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Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.
This week’s question comes from Ivy:
“My baby is almost nine months now. I breastfeed him, and he always drinks himself to sleep. I wonder why this is not good for him. Why should he be awake while he’s eating?”
That’s a great question, Ivy. You haven’t said whether he’s up in the night for feeds. My guess is that he is, although I occasionally get an e-mail from a parent that says, “I nurse her to sleep every night and she sleeps straight through the night until morning.” If that’s the case, then that’s great. It’s really fortunate that somehow she’s figured out some skills on her own and manages to get herself back to sleep in the night without your assistance.
So, in those cases, until you have a problem, don’t bother trying to fix it. You might find that when you’re ready to wean, or if she doesn’t sleep through the night anymore at some point, then you might have to reevaluate this situation. If she’s waking up now, then you need to go back to the beginning and realize, “Okay, I have to break the association between feeding and sleep. I’m going to stop allowing her to fall asleep with the breast, and then I’m going to teach her how to do this on her own without my help,” which you might have to do anyway down the road. I suspect that when you’re ready to wean is when you have to do it.
It’s not that it’s bad for a baby; it’s just a strategy. If a person convinces himself that in order to get to sleep, he must bridge the distance on the breast or bridge it with the bottle or use the soother or get rocked to sleep, then that’s how he wants to do it most every time. So what tends to happen is, if the baby nurses to sleep, then two hours or four hours down the road, he’s awake and crying because he’s tired and wants to get back to sleep but needs you (or thinks he needs you) to come in and do all the things that you did initially to get him to sleep.
So when you’re ready to make changes, I think it’s important to eventually teach children how to do this on their own so they feel confident and capable and feel that they have the power to do this on their own. Eventually you want the child to happily crawl into bed, be on their own, fall asleep, and sleep through the night. That is what every parent wants for their child, and that’s what I want for every child, so those skills carry on into adolescence and adulthood. You need to have a strong foundation of good sleep habits and good sleep hygiene, so that it continues on with you through your life.
So again, Ivy, it’s not a bad thing. I don’t want you to feel bad about it, and if your baby is sleeping relatively well while you do this, then for now it’s fine. Just know that when you’re ready, it is something you can change and that it’s completely possible for your baby to learn a new way to get to sleep. And when you’re ready, come find me.
Thanks for your question, Ivy, and sleep well.
To learn more about The Sleep Sense Program, click here — or you can click here to order now!
To ask a question about your child’s sleep, just leave it in the ‘Comments’ section below! I’ll choose one and create a new video answer each week!
Hi Dana, a couple of days ago I had 3 glasses of wine around 6pm that was before Kago’s bed time which i nursed before she slept n then she became so edgy n resless finaly slept around 10pm didnt wake during the night, the next morning when i nursed her she became like the previous night n she napped around 10am for less than an hour. Was it the alcohol that made her so restless? when n how much alcohol can i have when nursing?
well i have 2 problems 1 how to get a 10 month old sleep through the night with out feeding her a bottle like a bed time routine and 2 i just got my son off his bottle like a month ago he is 2 how do u get him go sleep on his own with out me being there with him until he goes to sleep so i can get some sleep when i dont get certain amount of sleep im moody please help what is the sleepin training i dont like to hear my child cry
Hi Dana My baby just turned one on june 22nd and he still is not sleeping through the night. I usually give him a bath then give him a bottle and put him down around 730- 8 oclock, but he wakes up between 11 and 12 and wants to be rocked and a bottle again to fall asleep, but then he wakes up again at aroun 3 or 4 and its the same routine. Help P.S. he used to sleep his nights at around 6 months, by the way he is just starting to have teeth. I thought it was teething but for 6 months??
I have a 7month year old girl..She won’t sleep in her own bed.I nurse her to sleep in mine and she will wake once i try to put her in her own bed and then will fight to stay awake in fear that i might try putting her in her cot again..Any tips how to make the transmistion? the only way i can get her asleep now is by feeding her so any tips on that would be good too :)
I have a ton of sleep issues with my 7 month old, but my main concern is that I have stopped allowing her to fall asleep breastfeeding or by my walking her for a couple of months now, yet she still screams/shouts/cries/writhes for 15 minutes or so to get herself asleep. (which is about half of the actual time she sleepsduring naps). I’ve been staying at her side until she falls asleep. Why does this behavior continue? I thought she would get used to this and the fussing would decrease. Thanks.
