. This study also shows no negative impact from CIO. So technically the argument DOES make sense.
If your baby is demanding a bottle every 2 hours after midnight I’m wondering if this is far less about the calories and far more about a sleep association of eating to sleep. Are you putting him down awake for feeding him to sleep? What about when he gets his bottle at midnight? I’m thinking that if you started to separate the bottle he’s getting at bedtime FROM bedtime (say 20-30 minutes) you’ll have far more success getting out of the bottles at night. Also once you’ve mastered the separation of feeding from bedtime I would also make sure he’s not eating to sleep in the middle of the night. So if he demands a bottle at midnight (despite your attempts at weaning) OK – but make sure you are putting him down awake AFTER the bottle, and not letting him to fall asleep while eating.
Hi Alexis,
As many others have already stated, your site is a wonderful and much appreciated resource, and your responsivness to comments is fantastic. My daughter is 9.5 months old. She’s been what we consider a pretty great night sleeper for most of her life (started very early going for 5-9 hour stretches at night on her own, extended those on her own, started sleeping through the night without any night weaning). We developed what you describe as a classic object permanence problem (we were putting her down awake, but then holding her hand for a few minutes until she fell asleep, the time started extending and extending, as she fought to stay awake to keep us in the room), so we used cry it out at bedtime a while ago, it went as you describe (3 nights) and she had several weeks of going to bed easily and sleeping for approx. 10.5-11.5 hours. Life was grand! About 2.5 weeks ago she started waking twice during the night (first between 11 & 12, and second between 4 & 5). We went in (either my husband or I, not both), offered her a bottle, she crushed 8 ounches (both wake-up times), pushed the bottle away, nestled into our arms, fell asleep immediately, and was super easy to put back into her crib asleep for about 4 nights (total time in her room from start to finish 15-20 ish minutes). Then she got a cold. She had a couple of really crappy nights, where she didn’t seem able to sleep other than in our arms (full disclosure, we put her down asleep for a couple of nights at bedtime because she seemed so sick). Then the cold got better. We got right back to put down awake and she got right back to 2 wake-ups (11-12 and 4-5), she’s still sucking down 8 ounces at each wake-up and going to sleep, buuuuuut the sleep is light and fitful and it’s taking multiple attempts to get her back in her crib asleep (we go to put her in her crib, she wakes up, we take her out, rock her back to sleep, rinse and repeat a few times, usually about 1.5 hours until we are successful at getting her back in her crib). We are getting tired and miss sleeping through the night!! Our bedtime routine is: bath, daddy reads her a book while she has a bottle in my lap, daddy leaves, she finishes her bottle, I burp her, rock a minute or two, and then into bed awake (I’m very careful to make sure she’s definitley awake (there is usually a protest for 1-2 minutes)). We’d like to get back to all of us sleeping soundly through the night. Based on all I’ve read I’m wondering if you think we have an issue of: 1) bottle too close to bedtime initially, so she’s associating eating with sleeping (so we should move the bottle away from bedtime); 2) a habit of night eating that has developed (so we need to try night weaning); 3) a habit of having us rock her back to sleep at night (so we should put her down awake after night feeding and see what happens); 4) all of the above; or 5) something else? I would love your thoughts. Thanks!
Yes.
I love it when people answer their own questions!
The answer is #4 – all of the above. I might add the small tweak of NOT rocking her before you put her down, even though she’s awake when you leave. It’s not a huge tweak but it’s really all I can come up with to what you’ve already suggested in answering your own question. Because really you answered it masterfully 🙂
Cheers!
Hi Alexis,
So I have worked my way through parts I and II, and have been able to put my daughter down awake for all naps and atbedtime since she was 4 months old. She usually sucks her thumb and falls asleep, sometimes with a little complaining first but usually nothing major (though sometimes will cry for awhile). For about a month, she was sleeping 7pm-8am with feedings at 2am and 5am. At about 5 months old, she added in a 10:00 feeding, and then for a week or so it was getting ridiculous, with her waking up, for example, at 10, 12, 2, 4 and 6, but each night was different.
I started your night weaning plan for breastfed babies about a week and a half ago. At the time, she had been getting up at 10, 1 and 4 for the previous week, so I decided to cut out the 10:00 feeding. We started at 10 minutes, and by the time we got down to 4 minutes, she didn’t wake up at 10 for the next 3 nights, so I considered it weaned and started working on the 1:00 feeding. For the last 2 nights though, she has been up again at 10:00 and then 9:00 last night, and I don’t know what to do when that happens. Unfortunately, my husband works out of town a lot and so sending him in is not an option. You say it shouldn’t be a CIO nightmare, but she definitely cries for longer than 10 minutes when I ignore her. That’s the first problem.
Probelm #2, is what happened last night: She woke up at 10:00, and I tried to comfort her without feeding (mistake? Intermittent reinforcement of the crying?? My intent was to play the Daddy role from what you suggest above without feeding her). She calmed down, I put her down, she was quiet for 2 min then SCREAMED for 20 before falling asleep. Next she woke up at 1:20, I fed her for 4 minutes (down from last night’s 5 minutes). According to her pattern from when I started this, she should have been up next at 4:00. Instead, she got up at 2:15. I waited about 5 min to see if she would go back to sleep, but she didn’t and so I fed her for as long as she wanted. She was up again at 6:00 to eat and then woke up for the day at 8:30. My question is, wasn’t the whole plan to cut out the 10:00 and 1:00 feedings so I was only getting up at 4:00 (once)? She seems to be shifting the times of the feedings though, instead of actually weaning. So once I’m done with this 1:00 feeding in 4 days or less, do I just make the rule that I don’t feed her anytime before 1am? What if she wakes up at midnight one night, and does cry for more than 10 minutes? I am OK with using CIO for a short time to get her to fall asleep on her own, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to handle listening to her scream indefinitely in the middle of the night when I’m exhausted. Maybe I’m over thinking it, but I worry that I know that before 1 am I will ignore her and after I will feed her. But from my daughter’s prespective, she is not going to understand some arbitrary time rule and so isn’t she just learning that sometimes crying gets nothing and sometimes it gets her fed (i.e., intermittent reinforcement)?
One more question, sorry this is so long winded…she seems not to be able to fall asleep very well on her back. She can roll over in both directions now and often does roll over a few times before settling down to sleep on her tummy. But sometimes when she has been crying for a long time, she seems not to be able to get back to her tummy, especially when I have her in a wearable blanket like a grobag. Would it be OK when she is crying to go into her bedroom and silently flip her to her tummy, or do you think that will just prolong the crying? Thanks for your help.
OK, so…confirmed. I was overthinking it. For the last 4 nights, she’s been sleeping 7pm till 7 or 8 am, with one feeding at around 4 or 5 am. You are a genius, it worked exactly as you said it would, and I needed to give it a couple more days. So you can ignore the first long winded part if you would like. I am still interested in your thoughts on the last question, about flipping her over when she ends up on her back. Thanks again!!
WOO HOO! I’m a genius! Did everybody catch that? Carolyn said I’m a genius!
;P
Actually I as wondering if you weren’t tripped up by a growth spurt because the feeding pattern you described sounded like that. Too bad babies don’t come with a light that turns on when growth spurt/sleep regressions are happening because most often you realize what was happening AFTER the fact.
As for flipping over, that’s a toughie. The safe sleep recommendation is to ALWAYS put babies on their backs to sleep and that’s what I recommend. Your baby is 5 months old so I personally am not comfortable telling you to put her on her tummy, even though she’s capable of getting there on her own. So from THAT perspective, I wouldn’t flip her over.
But feel free to chat about it with your pediatrician and if he/she is OK with it, then go ahead!
What happens if there is a lot of crying – all the way until the baby would have fed next – upon shortening/eliminating a feeding? I have reduced the length of my 7 month old’s first (of 3 or 4, it varies) overnight feeding by a few minutes the past few nights and am scared to see what will happen over the next few nights. She is very strong-willed & definitely a grazer, still nursing 10-12 times every 24 hrs. I don’t think she’s ready to be fully night weaned so all-night CIO doesn’t sound like an option, at least not yet.
Also, how did you find out that your supply was slightly low? Is there some way for that to be tested? My lactation consultant has said that mine has to be fine since my daughter gains weight consistently, but I’m starting to be concerned that low supply might be why she wants to eat so much at night. She always has – she has never had long stretches of sleep other than a couple of very random nights over the past few months. She falls asleep without nursing (separated by 20-30 minutes) and even at night wakings, after being fed, from what I can tell in the dim light, isn’t fully asleep when I put her in her crib after feeding her. She doesn’t take a bottle so we can’t test that way as you suggested to someone else.
3-4 feedings a night was an overgeneralization – the 2 nights since I posted were 2 & 5. She is just all over the place despite having a consistent bedtime. It is impossible to tell how hungry she is until I actually start to feed her – her cries sound the same regardless. And if my husband goes in and rocks her while she cries, she won’t calm down & I have to feed her. How long should we let her go? This isn’t supposed to happen to a baby who falls asleep on her own to begin the night!
And how do I make her eat more during daytime feedings? We already nurse in a dark room and I keep putting her back on when she pulls off. I physically can’t make her take more.
How you know your supply is low is a complicated question. Babies can grow and thrive and still not be quite full. This can lead you to having a baby who eats constantly and is never full. Fast letdown can also result in the same symptoms. So the whole issue is a bit of a tricky wicket.
HOWEVER low supply is different from having a distracted nurser and from what you’re telling me, you may have more of a distracted nurser. This is SUPER common. Life is just too fun so baby doesn’t want to stop playing to sit with mom and eat. So they eat JUST enough to get by and then use the boring time at night to really tank up.
When she wakes up 2X a night to eat, do you feel she is REALLY eating? Do you hear swallowing noises, etc? Or do you think this is comfort snacking?
If she’s REALLY eating then the problem is that she’s not eating enough during the day. Distraction is working against you. Dark room is great. Maybe try some white noise or even drape her with a baby blanket so there is literally NOTHING else to look at.
Are you introducing solids? That could actually lead her to be MORE hungry at night. Solid food is high fiber and thus filling but very LOW calories so a “dinner” in the evening will fill her up but then leave her hungry later. So that could be throwing you for a spin a bit.
Probably a bit of the combination of a) strong willed b) distracted nurser c) solid foods.
If you are really struggling I would call up the LC who you worked with and get her help to get your baby to take a bottle. If she’s going to wake up 2X a night, then at least one of them could be handled by Dad. Also why not try a bottle at night when she’s hungry and possibly too tired to fuss about it? At least temporarily 1 bottle at night would give you some immediate relief. Something to consider….
If you’re feeling beat up I’m 100% in favor of the occasional bottle that gets you sleeping solidly through till 5:00 am….
Hi Alexis,
I’ve been following your comments about older babies and night nursing, and was wondering how much “should” a typical 7 month old be eating? I know there is no right answer but I am wondering if there is a recommended amount? My little guy is almost 7 1/2 months and slept better at 5 months than he does now! I think, like many people here, it is a combination of solids and distraction but I have no idea what is considered normal. I am breast feeding, though he gets 2 bottles a day while I’m at work. Including those bottles (they are 4-5 oz), he gets 5 milk feeds a day plus he wakes up at 1 or 2 am and sometimes again at 5 (sometimes he sleeps though to 6 or 6:30). Is this enough milk? Am I correct that milk is still his primary source of nutrition? I’ve been feeding (nursing) before solids.
He can put himself to sleep for naps and bedtime and I don’t feed him to sleep. I know he really is still hungry because he eats quickly and goes right back to sleep, and Daddy soothing doesn’t work.
Thanks for your input.
It’s really hard to suss out. There is conflicting research on the subject and some of the links I’m going to include here contain philosophies I don’t necessarily agree with. That being said the “range” is generally somewhere between 20-34 OZ a day (give or take).
If you want more specificity here are some calculators that may help:
http://www.fourfriends.com/cgi-bin/milk.pl
http://www.lowmilksupply.org/supplementing-howmuch.shtml
http://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/pumping/milkcalc/
Alexis,
Thank you for the links. It is tough to figure out if he is really hungry or if he needs soothing. Some nights he can sleep a 7 hour stretch and others the longest we get is 5 hours. I know he should be able to go even longer. I’ve stopped feeding him so much and did some daddy soothing. What a great thing that is!
Thanks again!
Thanks for the tip on white noise & a blanket during day feedings – I will definitely try that!
As for solids, I give her 1-2 tablespoons twice a day. She eats dinner at around 5 and takes in a fair amount for her pre-bedtime nursing around 6:30 or 6:45 and is sleep between 7:15 and 7:30 – do you think all of that is too close together? I don’t think solids have had an effect on her sleep – it was bad before we started them too 🙁
It has varied over time how much she eats at each night feeding – sometimes she is eating pretty vigorously and sometimes she is not. I *think* we are moving in the direction of less – but we just need to break the habit of *always* feeding upon night-wakings. Last night she screamed for 30 minutes about 25 minutes after going down for the night – it took everything in me not to go in and feed her, and eventually my husband’s efforts at soothing her worked and she wasn’t hungry for another 3 hours after that. Not great, but not horrible either. I am realizing that I just have to be tough and not feed her before a certain time while we work on getting rid of the first overnight feeding and expand from there, and just persist with getting daddy-soothing to work. I’m fine with feeding her once or twice a night for now, if she needs it. I will probably have some more questions as we progress, as I just know that she won’t be too happy when we reach 0 minutes for that first feeding. Thanks again!
Now I know why you didn’t answer “what happens if she cries all the way until she would have eaten next?” – because even though she cried for a while, it has gotten shorter the past few nights and down to just a minute of fussing last night, no daddy-soothing even. The momentum of being early in the night and still needing a lot of sleep, plus the fact that she does know how to put herself to sleep anyway, works to help her back to sleep.
I know I will jinx it by saying this but it has been great only feeding her twice per night. I am still interested in your thoughts on whether dinner 2 hours before bedtime is too late. Thanks!
That is great news!
Dinner is 2 tb of food which is really just “practice eating” food. Her real dinner is the nursing session at 6:30 which you say is a solid meal, so awesome!
I honestly am not sure why she’s waking up 30 minutes after going to bed and am REALLY glad to hear that it’s fading. I suspect it’s behavioral but as long as it’s going away, I sort of don’t car 😛
But I DON’T believe it’s hunger. If you’re having a solid nursing session at 6:30 there is no way she is starving at 8:00 PM. Even most newborns can make it more than 1.5 hours between meals. So at 7 months? Um…..nope.
So glad to hear things are going better! 2X a night blows but hopefully you’re done with this 8:00 PM crying jag 🙂
We’re back to 3-4 feedings the past few nights with a span of being awake for a while in the early morning before sleeping in closer to 8 as opposed to 6:30-7. I suspect teething. How do I stay strong even then? With daddy away on business, I physically can’t do anything when she cries a hungry cry in the middle of the night besides nurse her. I am figuring this may have been an extinction burst but I am too scared to deprive a hungry baby so I couldn’t let her cry more than a few minutes. Once daddy returns tomorrow we will work on re-weaning the first feeding … this is really hard and having a persistent kid makes me feel like I’m just not tough enough.
Hi Alexis, I stumbled upon your site recently. What good information you provide. My baby is 3 months old now. At almost 2 months, he was sleeping 6 hours, from 9-3am.And then morning feeding at 6am. But a couple weeks back, he started waking up every 2-3 hours again. Usually between 9-10, 12-1, 3, and 6. We used to put him down at 9, but now changed it to around 7.30 as he seems like he really wants to sleep. He takes 3 naps a day (2 -1.5 hour nap, and 1 – 1 hour nap) during the day.
Should I try cutting out the 3am feeding?
Hey Janice,
Honestly I subscribe to the “if your newborn is hungry then feed them” school of thought. I know he was eating less at 2 months so you’re probably inclined to think, “Hey – you USED to be able to do this so why not NOW!” And I totally get your frustration. But it’s also really normal for a 3 month old baby to eat 3X a night.
Remember they are growing at an absurd rate and their caloric needs will vary over the next 6 months. So sometimes yes they WILL go back to more feedings even though they were effectively “done” with night feeding at a previous point.
So you are welcome to try to gently wean off the 3 AM feeding, the worst case scenario is that it doesn’t work and he starts waking up earlier because he is hungry. If that happens I would go back to a full 3 AM feeding. And if not? Then that’s awesome!
Hi Alexis!
Well, I’m back for more of your wonderful advice. So, roughly two months ago I started CIO with my then 11, now 13 month old baby. She was a terrible sleeper and it came to the point that she would only sleep with me in our bed. So after a horrific tale of CIO (crying of up to 2h and 40 min), and a lot of sleepless nights going over your website, it worked! She now goes to bed awake and cries for under 10 minutes. Sometimes 1, sometimes 10, but generally it’s pretty good. Once we had that down, we did CIO at nap time. I was AMAZED that she never cried more than 10 mins!!!! The first time we put her down in her crib, she was asleep within 8 mins ,and to this day it varies, but it generally stays under 10. Now, here is the problem we are having……which is really going to drive me insane.
So, she goes to bed after her routine at 7.30, and used to wake up 1 – 2 times a night, at about 1 and at about 5 am, I would breastfeed her and put her back in her crib and she would doze off without a protest. perfect right… Well now, she goes down at 7.30, and wakes 45 mins later, yelling and crying! She cries for up to an hour every night, until she gets so exhausted she falls back to sleep…. every night! I don’t go in until the 1 am feed, but what is going on??? I want to drop the feeds, not increase them!!!
Since I am gradually weaning her from the breast, she gets a sippy cup with formula before her bath, but she only drinks a couple of ounces, and then a couple more while her father is reading her her book right before bed. Since she doesn’t take a bottle I can’t really force her to drink any more…
Suggestions please?!?!?!?! Should we go in at the 8.30 wake up and feed her?? should we not go in at all throughout the night?
I would really appreciate some help please!!!! It’s been over a year of never sleeping!
Carol,
I wouldn’t feed her because I can’t believe that she is starving. You just offered her food just prior to bed so there is no way that 45 minutes later she is STARVING.
I’ll be honest, I don’t really know WHAT that is about. I’ll do some digging and see if I come up with anything. Obviously you are not alone – see Kathleen’s comment above – same pattern of behavior. So two people with the same issue makes me think this is “a thing” but to be fair I don’t have a good handle on what the “thing” is.
I WOULD:
– Go see your pediatrician just to rule out something medical (ear infections or what have you). Also am curious if Dr. has any theories.
– I BELIEVE it’s behavioral. I think it’s a separation anxiety/want to be with Mommy/Daddy thing. They’re really tired, get through one sleep cycle and realize they’re alone in bed and rouse themselves fully to say, “HEEEY! I don’t WANT TO SLEEP!”
– The frequent causes of night waking (which I don’t believe apply to you) are….
inconsistent sleep schedules
overtired
nap deprivation
sleep apnea (baby doesn’t snore does she?)
So the short answer is, “I don’t know but I believe it’s behavioral – separation anxiety stuff.”
If your pediatrician finds anything or has another theory, I would love to hear it!