Hello Everyone. My son is 7 months old. Around 3 mths he was sleeping through the night, then he quit. So we started cereal. That didn’t work either, he didn’t want to eat. Eventually he got to the point where I would get up to breastfeed him about twice a night. However, this past week has been a nightmare. As soon as we lay him down he screams at the top of his lungs and crys. When we pick him up he still screams for a while & then eventually falls back to sleep without nursing. But once again, when we lay him down he screams. I’m only getting about 4 hrs of sleep each night…and we are not doing anything different in his bedtime routine. Would anyone please have an idea of what is causing this? I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
This is not related to the the recent blog- I am a customer of sleep slense but have my book tucked away- I have a 2 1/2 year old- will be 3 in July- His name is David. I am wondering when is the right time to cut his 1 nap. For a week he was just staying in his room talking in his crib. I started to cut his nap but am afraid i made a mistake with that. He gets sooo tired around 4-5pm. We’ve done this for 2 weeks now. When is the right time to cut his nap?
My son has just turned 8 months old and we take him up for a bath at 6, we then bath him, pop on clean pjs etc and he has a last feed of the night, he then goes to sleep ok and all done by 7ish. Lately he has started to wake up earlier and earlier in the morning. Is there a way I can change this? I’m getting up and feeding him at 5am and he wont settle again. In an ideal world I don’t mind being up from 6. I did try making all his meal times half an hour later throughout the day to see if I could then give him his dinner, bath , bed and last feed later but he was overtired at mealtimes and would hardly eat and his sleep reduced further as he hadn’t eaten enough. Any suggestions would be great. Thank you.
My baby is 8 months old and we started the sleep trainning about a month ago. He seam used to it already, but sometimes wakes up because he looses his dummie. He won’t get back asleep unless we go to him and give his dummie back. What should we do? Let him cry himself asleep without the dummie? Please help… thanks
Hi my little girl is 9 months old and although she sleeps all night she will not go to sleep in her cot unless I sit with her and hold her hand which she holds next to her face for comfort. She then wakes up hlaf an hr later every night and I go back into her and hold her hand again until she falls to sleep which is normally ten mins later. She then sleeps from approx 8pm-6am the following morning. She has been waking a few times in the night recently but not every night but doesn’t want anything she just wants to play but then will scream if I leave her in her cot to fall back to sleep. She will not go in her cot during the day and I normally have to rock her to slpp during the day then she sleeps on the sofa for napprox 30 mins a time and I have to sit next to her. I am going back to work soon and would love her to be able to be put in her cot and peacefully go to sleep. Does anyone have any ideas. We have tried controlled crying but she screams everynight for nearly 2 hrs and I can’t stand to hear this.
Thanks
Kerry
My daughter has always slept in her own bed but I kept her in my room till she was 11 months and she had no problem with sleeping in her own room. I moved back home about 6 months ago so now we are back to shareing a room. She is now 23 months, and has never had a problem going to bed untill she found out she can get out of bed, about 2 months ago. Now bedtime is a game. She has always went to bed at 9 pm and use to ask to go to bed. Now it’s a game and it takes a hour and a half to finally get her down. I work nights so most of the time my parents have to put her to bed and they have to get up in the morning to go to work. We don’t let her out of her room and just put her back in bed and tell her it’s night night time. The nights I am home for night night time I lay in my bed and everytime she gets up I tell her to lay down it’s night night time. Now she is trying to find every reason not to go to bed. She tells me she has to go potty or she wants juice or she wants a hug, and the newest is her stuffed animal she has always slept with needs hugs and juice to. My dad has asked me to look into a night time baby sitter, but I get off at one am. I am afraid if I do that when I go to pick her up she won’t stay asleep once we get back home. Some of my friends told me to put a T.V. in her room but I only let her watch T.V. in the morning and don’t want her to get in to the habbit of sleeping with the T.V. on. Why is night night time so hard? Please help Thanks
Dana PLEASE PLEASE help us! Our son is a year old now and he STILL does NOT sleep through the night. He will only sleep for a couple hours and then he is up screaming like he is in pain and wont stop. I think I have tried about everything….letting him cry, rocking him, soothing music, colic meds, sleeping with a wedge under his mattress. I am loosing my mind with no sleep EVERY night! Is there anything I can do or is he just the kind of child who is a restless sleeper?
My son is 7 months old, at 5 months developed an ear infection since then has not been drinking milk that well. Now his milk intake for the whole day is around 7-9oz included in food. He used to drink around 25 -27oz in a day. He will be sucking on the bottle for 10 minutes and only drink 1 -2oz . He is on solids 3 meals a day. I have tried the following – cutting back on solids, different bottles and teats nothing is working. Also taken him to a cranial osteopath which also did not help with the milk intake but has helped his sleep.
My son was getting up a couple of times a night and would have around 3oz, but now he gets up only once and will only have 1-2oz.
I am so worried that his milk in take is low knowing how much milk is important for his growth, i add in milk to food but he still never reaches the requied level of 18 – 20 oz at this age, he only has 7 – 9oz
Keep telling myself it’s teething but for this long. His weight did drop after the ear infection but has not dropped since just maintained at the same level. Please help what else can I do? thank you Nimee Liyanage
My son is 7.5 months old and has no problem going to sleep on his own, at bedtime and nap time during the day. I put him in his crib awake and he’s asleep within 5 minutes with no fussing.
But he still wakes twice during the night, and I can’t get him back to sleep without nursing. He’s 20lbs and healthy in every way, so I don’t think he ‘needs’ to be fed during the night.
How do I get him to sleep through?
you’re right, after 6 months, he doesn’t need a night feed. My son was the same, it seems that a lot of nursed boys like to get picked up and the cuddle that they get when breastfeeding at night!! Stop picking him up and give him some water instead, do not talk to him and do not switch the light on. After a couple of nights he might understand it is not worth the trouble waking up.
I can definitely try the water, but he’s a baby that has to be burped after having anything to drink, so I’ll have to pick him up for that. I’ll give the water a try though.
So tired of being tired.
How many sleeps should a 9 wek old baby be having during the day and how long hould each sleep be?
My son just turned 2 years old. We moved to a new house 2 months ago and with the stress of moving we pushed the nap from 11am to 2pm but he stays in bed for another hour without sleeping. Now that we are settled in the house we want to put him down for his nap at noon but he won’t nap at that time. He usually takes a nap in the 3 o’clock hour which is too late if we want to put him to sleep at 7pm. At night when we put him in bed he falls asleep on his own. If he doesn’t nap at 12pm, we have decided to not give him a nap because it disrupts his evening bedtime. He sleeps through the night until the next morning unless he is sick. How can we get back to our 12pm naptime? Advice please.
Alex’s Mom
It’ll take a long time, but try moving nap time slowly back to when you want him to sleep. Like 10 minutes earlier every couple of days. Hope this helps.
My son is 6 months old he has asthma, he will cry for more than 2 hours if i let him to fall asleep. it make his have a asthma attack if i do it how can i qet him to bed without cryinq?
My 8 month old goes to sleep by herself but wakes several times during the night. Any tips on how to get her to sleep through? I can’t let her cry at night because of other family members. Any advice appreciated!
Have you tried changeing there diaper, my daughter use to wake up when she was to wet or had pooped in the middle of the night. I always change her in her sleep befor I go to bed, so her diaper isn’t to full in the morning. And if my daughter does wake up in the middle of the night I never take her out of her bed. I go a cover her back up and rub her back or her belly and quitely say sshhhhh. and once she starts to fall back to sleep I leave the room. We share a room some times I can just softly say sshhh a few times and she’s right back to sleep. And at 8 months there teeth can bother them or they can have a bad dream. They sometimes just need to know mommy is there and it’s ok.
Hi
my daughter betsy is 9 weeks old and since her colic has eased she has been doing really with sleep and has been doing a solid 9 hours.