When our daughter got eczema at 6 months, our sleeping went totally haywire trying to protect her skin, including bringing her into the bed. At 8 months we forced the crib and spent hours hunched over patting and nursing her to sleep. We also got a special kind of silk mittens for eczema babies (scratch-me-not), which meant we could leave her alone without coming back to a face of bloody scratches. After months of zombie like living, We followed your advice and started down the cry-it-out path about a month ago, at 8.5 months old, and started the gradual night weaning a week into it. There was a lot more crying about the gradual weaning than you’re post describes, but it worked and our daughter is getting through the night without any feedings now. We even got through some serious teething without any feedings. She does still wake up some nights around 5, hungry, particularly if she missed a feeding during the day, but even then I usually make her wait until 6. She does however wake up very angry with a wet diaper 1-2x night, since she has such rash-prone, sensitive skin, I do change the diaper. She is always sitting up, waiting for the diaper change. I do it gently and in the crib and don’t linger or talk. This is just a very wet diaper, she never poops at night. It’s the same whether it’s a cloth diaper or a disposable one. She usually cries for a little while but gets quiet as soon as I shut the door. This means that despite all our success with sleep training and night weaning, I’m still waking up twice a night, albeit for a much shorter period. Also, when I get back in bed, my husband is snoring and I have trouble falling asleep again. So two troubles: 1) Night time diaper angst, and 2) snoring husband.
Have your tried night diapers? I just started using them with my 10-month-old son. He was waking up very wet, and sometimes even with a little diaper rash because of that. They work really well! I just FINALLY weaned him from night feedings so I do everything I can do to keep him sleeping!
YES to the night diapers! Worth every penny (yes they are more expensive and more absorbent). Clearly your daughter is very sensitive but it may help at least reduce one of the diaper changes?
I also married a snorer and my solution is to ALWAYS WAKE HIM UP. He doesn’t snore when awake. See? Simple 😉
Alexis,
Thank you so much, you are so amazing at responding! I’ll try this “waking cure” tonight. I’m afraid it might not work though as he is hard to wake up and keep awake. This morning he apparently fell asleep in my nursing chair for an hour and a half.
Best, Laurel
Follow-up! I was re-reading our cloth diaper care manual and I noticed they advise to go in and change the wet diaper before you go to bed, trying not to wake the baby much in the process. I was skeptical, but I tried it. She was coughing a bit around 10:30 and I went in before she’d gotten all the way back to sleep. She was very wet and had leaked into her pants. There was squirming and mild protests but no real crying. Voila. Baby slept through the night for the first time ever. Fell asleep at 7:30, woke up at 6:45 when I went in to her room. So there we are, 30 nights into sleep training (see below), our first full night.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOO HOO!
Alexis,
Just want to say a huge thank you on behalf of myself and all of us on here to you for your website and your incredible ability to answer all of the questions and posts on here. You are truly a wealth of amazing knowledge, and I cannot tell you how impressed I am that you make the effort to answer EVERYONE.
I know that you mentioned in one of your comments on this site that you sometimes miss the nested responses / questions, so just wanted to alert you to one I made in the exchange between Kate, Lar, you, and me above to see if you could offer any additional insights.
After reading all the comments left by folks on this topic, I’m actually somewhat comforted to know how many parents are going through all the same problems. It’s interesting to see that there are quite a number of babies in the 6-12 month old range that are still at 2-3 feedings when they should really be down to 0-1. As I mentioned in my post earlier, efforts to reduce amount of time breastfeeding doesn’t seem to be working for me, so I’m just going to go with the flow for a little longer and see if my 8 month old daughter is able to reduce on her own and then try again later. I found with my twins that sometimes what works today might work several weeks later.
Anyway, just wanted to alert you to post above and to say a huge thank you for all your sage advice.
meant to say “what doesn’t work today might work several weeks later”
Hello again! I read your update above. Sorry to hear your 8 month old has decided to place herself in the same camp as her less-sleeping older sister and my very hungry boy!
Current status for us: The big first birthday is this weekend. Last night we skipped the 2 am feeding for the first time in ages.(hooray!) He ate at 10:30, woke up and cried at 12:30. I went in and did my Ferber visit, “time to go night night, no more milk, mama loves you go to sleep” which made him angry but he only complained for 10 minutes and then went back to sleep until 5 AM. I am thrilled. I was down to 2-3 minutes on that middle feed, so I guess FINALLY it worked. This was my third attempt to wean that feeding. Sadly we are going on a trip this weekend, so . . . bummer. We will see what happens. I am going to try my best to keep things as much the same as possible while we’re away, staying with family.
It is interesting that there seem to be a number of babies who make it through the “fall asleep on my own” piece and yet so strongly hold on to those night feedings. And I realize you and I are only 2 people, but I think it’s also interesting that we both work and pump. Seems like that must be a factor. My husband tries so hard to get him to eat more during the day and he is just not interested. He likes his bottle less and less, and he’s walking (running actually) and super busy all day long. Plus I know I am less motivated to get him sleeping through the night than I would be if I were home. I like the nighttime cuddles. However, 3 feedings at this age is just unreasonable! Hopefully we can stay at 2 and go to 1 soon.
And I want to second Johnette’s big thanks to Alexis. This site is basically the best part of the whole internet. 🙂
Also working/pumping, also a definite nursing vs. bottle preference. Normally baby nurses for up to 20 minutes at bedtime. The other day we had a babysitter put her to bed. She drank 1/2 an ounce of the 6 oz. bottle we left, went to sleep quickly and didn’t wake up until 4:30 AM. At that point, I changed her diaper, sang a song, and left. There was a long period of crying, whimpering, silence, talking, repeat. At 5:20 I started to get a bottle ready, it took a very long time and by the time it was all ready she had fallen back asleep… and slept until 7:30. Maybe she gave up hope and went to sleep starving, but probably she was looking more for cuddles than food. Has anyone tried giving a bottle at night to these “hungry” night nursers? If you have night weaned, do you set limits or exceptions (crying more than 45 minutes, okay after 5:00/5:30/6:00, if teething, if sick?) Usually I try to stick to no nursing before 6AM, but I will feed her after 5AM if she’s having a tough time. Never before.
Also, I hope I didn’t understate our experience with night weaning, there was A LOT of crying over a period of about 3 weeks. Courage!
Kate,
Happy birthday to your little one, and congrats to making it through one year of joy and challenge! Great to hear that you’ve made some progress and to learn more about your experience…keep at it! That sucks that you’re going on a trip. That always messed up our twins. Interestingly, one more than the other. One bounced back after a few days – 1 week. The other often took 2-3 weeks to get back in sync. Plus, we’ve got the time change in a few weeks. It never ends! Just know that trips/sickness/time change has less influence over time. Now at age 2.5, the aftermath only lasts a couple days.
Laurel,
How old is your baby? We could try bottle but honestly, it’s more of a hassle right now than going in to nurse. When I’ve had to travel for work, she did take from the bottle at night and did consume quite a bit. Haven’t night weaned, so can’t answer your question about that. When you night weaned, did you do full CIO?
She’s 9.5 months. We followed the Ferber schedule for the initial bedtime with nursing on demand for the first week, then started gradually reducing feedings after that. I can post the full process and results, but I need to check my notes later.
I have a theory about the bottle. First, I read in Nursing Mother’s Companion that studies show that bottle fed babies sleep more/longer, I think this is well established, not sure. Second, I read “Bringing up Bebe,” which highlights French parenting, and highlights that French babies sleep very well, very early, and attributes this to French parents making them wait for things. They are also, coincidentally, almost all bottle fed. So my theory is that bottle fed babies sleep longer simply because they always have to wait for a long time to eat, by nature of the incredible hassle of bottles. Maybe sometimes the babies forget what they are waiting or give up too soon, particularly when they don’t really need it, and maybe that’s why they do better, even if the parents are just as attentive. Just a theory, I agree, bottles are such a pain I wouldn’t do it either, I was just wondering if anyone had, because it would be interesting to test this theory.
Laurel,
How many feedings was she at when you started to wean? And you said it took about 3 weeks of CIO? I know you mentioned needing to check your notes…I’d be interested in learning more on how you did it. For me, I feel like CIO is totally worth it to get the baby sleeping on their own in the crib. I’m willing to do some wait-and-see allowing baby to cry in the middle of the night, but typically, if they start to escalate (usually about 5-10 min very upset crying), I go in. And, about an hour is my limit for multiple attempts at settling before feeding.
With regard to your theory, I totally agree that part of the difference absolutely can be attributed to the waiting longer. I think the other factor to consider about the French babies is that they’re mostly formula fed. It takes longer to digest the formula, so I’ve found in both the literature and in my own experiences talking with friends with formula-fed babies that they tend to sleep longer than BF babies. I’m in the middle of Bringing Up Bebe and think it’s a fascinating book. I definitely think there’s absolute merit to the making babies/toddlers wait.
Interesting related anecdote…one of my twins during about 18mo-2 years old had a period where she would cry hard for about 5-10 min in the middle of her nap. She’d take a 2 hour nap and somewhere within 45-75 min just start screaming. If we waited it out, she would just go back to sleep for the second half. Have no idea what prompted it and it somehow went away after about half a year. She then also had a period after that where she didn’t want to take a nap and kept herself awake (but she still absolutely needed it). Our nanny was the one who was successful at getting her back on track but just staying the the room to ensure she went to sleep and then gradually going back to not being in the room and just leaving her in there to fall asleep on her own, so we’re back to good naps. We chock all of this up to strange baby sleeping behavior, and that every child is different!
To be honest my research on this is a little out of date so it’s something I need to dig into but…
I’m pretty confident that formula fed babies DON’T sleep better than BF babies. I know there was a lot of theories about that and of course the pro-nursing contingent got upset that people would switch to formula to solve sleep issues. Which then led to a bunch of research on the subject which more or less came to the conclusion that it makes no difference.
Now I DON’T know about offering BM in a bottle vs. from the breast so there could be something there. Although anecdotal I haven’t found that to be the case. You are probably right however that some babies are really looking for the soothing of nursing and if forced to wait while Mom diddles around with the bottle, might just sort themselves out and fall back to sleep. So really the “bottle production time” amounts to fuss-it-out. When baby falls back to sleep Mom realizes that baby wasn’t starving so the whole thing ends up as a big WIN!
I haven’t read Bringing Up Bebe (maybe I should as husband is French) but I know from spending months in France with husband’s fam that French families do things VERY differently. For example they go grocery shopping almost every day. And they have 3-4 kids in strollers or simply following behind like ducklings. And the kids all stay in a line and are quiet waiting around while Mom chats to the butcher.
I, of course, am observing this while my own 2 kids are climbing up the mailbox screaming, “LOOK MOM! I’m A NINJA!!!!”
So I wonder if this makes a) me an over-permissive bad-mom b) French Mom’s too strict-demanding of their little ones c) simply a cultural difference.
I live in VT where we sort of have a “let the kids climb the tree” mentality about children. I think we lean towards the wild side here. For example nobody freaks out if your 2 YO puts an entire handful of dirt into their mouth. They just shrug and say, “Kids gotta eat a pound of dirt before they grow up.”
That’s our culture and that’s OK.
In France children are expected to be much more quiet, follow Mom in a line, and wait patiently while Mom goes out for daily fresh produce. That’s their culture and that’s OK.
Alexis,
That’s interesting that there’s recent research out there saying that formula doesn’t result in longer sleep. I remember all the nurses and lactation consultants telling me that when I had the twins, and I recall reading about it from several sources. But, if studies have been done showing that it makes no difference, I’m big on relying on evidence-based results. You definitely should read Bringing Up Bebe if you have the time (I can’t see how you would though given how incredibly diligent and awesome you are to answer everyone’s comments here!)…I think you’d find it very fascinating. It’s really about the author’s observations of the cultural differences, so it’s not necessarily prescriptive, just more of a personal recounting of what she experienced living over in France.
Thanks again for your blog. Love, love, love reading your advice and all the experiences of the different moms on here.
Hi Johnette,
So according to the notes before we did sleep training I was nursing about 5 times per night. Afterwards it was 2 times on average. We night weaned 19 days after starting sleep training and will do a night cuddle in place of nursing if she is sick or teething, but otherwise pretty much do CIO.
The night before sleep training we started going to bed @7:30, asleep at 8:30; awake 9:40-10:00 (nursed); awake 10:40-11:10 (nursed); awake 12:40-1:40 (nursed); awake 4:00-4:20 (nursed); awake 5:10; 5:20-5:30(nursed). Our routine was bath, lotion, pajamas, story, swaddle, nurse, place in crib, sing a song (we were singing “if you miss the train I’m on” but that was too depressing, so now we play “somewhere over the rainbow” and sing along and then turn on rain noise.
1st Night: (1 hour, 12 minutes) 8:15-9:27 crying it out w/ Ferber schedule+ 5 second aftershock at 9:29. 12:50-1:00 nursed, 4:20-4:40 nursed, diaper
2nd Night (13 minutes) crying from 7:50-8:03, 2:15 nursed, 5:00 nursed, awake at 7.
3rd Night (0 minutes) asleep at 7:53, brief peep at 8:30. 2:30-2:45 Nurse, diaper, nurse
4th Night (12 minutes) crying from 7:33-7:45, brief crying at 10pm, 11:55-12:05, crying, changed diaper at 12:10, asleep at 12:10, 2:55 to 3:10 nursed, up at 7:20
5th Night (0 minutes) asleep at 7:44, nursed at 2:10, crying 5:20-6:30 (nursed), awake at 9:45
6th Night (1-2 minutes) asleep at 7:20, 1:50-2:10, nursed, probably a second nursing session but no notes
7th Night (30 minutes) crying or moving around and making noise from 7:55-8:25, nursed at 12:30, probably a second or third nursing session but no notes (thanks Alexis for the warning about extinction bursts!)
8th Night (no notes) 10:50 crying, no notes on nursing
9th Night (4 minutes) 7:38 very angry, fell asleep nursing, tried to wake up but wouldn’t open eyes. Cried vigorously for 4 minutes. 11:40-11:55 nursed, cried unitl 12:30
10th Night (5 minutes) 7:39-7:44, 2:40-3:03 nursed, 6:30-6:36 crying
11th Night: (0 minutes) changed routine slightly- bath, PJ, nurse, story, sleep sack, lights out, cuddle, crib, song, rain and started limiting nursing– fell asleep during song, but had to swaddle arms because she was flinging herself into the side of the crib and has cuts on her head from last night. 1:00 –1:30 crying, 1:30- nursed for 7 minutes (cut short) head flinging, crying, etc. re-swaddled and sang song again, fell asleep by the end of the song ~1:47.
12th Night (14 minutes crying) Nursed before story, laid down at 7:29, quiet at 7:43.10:50-11:10 crying, did not check. 2:00-2:05 – nursed for 5 minutes only (until first natural break). Very angry. Full swaddle. Cried for only 1 minute after song.
13th Night. 7:26, fell asleep during second time through song, after re-swaddling, head banging against bars. 9:50 – coughing. 1:50-2:18: picked up at 1:55 but waited to nurse until 2 Nursed for 5 minutes. Diaper, lotion, song, less of a struggle tonight, left awake and quiet.
14th Night (8 minutes) 7:30-7:38, cried for 1-2 seconds at 9pm and 10 pm, woke at 3:00, nursed 4 minutes, diaper change, held for 5 minutes, song, cried for 1 minute after being set down. 6am –nursed, still asleep at 7:50.
15th Night (12 minutes) 7:32-7:40, 12:00 crying –teething tablets, diaper, held and sang song. 4:40-4:45 nursed. 7:10 woke up
16th night – messed up routine due to allergic reaction earlier in evening, (bath, lotion, pj’s, visit neighbors, Benadryl, nursed,, song) still went to bed fine. Short crying/coughing bouts throughout night. 4:15 nursed 3-4 minutes, cried for 45 minutes, 5:10, still some noise, but less.
17th night: (22 minutes) Laid down at 7:36- quiet, then crying then quiet at 7:52. No more notes on night weaning, but I think we did 3 minutes with a lot of crying
18th Night- bed at 7:45, no other notes, but I think we did 1-2 minutes with less crying
19th night ( 0 minutes) fell asleep immediately 7:24, cried from 12:00-1:00, 3:00-4:30 w/ Ferber style checks. Later realized she was teething when 3 teeth came in a week. So we may have been too tough on the little one.
Night 20-29: Still wakes from time to time for 2-3 minutes, 15 minutes, or about 40 minutes at all different times of night, but especially at 4:30. Not always crying, sometimes she is singing/babbling or just sitting or standing. We do a diaper change or comforting, sometimes we do a song, and she usually gets quiet as soon as we leave and the door clicks. There is definitely something about the door clicking shut. Around night 20 we started swaddling only one arm. Nights 28 and 29 we did not swaddle at all, but do use protective mitten sleeves.
Laurel,
Wow! First off, thank you so so much for relaying all the details of your experience!! Second, super kudos to you for successfully night weaning — especially from 5x per night!! As I mentioned, I was at one feeding for a couple months, but am now up to two. I thought it might have been b/c of regression (and that might have been a part of it), but I also think it’s b/c she’s genuinuely hungry and not getting enough calories during the day. I remember this happened with my twins that around the 8-9 month time frame, they were requiring more.
Anyway, it’s interesting to me that your daughter woke up occasionally throughout the night with a cry or two but would get herself to sleep. Mine does that too, but then there are other times when she’s clearly hungry and her cries escalate and are prolonged until I go in. Unfortunately, the weaning attempts haven’t been easy and she stays up a LONG TIME if I don’t feed her. It also looks like your daughter spontaneously went from waking up 2x for nursing to 1x, and then with the reduction in minutes, still managed to fall asleep fairly quickly with some crying. After several tries for me, my cute little stubborn one continues to stay up until she’s completely satisfied (1 hour is my max, and I’ve reached that point on a number of occasions). Given that I work and have twin 2 year olds, there only so many times I can give it a go before I decide just to keep going with night nursing b/c it means less sleep deprivation. I’ll try again in a few weeks and keep everyone posted on progress. Thanks again for sharing your information…super helpful!!
Laurel,
Thanks so much for sharing your detailed notes!
I have to say when you left a comment saying that CIO took weeks and involved LOTS of crying I was expecting to see some sort of horror show. Then you throw up your stats and I’m like, “Hey – where’s all the crying you were talking about?”
Seriously – this is FANTASTIC. I think for me, “crying” is baby is awake and screaming 45+ minutes. This sort of 8-14 minutes stuff is just “complaining.” I think maybe I need to write a post on crying vs. complaining because people have babies who cry 5-10 minutes at EVERY bedtime and feel that they are some sort of CIO failure when from my perspective they’re doing AMAZINGLY WELL!
Thanks so much for sharing in such detail as I’m SURE this will be really helpful/reassuring to other people 🙂
Hi there,
First of all: Joss Whedon. YES. Firefly? Yes? Second of all, I’m not entirely sure how you have time to write this blog and also answer the millions of questions posted about millions of babies…but however you’re doing it, THANK YOU. I too have read tons of books, blogs, and articles about baby sleep but had yet to come across anything that fully made sense until I found your blog. It’s really refreshing to read something direct, intelligent, simple, and funny!
My family is about to embark on some big career and situational changes, and as such we all need to be on top of our game. While the sleep situation with our 7.5 month old, Sam, isn’t as dire as some of the other people posting, it’s still less than ideal and I know if we don’t figure something out it’s just going to get worse. I definitely need to be getting more sleep, and am willing to do what it takes.
What we have going for us:
– At this point, Sam has a very consistent waking (6:30-7:30am), eating (breastfed + 3 solid meals a day), napping (10am and 2pm), and bedtime (7pm) schedule in place.
– He DOES know how to fall asleep on his own, without a pacifier, in his crib. I’ve seen (or heard) him do it a handful of times.
– I have been practicing putting him down “drowsy but awake” consistently for the past few weeks, for both naps and night time.
– He has very consistent nap and bedtime routines that have been in place for many months.