As the colic was so bad and we were permanantly holding her to ease her it has took us weeks to get her into a routine of falling asleep on her own again.
Now my problem is trying to move her forward a little so she will be sleeping through the night as at the moment she is not waking up from a nap she has at four pm and that is when she does her nine hours! If we try to wake her from sleep or keep her awake she goes very easily over tired and then she is a nightmare to get to sleep or even console .Any tips would be great thanx
My 15 week old baby girl is soon going to grow out of her moses basket and I would like to get her into her own room and cot when she does. How do I ensure a non-traumatic transfer? At the moment, she has a last breasfeed at around 7.30/8.00, a lullaby and she goes off to sleep by herself in her basket after that. Any tips?
what I did with my son to transition him is to put him in his crib for naps during the day for a week or so and then after about a week of him doing fine in his own crib I started putting him in there at night as well and he did fine. Hope this helps
I have a son who is 3. Ever since our daughter was born (who is now 8 months old), our son won’t go to bed without my husband being in the room (usually rubbing his back). He also comes into our bed most nights and my husband has to take him back to his bed and stay with him until he falls asleep, which means, my husband usually ends up sleeping in the twin bed with our son most nights. Our son also has always been a VERY early riser, getting up for the day around 5:30. Do you have any suggestions on how to help my husband get out of the lengthy bedtime routine as well as ways to help our son sleep later in the morning (7:00 would be ideal)? Thanks.
Why does my 4 month old sleep through some nights and not others?
My little girl started sleeping for 7 to 8 hour stretches overnight from 8 weeks of age, then at 12 weeks she started waking around 3 or 4 am again. I thought it was a growth spurt, but it has now been nearly 5 weeks of never knowing if she will wake or sleep (she may sleep through 2 or 3 nights in a row and then wake in the middle of the night for a few nights). When she does wake for a feed around 3 or 4am she doesn’t feed well at her first feed of the morning. Should I try to resettle her at 3am rather than feeding her? or just continue feeding in the hope she will get back to a consistent sleeping pattern?
Gosh, my son is 5! and I have had maybe a hand-full of full nights sleeps in the past five years. His dad and I have had split custody the past three years and he has this problem in each home. He calls out for me every night (after usually 5 hours of sleep). He complains of nightmares or just waking up and feels he needs me there to protect him back to sleep. I know I have to get him to do something for himself and he even knows that he should not be calling out for me, but I can’t not go to him. Any suggestions for a 5-yr- old? Thanks!
I used the sleep system perfectly with my son (full-term) but am unsure about how/when to start with my preemie (4lbs. 37 weeks). What do I do when she cries at night, etc.? How do we start, do we start at all? She is on a fairly routine schedule b/c she was in NICU. Can you help?
I have a question about separation anxiety. I think that’s my little girl’s problem. She always wants me to be right next to her during the day and she used to be very good at going to sleep, but now she cries and screams when I leave her at night. Do I need to stay in her room longer so she knows I’m still there and start the whole 10 night program over?
Hi my daughter is 4 and 1/2 months ,she had untill 2 wks ago been waking up once during the night which was bliss,but about 2 weeks ago she has been waking up frequently through the night,when you give her the dummy she instantly goes back to sleep,this goes on all night any ideas how to break this habit ?
Sounds like it could be her teeth starting to bother her.
My son used to do this I just stopped him having the dummy at night, teach her to sleep without the dummy.
My son is 21 months old and he’s been on the arm since birth, slept in his cot but woke up alot ‘cos he wasnt on the arm. Now he’s at creche and I’ve moved a mattress into my room and i sit next to him for him to fall asleep. It’s difficult sometimes ‘cos he’s naggy and sometimes he cries, but he goes off only after a long while. I take him into the room after a bath and massage at about 6:30pm and sits with him till he falls asleep. My son is very restless in the night. He tosses and turns and recently he’s been crying out in his sleep “mommy” all the time. The paediatrician also diagnosed him with night terrors happening during the day and night. It’s very hectic for me as I havent had proper sleep for almost 2 years. I seriously need help please?
im the grandmother n i can that lex is doing all the right things being a fantistic mother… but what does she do when the baby has no dummy no teddy is 10 months old an has only known t…when i wake mum feeds me n puts me to sleep on boob.. just to keep the peace..so baby cant go tosleep wihtout mums booob in mouth.. i know try too put clothing to sleep with..but how long do u let them cry 4???????????????
I have a 5 month old son who sleeps in the bed with me. we start his bedtime routine around 8 and I usually get him to sleep around 8:30 by bottle or by rocking him, walking with him, singing to him whatever it takes. He wakes up 2-4 times a night. Usually around 10 and ill give him a bottle and a pacifier after and he goes back to sleep and then he wakes up at 2,4,and 6 and its the same process over. I was thinking about buying your sleep sense program and I was wondering in order for it to work would I have to get him to sleep in his own bed first and how would I even begin to do that?
In regards to this this is great but i find that my little girl eve is so tired that she does fall asleep i have tried singing tickling lights on lights off and she normally is asleep or is really tired resting when i finish and burp her that she is pretty much asleep by the time i put her in her cot…. my night routine is 5pm solids 6pm bath 620-630 til 650 brest milk 650 burp 7pm cot should i change my routine so that she is nto so tired and falling asleep like solids milk bath cot? what is a good routine?
I am really in dire straits! At 3-4 months my son only woke around 1-3 times a night and started to even get down to one. He got sick and since then I now have a 9 month old who I nurse to sleep everytime – day and night. But wakes 30-45 mins – especially at night after a feed. I burp him well. Until about two weeks ago he never took a dummy so I would have to feed him or rock him back to sleep. He generally wakes about 7 times a night and I get about 3-4 hours sleep a night for the past 5 months. When he wakes he is very upset at waking and just wants to sleep. During the day he can be like this too! Most of the time he has slept on me (in a sitting position on our couch) in order for us both to get sleep!! I try the cot, but most of the time he wakes when i put him down. We have tried the leaving him to cry/scream but he can go for hours, and we give in as this is torture to hear. He feeds well, and is a lovely wee man who if you met him during the day you would never guess what we BOTh go through at night. He is smily and charming and is growing very well. He was born 9 weeks early and is making up for it in every way. BUT this is breaking my spirit and I know that it is not doing him any good either. I am doing everything I shouldn’t but I am doing it because I am desperate for those minutes of sleep that I see everyone else having…
I have to nurse my 11 month old to get her to sleep. I was so exhausted I took the advice of a community nurse and let her cry herself to sleep, checking up on her every 5-10 mins. It took over 4 hours for 5 nights to get her to sleep. She then was frightened of her cot and wouldn’t even have day naps. am now nursing her to sleep again. Is she a lost cause?
Hi
Am worried about my babies they 1 year 3 months but they dont sleep nice during the day
pls help.
I have a 4 month old girl who goes to sleep on her own at night still wakes up once through the night for a bottle then goes back to sleep until around 7am. However i cannot get her to have a good sleep through the day. On average she has about 1 hours sleep a day and not one solid hour it will be 20mins here and ten there, so basically she is a napper. I look for the tired signs and put her down in her cot and have no luck. Some days she is grissly all day and others at least half of the day. With having a 3 year old to run around after i am at my witts end. I have tried the pram inside and that doesn’t even work. Has anyone got any other suggestions?
I have two questions, the first one is my son is 14 and a half months, and he cries constantly, he cries over nothing most of the time. How do I change this? And as for my second uestions, he DOES NOT sleep through the night, I can not get him to sleep good and through the night, he always wakes up at 4 or 5 and won’t fall back asleep either. What do I do to change this?
when he is crying constantly is he hungry? I know my son is 12 1/2 months and he goes through days where he will eat reg. amounts then other days it’s like he is starving. And thirsty
My son is 20months old. Sometimes he sleeps through the night and other times, like the past two weeks, he wakes up in the middle of the night and wants us to just stand there next to his cot.
He also struggles to fall asleep on his own. He falls asleep on the couch in front of the tv or in our bed. He won’t sleep until his father comes to bed which is sometimes at 10pm.