– He has been slowly eating less and less at night – at this point, only 1 “real” meal.
– When he wakes up at night for comfort, it can take as little as 30 seconds of boob before I can successfully put him back in his crib and he will fall back to sleep.
– In general, he is a very happy baby. Wakes up smiling, isn’t usually fussy, falls asleep quickly (most of the time)…so I do not believe he is chronically sleep deprived. From most of the days we have tracked, he gets about 12-14 hours of sleep total (excludes any time he is awake at night).
– Occasionally, he’ll have a good hour long nap. The other day, he had an hour and a forty minute nap – which was a record over the past few months. So, I know he CAN take longer naps.
So what is the problem, you might ask? Here’s what we DON’T have going for us:
– Even though he CAN fall asleep on his own (usually after several attempts, and after a bit of complaining), most of the time he chooses not to (or some would argue – we aren’t giving him the opportunity to, somehow). Or rather, when he wakes up at night he doesn’t like to put himself BACK to sleep without at least a glimpse of boob.
– Putting him down “drowsy but awake” does involve nursing until his eyes close, performing a switcharoo to a pacifier, and putting him in his crib. Usually he readjusts himself then and falls the rest of the way to sleep by himself. This week I have been working on detaching him gradually sooner and sooner, which sometimes results in some complaining. If it starts to move from protesting to actual crying I then go back in, hook him up until he calms down again, switcharoo, and back in the crib to fall asleep. Good times it only takes once, but sometimes it takes up to 5 attempts.
– Both of the nap and bedtime routines involve either eating a bottle of expressed breast milk or nursing right before he falls asleep. Like I said, we have been practicing not letting him fall ALL the way to sleep while eating, but I understand we probably have to disassociate food from sleep a bit more.
– On a very good night (recently, anyway…before he mastered this “object permanence” pain in the ass skill he used to sleep 7 hours at a clip!), he’ll wake up once to eat around 2am. I’ve started giving him less food in an attempt to wean him, but the true problem is that on a bad night he will wake up an additional 2-3 times for comfort only (and perhaps a nip of milk – damn my good letdown reflex!), and most morning he wakes up too early (5-5:30am) and spends the remaining 1-2 hours in bed with me. Not that I HATE snuggling with my warm little goob for a few hours, but I know that we would all sleep better if he stayed in his crib the whole night.
– By comfort, I mean boob AND BOOB ONLY. Patting and shushing while still in the crib, no way. Picking up and rocking (whether it’s me OR dad), nope. He literally just wants as little as a 10 second fix sometimes.
– Because I have been unwilling to commit to a crying method thus far (I’m not a dabbler), sometimes the boobing, paci switcharoo, in the crib to roll around and fall back asleep method CAN take a really long time. So on bad nights I can be awake for up to an hour each waking just waiting for that to work. I COULD just put him back to sleep all the way on the boob, which would be much faster. But I’ve been committed to at least trying this other approach first. At this point I’m not opposed to trying a crying method, but I want to make sure I’ve given him every opportunity to figure it out first.
– Most of the time these days, his naps are anywhere from 20 minutes – 40 minutes. PAINFULLY short. Again, I don’t think it’s that he CAN’T put himself back to sleep…most of the time he just doesn’t want to. Over the past week, at your suggestion, I have been trying to coerce him into falling back asleep after anything less than an hour. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
So, my questions are:
1. I know that we need to commit to an action plan to get him sleeping all the way through the night. I’m not getting nearly enough sleep, and I’m hoping that at this point all he needs is a little shove. Do you think we should work on night weaning FIRST, just so I can be certain that he is not hungry when he wakes during the night? I think I would feel more comfortable letting him cry if I already knew he wasn’t looking for food. Or, should we conquer the full-on putting himself to sleep, boobless and paci-less at bedtime FIRST, so that we know he already has that skill and that if he does wake again he is definitely hungry? And then go for night weaning?
2. If he wakes up smiling and happy after most short naps, is it at ALL possible that it was actually enough for him? Is it possible that we may be trying to have him sleep too long at night (7pm-7am) and therefore he isn’t tired enough during the day for long naps? He definitely GETS tired at nap time and passes out pretty fast. He just doesn’t usually stay out for long.
3. Do we need to lose the pacifier? He has never used it during the day, and only briefly as he is falling asleep. Usually he jettisons it before completely zonking. But I understand it may be contributing to not waking up under the precise circumstances under which he fell asleep.
I do feel fortunate that we’re not starting from a place of complete and total hell – but from what I’ve read, we need to nip this before it descends to such a level. Because it probably will. Thanks in advance for any advice. And keep up the great site!!
I know that the pacifier switcharoo isn’t helping with his ability to wake up and put himself back to sleep.
He’s still waking up at night more than is working for me anymore, and his naps during the day are, for the most part, painfully short.
DING DING DING!
It’s official – Nina has written the longest comment EVER and by a LARGE MARGIN. Wow. Well there are a lot of details there. Which if I’m reading correctly all boil down to one simple issue.
Your baby really likes to nurse/suck. You’ve done great work getting things consistent, getting him sleeping, etc. But as he’s getting older the nurse/suck=sleep association is now working against you.
You don’t NEED to do anything but EVERYTHING will go easier for you if you can work on separating sucking from sleep. So while “put down awake” is a great goal, “separate nursing from bedtime by at least 20 minutes” is an even better goal.
I’m not saying this is EASY but you’ve got a reasonably well-rested happy little guy so it’s definitely possible without tears (CIO would be a backup plan to consider if months go by and you’re feeling frustrated, not making any progress right?).
So I think the key to EVERYTHING is to separate nursing from bedtime. The night weaning will go more smoothly if you start at bedtime. So change up the sleep routine so nursing is no longer the LAST thing he does before bed.
You can try going the other direction – night wean THEN separate at bedtime. But I suspect that will be harder because my sense is that the night nursing is far less about calories than it is his suck=sleep association.
The pacifier is OK but it’s really just transferring the suck=sleep from your boobs to the paci. So you’re shuffling the problem but not really fixing it. Does that make sense?
This is probably the reason his naps are shorter now too.
I’m not sure if this answers your question, but that’s my advice!
I’m so glad you find my site helpful – that’s the goal 🙂
Woohoo! Do I win something?? Seriously, I did not want to be THAT PERSON. Oh well, at least I’m thorough. 😉
Unfortunately, the prospect of potentially several more months going by before getting a decent night’s sleep was just too much for me. I felt in my gut that all he really needed was a little push, so we decided to just rip the Bandaid off. Yesterday we made sure he had great naps during the day, ate lots and had dad give him a super huge bottle of expressed milk before bed (just so I could be SURE he wasn’t hungry). He went in the crib awake, no paci, cried for about 15 minutes at half-tilt and then passed out.
Let him cry for about 20 minutes around 10:30 and fall back asleep, fed him around 12:30, cried for a good 45 minutes around 2:30 and fell back asleep (I think I screwed this one up, because that’s when he usually eats the most…but once I started to let him cry I didn’t want to give in), fed him at 4:30, and then he was in bed with us around 5:30 til waking up.
Tonight we fed him BEFORE his bath and I just gave him a little comfort boob then put him in his crib QUITE awake, no paci. He was pretty mad, but he only shouted for about 3 minutes and then he was out. Here’s hoping he’ll start to transfer these lessons to the middle of the night soon!
Thanks for your advice. I’m not going to let anyone make me feel like crap about this. I had to go through this when I was a baby, and I don’t have any negative sleep associations! I can sleep anywhere, anytime, and I love it! Which is why I need it back. 🙂
Actually somebody wrote a short novel elsewhere yesterday so you’re tenure as “longest comment every” was pretty brief 😉
CONGRATULATIONS! That is AMAZING!
– Almost NO crying. Seriously.
– 2X feeding seems like a really fair compromise from the 5-6 “snack sessions” you had going on previously.
– 3 minutes of yelling at you is nothing. NOTHING! He was ready to do this so kudos to you for listening to your gut and not letting external “bad mommy guilt” lead you astray.
I also love sleep and frankly turn into a raging zombie without it. When I’m exhausted I’m cranky, a snappy Mom, a terrible nagging wife, etc. So I think it’s really really smart to make changes that help everybody sleep better. You have nothing to feel crappy about. In fact you deserve a little medal 🙂
OK whew! Glad to know I’m not the only Hermione in the room. Yes, I do think it’s a really fair compromise. He woke up again at 10:30 last night for his regular “nip comfort session” but instead of 20 minutes like the night before, only pouted for 3 minutes before going back to sleep until 1am for a meal. Now that’s we’ve got those under control, we’ll start working on weaning off the night food all together. Then we’ll move on to the short nap nemesis. Thank you, THANK YOU for the support!
Update night 4 bedtime:
No bottle, no boob, no bink.
NO CRYING.
Asleep in 6 minutes.
SUPERBABY!!!
Thank you for writing this!! Finally an article that put things in a simple matter of fact way. This is what I needed to feel supported and motivated to start sleep training. Thank you thank you 🙂
You’re welcome and good luck!
I have an object permanence question.
We have a tiny 2-bedroom condo. Our toddler wants my husband to sleep with her while she adjusts to the big girl bed.
I share a room with the 6-month-old, who wakes up half the time not hungry and crying, but babbling/chatting and wanting to cuddle. If the baby is not hungry, I’d rather not feed her, but I’m an insanely light sleeper and nursing her is the only way to get her back to sleep quickly, so I can get back to sleep. The object permanence theory says I should stay in the room with her. The night weaning theory says I should let her babble herself back to sleep, but I would want to sleep on the couch if she’s going to babble half the night.
My fumes are running out of fumes, all the frayed fibers of my rope have knots in them, and I’m going to fall off any day now. Any advice?
Buy this:
http://www.amazon.com/ACME-3-Panel-Wooden-Screen-Cherry/dp/B002WGJHB8/?tag=troubtots20
I think a $30 shoji is worth EVERY PENNY. No object permanence issue. Privacy (yes you are fume-less today but someday you may actually feel sassy enough to care about this).
And it will enable you to sneak off to the couch with impunity.
You didn’t ask so you’ll have to pardon me (I’m in advice giving mode, it’s hard to turn the faucet off) but be VERY careful about having Dad sleep with your toddler. Because that way there be monsters.
Make a deadline. Tell her ahead of time. Maybe use a calendar where each morning you put a big sticker on it? Count down to “Solo Night.” Maybe take her to the store, let her pick out her OWN SPECIAL BUDDY. But she can’t have it until Dad leaves (so the buddy sort of takes Dad’s place). Talk up the buddy. “Daddy needs to sleep with Mommy because that’s Daddy’s bed. But Ben the Bunny is going to stay with you ALL NIGHT! He’s YOUR special cuddle buddy.”
Otherwise you’ll end up with a 3 YO who is waking up all night long screaming for Daddy to come back in for a cuddle so she can fall back asleep. Not an idle threat that happens ALL. THE. TIME.
Sorry, in my perpetually sleep deprived state, I left some details and my actual questions out of my whiny comment up above. The reason we got back to the extra feedings was that I’d made a cutoff of midnight for the first feeding, figuring that going 5 hours for a baby who goes no more than 1.5-2 hours during the day was a lot. She was going a few hours beyond that for the first feeding, and then inched up until she got up at 12:01 – and then subsequent wakings came sooner. If we’re only working on one feeding at a time – what do we do when the next wakings occur sooner than they “should”, without sending mixed messages / having a situation where baby cries for a while and eventually gets fed? It’s not as simple as “once it’s done, it’s done” – can you go into more detail of what to do when teething, etc. interfere?
Any tips on how to emotionally handle listening to more than a few minutes of crying in the middle of the night? It gets me so upset and wired that I have a hard time going back to sleep myself.
And, if my husband is not there, should I try putting on one of his shirts and pretending to be him, or is it hard to mask the mommy milk smell and that would only make baby more upset?
It’s really hard for me to come up with a solid plan for how you are going to handle night weaning because there are many factors that come in to play. Did she just eat an hour ago? Was it just comfort nursing? Is she a distracted nurser during the day and thus legitimately hungry at night? Have you separated nursing from bedtime? Put down awake?
I will say this: You’re overall goal is to offer less food less frequently over time. I’ve given you some ideas as to how to do this. Maybe this will help:
– If baby cries either go in RIGHT away or don’t go in. Basically crying for 1 hour and then feeding tends to reinforce the crying. I know it can be hard to know how to handle things so the “cry 1 hour then go in” will happen now and then. Just try not to let that be the default, yes?
– I would remove “I’m starving my child” from the list of worries. Of course you want to feed your beloved. But 7 months and eating 3-4 times? This is likely no longer about calories but about soothing to sleep (my assumption anyway). So if you take the approach of, “My child has a really strong suck=sleep association, how can we work on helping her develop different associations and consuming more calories during the day?”
– At 7 months I think 1 feeding a night is a fair compromise. 2 is less fair but could be lived with. So maybe the short term goal is 1 (a vast improvement over 4 yes?)
– These things are super rough to handle solo. Any chance your husband will be home nights for an extended period of time to work with you consistently on this?
I wouldn’t sweat trying to mask your scent with Daddy’s dirty t-shirt. Your baby is too smart to be fooled by that.
Hmmmm….I think that’s about all I’ve got. Best of luck chipping away at this – you and baby can BOTH do this!
Thank you so much for your insightful replies! I’m sort of all over the place after, now, more than 8 months of not getting long stretches of sleep so thank you for bearing with me.
Nursing has been separated from putting down for bed (usually by 20 minutes but occasionally she gets fussy while being read to, so those times we cut the reading short and put her down sooner – still there is a definite separation but do you think that could be causing a problem if it’s only 10ish minutes?) and she’s been going down awake for the past several weeks (had tried it for the few months preceding that with 50/50 success but really got serious about never nursing her again later in the bedtime routine to calm her down – right after she turned 7 months, so a little more than a month ago now). She doesn’t fall asleep during the overnight nursing sessions either – I am putting her down awake after she finishes, and then I assume she falls asleep relatively soon afterward. Sometimes I hear a bit of babbling a few minutes later but since it’s dark, she’s not crying, and I want to get back to sleep myself, I don’t investigate the situation too much. 🙂 So I don’t think she really has a suck=sleep association.
She just plain doesn’t like to eat a ton at a time during the day, despite nursing in a dark, quiet room and trying all the normally suggested tricks. But I figure that her frequency (still at least 8 times a day) should make up for that somewhat.
Luckily, we’re now pretty much down to 2 feedings a night (somewhere between 1:30 and 3, and somewhere around 5-5:30) which is a vast improvement over a month ago. If I try to limit her during the 1st overnight feeding – she is really hungry, and she just gets up earlier for the next one, thus leading down the slippery slope of going back to 3 (or more) night feedings. So when she gets up on the early end, closer to 1:30, she may be up again at 3:30 (and again in the 5am hour) – what do I do then? Refuse to feed her at 3:30 (even though I’d rather feed her then than 1:30 because at least it is pushing eating more toward the morning)?
Is it really impossible to get rid of the 5am hour feeding before an earlier one? I just think it will be very difficult for her to go 10+ hours without eating even if every other 8 month old “should” be able to do it. Plus she doesn’t really eat intensely at that hour since she has just eaten within the past 3ish hours. I don’t want to start reducing the time of that one, though, if you think there’s an impossibly small chance of success.
2 other problems:
1. She still gets up somewhere around 11 or midnight and cries for up to a half hour on and off most nights! Even though it’s been a few weeks since I’ve fed her at that time of the night!! What gives? I just want this one chunk of uninterrupted sleep for myself! We currently give her 5 minutes and if she doesn’t seem to be calming down, my husband goes in and reassures her a little (used to rock and soothe her more but scaling that back) – regardless it doesn’t seem to do much, so some nights he doesn’t go in at all. What do you suggest we do for this? I’m almost thinking about going back to feeding her then because I’m up anyway and it’s easier to feed her for 10 minutes than listen to crying for longer, but I am staying strong because I know we need to move in the direction of less food overnight and every night I hope that it’s the last time it happens….
2. On the nights she didn’t do that last week, she wouldn’t go back to sleep after the 5am feeding. She won’t eat any more – she babbles loudly so I can’t go back to sleep and she rubs her eyes – so it’s clear that she still needs more sleep. This was happening several days last week when we were trying to push her bedtime a little later in 10 minute increments to prepare for daylight savings time ending. Then she would eventually start crying, and I’d feed her again despite having fed her less than an hour prior, and then she would fall back asleep and sleep an extra hour (which is nice, but then her mood and napping seem to be “off” the rest of the day). What do you suggest in this situation to not have this long-wakefulness in the early morning? Or maybe there’s nothing that can be done – and it hasn’t happened in a few days (she’s getting up early ready to go for the day but I expected that with the time change despite our efforts to shift her beforehand).
Just a bit of an update – the 2 night feedings – occasionally just 1 even – are creeping later on the whole. So, some progress! But she’s still having that additional waking, although it too is creeping later. Last week I think she hit the 9 month growth spurt / sleep regression (affected naps more than night, and she started crying for longer at bedtime again), plus she is getting over a cold now so I didn’t want to push her too much with night weaning then.
The issue about being loudly awake for a while in the early morning seems to have (hopefully) been isolated to the time change, so no worries on that.
So my new questions are:
1. If the 1st waking is due to separation anxiety instead of hunger, what is the best way to make it go away? Ignore? I am hesitant to let her cry for long periods in the middle of the night, but is having my husband go in after 5 minutes just prolonging the issue? Sometimes she self-settles quickly, but not always. She’s not predictable (I know no baby is, but mine is especially not)!
2. For the 1st feeding (now somewhere between 2:30-3:30), my game plan is to be more gradual and wait a few days at each number of minutes instead of decrease 1 min each night. We’re down to 5 min on the 1st side, 2 on the 2nd. Is this just prolonging the inevitable weeks of crying at that time that will surely ensue, based on our experience with weaning the earlier feeding? Forget what I said in my last post – clearly it is best to follow your original advice and tackle the 5-6am feeding last. Even if it means that there is a time where there is a waking at 2:30, and then two more wakings/feedings in the early morning after that … at least it is moving the eating more toward morning, right, and it should only be temporary? But, seriously, tell me if I’m crazy and I should just do all-night CIO at that point! Based on her persistence, though, I don’t think that would be a quick 3 night ordeal…or am I just making excuses!?
Once again, thank you so much for your site and for responding to questions!
I just wanted to let you know that I’ve only just cyber-met you, but I may be in love. Sure, that may be the last week of almost total sleepless nights talking but….. My 7 month old love of my life, Joseph, was overall a really happy awesome easy baby that we could never complain about. Until about 6 months and 7 months and his sleep habits were the same as when he was a breast feeding 2 month old. Trying to break the 2-3 ‘feeding wakes’ plus 1 or 2 ‘soother replacement’ wakes, we decided on CIO. I read everything I could about it. I learned that I was a terrible mother who’s child would surely be doing crack by the age of 15. I also learned that for us, the Dr. Ferber method of Reassuring wouldn’t work for us. I learned a lot as we jumped in. With amazing support from my husband my son cried it out for hours at a time, would eventually fall asleep, then start again. I had read sometimes it needs to get worse before it gets better. I was hanging into that. Last night was the straw that broke the camels back. At 3 in the morning, crying my eyes out over exhausting an the overwhelming feeling of wanting to put my son on the front porch I found you. And then I fed him. And now we will night ween him from the feedings. I feel like I have hope again. There is a reason it wasn’t working. Why doesn’t anyone tell you not to CIO for the feedings? I hate them. And love you. I also happen to think you’re funny. And for me, without funny, life isn’t worth living. I get through all misery with funny. So thank you. Thank you thank you. For the light at the end of the tunnel, for the hope, and for the 3am funny. We will start following some of YOUR advice and ditching everyone else’s. And thank you for not making me read an entire book when I haven’t slept in days.
🙂
You are awesome.
And you are totally right-there needs to be a public service announcement for all new parents: CIO is not the devil but it is NOT FOR TINY NEW BABIES and it is NOT FOR NIGHT WEANING! And that all exhausted parents should read this blog.
Sharon,
I know lots of new Moms who let some primping slide (furry legs, hairy armpits, weekly showers) but I have never seen anybody who has manged to grow a full billy goat beard. So really – hats off to you for taking it to a whole new level! 😉
So glad I could give you some helpful suggestions. I think most people don’t write a lot about CIO because it’s really hard to make babies crying funny. And yes I feel a little writing about it too. I’m stunned STUNNED I haven’t been carpet bombed by anti-CIO internet trolls yet.
But if we can’t talk about it then how is anybody supposed to make good decisions? Avoid unnecessary crying? Come up with a workable game plan? Gheesh.
Everybody has the same goal. Healthy sleep habits. Minimal crying. Happy family. Right people?
Also? Thanks Kate 🙂
Alexis,
Loved your comment about the anti-CIO internet trolls. Definitely made me LOL. I’m so happy they haven’t found your site, or at least have held back. I read their comments on other blogs and am just flabergasted at how nasty people can get.
Your sense of humor is awesome.
I feel like I have no idea what my daughter is trying to say when waking up at night. She can put herself back to sleep no problem, and she will pull off the breast after about 3 mins. She doesn’t always wake, so i’m not sure if she really wants to eat or not. Sometimes her complaining will escalate, sometimes not. Indecisive baby like her mother 🙂
The normal rule is my husband goes first, if she doesn’t settle then it’s my turn and it normally ends with a feed, a very short one now. Keep trying to wean; it’s already 3 mins or less, will this eventually pass?
Sounds to me like she has a strong nurse=sleep association. So it’s not about hunger, she needs to recreate her sleep association to fall back asleep during the night.
Are you:
a) Putting her down awake at bedtime and
b) Separating nursing from bedtime by a good 20-30 minutes?
Those are key first steps to getting out of these little nurse/soothing sessions at night!
Hi Alexis!
I just discovered your site thanks to a client (I’m a postpartum doula/”baby guide”) and it is full of great info!
I am in complete agreement with you on the CIO thing, and also frustrated over the unclear terminology parents use for it (a friend of mine thinks putting her baby down quiet and happy to fall asleep within 5 mins is CIO).
I do have a question about this post, though – I have heard and read that giving babies too much water or diluting formula is dangerous to their kidneys. Can you direct me to some research or a source that says this is not true?
Thanks!
Hi Devon,
You’re referring to water intoxication. Generally this has been a problem when people are trying to stretch the formula by watering it down. And yes you don’t want to pump your newborn baby full of water or water down formula as a general course of action.
But for babies over 6 months (I don’t recommend really trying to wean before 6-8 months) a little water for a few days is OK. But you are correct – you DON’T want to give your baby an 8 oz bottle of water in their crib as a daily habit.
Dr. Green has a really great site and he wrote about this at the NYT a few years ago:
http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/is-it-safe-for-babies-to-drink-water/
Hi Alexis,
I have an almost 10 month old who does not sleep through the night (once in a while he will). I’ve been reading the posts and plan to try some suggestions; however, I would like to ask for a little advice. I read on here and on other websites that feeding your baby a bottle at bedtime gives the baby the message that a bottle and bed are connected. By the time I pick up my son from daycare (I work full-time) and feed him dinner and give him a bath, he pretty much wants a bottle and falls alseep while drinking it because he’s so tired from being at daycare all day. Do you have any suggestions regarding this situation? I just feel like we have so little time and somewhere I know I need to rearrage our timing, but I just don’t where to do this at (by the time we get home, he’s usually passed out after an hour to an hour and a half). Thank you!!
There are many things that make being a working mom super hard that nobody tells you. Sure everybody talks about the first time to drop off at daycare & sobbing in the car. And how nobody at work will care that you were up all night caring for a sick baby. And this is another one….
You get no time with your baby. And it can be hard to get the bedtime routine sorted out because logistically, there IS no time.
I have no easy answer for you. Maybe you feed him AT daycare so that you can then go home, have some playtime together and then still have time to feed him 30 minutes prior to bedtime? Or you give him his last bottle of the day BEFORE bath time?
Because everything you’ve read is right – if he’s eating RIGHT at bedtime, you’re reinforcing his food=sleep association and that’s going to make things harder when you want to night-wean.
Alexis,
A couple questions for you. My 8.5-month old is still at 2 feedings (was at one for a couple months but after regression, we’re at two around midnight and 3:30am). [Just a quick reminder of our situation…She goes to sleep on her own, is likely not drinking enough milk in the day and so is making up for it at night. She is definitely hungry and when I don’t feed her or don’t feed her enough, she stays awake until satisfied]. She started to creep to possible 3 recently (waking up earlier, which then cascaded to a 3rd feeding around 5:30am…she eats every 3-3.5 hours during the day). Bedtime was 6:45pm with wake around then, but we’ve been trying to prepare for daylight savings time end, so now it’s more like 7:15pm…but interestingly, waketime is still the same :o( In response to possible 3rd feeding creep, I’ve implemented “no feeding before midnight” and the past few nights, started sending in Dad. He can soothe her, but she’ll stay awake until I feed her (2 nights ago, it was 2 hours b/c she woke up at 10pm). It was a “hold/put in crib/quiet at first/then escalate to cry” repetition. I know in posts above, you advocate not being inconsistent with letting cry for a while, and then feeding versus just going ahead and feed. However, I can’t think of any other way to prevent the 3rd feeding creep. Any suggestions? Also, she is having big feeds at night. It’s really hard to pull her away when she’s gulping furiously. Also, when I’ve tried in the past, she’s pissed and won’t go back to sleep until she gets her fill. Any suggestions on that too? Thanks again for sharing your perspective.
Instead of “wake around then”, meant “wake around 6:45am”. Also intended to comment on the fact that waketime remaining the same is possibly that weird “baby non-intuitive sleeping” whereby early bedtime actually equates to later waketime. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to get home earlier at night, so we need to push bedtime later. 5:45am waketime will not be pretty though come next week (and often it’s even earlier) Hopefully, things will settle out!
I’m not at ALL surprised her morning time stayed the same after pushing bedtime back. This is why an early bedtime is key. Usually a late bedtime just cuts down the amount of sleep they’re getting at night and RARELY results in them sleeping in. This is also why the general advice to “baby wakes up too early” is “baby needs to go to bed earlier.” Worst case scenario, they get more sleep overall at night. Best case they sleep a little later in the morning.
I’m thinking that your issue is related to how much she’s eating during the day (answer: not enough). I don’t know why she’s not eating enough during the day. Distracted nurser? Won’t take a bottle? It can be hard with babies this age because they are FAR too busy doing baby stuff so they snack all day and then REALLY tank up at night.
Because you are a great case study in “hungry babies just won’t sleep!”
I would definitely feed more often during the day. Every 3-3.5 hours isn’t cutting it. You may need to cut back on solids too. Solid food is high fiber and filling but calorie lite. So she’s probably filling up on calorie-free solids and then less interested in BM (which is where the calories are really coming from). Try to cut out some solids and nurse every 2 hours/day and see if that doesn’t help with the creep.
Let me know how things go, OK?
How would you (either of you!) approach day feeding for my 13 month old in the reverse cycling/not enough daytime food camp? I know the rule about solids being high fiber/low calorie/bad for night weaning, but I assume this applies mostly to younger babies who are eating canned Gerber pears? My little guy now only gets about 10-12 oz of breast milk during my work day, and I’m planning to keep reducing that because the breast pump and I are no longer friends. I am going to keep nursing morning/evening/overnight 1 time (ok 2, sigh, see comment below) but he still needs to get enough food in the daytime.
So . . . Peanut butter toast? Start pushing cows milk? Steak dinners? All of the above? Tell my husband to chase him around stuffing him with little bites of pizza at every opportunity?
Hi,
Me again. I forgot to mention a couple of things. She’s able to put herself to sleep, for all naps and when it’s bedtime, she’s put down awake and sucks her thumb to sleep. She naps for anout 2.5 – 3 hours a day (2 naps), and is in bed by 7:30 pm on majority of nights. Amd she’s up in the morning at 7:30 like clockwork.
she doesn’t have a “usual time” of waking, but I’d say whem she does wake it’s closer to 4am. Yesterday she slept for 11 hours, the night before work up once and the night before slept for 12 hours. She just flip flops with her sleep. Whem she wakes she is screamin most of the time.
I’m scratching my head! Thanks for the site and being such an awesome responder to comments!
Well 2 rough ideas:
1) Even though you are putting down awake she still has a strong suck=sleep association. Can you put a big gap between her last feeding and bedtime? Like 30 minutes?
2) She’s startled by the “missing thumb.” She happily sucks her thumb to sleep but then it falls out, which from her perspective, is mysterious and a unhappy thing. She may not yet have mastered putting it back OR she’s so disoriented/half asleep that she doesn’t manage it. So she screams when she wakes up and needs help sorting herself out.
If #2, I don’t have a good fix except to say that “time will fix it.”
Thanks for the comment. There’s always about a 2 hour gap between her last feeding and putting her in the crib, and i’ve seen her find her thumb again to suck numerous times.
She just came off of a few days of 12 hour sleeps and now has woken up at 3am for the past couple of nights. No soothing from my husband seems to work.
I guess hopefully time will be in our favour! Thaks for the help and advice!
Hello.
what a great find this site is! however I know that hundreds ask questions and your time is very busy but I wonder if you could give advise?
my baby is just turning six months and is waking up nearly every hour during the night, we go to him and settle him with words which works after a while but again within an hour he is up again. my son doesnt nap well during the day as he tends to fight the naps. our son is bottle fed. I hope we are not troubling you as we are so badly seeking help.
UPDATE:
well great news to start with as we did the controlled crying, we went for every 5, 10, 20, 30 mins this worked for a week. however we have now found that this week this doesn’t work and we are back to square one. I wonder if anyone has any ideas as it seems something we are doing is not right.
thanks for your time in reading about my concerns.
Hi Raymond,
I’m not sure I understand why you are back to square one? Or what happened where you started to implement controlled crying and then decided it wasn’t working?
Well it is easy to make small mistakes that can trip you up and lots of people do all the time, so you are in good company. Have you seen the post I’m linking to below? How to CIO? It’s my best advice for how to break out of bad habits with the last amount of crying possible. Hopefully that will help!
Hi Raymond,
I’m not sure I understand why you are back to square one? Or what happened where you started to implement controlled crying and then decided it wasn’t working?
Well it is easy to make small mistakes that can trip you up and lots of people do all the time, so you are in good company. Have you seen the post I’m linking to below? How to CIO? It’s my best advice for how to break out of bad habits with the last amount of crying possible. Hopefully that will help!
Hi Alexis, thank you SO much for your site! We did CIO with checkins (Sleep Easy/Ferber style) at 4.5 months to get our son sleeping in his crib and putting himself to sleep. Things were going well and he had gotten down to 2, sometimes 3 feedings/wakings a night.
He is now 7 months and we put him down to sleep between 6 and 6:30 (lately as early as 5:40 because he’s been refusing the third nap). He puts himself to sleep usually within 10-15 minutes. Problem is, he still waking up numerous times each night. We’ve weaned him off of feeds before midnight (using your above method) but he still wakes at 9:30 and 11ish and dad goes in to comfort him. He tried PU/PD, now he pats his bum and shushes and he usually falls back asleep after a couple of checkins. The wakings seem habitual. Then he wakes usually twice more (between 12:30 and 1:30 and 3 and 4) and is up for the day around 6 or 6:30. If he only wakes up once, it’s between 2:30 and 3 and then he is up for the day earlier, between 5 and 6. It all seems like such a crapshoot after midnight, like one night he went from an 11:45 feeding all the way until almost 4 a.m. and then woke for the day at 6:20!
He has reflux and takes Prilosec twice a day. Because we have to wait 30 minutes after Prilosec to nurse and because we have to hold him upright after eating, he often nurses as close to 10 minutes before bed. We then read stories, pray and sing songs before head to bed. We also gave him a little breathable blankee which he loves.
Does this sound like it could be a medical issue at 7 months? He’s 18 pounds and gaining weight fine. He’s happy during the day and generally takes 3 naps, though he’s been trying to reduce it to 2 naps, for a total of 2-2.5 hours in daytime sleep. He’s able to put himself back to sleep sometimes and extend his naps.
We keep sleep logs and even with the night wakings he generally gets between 10-11 hours of sleep a night. Recently it’s been as low as 9.5 hours on the bad nights, but when he was having better nights it was always at least 11 hours.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!
It has now been a month since I weaned my “play all day eat all night” 1 year old off of his middle night feeding. He now eats somewhere between 10-11 and again somewhere between 3-4:30 (and then sometimes cosleeps with me some more after eating at 6 and sometimes gets up, but that’s fine with me).
However, even a month later he STILL WAKES UP EVERY SINGLE NIGHT somewhere in the 1-3 range, around the time of what used to be his middle night feeding (it was 11, 2, and 5). Occasionally he goes back to sleep on his own after a few minutes, but usually I have to get up, go in, tell him “all gone milk, no more milk, mama loves you time for night night” at which point he completely freaks out and sounds totally miserable for a minute or two and then goes back to sleep.
Which all makes mama sad, plus kind of defeats the purpose of not feeding him at this time since I still don’t get to sleep from 11-4ish without interruption.
Any thoughts? Just to be clear, he gets NO happy reinforcement during that 2 am visit. I don’t pick him up and I’m not there for more than 30 seconds. Often I just deliver the terrible “no milk” news from the doorway. 🙁
Update: apparently writing this comment was the key because last night he did the 10:45-4 stretch with no waking for the first time. Huzzah! Hopefully this will continue.
I have been holding off shortening the first feeding until the 2 am waking is really and truly over. I actually haven’t decided whether to wean the 10:30 at all since it’s not disruptive to my sleep. I know at his age he SHOULD be sleeping through the night and allegedly he is able, but . . . I’m a working mama and this keeps us connected and nursing. So I might just go with it a while longer.
That one night was a fluke. All 3 nights since he has repeated the wake-up-and-cry-a-little-at-2-am thing. It doesn’t last very long but I keep hoping it will stop soon and he will just sleep from 11-4:30.
The 2 am wakeups finally seem to have really stopped (fingers crossed). He actually slept all the way through from 7 pm to 4:30 am two times last week (praise the lord!). However, I’ve been going in to dreamfeed at 10:30 at least on weekday nights just to be VERY sure I don’t end up with a hungry kid at 2 am.
THANK YOU ALEXIS. I know this hardly counts as “sleeping through the night,” but it works for us and I’ll take it.
2 am and awake….again! We have an 11 month old who has fought sleep from day one (he has hit every milestone early as far as rolling, crawling and walking but his sleep habits have me seriously wondering if I got the broken baby haha)
My husband is lucky enough to sleep through night wakings so this issue isn’t important to him; however my constant night after night of being awake is killing me and as I head back to work I can not see how being up all night will work anymore-I seemingly can’t fall back to sleep anymore so I’m funding myself now awake from 12:30-4ish day after day.
Our little guy refuses to let you help with his bottle and has for 5 months; but must take it to bed (which I hate!) he wants to go down at 6pm (keeping him up later simply means he gets less sleep as he wakes just as much or more frequently) he will then sometimes sleep through but most nights wake at either 10ish or 12:30ish and/ or 3am ish then always wakes at 5 for a feed which keeps him in bed for an extra hr.
He takes 2 naps during the day but will only do so taking his bottle to bed and sometimes it’s just a half hr sometimes an hr plus. On days when he doesn’t nap night sleep is always worse.
I went away for 2 nights and low and behold he slept entirely through with no trouble…. Or my fine husband just didn’t wake tough to say!?
I’m confused as to why he wakes… Never leaves his room doesn’t really want to cuddle simply wants food… Is it possible he IS actually hungry?! Tonight I tried to offer water first (which is in his crib always) then when he wouldn’t settle went for 6oz instead of 8-10 he usually gets yet as soon as he finished back to crying… If I give in as per usual he drinks about 30 oz at night which seems insanely unnecessary. If I just go in and give the bottle he only cries briefly yet since I am no longer able to get back to sleep I need to do something about this soon before I’m too exhausted to function.
Just feel like I’m going crazy-there seems to be improvement but this bottle to sleep cruch isn’t doing us any favors especially when next month he is expected to not have bottles at all:(
My baby is 5 1/2 months old and has learnt to fall asleep on his own since he was 4 months old. He goes to bed at 7pm every night and he has the same bed time routine every day. He wakes up for a feed anytime during 3:00am and 4:30am, then he sleeps again until 7:00am when he is awake for the day. The problem is that when he is awake at 7am he doesnt want a bottle straight away and when he does want a bottle he won’t take much of it (say 3 to 4oz only). This is the reason why I think he is ready for weaning in the early hours of the morning. Would you agree? I’ve tried not to feed him and sometimes he would go back to sleep if rocked but other times he would cry really hard and would only settle with a bottle.
Hello Alexis
My 10 mo has been going to bed at 7pm every night for many months until 6am, i changed his bedtime routine some weeks ago to separate nursing from bedtime with a bit of FIO (fuss it out :). Honestly he never cried more than 9 minutes.
However still some issues:
1. He cries EVERY night as soon as i bring him to his bedroom.I would love to cuddle, tell a story, sing a song, but he is just trying to worm himself out of my arms screaming. So best way to calm him down is just to leave.
2. Still nursing at night 2-3 times!!! His menu includes: breakfast – breastmilk, a pot of yoghurt, 5 table spoons of cereales with milk; lunch – 250gr of blended meat, vegies and carbs; afternoon – 130 gr of fruits, a pot of yoghurt, 3 table spoons of cereales, a biscuit; dinner – 5 table spoons of cereales with milk and breastmilk. I swear this child eats more than i do!! And yet wakes up every night to eat, and will not stop moaning/screaming until fed. And when i send hubby in, the baby just goes mad!! I tried to night wean with the ipod stopwatch at hand:
Night 1: midnight 9 minutes at breast, 3 am 10 minutes at breast
Night 7: midnight 4 min, 3 am 8 min
Night 8: 2am 8 min (hurray!), 5 am 7 min
Night 9: 1 am 7 min (why???), 4 am 7 min
Night 10: 0.40 7 min (bad trend!), 3.30 am
Night 11: 23.50, 2.50, 5 stopped counting minutes as ipod fell under the couch
To be fair he is teething now, but once he eats he calms down for 2-3 hours. So not sure it’s about teething.
3. On top of that he wakes up screaming 3-4 times a night when it’s possible to calm him down just by patting his bum. It´s been like this ever since birth. What’s up with that??
I am kind of used to operating in a half-conscious mode during the day, but i just feel that the baby would be way happier if he had a longer uninterrupted sleep. What am i doing wrong???
Thanks for any advice you can give us!!
Just to add I have been doubting my milk supply, so have been giving 150ml ( i guess 5oz) in the evening, then cereal (with milk in it), then breast, but he just ended up refusing breast. And when i once tried to forcefeed him he threw up badly, good thing i separated nursing from bedtime by bath!!