I don’t know how to get things back to normal. Please help!
Hey everyone. I have a 14mo old son and I used to have these problems. I fed my son to sleep and he’d wake up through the night, we were miserable! Until we decided to do something new. We stopped feeding him to sleep and he would cry cry cry. OK! so every 20min we would go into his room, comfort him tell him its ok, its bedtime! We would lay him back down, tuck him in and tell him goodnight. If he didnt lay down, we’d just say goodnight and leave. We did this every 20min until he went to sleep. Trust me. this works! We followed this routine for about 1month. It took awhile and it was terrible hearing him cry. But i suggest if youre as miserable as i was, DO THIS! They wont get hurt because youre checking on them every 20min, so theyre ok. You just need to be calm and act like everythings ok, they will feel your calm aura and eventually know themselves they are OK and its time for bed. Good luck! and stay consistant!
Ok, I need a lot of help with Sleep with Dean out little one. He takes one 2hour nap a day. We usually nap with him because we are to exhausted. We have a bedtime routine also, bathtime around 800, snack, sippy cup of warm milk, stories and bedtime at 10:00. He is 17 months old and has only slept 4 nights all night. Could milk do this? At one point, i thought he might have a allergy to milk. He usually wakes up at least once a night. It is weird, i will go in his bedroom and say Dean time to go back to bed, i will look and his eyes are closed, but he will go back to bed on his own. Could this be sleep walking? or Sleep waking?
Thanks
Michelle
I’d say you need to put your son to bed 2 hours earlier than you are doing. Usually a toddler needs to go to sleep around 8 p.m. You might find that it solves the problem because your son is overtired by the time he gets to bed and can’t get a good sleep. At 17 months, my son woke up around 7 a.m., napped from 1 p.m. to around 3 p.m. and was going to sleep at 7:30 – 8 p.m. and sleeping all night. Babies have an internal alarm clock that gets them up fairly early in the morning, so 10 p.m. is probably too late a bedtime.
Just my guess!
My son is 22 months, from the the time he was born I would hold him untill he was fast asleep and then about 7 months i made the mistake to allow him to sleep in bed with me. I have tried many time to put him in his own bed or even on the coach which is closer to my room, and allow him to put himself to sleep, but have had no luck all i get is screaming that breaks my heart. On most night I put him to sleep on the coach or in his room and by midnight he is climbing into my bed, some nights I dont even relize he is there. Please help me find a way for my son to fall asleep on his own and stay all night!
My baby is almost 8 months old, and until she was 6 months I was breast feeding her to sleep and she was sleeping through the night (between 8 and 10 hours normally). I’m still co-sleeping with her and I’m happy doing that for now, but I was told I needed to stop feeding her to sleep and to get her out of bed with me asap. I am not so concerned with her sleeping with me but for the last 2 months I’ve been having to hold her (sometimes as if I were a swaddle blanket because she doesn’t like to be wrapped in a blanket)and continually put her pacifier in her mouth until she falls asleep. She isn’t waking up as much anymore (she started to wake up 5-10 times a night after I stopped breast feeding her to sleep) but she still takes anywhere from a half hour to 2-3 hours to get to sleep, and usually wakes up an hour later needing the same treatment. Is this normal or should I start to transition her to a crib sooner than later? I want her to be able to sleep on her own but do it comfortablly. help!