I have 11 month identical twin boys. They easily fall asleep on their own in their cribs, which are in our room. My only issue is that they get up anywhere from 11pm to 2pm for a nighttime feeding. They usually go to bed anywhere from 6:30PM TO 7:00 PM and are good nappers during the days. I was so happy to discover your article since my gut instinct is not to do cio immediately. And I finally came to the conclusion that they are not truly hungry when they wake up at that time. We just started to decrease their milk by 2 ounces. My question is how gradually do we start decreasing it? Two nights ago, we did 7 oz, last night, 5 oz. They didn’t notice the 7 oz but they did notice 5oz. They cried for about 20 seconds but then they stopped and went right back to sleep. Should we just continue decreasing by 2 oz every day and then do cio once we are done giving them milk? After 11 months of interrupted sleep, I am ready to try anything and I would love to think that in a few days, my husband and I may get a whole night of uninterrupted sleep! Thanks.
I keep reading that a 7 month old should be going to bed at 7pm. I have tried this many times with my baby who gets the right amount of naps for his age and hes up wide awake at 4am (not my wake up time thanks) Is it possible that not ALL babies are the same and not everything works for one baby. I put him to bed at 9:30 and he seems to be doing pretty good. I don’t nurse him thru the night either. I just get sick of seeing “use this method use that method” like I was saying not all babies are the same, some might need less sleep some might need more. Seems like everyone is so eager for the babies to grow up, I’m trying to enjoy my babies time cause it will never happen again.
My 11 month old has never been a good sleeper and it has been a very long road for us. We are now at the point where we have gotten him to only waking once at night to feed (breast milk in a bottle). I have tried reducing the amount of breast milk in the bottle but this just means he wakes up an hour later wanting the rest of the ounce he didn’t get previously. What should I do? Im not sure if CIO will help as he is taking in anywhere from 4-5 ozs at this feed. How can I eliminate or reduce without him waking up shortly after?
I would just like to add that after I feed him in the middle of the night he does go right back to sleep. So a typical night looks like this 7-730 bedtime, 2am wake and feed 730 wake. He has 2 naps a day totaling 3 hours and eats 3 full meals a day with snacks and approx 14ozs of breast millk.
Sounds to me like he’s having a hard time giving up those night calories because he still needs them. 14 oz of breast milk during the day isn’t very much. Sounds to me like you’re pumping and I am too, so I understand it’s hard to get more breastmilk into him during the work day. But I think that’s your answer if you can figure out a way to do it. Also read some of Alexis’s comments about solid food. High fiber/low calorie. That could be tripping you up as well. I’d work on getting lots of milk into that kid between about 4 pm and 6:30/7, no solids during that time, and see if that helps?
I feel a bit jerky writing this, but I’m nearing my breaking point so I figure I’d endure the hate stares. My son (7.5 months) is overall a fantastic sleeper. 2 naps/day (first is 3 hours, although lately 1.5-2 hrs and then playing the rest of the time, second is 45 min-1hr). He goes down for naps and bed totally awake no problem, and goes to bed around 7pm and is ready for the day at 9:30 (I know, crazy, right?) Before you say anything, the doctor acknowledged he’s sleeping (or at least in his crib since awhile is playtime for naps and in the morning) alot but since he’s active and eating while awake it is fine.
Anyway, my issue is his night waking. He USED to wake 1x/night after 10hrs every once in a blue moon going the full night. Around 5 months, he decided to go to 8-9 hrs, occasionally waking 2x/night. I know it still doesn’t sound bad for most people but it is for me. I, myself, have severe insomnia and everytime I wake up to feed him it takes me AT LEAST an hour to fall back asleep.
I’d like to try weaning him for his night feeding as you suggested, but have a question about his bedtime routine as well. He gets breastmilk from the boob all day, but a bottle (of breastmilk) at night so Daddy can take part in feeding him and Mommy gets a break. He starts eating around 6, 6:15 but won’t eat the whole bottle. He then needs a short break (either a bath or to change into his PJs if it isn’t bath night). He will then usually finish the bottle (but does it easier for me if Daddy is away), read a book, and go to bed. I don’t think there is more than 10 minute between the last drops of his bottle and bedtime because of this bottle split. Should we just end the bottle feeding at the first split after he has only eaten 2-4 oz? How will this affect the night feeding/weaning?
Help!
I vote for giving him the entire bottle BUT add another story or two/another 5-10 minutes of playing in his room before lights out and bed. You want the full 20 minutes separation but I really don’t think you want to feed him less if he’s been finishing that bottle.
And yes, your kid is an insanely good sleeper. Next time I am placing my order for one like yours! No hate stares from me, though. I am really good at going instantly back to sleep and that makes night wakings much more tolerable. My husband is more like you, so I work hard to prevent him from being awakened at 4 am because if he wakes up then, he is up for good. And that sucks.
I’m with you on taking a long time to fall asleep – that’s what makes this all so difficult! I’ve wondered if there is an adult version of sleep training (other than sleep medication, which may not be the best choice for us nursing moms). As long as you know you’re lucky to have such a good sleeper – even if he’s not so good now at least you had those good months in the beginning! 🙂
I am obviously no expert (and not the most mentally competent from not having a good consecutive amount of sleep at all in the last 9 months) but I just wanted to ask how many feedings a day you are doing and point out that perhaps 4 oz. might be enough for his nighttime feeding. I have heard that some babies don’t necessarily like to take a lot from a bottle, especially if breastfed the rest of the day. (I don’t do bottles and I suspect that my daughter doesn’t take more than 4 oz. at a time ever, based on her nursing frequency, and a few before-and-after weighings with a lactation consultant.) So what if you tried starting that bottle feeding earlier, or see what happens if you don’t do the rest of it, or try feeding from the breast at bedtime and doing the bottle at some other time (maybe in the morning before daddy goes to work?). Good luck!
Thanks for the well wishes and advice.
Update: Found out Daddy was trying to see if baby could “be a big boy” and occasionally fed the bottle with the lights on or white noise off…GRRR. Since that realization, I nipped that in the bud and our son has eaten his entire 9oz bottle, sang songs, read, bathed, and gotten massaged before bed (about 30 minutes of no food association). For the most part, he started sleeping a little longer-some nights he didn’t even cry out for food until his “wake-up time” of 9:30!!!! Sometimes it was between 6-7am, but he’d go right back to sleep for a little. YAY! Unfortaunately, some nights he still wakes at 4am-ew. I’ve been weaning down 1 minute every 2 days like this plan says. Funnily enough, on the 2nd side my son weans himself to keep his pattern of a 2 minute difference (ex I stop him at 5 minutes on side 1, he stops himself at 3 min on side 2).
Am I doing this right? Why is he waking up all different times? When I get down to 2 minutes on side , will he just stop waking? If he doesn’t, and I KNOW he doesn’t NEED milk since he’s weaned, do I do CIO?
I know this an old post, but I wanted to suggest tru2u 100% tart montmornency cherry concentrate- a natural melatonin supplement which aids sleep, especially getting back to sleep when you wake up… You take 30mls an hour before bed and I find it really helps getting back to sleep 🙂
Hi, Just read your sleep guide with interest. We are having difficulty getting our 10.5 month old to sleep through the night.
I was breastfeeding her back to sleep every time she woke (about 3 times a night) and she would feed for about 5 minutes and fall asleep. I realised that she didn’t really need food, she just didn’t know how to get to sleep on her own. I did the following:
Day 1: No breastfeeding at night, just stayed in her room shushing her. Woke twice, took 20 mins to settle each time with lots of crying. Our eldest daughter slept at grandparents that night.
Day 2: Realised we didn’t like her crying (we are very soft) and it would wake her sister, so picked her up when she cried but didn’t feed. Woke twice, took 20 mins to settle each time with less crying.
Day 3 and 4: Slept 7-7 with just a couple of whimpers.
Day 5: Woke at 5. Would not be settled. Gave bottle of formula after trying to settle her for an hour. Went back to sleep till 7.
Day 6: Same as Day 5 but woke at 4:00.
Day 7: Same as Day 6 but woke at 3:00.
Our main concern is not waking up her older sister as once she is up no-one gets any sleep, so CIO is not possible.
Any advice?
Hi Alexis,
Just a quick question about CIO. Our 5 month old baby boy can generally put himself to sleep at night, and can sometimes do so for naps (with an occasional little help in the form of back rubbing), but he seems to be having trouble putting himself back to sleep when he wakes up (both for naps after 40 minutes and at night). I nurse him twice a night, and have no issue in doing so nor does it bother me. But he wakes up at other times when he is obviously not hungry and can’t put himself back to sleep. We are not intending on doing CIO at this point, and I hope we may not have to, but if we have to resort to this option, how do we handle it: if I feed him twice, but at other times we wanted to leave him to CIO would it not send mixed signals? Also, let’s say he woke uip at 3am but I knew he wasn’t hungry and he decided to cry until his usual feeding time, what then? would I feed him? So confused as to how this would work out. Many thanks!
Nada
Hi Alexis,
After weeks of worrying my son wasn’t sleeping enough (perpetual catnapper), he is now sleeping some pretty epic stretches at night and as any crazy first-time mom would, I’m wondering if he’s sleeping TOO much. He is ready for bed by 6:15-7pm, and has been waking for feedings around 1/2am, 5/6am and then doesn’t get up for the day until 8/8:30am. Frankly I’m feeling better than ever because I’m getting me-time at night and am sleeping in, but am worried sleeping for 13.5 hours is too much. He recently started intermittently dropping his 4th nap, and continues to mostly be a catnapper.
Thanks so much for your thoughts. Love the website 🙂
Forgot to add, he’s 5.5 months old…
Hi Erin,
I think it’s the total amount of sleep per day that matters; at this age, they start to sleep more at night and less during the day. Also, how long is he awake during those night feeds? My daughter will sleep around 12 hours total, but with one night feed that takes about 30-40 minutes plus the time it takes for her to get back to sleep (she never cries but when I leave the room her eyes are still open and she’s somtimes babbling so I assume its 5-10 minutes), on top of the 5-10 minutes for her to fall asleep at the start of the night, that bring her total closer to 11 hours. She does still nap quite a bit, around 4-5 hours, so she’s on the high end of normal. I think as long as he’s gaining weight appropriately and is a happy baby meeting his milestones, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.
My son is almost 11 months, started sleeping through the night at a month old, stopped night feedings right then and there, around 8 months started teething and waking up once a night, so we started comforting him with a bottle he would go right back to sleep. Within the last few months its gotten worse, now waking up 2 or 3 sometimes 4 times a night and will not go to sleep by himself. As soon as you put him in his crib he loses it. we weaned off the bottles at night over a week ago, but he is still waking up, and now he will go to sleep after rocking or cuddling, but wont sleep alone now. We are to the point of CIO. Any suggestions?
Hi Alexis (or anyone else who knows),
So is the idea with night weaning that Kiddo will learn to get those calories at some more civilized hour if he still needs them? Or is just just conditioning him not to wake at that time – or both?
Hi Alexis,
I cannot thank you enough for EVERYTHING on your site. Your information and advice has taken us from being on the brink of post natal depression with a screaming baby who would take three 20 minute naps a day max!!, to a new lease on life and happy happy parents of an 8 week old that sleeps on his own from 7-2/3 and 3-5/6 am. Daytime naps are ok too, but sadly last one 35 minute sleep cycle only, am working on that though!
So thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Just one question now though, baby is 9 weeks old, he’s waking up around 5ish every morning despite last feeding as late as 3. So am guessing its not hunger thats getting him up. I often try to put in his paci and settle him for more sleep, but this works till about 6 am max only at which time I figure its his bodys preferred time to wake and get him up, feed, play/change for the usual day time 1.5 hrs until see tired signs and put back to bed. He falls asleep happily and will sleep 1.5-2 hrs.
Question is – should I ‘start his day’ when he wakes up at 5/6 or should I treat it as a night waking and do a quick feed and back to bed? It would be better for me to go back to bed most days and get up for the day 8/9 instead but all the books (!) seem to advocate a 7 am wake time.
I’d really appreciate the advice.
Hi Leah,
this tends to pop up a lot in comments so I think I know what Alexis would say – most babies have had enough sleep by 5am that they are truly ready to start the day; babies are simply early risers. However, most parents are not 🙂 Alexis usually says to go ahead and feed the baby if it gives you an 1 or 2 hours more of sleep. Unless you prefer to start the day at that ungodly hour 🙂 And I think 7am is still preferable to 5am and 8/9am is unfortunately not realistic.
Hi Alexis!
We are ready to start full extinction CIO with our 5.5-month-old baby tonight. The path that has lead us here is not pretty. She is still eating 2x a night, and I have received advice that the easiest method to stop this is to go cold-turkey on those feedings, however, since she’s used to eating 2x a night, I think she is legitimately hungry at least 1 of those times. The problem is I don’t have time to slowly wean them (I literally can’t wait one more day to do something about this sleep issue-I am in tears all day at work and seeing a therapist weekly). Can we do full extinction CIO but just have my husband sneak her 2 oz at some point when she’s not crying? Will that derail the entire point of CIO? I have this thought that if we do that the first night, she will learn she needs to make up her calories during the day but it will decrease the crying slightly by taking the edge off the hunger. (I am leaving out all the horrid details of the night wakings, but please believe me when I say full extinction is our only option at this point and dream feeds do not work. She simply wakes up at the dreamfeed time the next night.)
We have an 8 month old boy who wakes several times throughout the night also sleeps in bed with us…
we have started to try the crib..we put it back in our room…and we get IN the crib with him and feed him a bottle and he sleeps about 30 mins…wakes up..we get IN the crib again and feed him the rest of his bottle…then he wakes probably an hour later…and I take him into bed…
then he wakes anywhere from every 1.5hrs to 2.5hrs all night long every night…has some milk( not eating as much but still eating) and usually goes back to sleep with some soothing…must have the nipple of the bottle in his mouth..
we need a plan to try and get him to sleep in his crib and sleep longer than 1.5 hrs…we would be thrilled with 4 hrs at a time…
can anyone help us…
PS….when he does wake it isnt just fussing it is high pitch screaming
My partner is going back to work..and I will be home alone and cannot survive on this schedule and I am scared!!!!
also…I should add we tried the CIO once and he cried(very hard) for 2hrs 47 minutes and only way we could settle him was to get INTO the crib with him!!!
I don’t believe you ever got a reply to this…but I’m in a similar situation. Instead of us getting into his crib, he gets into bed with us. He is just over 5 months old. Did you find a solution? How are things 3 months later?
My son is 8 months old. My mom takes care of him during the week(blessing)she has a great routine with him. Soilds for breakfast, has a 4oz bottle takes a short nap, bottle, soilds for lunch, bottle and another short nap, naps are between 20 to 30 minutes. I pick him up around 5, home by 6(short nap in car) 630ish dinner – veggies, he’s not into eatting meats – baby food.. We have play time and then bath time, by 730ish he is ready for bed, fussiness gives it away every time. “This is where I believe I’m doing it all wrong, after reading ALL this wonderful info”!! Husband and I put him in his bed with bottle sometimes he will fall asleep for a while most nights he will not, after being fussy and restless I will put him in bed with us and he falls right to sleep as long as we are in there. Other nights that he is in his crib he will awake MANY times fussying and I will try to comfort him without the bottle but the bottle normally always wins. Even when we Co-sleep he still wakes up.. The bottle is his comfort!! After his daily intake I can’t believe he can still drink 16oz before 5am. He is almost 22 lbs… There is so much helpful info on here…
Being that he’s 8 months – do I start with – Getting to sleep on his own, CIO?
Every baby is different, so there is no one right answer for how to get your son to fall asleep on his own. That being said, CIO was the only thing that worked for my daughter. Not going to lie, it was tough. She had been sleeping in her crib since we brought her home from the hospital, so we didn’t have any co-sleeping issues to deal with. It was just a chore every night to get her to bed. Finally, a friend of mine convinced me to try CIO. The first night, she screamed for 2 hours straight. Night two it was 1.5 hours, then 30 minutes, then a few nights of 1-15 minutes. Now, we have dinner, a bath, I nurse her and lay her down awake. She is usually asleep instantly. Some nights she will play in her crib for a few minutes, but she always puts herself to sleep.
Thank you for the great information, however I feel like my situation is a bit different but can not figure out why and how to fix it.
My son is 13 months old and has been a terrible sleeper since we moved when he was 3 months old. We have managed to get him to sleep in his crib and he goes down very well each night. But the problem begins anywhere between 11 pm and 2 am when he wakes up and refuses to go back to sleep in his crib without one of two things; small bottle of formula or getting in bed with us. Often times, he is not even happy in our bed. So then he gets about 3 ozs of formula which he sometimes does not even eat much of and I put him in his bed. He screams forever until I go in and check on him. And then the waking keeps happening every hour. We are soooo tired and just want a solid 7-8 hrs sleep. As a note, when he has slept all night it is only from 7:30 pm – 5:30 am.
Hi there and OMG thank you so much for this wonderful blog! This has been by far the best resource I’ve found! I have a 7 month old (turns 7mo tomorrow) who has never slept thru the night. There was a time for about a month or 2 when he would sleep for 5 hours at a time but those days are long gone and he now wakes to eat 2-3 times a night, not to mention the other times he just wakes up and cries. He usually takes about three 30 min naps a day, but in the last few days he has been even going 1.5hrs on some naps. He sometimes fights his naps but nothing I can’t handle and is usually asleep within 15 min of him going down. For night time he has set his bedtime to be anywhere between 6:45-8pm. Which around those times is also around his 4hr mark of being ready to eat. So I bring him to bed (he sleeps in a play yard next to my bed) and give him his bottle. Seine times it will only be an hour or so since his last feeding but he will still want a bottle I guess to fill up on before he goes to sleep for the night. He has the gone to bed before without having the bottle and just a full belly with no problems usually. Then when I’m ready for bed, usually around 10pm, I give him a dream feed. I started doing this last week bc I would go to bed and within 1-2hrs at the most he would be awake and wanting a bottle so I decided a dream feed would get me another hour of sleep. My problem is that even when I feed him at 10pm, he is awake around 1-2a and again at 4-5am to eat. He also wakes other times during the night between feedings and I can either soothe him by replacing paci or worst case bringing him to bed with me and lay him on my chest. Neither of us sleep well that way but its the only way to get him to fall asleep at the moment. So a few days ago I started diluting his 1-2am and 4-5am bottle. I started by doing 5oz water and 2 scoops. I did 5oz because that’s the amount he drinks during the day. However, I am trying to combine 2 methods by diluting bottle AND reducing the size of the bottle. So for the last 2 nights I have given him 4oz water and 1.5 scoops. I have noticed since I began diluting the bottles an increase in the amount of completely full and soaked diapers he has throughout the night so having to change diapers along with the rest of our middle of the night festivities is no bueno either. So my main questions are:
1) Do I continue the drew feed at 10pm? Or is that going to help him continue his problem with sleep=eat? Before I started the drew feed 4 days ago he would have a bottle around 7pm then wake to eat at 11pm,2am and 5am.
2) Do you recommend the diluting of bottles or reducing the amount of each bottle? Or should I continue with what I’m doing until he has like 2oz of just water or whatever?
3) Also, what should I do for all the other times he waking but not hungry? Replacing a paci nonstop all night is very frustrating as well lol.
Thank you in advance for your help!! I haven’t slept for more than 4hrs at a time since early June!!
-Krystal
Sorry for the autocorrect…of course I mean dream feed not drew feed lol!
Krystal, I am in pretty much the same exact boat…literally, same age, same wake up times at night, struggling with night weaning and if my daughter is ready. She drinks poorly during the day, is a distracted eater, and consumes just 20ounces during the day, if I am lucky. But at 7 months, she is also on solids. So, my particular question for Alexis is this: if I wean her at night, will this cause her to eat more during the day? She is a petite baby, 15lb 10oz and already crawling and pulling herself to stand, etc. I would have thought that the increase in activity would result in, naturally, eating more during the day. But, with her , I suppose she plays catch up at night.
I am with Krystal….more sleep sounds like a dream….tx!
Kylee…I am sorry to hear your are in the same boat as me, but I am glad I’m not in this alone!! I just wanted to give you an update on my situation as tonight will be exactly one week since I began the night weaning. Like I said in my post I have been combining the two methods of diluting the bottles and also reducing the amount of formula. Last night my son got a bottle(5oz) at 7pm then he went to bed at 8pm. At that time I gave him a 2oz bottle to put him to sleep with (btw I know that’s a “no no” but it works for us. I decided not to do a dream feed like I’ve been doing every night and to my surprise he didn’t wake until 2am! That’s 6 hours between feedings which is a long time compared to his 3-4hr stretches he usually does. At 2am I gave him 3oz bottle which was 3oz water and 1 scoop of formula. He ate then fell back asleep then didn’t wake to eat again until 6am…so that’s a 4hr stretch which is usually unheard of in the middle of the night. I then gave him another 3oz bottle prepared the same way and he fell back asleep afterwards then didn’t wake until 8:20 this morning. He never sleeps that late! I don’t know if it was just a fluke or what but I was one happy mama this morning! I am thinking of skipping the dream feeding again tonight just to see if he has a long stretch again! I am also going to do one more night of “3oz” bottles then tomorrow I will decrease to 2oz. Oh and he also did not wake or stir around nearly as much as he usually does either last night so that was very nice not having to replace a paci a billion times lol!
Also, my son is on solids as well. I really don’t know what people consider a good amount but he usually eats about 1-1 1/2 pouches a baby food a day. He is 18lbs and also just started crawling this week.
My daughter is 5.5 months, and doesn’t seem to need CIO as she goes down, fusses a little bit then heads to dreamland. My problem is after she wakes for her nighttime feeding – anywhere from 11pm to 3 am – she will dose off, appear to be tired, then as i put her down in her crib she wakes up and gets really upset (when we used the swing it would gradually lull her back to sleep). So, my question is, should i use CIO for the second round of sleep after her nighttime feeding??
Hi Alexis,
I’m confused about this idea of intermittent reinforcement. My 5.5 mo old son was pretty consistently going to bed at 6:45-7, sleeping until a feed between 2-4, feeding again between 4-6, and waking sometime after 7. Then he got the flu :(. We had one night with lots of wake ups and nursing and then he seemed to settle a little, but after a seemingly normal night he has had several where he has woken up around 11-1 very upset. I should say that by the time this started happening, he was several days fever-free though he is still a little congested but nothing that he hasn’t slept through before. My first thought was not to restate earlier nursings (if I go in at 11 he will be up again at 2/3 and then 4/5 for sure) and your post above seems to support that when you say don’t let sickness throw you off. But if I don’t nurse at 11 but do at 3 is that confusing for him? Help please!
(it doesn’t help that I caught the flu from him and am beyond exhausted too!)
Thanks,
Alison
Hello I have been teaching my daughter to put herself to sleep since she was 4 months.she is 6 months now She is very good at doing it now. At nap time I feed her put her in her crib and she’s out. But for some reason at bedtime she will cry and cry herself to sleep I have the same process as nap time I feed her and put her down as soon as I put her down she will start screaming and won’t stop until 45 min. So that’s problem number one problem number 2 is she wakes up 3 to 4 times at night I only feed her 2 oz at a time because I’m trying to wean off night feedings but she always seems to want more and if she doesn’t get the 2 oz she will be up all night so I don’t know how to fully wean her off the night feedings
Alexis Hello, I have been teaching my daughter to put herself to sleep since she was 4 months.she is 6 months now She is very good at doing it now. At nap time I feed her put her in her crib and she’s out. But for some reason at bedtime she will cry and cry herself to sleep I have the same process as nap time I feed her and put her down as soon as I put her down she will start screaming and won’t stop until 45 min. So that’s problem number one problem number 2 is she wakes up 3 to 4 times at night I only feed her 2 oz at a time because I’m trying to wean off night feedings but she always seems to want more and if she doesn’t get the 2 oz she will be up all night so I don’t know how to fully wean her off the night feedings
My little man who is 9 months will self settle for naps and bed. But at bed time he wakes 45mins after he’s gone to sleep(can set my clock by it). I still feed him in his room before bed but I put him in bed before he is asleep. Should I be leaving more of a gap before I put him in bed?
At the moment he is waking lots in the night. We were down to 1 wake up but now we are back to 4/5 as he has just had really high temps and a sore throat. He seems to want feed at all those times and even though I know he’s not hungry I think he wants milk to ease his throat. Do I just keep feeding until he is well again. Sometimes it’s every hour. I think this could also be due to when he was sick I let him basically sleep attached to me due to his extreme temps.
This is my second child you’d think I’d have this one sorted.
Hi,
Alexis is the expert here and I won’t be able to help you with the sickness related question but I know Alexis reccommends to put at least 20-30 mintes between the last feed and bed. Hope it helps a bit.
BTW my 5 month old does he same thing – wakes up 45 minutes after he falls asleep at bedtime, have no idea why…
Hi Alexis
I have a little boy who just turned 6 months a few days ago. He’s a big boy (born 9lbs 1oz, 22.5″ long. Currently 21lbs, 28.25″ long) and typically an easy going little guy and a good sleeper. He started sleeping through the night at about a month old (on his own, we were surprised… and grateful!). He continued sleeping through the night until he was 4.5 months old and he started his 6 month growth spurt (he’s started all his growth spurts early). He hasn’t slept through the night since. Over a period of four weeks he gained 2lbs 5oz. On “bad” nights he’ll wake 7-8 times (only feeding 2-3 times), and a “good” night is one when he only wakes 2-3 times a night (feeding 1-2 times). During the day he feeds every hour to hour and a quarter while he is awake. He has two naps during the day, each lasting anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours (average 1 hour). He is breast fed and drains both sides for every feed (takes 10-20 minutes total). He is usually pretty good at putting himself to sleep whenever we’ve put him down awake, but we don’t often get the chance to try because pretty much everytime I feed him he falls asleep. Solidly. Should I try to wake him after he’s finished eating and then put him to bed? I would really like him to start sleeping through the night again. It’s been a month and a half, and his weight gain has slowed anlittle and he’s starting to get taller now. He should be starting to feed less at night now, right? Maybe? Any advise would be good!
Hi there
This site has been really helpful. My little guy is 14 months now and has been going through a 3 month growth spurt. Previously we put him to bed at about 8 and he would sleep until 4/430, feed and then get up at 715/730.
For the last three nights he’s been waking up at 2/230. Our friends had a sleep doula who said their biggest sleep mistake was ‘giving in’ to these sleep regressions. I’ve been able to sooth him back to sleep each of these nights through rocking and his swing and then he’s went back to sleep until 430 but it took about 20 min to an hour. Should I be doing this or should I be feeding him?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Jennifer
14 months should be 14 weeks 😊
I am curious to see what Alexis thinks about this one but the way I understood growth spurts was that babies are genuinely hungry because of all the growing up they are doing at the time and want/need to feed more during the day and at night because they need the extra calories so personally I would feed him, but maybe wait to see what Alexis says 🙂
Hi,
I love the layout of this, and the step-by-step approach. Our son is 8 months old. He falls asleep every day/night by himself for naps and bedtime. The issue is his night wakings. When he wakes up, he will not just go back to sleep or sooth back to sleep. He is willfull and persistent, and man does he get MAD! We make it worse when dad goes in to check on him, or try to pat his back,etc.
He is nursing, and is also on solids. I feel like he eats well enough during the day. He sometimes wakes up 2 times and sometimes 4 times per night. We are kind of at a loss. I do nurse him at least 1x when he wakes. We are at a loss. HELP!
Thank you so much for the helpful sleep information! I’m running into a roadblock with little man though and need some help! He’s 6 months (today!) and has regressed to waking up around 11pm, 2:30, 5:30 each night. I do put him down to sleep awake at 7:30 and he falls easily asleep on his own. He takes a good morning nap most days but sometimes fights his 2nd nap and will only cat nap later if he falls asleep while I nurse him. We’ve tried to let him fall back asleep on his own for a few minutes when he wakes at night, but it always escalates to us needing to get him. He won’t stop screaming until I nurse him. A few minutes on each side is all he needs and he’s back to bed. I am trying to reduce this even, but he’s still waking. I know he can sleep 8-9 hours because he did it regularly a couple months ago. Any thoughts? THANK YOU!
Alexis,
1.- thank you very much !!!!! Reading your articles it’s been soo fun since 2 am . That was last baby feeding I guess I will just wait for the next in couple more min. 2.- excuse my English , it’s my second language.
My 8 months old is a all night bedding girl, she was only breast feed for the first 3 months after she had pertussis and stay at hospital for a full month and after that things when crazy and because of the cough and all that I Cain of spoil her and now I’m dealing with all night feedings !!! Doctor told me about the water but I felt so guilty !!!! I try it once and then quite. But your info it’s being so helpful, I know I’m in the right track and won’t tell guilty again!!!! When you breastfeed it really seems that they don’t get enough even you read and people tell you “it is” .
And challenge number 2 is to stick with a plan, when daddy have another perspective !!!
But I’m exited because I know this will work !! Cry it out !!!
Good healthy and happy spirit for everybody !!
Hi Alexis, this is the most helpful website that I have found on this topic, so I thank you in advance for your knowledge and advice. My 6 month old uses nursing to fall asleep. I made sure not to let this happen with our first child, but dropped the ball this time because I was so busy and tired with my two year old as well. After reading though your advice, I’m going to start the CIO method to help him fall asleep on his own. My question for you is, what do I do in the middle of the night to soothe him when he wakes up to eat and daddy’s soothing doesn’t help, or I feed him just little bit and put him back down, but he continues to cry. Do I then use the CIO method?
Thanks so much.
Sarah
These articles are great, and I used the tips for the CIO method to help wean my 5 month old off needing a pacifier to go to sleep at night. It took about 7 nights, but now he goes down in his crib awake around 7:30/8pm, and puts himself to sleep. But the problem is that since we trained him to sleep without the pacifier, he has been waking up between 1am and 3am and cries non-stop, not usually hungry and won’t go back to sleep until he tires himself out after 1.5 hours. Some nights we will feed him 2 oz, and some nights he won’t even take the bottle. Last night, he was up at 3:30, and won’t go back to sleep until 5, and was up again at 5:45am. I thought weaning him off the pacifier would help him learn to put himself back to sleep, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Should we be getting up and going to him in the middle of the night, even if he isn’t hungry, to calm him down, or let him cry (for possibly 1.5 hours) until he goes back to sleep himself? How do we break this bad new habit of his?
So glad to find someone who’s on the same page as us with this stuff!
I have a problem with my 37 week old twins – would appreciate any comments from people with similar experiences. We’re trying to wean them off night feeds (currently at 11 and 3) by reducing the milk in their bottles and twin 2 is starting to wake more frequently as the volume of milk goes down. Is this a sign that she still needs the milk and I should wait and try again in a month or two? Or is she just taking her time to adjust, and I need to maybe go back up half an ounce and let her get used to it before continuing to reduce? Or should I just tough it out and keep reducing it?
I’m growing so frustrated as I never had sleep issues with my first 2. My LO is turning 7 months in a week and at 3 months was sleeping from 8pm to 5:30am. Typical for my children. But he hit 4 months and just stopped. He wakes anywhere from 12:30 to 3am so I assumed it may be a growth spurt at first so I fed him. Eventually after 3 weeks of this I started to wean him off the bottle by lowering the ounces he got every 4 days or so till he got just water. For about a week he would wake up but getting his binky put him right back to sleep. Now he wakes up and fusses and after I settle him and give him back his binky he starts screaming until he starts to gag and this fit can last up to an hour…some nights he’s just AWAKE at this time too. I really don’t understand it. And then twice a week or so he will just magically sleep all the way till 5am…even weaning didn’t work and at this point I’m trying to run on 3 hrs of sleep while trying to home school my oldest and take care of a 3 yr old and the baby during the day…I don’t know what to do anymore and after catching 4 colds and the flu in the last 3 months due to the weakened immune system I now have from lack of sleep according to the doc I’m crying and breaking down at least twice a day. There has got to be some kind of explanation??? We’ve tried a later bedtime, we’ve tried an earlier bedtime, we’ve tried more activity during the day…I mean everything! Please help! Anybody???
Hi! I just found this site & love all of it! I have a 6 mo old who started sleeping through the night in her crib since she was 4 mo old. Her crib is in our room. My issue is I am a stay at home Mom and we have been rocking her to sleep since she was born. She wakes up at night sometimes once sometimes 3 or more times so we can put paci back in. She is also a cat napper, she sleeps 15-30 minutes at a time several times a day. Every now & then I’ll get an hour or more out of her. I am wanting to move her crib into her room now & start laying her down before she’s asleep. What would you recommend I do since she is just over 6 mo now? Do I try the swing method (which she loved, not so much anymore) or do I go straight into cry it out method which I’m not very fond of. She is my 3rd child and everyone of them have been different kind of sleepers.
Thank you,
Tina
Hi all.
Just found this site too, so amazing! We have been sleep training our 4.5 month old boy. He goes down fine at 6.15pm and sleeps through ’till 5am most days which I guess is his day start. Aprox. every third night though he will wake at 3.30 and cry till it’s time to get up, any ideas or advice?
Thanks in advance.
K.
Hi, I am wondering if you can help us. Our 20 week old used to sleep well at night – a 7-9 hour stretch, a quick feed followed by another 2 hours or so. However the last 3 weeks he has been waking very frequently – every 1, 2, 3 hours. He nurses to sleep as I don’t know how else to put him to sleep. If I just put him in his crib he will cry – he is very persistent and won’t cave in at all! When he woke once in the night it seemed reasonable to feed, but now it’s so regular I don’t know how to get him to sleep for longer periods and I am nursing him back to sleep every 1 – 3 hours. Sometimes he really is feeding but sometimes it is a comfort ‘feed’. Sometimes I am able to put him down drowsy (after a feed) but awake. I know you say to leave 30 mins between feeding and sleep but I don’t know how to get him to sleep otherwise. Any advice would be really appreciated – thanks in advance.
Hi, Alexis:
My ten-month-old goes to bed with no problems at 7 p.m. consistently. She wakes up between 3 to 5 a.m. for a bottle, goes right back down, and sleeps until 8ish. We’ve tried night-weaning but to no avail. It’s become like a nightmare CIO situation, and so we’ve continued giving her a diluted bottle.
For the past two weeks, she’s been waking WITHOUT crying around midnight and just lies there with her eyes open for HOURS. (We watch on the monitor.) She just lies there sucking her thumb, blinking. Sometimes she’ll babble, but just in short bursts, and she’ll roll around every so often. But she remains lying down, sucking her thumb or kneading her sleep sack, two things she does to self-soothe to sleep. So she seems to be trying to fall asleep. After about an hour-and-a-half to two hours, she’ll cry and crescendo until my husband gives her her diluted bottle.
But what could be the problem? Only thing I can think of is that she’s cutting six teeth at the same time, but it’s strange that she doesn’t wake up crying in pain. Or is it strange? Is this normal? And will things likely settle when the teething is over?
Thank you, Alexis! You should add a Pay What You Can PayPal button here so we can donate to thank you for your time.
I wish I’d come across this site sooner, and perhaps, I wouldn’t be in the boat I’m in now. My 13mo old goes to bed at 8pm after nursing and sleeps until 11:30pm, when either I go in for a dream feed or he wakes up and demands it. Then he’ll sleep until I go in sometime between 2-4am and let him nurse for 2min or less. When I do this, goes back to sleep until 7am (my wake up time). If I don’t, he’ll wake up between 4-4:30. We’ve tried sending in dad and that makes things much, much worse. He goes from crying to all out tantrum. I’ve cut out all daytime feeds except for a couple of minutes before each nap. I’ve also tried offering him water from a cup (he doesn’t do bottles) and that’s failed. I don’t know what to do next.
I have a 9 month old that I cannot get to sleep through the night to save my life, and my 1st two were gems!! From day 1 he fell asleep for naps/bedtime on his own. I always used the eat, play, sleep routine. He uses no sleep props, most he has is a lovey and he has not taken an interest in that. First I used the CIO until he reached at least 6 hours of sleep recommended by his pediatrician (at 7 months). He takes good naps and has a 6:45 bedtime (ever since he dropped his 3rd nap). He has a bottle when he wakes, then breakfast, lunch and snack (usually a yogurt or cottage cheese/fruit) and dinner. The 3 main meals are what we eat for dinner so I think he is getting the calories. Then a bottle at night before bed. We recently tried weaning off of the nightfeed. Now our challenge is he learned to stand in his crib and scream bloody murder. I have been going in and laying him back down, but it gets worse and worse (hours)….so I broke down and fed him. Any suggestions? I do not know if I should use the CIO or if he is hungry bec/ the weaning did not work or if he just learned something new and is giving me a new run for my money. Any advice??
Alexis-
I did, in fact, find your website during some hours of desperation in the wee hours of this morning. We are pulling our hair out. We have a six month old who has always fought sleep of any kind, both daytime naps and sleep at night. Once she is down, she mostly stays asleep, but only after rocking her for 20+ minutes. If she does wake up, there is almost always screaming involved. Our pediatrician calls her a sensitive baby. She wants to be held almost all the time and seems to need constant entertainment or there’s whining and crying. We do have a nighttime routine (feed with solids+bottle then bath and a few more oz to top her off). Then she wants to play. I’m trying to decide if it’s time to try CIO and if so, what time to begin. At most, she gets 2.5 hours a day of napping (which is also achieved by rocking her or walking with the stroller). Please help!
OMG! This site is exactly what I have been looking for! I have a 3 year old and a 3 month old. I need help and this site is so refreshing. Thank you!
Hey, i have a 9 month old breastfed little girl who definatley is not sleeping through the night. I have been trying to sleep train her so we can work on night weaning. She has close to the same schedule everyday . Up at 8 boob, get dressed, play, food, try nap(doesn’t really have a set nap place usually the swing sometimes her crib occasionally the floor with blanket stroller on nice days), lunch, boob, play, try nap, snack, boob, play, supper, boob, bath, dressed, boob,(usually put down when not fully asleep but eyes closed almost asleep) bed. Than the fun begins… She goes to bed at 730pm and gets up between 1-3 times from time layed down till 1130 when she gets up to feed and usually bum changed than she is up usually between 1-2 for feeding and most times bum change, than the glorious 5 or 6am feeding which I’m thankful for because she sleeps straight to 730 -8 yay . During the night feeds are about 10-20 min..and these times i try to put her down closer to fully asleep our she screams and stands there till i get her and feed her back to sleep…oh yeah there are worse nights as wellI sometimes.. I need help please the husband sleeps through everything and is in NO way willing to step up he says what do you want me to do about it
Hi Alexis,
Thanks for your great site! Here’s a question on night weaning. My son is 5 months old. From about 3 months we started trying to sooth him to sleep instead of feeding him when he wakes up at night. The idea was try for a few minutes (usually with some patting and giving him a dummy) – if it doesn’t work, then we feed him. This method worked great because we discovered some times it was very easy to sooth him back to sleep, and using this method we’ve cut down to one feed a night (though he does still wake up an average of 1-3 other times needing soothing. Maybe we’ll tackle that using CIO when he’s a bit older).