Thanks, Dana, I got your e-mails, what was hard to put into your form was that I have twins, didn’t write about the other one bc he is the good sleeper! Thank god! But, my problem is I can’t do any of these techniques or she will wake him up and I’ve tried. tonight I tried putting her in a pack and play in my room which is next to his room and even with the door closed, he became quite distressed at hearing her crying and woke up and started crying. He has gotten used to going to sleep with a paci and sometimes needs that readjusted but I really don’t want to disturb him and have a small house, theRe are no other rooms, so that’s not an option. I let her cry today for a half an hour at naptime, and finally gave in and again tonight at bedtime for 15 minutes, both times I ended up nursing and she falls asleep pretty quickly. When I’mn not here in the evenings, my husband will rock her. She did used to go to sleep on her own a couple of months ago, but not since she could stand up. She sometimes sleeps thru the night, til 6 am, but more often she is up one to two times. The only reason I can keep this routine up is that I am not working and my husband is a teacher and is home in the morning, so I typically go back to sleep in the morning, but I am still exhausted from not sleeping thru the night and don’t like not being able to be with my kids in the am or make plans before noon. Also, i have gained quite a bit of weight which I think maybe linked to the lack of sleep…. sorry this is so long! Deb
my daughter is 8 weeks and every night between 10-11 at night she wants to fight her sleep always at that time how can I help her fall asleep without her fighting her sleep we have tried everything please help
if she is only 8 weeks she is not going to do good on a schedule yet but will soon…Try to start letting her only have 2 naps a day 2-2 1/2 hours a piece and then she may sleep better at night
My 3 mth 2 week old son goes into his crib awake, swaddled with one arm out and i pat his bum for a minute or so to sooth him and then walk away..he usually falls asleep but often wakes after 1-2 hours all night long–when this happens i go in and pat him again and sometimes have to pick him up to settle him..and sometimes feed him to calm him back to sleep and sometimes i let him whine/cry a little to see if he settles himself
My questions are:
a) at what age should i stop swaddling – right now it seems to be his sleep signal as he calms once hes swaddled
b) how many times a night does he need to eat? (hes 16 pds) – he’s in bed by 7pm at the latest–and usually wakes 1-2 times in that first hour, wakes at 10pm and i feed him , then he wakes around 1am ( i usually leave him to fuss for 5- 15 mins..sometimes he goes back to sleep sometimes i need to go in but i do not feed him), he wakes again around 3 am for a feed and then at 5 and usually babbles/fusses for 30 minutes and goes to sleep til 630am
c) how do i teach him to go back to sleep on his own?
Do you have any idea as to what could contribute to our baby Joshua’s varying sleep patterns? He is 13 months old and sometimes sleeps 10 hours, other nights reverts back to old habits of waking 2-hourly as he constantly did before we started your sleep strategies.
hi dana, i am regularly watch your blog. i have my daughter of 22 weeks old. dose fall a sleep on her own in her bed. the problem is she wakes up in middle of the night 3-4 times and i give her pacifer back but she keeps on crying then i nurse her and then she goes back to her bed and fall a asleep on her own. she is fully awake when she goes back to her bed.i have being nursing her in my bed when she was born but now i stop that habbit. she dose sleep on her own in day times with her pacifer.
she is on solid food dose have it before she goes to bed + has breastmilk before she is ready to bed.she napes for 4 times in day for an hour.
can u please guide me. how to help her through out night.
bindu
HI Dana,
my son is almost 26 mons old…..for a long tim.e now, he does not want to sleep in his own bed although he used to do that before…now he insists on sleeping with us, and after some time and after feeling not comfortable sleeping beside us”due to small place left for him :)” he wakes me up to put him on his bed and stay with him off course…..and when he wakes up again in the middle of the night he comes to us again…so we all do not get any comfortable sleeping at all…i don’t know where is the problem exactly ??,i don’t know whether he likes his bed or not??
Hi
My daughter is 5 months old and is breastfeed. I am having trouble getting her to sleep through the night. She has a bottle of formula before bed (200ml) and is put to bed awake at around 8pm.
She will sleep for 5 – 6 hours before waking and starts sucking her thumb. She wont go back to sleep and then starts playing in her cot. She doesnt cry for me but I give in and get up to breastfeed her anyway so she goes back to sleep.
Should I be getting her up and feeding her? If i leave her she will just play..
My 9 month old goes to bed on his own awake, but still wakes up 4 times a night. What should I do? I need sleep.
I have an 11 month old and i am wanting to ween him so as he is no longer nursing by 12 months.
He has a big feed before his morning nap and also one after his bath then its bedtime.
Where do i start?e seems very reliant on those feeds.Should i wait till it seems he is ready?