My question is this, though: his total sleep stretch is from about 7:30pm till 6:30-7am. Some nights he wakes up at 3am and we just sooth him. In that case he always wakes up at 5am needing a feed (And then usually goes back to sleep for another hour). Other nights we just feed him at 3am – in which case he goes back to sleep until 6:30-7am. In short – whether we feed him at 3 or at 5 we get the same total amount of sleep. In terms of our schedule, it’s a bit easier for us to feed him at 3, but we’re wondering if that’s less likely to get him used to just sleeping through the night and completely weaning him, so a worse idea if we think of the long term. What do you think?
hi alexis. im the mother of a 7 month old. he takes 30-45 min naps through the day every 2-3 hours and is generally a happy little fellow. at night ive kinda managed to teach him to nod off in his crib at 9.30 pm, with a little bit of walking around for 5 minutes before hes asleep. some nights he fusses for an hour before nodding off, in which case i kinda force the paci into his mouth so that he stops screaming, some nights he nods off without paci, without fussing. he sleeps after a 4 oz formula feed.
now heres the thing, he wakes up after 3 hours and wont sleep unless I walk him or feed him. my husband tries but my son doesnt calm down! then again he’s up around 4.30 – 5, and its the same thing, either walk him or feed him. often i feel like hes actually hungry so i feed him both times. but isnt it time i gave up the night feedings atleast for a 5- 6 hour stretch? in which case should i let him cry it out at the 12.30 wake up call? he never ever sleeps for more than a 3 hour stretch (and thats if im lucky, he’s usually up in around 2 hours and fussing) and i want him to learn to sleep longer! pls help… im terribly sleep deprived and tired and heartburny and migrainy 🙁
Hey Joyeeta,
Have you checked out the Sleeping Through the Night Part 1 post? (http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/) It sounds like he’s depending on you to fall asleep (walking, paci, bottle) that might be the cause of his night waking.
Hi everyone – has anyone read the recent research on CIO? CIO releases stress hormones into baby’s brain and makes them feel anxious. It has now been linked to adult anxiety problems. French studies suggest that reassurance as opposed to CIO works better in the long run, and allows a bond of trust and confidence to be foundations for a happier non-worriesome toddler.
The stress hormone in question is called cortisol and yes when babies are stressed they produce cortisol. They also produce cortisol when they are chronically sleep deprived.
I am familiar with copious amounts of research on sleep training and all I can tell you is that it is almost always misconstrued. And that there is nothing that shows that CIO breaks bonds of trust or ruins the foundation for a happier non-worriesome toddler.
I’m not trying to convince anybody to do CIO and if it’s not for you, I totally respect that. But don’t write it off because of the idea that research exists which says that you’re ruining your bond with your child. Because it doesn’t.
What it does show is that full extinction is the most effective method resulting in the least tears. Reassurance feels better to us who do the parenting but there is no research that supports that it actually helps baby. There is some research that suggests well-meaning reassurance (check ins or what have you) actually prolongs the ordeal for everybody. For this reason I strongly encourage people to consider extinction vs. some variation of the “check in” model because that sort of reassurance often has the opposite impact – longer crying, less stress, higher failure rate, less sleep.
Hi Alex:
I enjoy your blogs and much of what you have suggested is applicable, only I am a single mom. Therefore no daddy relief in the middle of the night – who doesn’t smell like food. I am desperate to night wean as every 2 hrs, bebe is snacking and I am slowly loosing my mind and ability to function.
My girl is nearly 8 months. Between 4-7 mos. she has cut 6 teeth, had two colds and is remarkably happy throughout the day. She has always nursed for no more than 10-15 min. Napped 3x a day and is now shifting to 2x/day. Average nap time is 1-1.5 hrs. She is eating some solids (may need to increase caloric intake), and nursing through the day. Though I suspect she is drinking less during the day.
Any advise on which should I tackle first? Co-sleeping or night snacking? I was trying the ‘bar is closed’ approach when I realized she was cutting 4 teeth at once. About 3 weeks later, two more came through. Now seems as good a time as any to tackle the 2 am feeding – is it okay that she cries with me right there- till her next nursing @ 4/4:30? Seems what I am doing is creating a war map- for her. Nothing is getting past her and she has figured screaming and kicking endlessly will ultimately get her the breast she so desires, if not in the moment then an hour later. Im so lost, I don’t know where to begin. All suggestions are welcomed…read all the sleeping books….and there are ZERO sleeping books for single moms, btw. Any insight to my specifics will leave me eternally grateful.
My boy is just shy of 4 months. The last week or so he has been upping the number of times he wakes at night. In the past he almost always slept 5-6 hours before a feed. Now he is waking every two if I’m lucky. (I’m now up about 6 times a night) He usually falls asleep with bouncing.
I am sure he’s not waking from hunger but the boob seems to be the only thing he wants and the only thing that will get him to sleep. I’ve tried bouncing and shushing but it takes way too long and then it seems he’ll wake up after 15-20 minutes again. I am going to try weaning him with your method. If he is not asleep though by the time the time is up, what is your suggestion? Do I just put him down awake or do something else to get him to sleep? He is a tough little guy. I’ve been trying to put him down awake for the last 2 weeks. It only works (occasionally) for his first nap of the day. Other times he’s cried endlessly until I give up.
Thanks for any help.
Jana
It sounds like the dreaded 4 month sleep regression…Have you seen this post: http://www.troublesometots.com/the-thing-about-sleep-regressions/
My little guy is 8 months old now, and is, for the most part, a sleeping champ! (thanks in no small part to the wisdom and bolstering I’ve found here!) However, my husband and I are dealing with a new nemesis… The early-morning feeding… If my kiddo wakes up around 3:45-4am to be changed and fed (bottle), he generally gets back to sleep pretty well until 6:15-6:45 or so. However, there have been a couple days in the last week where he has woken at 4:30-4:45, and he Does Not want to go back to sleep after his bottle. This results in lots of crying, standing in the crib, and a marked decrease in mommy/daddy sleep for the night too 😉 For some reason he just can’t seem to figure out how to settle back down when it’s so close to “morning,” but I’m afraid that I’ll get him into a bad habit of waking at 4:30 if we just give in and start the day… I would love any ideas you have! Thank you again!
Our son is 9 months (corrected 7 months, he was premature). He falls asleep on his own in his crib in the evening around 7:30-8. He has done this for quite some time. But he wakes ip to eat at least 3 times, usually the first time around 11:30. We have been trying your method, to give him a bit less every night but now he won’t go back to sleep after that lesser feeding. Any tips on that?
Thanks! I really hope your method works.
When you say won’t go back to sleep after the lesser feeding, what do you mean? Does he cry? Is he just hanging out awake? We just finished night weaning last week, and once we got down to 2 minutes on each side, my son just cried. He finally fell asleep after 45-1 hour of crying. He did that for 2 nights and is now sleeping through the night. We have a video monitor so we can check and make sure he’s ok, if he does wake up at night. I would encourage you to wait it out a bit…see if he falls asleep. It wasn’t easy hearing my son cry for that long, but I’m so thankful now that we’re both getting a good night’s sleep!
Thanks for responding.
No he doesn’t really cry, he just complains a little and talks, for 2 hours or so. Since his crib is in our bedroom it means I cannot sleep. We might move him out at some point soon, which could solve the problem, unless he starts crying. I don’t think I am at that stage yet of letting him cry.
Maybe we reduced the amount too quickly, have to get him used to less and less.
I also think that it might be linked to him being premature – he was in the hospital for 5 weeks and got used to being woken up every 3 hours for a feeding. I am not sure if that could have an effect until now.
Hi Alexis,
First of all, THANK YOU, you are a lifesaver!! I found your site at 2 am one night in desperation, with a screaming baby that I couldn’t get to sleep. Thanks to your advice, we now have a baby that goes to sleep at a nice early bed time and only wakes to feed. We are now working on night weaning. My baby is 8 months old this week. She was going to sleep at 7 and waking up at 9 pm, 1 am, 3 am, 5 am and 7 am to feed, and we get up for the day at 830/9 am. The first bottle we worked on weaning was the 1 am bottle. It went amazingly smoothly, she went to sleeping right through from 7 pm all the way to 2 or 3 am. We then started to work on the 2/3 am bottle. The problem is that while working on this feeding time she is now sleeping until 345/4. Do I continue the weaning process at this time? Or give her a normal bottle. She did this for the first time on the first “water only” bottle night and she is not happy! She has slept right from her 10 pm feeding until 345, which is when I gave her the water and she is pretty sure she is not going to survive. I guess my question is, if she keeps changing her wake up time, do I just stick to the rule ” the second feeding no matter the time is the one I’m weaning?” Or would I accept the sleep till 4 as a success and go from there as it would then push her later feeding times back and technically be a win ( she would then sleep right through till about 7 am, have one more feeding and be good till 830 or 9 am which is when she/we get up.
Any advice would be wonderful,
Thanks so much,
Jesse
Success story! I finally caved in and started night weaning a couple weeks ago. My now 8.5 month old had been waking up 1x at night from 4 months on. I was fine with it because it meant he slept til 8 or 9. Then around 7 months, he started waking up 2-3x a night and then would be up for good at 6:30. He was sleeping worse than when he was 4 months old!! I decided to follow this method…starting with 8 minutes on each side. On the 5th night, we had to move him into our bedroom bc we had company in town. By the time we got down to 2 minutes on each side (7th night) he would just get angrier after his feeding. He cried for 45 minutes on the 7th night–hard to ignore in our bedroom but I knew we couldn’t turn back or we’d have to start all over. The 8th night, I decided to not feed him at all because it would get him all worked up. He cried for another hour in our bedroom but finally fell back asleep. He is now successfully sleeping alone in his crib from 8:30-6:30. Occasionally, he wakes up at 4 am and cries for a bit (less than 10 minutes). It wasn’t easy, and there was definite crying, but I’m so glad we finally did it. The video monitor was a huge help to us. Thank you Alexis for making this first year of our baby’s life less sleep deprived!
Hi – only a quick one… The way that we dropped the 5 am feed was simply to get up with him and start his day. It was blooming awful for a couple of weeks, but when he realised that ‘awake at 5 am means awake’ he started to push his waking up time later. In fact he did it quite quickly in the end and now he’s definitely a 6.30 – 7 am type of boy who doesn’t need a night feed (which doesn’t mean he doesn’t wake in the night, but that’s a whoooooooole different story)(and entirely one that we know the answer to…)
Hi Kirstine. Just curious what time your little guy goes to bed? My little boy was getting up in the 5 am range for some time and had one additional feeding in the night around 11:30 pm. I have basically weaned him off of that one, but for the past couple of weeks he has been waking in the 4 am range! Alexis indicated that this is not a good time for CIO which we have experienced and some mornings I let him fuss and finally go in, feed him and get up for the day and others I am too exhausted and I put him back to sleep after feeding. Our inconsistency is getting our day off track and then I don’t know when naps/bedtimes should be! Tonight he was in bed by 7 pm with very little fussing. He could probably go to bed even earlier, but I fear he’d wake up earlier than 4! Any advice is welcome!
Hi Kirstine. Just curious what time your little guy goes to bed? My little boy was getting up in the 5 am range for some time and had one additional feeding in the night around 11:30 pm. I have basically weaned him off of that one, but for the past couple of weeks he has been waking in the 4 am range! Alexis indicated that this is not a good time for CIO which we have experienced and some mornings I let him fuss and finally go in, feed him and get up for the day and others I am too exhausted and I put him back to sleep after feeding. Our inconsistency is getting our day off track and then I don’t know when naps/bedtimes should be! Tonight he was in bed by 7 pm with very little fussing. He could probably go to bed even earlier, but I fear he’d wake up earlier than 4! Any advice is welcome!
Thank you for your site! I have always used the babywise method to get my babies to fall asleep on their own from a very young age. My first started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks and never looked back. My second did the same thing, only earlier- at 4 weeks. My third is trying to kill me through sleep deprivation, and I need your help! He slept through the night at 6 weeks consistently. Then at 10 weeks we traveled for a week, and the night waking came back, and now, at 6.5 months, it still has not stopped. I tried your method of weaning him down to a smaller amount of formula, but he just woke up more often when I did that- instead of once or twice a night it was 3 or 4 times. He is currently only waking once- around 4 or 4:30. I feed him, and then he WON’T go back to sleep!!! Is it okay to let him cry at this time? I am so tired from getting up at 4:30 every morning I can’t even think straight!
Thank you for all this wonderful information! Iv been tumbling through all your articals and finding some really great tidbits.
The one area I’m hoping for help in is night wakings.
My story: I started weaning my currently 6 month old to her crib (that is right next to my bed)at 4 months from a bed sharing situation. We went from bed sharing to Co-sleeping very gradually( it took 2-3weeks) she was only waking for 3 night feedings (I’m ok with that). She gets 2-3 naps a day they are roughly an 1-1.5 hours but usually not totaling more then 3.5 hours. Bed time is between 6:30 and 7pm (she is awake by 6 am)and I feed her a half hour before bed, I lay her in her crib fully awak but sleepy, turn on her white noise and she falls asleep on her own with in 10 mins. The issue for the past 2 1/2 weeks is she wakes up about every 1-1.5 hours ALL night long. If its only been an hour I will try and shush pat her back to sleep, it takes about 10mins or so and she will fall back to sleep for maybe another hour when she wakes at this point it’s nearly impossible to sooth her back to sleep b/c she is hungry so I nurse her then lay her back down sometime crying some times not, but always waking an hour or so later. So I try the shush pat again and it’s not working so I let her cry it out checking on her in 5 min intervals( 5 mins 10 mins etc), my cut off time for this is an hour and a half at that point I know she is hrungry again (she actively nurses so its not just a comfort thing I don’t believe) I know I’m in a rut, I’m exhosted and losing my happy mantra of this too shall pass, there only little for a little while, I just don’t know what tool to use to get out. What am I missing?( She did just have her first tooth brake through, two days ago) Thank you for any thoughts or comments.
My son is 9 months old and will only fall asleep if he has a bottle I can lay him is his crib alone and he’ll sleep but he’s gotta have his bottle to sleep. He gets put down at 9 and then wakes around 2 with a saturated diaper and for another bottle and is back asleep til 7. He will fall back asleep if I leave him there to cry but at the same time I live in an appartment with neighbors on both sides and I don’t want them being disturbed by his crying. So effectively I give him a bottle an he falls asleep sucking on it. Unfortunately. I would love to lay him down without it and have him fall asleep and not wake at 2am again. I can also cuddle him to sleep and lay him in his crib but he also wakes at 2am. Nap times are scarese and very short and then he’s asleep earlier and wakes more often at times. Ur article is very helpful but I still don’t know what to do about this sleep thing. I feel as if hell never sleep all night nor without being given a bottle to fall asleep.
Hi there = you mention that night weaning can take 1-3 weeks but when I read the details above (we are bottle feeding) about reducing the ounces nightly it seems like it should only take about 4 days. What am I missing? I want to do this right from the start. THANKS!
sorry one more question on weaning. I read one book that offers similar advice on reducing the forula nightly but recommends you pre-empt their natural wake-up time so they essentially dream feed. I think you are ok to allow the baby to wake up and request milk via crying. Any thoughts on the differnt approaches?
Hi finding your site is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!
Quick question: as you decrease the amount of breast feeding time to night wean say from 10 mins to 8, what do you do when your baby cries because he wants more? Is it ok to put them back in their crib and leave them to cry it out? We used CIO to train our wee man how to go to sleep on his own and it worked well….thanks!!!!
I would love to know the answer to this as well!
The answer is (as it always is) it depends.
If your child is crying because he’s truly starving (seriously? 10 -> 8 minutes?) then you may have a food issue. But I doubt it. Honestly this would be really strange. Most babies aren’t so clued into food that a small decrease leaves them STARVING. But I suppose it’s a possibility so I’m including it.
Far more likely is that even though you’re putting baby down awake AT bedtime, baby still has a huge suck=sleep association. So the issue with pulling off early isn’t that he’s starving, it’s that he’s not asleep yet.
Check this out for more details on that:
http://www.troublesometots.com/night-weaning-your-baby/
I really appreciate this site. A lot. I feel like I can’t find the answer to my specific situation, although it’s possible I just haven’t found it on here. My 4.5 month old used to sleep from 7-2 or 3, then have a feeding, then sleep until 7. Lately, he goes down fine (always has thanks to Baby Whisperer) but he’s been waking up at 10pm, 12am, 2/3, and 4/5. When he wakes up, I wait to see if he’ll self soothe and if he starts to cry I go in and give him a couple drops of gripe water which gets him to start sucking his thumb, and then he goes back down. I try to only nurse him at the 2/3am time, unless the gripe water drops don’t work at the 4/5 time and he’s really needing a feeding. He usually goes back down until 7 ish. So, you’re first response is probably, “why are you giving him gripe water?”. It’s a bad habit I have started and I am now trying to stop doing that. Could he be waking up all those times just for two drops of gripe water? Am I a horrible mother for doing that?? Should I stop the gripe and see if he’ll just CIO at 10 and 12? Please help!
Just to add to my post, last night he slept from 6:45pm to 1:15am without waking up!!! I only nursed him at 1:45am (I thought he might go back down until 3 but he stayed up so I nursed him) then woke up at 4 and 5:30. He put himself to sleep at 5:30 until 7 which is great but I did give him grip both times, a couple drops. I’m hoping once he sees that I’m only nursing him one time that he will stop waking up after but we’ll see. Any tips would be appreciated!
I would say to stop giving him the gripe water, especially if there isn’t a physical reason why you think he needs it. At 4.5 months, he is still too young to CIO. It’s hard, but just keep nursing him and as he gets older and his tummy gets bigger, he will probably start dropping some of those feedings on his own. Your LO won’t be ready for night weaning for another month or two. My daughter is 9 months old, and I am finally doing night weaning to see if she will drop her one night feeding. She went from waking up every two hours and gradually, on her own, is down to one feeding a night. You will get there. Not going to lie, it is rough, but you’ll get through it!
Thanks!!
Hi
Great site by the way!
I was hoping you could advise. To give some background, my son is 6 months old. He goes to bed at 7pm (no props but has a lovey). He has slept through a few times to 6.30 or else would wake up once a night to feed. 6.30 seems to be his average wake up time.
I have recently cut out the night feed but in the process of doing this he has now started to wake up at 5-5.30am rather than 6.30! This started just as I was starting to cut out the night feed so not sure if linked.
He doesn’t seem to be hungry at this time as he doesn’t cry (he just generally chats to himself) and if left may or may not drop off back to sleep so not sure if it is linked to cutting out the night feed. I have also tried to rock back to sleep (sometimes successful) and a couple of time have given a bottle (may or may not fall back asleep after – took an hour of assistance this morning).
At the same time his naps have started to lengthen – he will now nap up to 1.5hrs (and may do longer but I have been waking him) in the morning and the same just after lunch plus a catnap later on.
I have ruled out environmental factors although by 6 there is noise on our street which could prevent him dropping off himself.
I was wondering if you had any advice on how best to proceed – should I leave him, help him back to sleep (only holding him works) or feed him (can then take a long time to get him dozy enough to drop back off).
Hi Kate- our daughter did this for about 2 weeks around 5 months. She would wake up and talk/play in her crib for about an hour (usually 5-6 am). Since she wasn’t fussing we let it ride and she would fall asleep again until about 8. Then suddenly it stopped and her new wake up time was 7.
She had not been eating at night for a couple weeks when it started and when we tried feeding her the first couple days it didn’t get her back to sleep any faster. So for two weeks we just stared at the ceiling despondently while she “WHOOOOOOO!”ed happily in the next room. But we figured that we wouldn’t offer her incentive to keep waking up by going in to “play”.
Do you have white noise going to block out morning noise from the street?
Congrats on those lovely long naps! Good luck!!
Hi Paige – thanks for this! I have been more inclined to leave him since he is not crying so as not to incentivise his waking! Have never tried white noise – do you think it is OK to introduce at 6 months?
I would say you might as well try out the white noise- for us it is a great sleep cue as well as a cover-up for outside noise (her room shares walls with the guest bathroom and the laundry room). It also made it easier for us when traveling and asking her to sleep somewhere different. You can always start soft and ramp up the volume (Alexis recommends volume equivalent to the shower).
Thank you for the wonderful information and good humor. I attempted CIO for naps a month ago when my daughter was 8 months old. It seemed to be working better and better each day until a horrible day when instead of sleeping she cried for 2 hours straight. In desperation I posted my plight on CafeMom and was very rudely reprimanded by the hurtful and unhelpful moms on that site. Ouch. Needless to say this confirmed my self-doubt and fell off the CIO wagon immediately. Now I’m trying again but with a bit more confidence and with a more gradual approach – no more 2 hour cries, trying to be more repetitious with the routine.
I would also like to think about night weaning soon, since she is quite the night piglet. You recommend reducing the number of minutes on the breast very scientifically. Lol. This is impossible because we still co-sleep for the second half of the night and I have no idea how many minutes she is nursing because I fall back asleep. I guess I’ll have to actually get up, eh? That sounds nearly impossible to me now.
Our son is 5. He still comes in our bed many nights/mornings to snuggle and touch my “na-na”. 🙂
I guess I have a pattern of being pretty non-structured. Somehow we’re all pretty happy. But I’d like to get better at this.
Hi I was diagnosed with having cancer when my baby was born and I put off getting treatment until now and my daughter is now 6months old. I need to ween her off the breast so that I can get treatment because she is now just taking too much from me. She wakes for feeds every 2-3 hours every night and I dont get a lot of rest during the day because I have a 4yr old. I am a single mother btw and do not have a lot of support – other than my two elder daughters who are 12 & 13.
I am going to try to ween my baby off the night feeds slowly first and then get her onto a formula during the day along with 3 meals of solids. She has been playing around with bottles and sometimes will suck water from it but doesnt seem to like the formula much. I dont want to go cold turkey cos that just seems too extreme. I would want to breast feed her until she is much older. I breast fed my last child until she was 3! But I really cannot keep up the energy anymore and really have to get treatment ASAP.
I did get some ideas from everyone but would love to hear from any mums who have had a similar situation to me. Thank you
my 3 month old sleeps 5 hours straight….from5 to 10am! I will admit I hadn’t been using a routine and don’t know where to start. He goes in to the crib around 9-930 pm and wakes around 11 pm. Then I put him in the bed with me and nurse it seems almost every 2 hours. He has 3 naps, most being 2 hours. help!
Hello, your page has been by far the best I’ve seen in sleep-training. I have realized that buying and reading sleep-training books has not helped much and what you offer is gold, i.e. practical solutions. I live in Europe and here people offer poor or no information in this area.
I have a dilemma related to my 4-month twin daughter sleep training (girls are now 4months and 3 weeks, 4 months adjusted, and weigh 6.200 kg, i.e. 13.11 lb; they are formula bottle fed; bed time: 8:30 p.m., wake-up 6:00 am). We started their training two weeks ago and we must do something wrong because the crying is still there.
For a week we let the girls sleep in their swings and we had following results:
-1st night: Baby 1 slept slept through the night and baby 2 wake up at 2am and 4am crying. We let her cry for 30 minutes and she went back to sleep.
– following three nights: the same
– night five: Baby 1 woke up once and cried for 30 minutes and Baby 2 slept until 6 am.
In week two we stopped the swing for two days and let them sleep there. The same results as above.
After that, we moved the girls in the cribs. They fell asleep in 5 minutes without crying. But, again, Baby 2 woke up at 2am and 4am, crying. We thought she will get used with not eating during the night because some nights she does not cry but…
The worst is that now, after 2 weeks of training, Baby 1 has also started to wake up and cry twice a night, whereas baby 2 only cries very faintly, as if not convinced or does not cry at all. She wakes up and goes back to sleep on her own.
I stay in the same room with them but never pick them up when they cry because I know they have had enough to eat during the day (the same quantity they had before sleep training but including night feedings).
1. Should I feed them again once per night, at 2am, as they usually get up, or at 1am, even before they start crying? 2. The next feed should then be the wake-up bottle, right? 3. Or should I continue with “hard” training, meaning no feeding in the night, considering that there have been some nights when they both slept 8 hours without crying (unluckily not at the same time)?
Thank you!
Felicia
Oh god, I just discovered you – ashamedly I am on baby #3 and still can’t kick this no sleeping through thing!! You’d think by third baby I would have learnt!! I’m so tired right now it’s unbelievable and I’m back at work fulltime as of this week – my first three short weeks my 9mth old slept decently (not through the night but…) but the last three nights he’s been up every 1-2hrs!!!! Wants a breastfeed, 5mins back to sleep, up again, feed, sleep, up….squirrel!!!
Am diving in head first to your tips – I think I love you!
Haven’t sleep through the night in 3 years and 9 months:) 1st born slept through the night at 14 months. #2 is 9 months old barely naps and wakes about 10 times a night. We put him down at 7-7:30 every night with a bottle.
We have tried diluting, music, swing, co- sleeping, pacifier, blanket even CIO. I totally agree with the separation anxiety, #1 didn’t have this he was just a non-sleeper. Spoke to our ped several times because quite frankly we “lose” it on occasion. His reply was sleep patterns our in your DNA both hubby and I thankfully are not big sleepers but dang really??? So my question is are we suffering another 6 months or let the CIO last longer than an hour of blood curdling annoyance?
Hello!! I have a 6 months old baby boy and since he was almost 3 months old he would never stay with anyone but me. He doesn’t like strangers and takes a long while to warm up to someone new. He doesn’t even like to stay with my husband!! Lately he has been crying a lot if I leave him with my husband to run errands and when he sees me when I get home he cries a lot. At bed time he falls asleep very easily(not on his own)at 9pm sharp everyday and he happily stays in his crib. The problem is that when he wakes up at about 2 to 3 am, he doesn’t want to go back to the crib no matter what I do. He falls asleep in my arms and then as soon as I lay him down he will wake up. The only way he will fall back asleep is in my bed with me!! Is there anything I can do to teach him to stay in his crib? He doesn’t usually wake up after that. His morning time is around 7am. I am now starting to stop the bottles which seems to be working well. He does use a pacifier but doesn’t usually wake up just to get the pacifier back in his mouth after it falls. Maybe sometimes at the beginning of the night while I am still awake. I know I am not supposed to cry him out in the middle of the night but is this happening because I need to cry it out at the beginning of the night?? Thank you!!
We sleep trained our son when he turned 3 months, and now he goes to sleep at night and for naps in his crib, put down awake. He’s been waking up at night for 1-3 feeds a night so recently I started doing a dreamfeed 3 hours after his last meal – typically eats at 5:30 and down a little before 6pm, so I dreamfeed around 8:30. He’s been sleeping until 2:45-3:45, and then goes back down until 6:20 or so.
Just wanted to throw out the dreamfeed suggestion – I’d never done it when he was a newborn, so wasn’t sure if introducing it this late would work, but so far so good. He turns 4 months this week.
For transition, I plan to stick with the dreamfeed and hopefully watch the night feed move later and later as he’s naturally able to sleep longer, and then after the night feed goes away, I’ll move the dreamfeed earlier and then try getting rid of it over the course of a week. But I don’t expect to do that until 6 months.
Hi
Love the advice on this site.
I have read a lot about getting baby to sleep through the night. We have managed to master the falling a sleep by your self at night time (in her crib), the biggest problem we have is the night-waking when she can not go back to sleep her self at 11pm or 1am, she will eat 2oz and sleep again When she wakes up at 4 or 5am there is no other way to get her to sleep than nursing (not eating) and co sleep for one more (sometimes 2h) hour. She will scream until this happens. Refuses to take the bottle. In total she would sleep 9-10hours (not straight) which I feel is not enough?! However when she wakes up for the morning 6 or 7 she is happy. Any thoughts on this?
Hi. My daughter is 10 months old and is waking up a couple of times a night. She used to be a great sleeper until recently. We used to put her to bed around 7:30 PM, and she would fall asleep on her own. At the time, she was feeding every 5 hours, so I would wake her up around 10-11 PM for her last feeding. I decided to change her feeding hours, in order for my husband and I to get to bed earlier. I would wake up to feed her at 10-11 PM before, but wouldn’t get back to bed until after midnight. Because of her reflux, her doctor has told us to keep her upright for about 45 minutes after feedings, which is why I would get back to bed so late. Now her last feeding is around 8:30 PM. She always falls asleep immediately after this feeding, and I keep her upright for about 20-30 min, therefore she no longer is put in her crib awake. She wakes up crying a few hours later. We’ve tried everything, except the crying it out approach. I can’t bring myself to do it. Is there anything else I could do considering the fact that I have to keep her upright after feedings, and she falls asleep immediately after this 8-9PM feeding? Thanks
My exclusively breastfed 6.5 month old boy has started waking like clockwork at 9:30pm (bedtime = 7/7:30pm), then again around 11:30pm and at 4am.
We are fine with the 11:30pm and 4am feedings, but are confused about how to drop the 9:30pm feeding. He also has a really hard time taking the bottle (i.e. refuses!), so we are unsure about leaving him with a babysitter to go out during that 9:30pm wake-up.
He does know how to fall asleep on his own, sucks his thumb and uses a lovey, so I guess this waking is about a nursing/sleeping association? I nurse and sing to him just before I put him in the crib. I guess I should break that up…
We don’t feel ready to completely night wean, but we wanted to know if there was a way to get him to stop waking up at the 9:30pm mark, or if we have to night wean in order to do that.
Also, is night weaning best in the 6-9 month range?
Hmm, my daughter is 10 weeks old and usually has two feeds per night. However, last week, we decided to take a friend’s advice and not feed her that first feed unless she was crying bloody murder, so we basically let her fuss it out each time unless she was fussing after 5am at which point I fed her (because by that time, she hasn’t eaten in 9 hours), so that she can learn to self-soothe. Throughout the week, she usually fussed twice a night, between 15-40 minutes after which she always fell back asleep, and on one night, she fussed only once. So, is it too early to drop that earlier feed? I was reading The New Basics by Dr. Michel Cohen and he suggests letting the baby fuss it out but it doesn’t say for how long, so I’m assuming 40 minutes is reasonable?
Oh, I should mention that I’ve decreased the time between feeds during the day so that she’s still eating the same amount per day (5 feeds total). And she’s EBF, which means that I’m still waking up to pump, but I still want to drop that first feed so that she’s on her way to night weaning and also to learn to self-soothe, and hopefully in the direction of falling asleep on her own later.
Hi Kirstine. Just curious what time your little guy goes to bed? My little boy was getting up in the 5 am range for some time and had one additional feeding in the night around 11:30 pm. I have basically weaned him off of that one, but for the past couple of weeks he has been waking in the 4 am range! Alexis indicated that this is not a good time for CIO which we have experienced and some mornings I let him fuss and finally go in, feed him and get up for the day and others I am too exhausted and I put him back to sleep after feeding. Our inconsistency is getting our day off track and then I don’t know when naps/bedtimes should be! Tonight he was in bed by 7 pm with very little fussing. He could probably go to bed even earlier, but I fear he’d wake up earlier than 4! Any advice is welcome!
This is the information I have desperately been seeking! My 9-month-old takes naps during the day like a champ and goes down for the night at bedtime so so so well. However, nighttime is where it all goes south. She wakes up throughout the night, and I just can’t seem to kick the middle-of-the-night feedings. It’s been really hard to find a resource that can, as you did, explain to me HOW to nix nighttime feedings without CIO. I am very very excited and eager to try this out. Thank you so much!
Hello there
Love the site- I use it as a reference and always come back to it.
So my son is 7 months old. Have done a lot of hard work with him and he is brilliant self settler. 99.9% of the time he will put himself to sleep with little to no fuss. Sometimes he’s unhappy- and I soothe him but I never rock him to sleep.
He goes to bed around 7 (Or any variation 6.30-7.30ish) and wakes up at 6.30am)
So I have been trying to night wean- he typically wakes up 2x a night.
I have gone from 10 min feeds down to 3 mins. However the last 2 night he has been waking up at 5 for a little grizzle. Ive just sooshed him and reassured and he has gone back to sleep untill 6ish.
Last night he woke up 4x and was generally rather unsettled. Is this just his final protest before he concedes defeat and drops the feeds?
I would happily do a 5am feed in lieu of the 12am and 3am feed!
Where do i go from here? I’m worried that in a few nights time I’ll be down to 0 mins and he will still wake up!
Also I shoudl mention that I was reducing the mins for both feeds at the same time and it seemed to be going fine until the last 2-3 nights.
Should I just focus on feed one and not time feed two? I just dont want to go backwards.
Hi Alexis,
You’ve got some really good info here! Thank you for creating this forum to help us tired mommies. I have a few questions that I didn’t see answered, so here goes.
Our son is 4 and half months old. Until about 3 months(prior to me returning to work) he was going to sleep around 8pm, waking to eat around 1am and 4am and then up for the day around 7am. As we transitioned to daycare through his third month he started falling asleep earlier and earlier. He is now typically given a bottle, bath, book and bed by 6:30 or 7:00pm (being put into his crib asleep). He then wakes up around 11, 1 and 4. When he wakes up we go to him right away. When its me I nurse him for 3-5 mins and then he’s back asleep and in his crib. When dad goes in he gets a 4oz bottle and then goes back to sleep in his crib and might sleep until 3 or 4 without the 1am feeing. For the last few nights we’ve reduced the bottle to 2oz since I can’t imagine he’s getting much more than that when he’s nursing, but he’s still doing the 1am and 4am waking. Do you think this is a good idea as we near the time for night weaning or do you think giving him the bigger bottle gets us closer to the goal of reducing the number of times he wakes up?
Just curious what your thoughts on this.
Thanks!
Julie
Hi Alexis,
I have another question about using a pacifer. We’re trying to slowly ween our 4.5 month old off of it at night. Right now he gets a bottle, bath, book and then rocked to sleep. As he’s falling asleep with the paci in his mouth I remove it. He then falls asleep without it. The problem is that when he wakes up 45 mins later crying we go in and give it to him. This helps him settle and fall back asleep right away and then he’ll usually sleep until about 11. I should add that when he wakes up crying 45 mins into his sleep his eyes are closed and remain closed. He doesn’t wake up when it falls out of his mouth but I wonder if even just giving it to him to re-settle is a bad idea. Should we take him out and rock him instead? Which is the lesser of the two evils? Also, if we’re trying to get away from using it at night to soothe him should we also not be using it during the day for naps?
Thanks,!
Julie
Hi Alexis,
Other question came up for me regarding night weaning and eventually cry it out. My son is 4.5 months old. Right now he is put down in his crib asleep around 6:30-7:00 after getting his bottle, book, bath and rocked. He then wakes around 11, 1 and 4- nurses for 3-5 mins or gets a 2 oz bottle and goes right back to sleep. If we get to the point where we use CIO to help him go to sleep awake in his crib how would you recommend we then go about getting rid of the 11, 1 and 4 feedings. At this point I don’t think that it’s really about the food but the comfort. If CIO works for putting him down to sleep awake would you then recommend that we use it to tackle first the 11, then the 1 and finally the 4am short feedings?
Thanks!
Julie
My son is 6.5 months and he used to sleep through the night. A moth ago he got the stomach flu and I had to feed him every hour with small amounts. He used to have rice cereal in every bottle because of his acid reflux. But, because he was sick and constipated I stopped it. Since then he’s been eating less, 4-4.5 oz every 3 hours instead of 6-7 every 4 hours. And since he’s not getting enough he wakes up once around 2 am or 4 am. His pedi said my son is able to sleep through the night without feedings but undone know how to go back to track. He refuses the bottle once he’d eaten 4oz
I forgot to mention that he has no problems falling asleep when is bedtime. He used to sleep from 8:30pm to 6am sometimes 7am. And he uses a paci at night, if it falls he sometimes wakes up and cries for it.
Thanks a lot,
Beatriz
I dont get it. My ds is almost 10 months old and I’ve done all the above and he still wakes up! We keep to a routine and during day and at bedtime I can just tell him goodnight, kiss him and lay him down and he goes right to sleep! So I know he can put himself to bed. He goes to bed at 8pm wakes at 1130 and 5am, sometimes there is even a 930 wakeup. We’ve tried to send daddy in and he screams bloody murder or he’ll fall asleep and wake up as soon as he’s laid down he does that with me too unless I nurse him. I’ve tried cutting nursing sessions too and if hes not finished he cries. What to do?
Hi,
Something has changed in my LO she is 6 months and has started the weaning process about a month ago advised by the dr after having servere reflux. She showed all signs for starting weaning and happily sleep through the night but now will hardly take any milk has turned extremely un happy.
Getting milk into her is so difficult I understand that she would be drinking less but I feel it’s effecting her everywhere else. Bath and bed times have become a nightmare where I have moved her bedtime forward as she can hardly stay awake.
We have the dummy issue as well it has been a great soother to her but as it is constantly falling out during the night I feel like a yo-yo.
From the lovely little girl I had a month ago she seems to have been swapped for a very unhappy LO as am I.
Any help welcome.
Natalie
Hi,
My boy is one year old. He is still being breastfed and sleeping with us in the same bed.
I’ve read part 1, 2 & 3 of your posts. I’m just wondering if we should start the night weaning first and then let him sleep on his crib or let him sleep on his crib first and then start the night weaning?
I really appreciate your help. Can’t wait to start sleeping through the night!
Thanks,
Terry
Hi! I love your site.
We are confused about what to do with our almost 7 month old. He is a big baby (95th percentile) We want to wean him off the nighttime feedings at least down to one. I have read the article about weaning him off. We are working on that as of now. This is what we have going on.
He will have nights where he wakes only once at around 4am. Then he will have a few nights he wakes between 12-1am without fail. Occasionally he will sleep though the night. We are at a loss since he is all over the place with his sleeping. Does it have anything to do with letting him sleep as long as he wants in the morning? Right now we are both working from home and we try to get him outside (hot here in AZ) for some stimulation as much as we can. The day we went to the water park he slept all night long.
We don’t put him down til around 8-9, mostly closer to 9pm. Does that have anything to do with it?
Any advice is welcome!
OH and wanted to add, we do let him fall asleep on his own in his crib and we put him down when he seems to be getting tired.
Here’s my big million dollar question!
My 7 month old son treats his bottle like a pacifier. He will continue to suck until all of the milk is gone if we let him at night; but after 1-2 oz. he is asleep. He wakes every 1-2 hours to be put back to sleep. I. Am. Pulling. My. Hair. Out.
Would this be an instance in which we should do CIO or should we night wean first? Even though he isn’t actually hungry for the feeds?
I’m trying to wean my 1 year old from the one night feedi