Hi Dana
My daughter Eden is 6 months. She is a great baby during the day & is in a good routein, however she wakes up about 4 to 5 times in the nights, sometimes even every hour. I don’t feed her in the night, but she has a rollover feed at about 11pm & drinks it in her sleep. She takes the dummy, but it’s still hard to settle her in the night. Please help me out as I don’t sleep for more than 2 hrs in the night.
My daughter is 19 months old. She is still breastfed and we are still cosleeping. We started cosleeping when she was a baby becuase of space constraints and continued because she learned to climb out of cribs at 7 months. We have tried to move her to a toddler bed, but have had no luck so far. She refuses to stay in bed and will cry for hours, even if we stay with her. She only wants to sleep in our bed and nurse to sleep. How can I help her learn to sleep in her bed and not need to nurse to sleep? She still wakes up once or twice at night wanting to nurse. Some nights she’ll put herself to sleep, others she will cry and cry until I nurse her, even if I rock her and hold her. I want sleep to be a pleasant experience for her, but I would like to wean her before she turns 2 (for personal reasons, not because I have to). Thanks for your help!
I am still nursing my son during the night. But he wakes up every two hours after the first feed of the night, how do I know when to nurse and when not to nurse without confusing him.
I have a baby almost 9 months old. Before she goes to bed, I feed her and then rock her and then she sleeps. However, she wakes up every two hours and wants to eat again. After she drinks like 2 ounces of formula or after i breastfeed her she sleeps again. What should I do to make her sleep through the night?
Try to keep her awake during the day as much as possible so that she is tired enough at night.
Keeping a baby awake in the day to try to tire her out is a terrible idea!! Babies’ sleep does not work the same way as adults’ sleep. They need sleep in the day in order to not get overtired. You know that you don’t sleep well at night if you are overtired! 9 month old babies usually need 2 good naps during the day (morning and afternoon – 2 to 3 hours in total) in order to function well, be happy and to be alert enough when awake to learn properly. Even though it is counterintuitive, once your baby sleeps well in the day, night time sleep problems often solve themselves because the baby is well-rested and can get themselves back to sleep when they wake up in the night. The first thing to do is make sure your daughter is getting enough daytime sleep so she isn’t too wired to sleep at night. Then you can start sleep training at night and breaking the feed to sleep association. It isn’t easy, but if you are consistent, it will work. I know because I did this with my son when he was 6 months old and he has been a terrific sleeper ever since.
There have been many studies done recently that link childhood sleep deprivation to ADHD, ADD and obesity, as well as trouble functioning in school and learning disabilities. Please don’t rob your child of the sleep she needs at this age as it can have lasting effects!!
Hi dana, my daughter is 9 months old and i love her to peices, but when it comes to night time i dread it. During the day she is happy with our routine of breastfeed and then walking around to two lullabies and into bed awake to find her comfy sleep spot, and this is her night time routine too and it works, so i know she can get herself to sleep but she will still wake through the night 4-8 times! Sometimes its every two hours sometimes every half hour and sometimes she wakes after just 10 mins and im just soo exhausted. I feed her back to sleep during the night because nothing else works. She wont take a dummy, she wont take water, she wont just stay laying down and let me pat her(she HATES this), she wont stop squirming to the breast if i just pick her up and walk her and she will scream like shes in pain for over an hour if i leave her to it. Is there any hope for us? I havent had more than 2 hours sleep in over nine months, please help
Maybe take a look at what she is eating (solids) during the day. She may have residual wind from something she is eating – i find that yoghurt (the fruity types) and wholewheat bread are not that great for our one year old. She sleeps through the night if i don’t give her yoghurt during the day. (might give the plain stuff a go – maybe fruit yoghurt has too much sugar that ferments in the bowel causing gas?) This is just a theory but it pays to eliminate certain foods just for a try. Good Luck
Hi Jess – You’re not the only one, you could have been describing my daughter. I haven’t had more than 2 or 3 hours sleep in nine months either. She just won’t settle at night without a feed, and even then wakes up half an hour later. Good luck
ok my 8 month old lily does make herself fall asleep in her crib, with no bottle, but she only sleeps about three hours then is up again and she screams and screams so i give her another bolltle it is the only thing i can do to get her to sleep again if i let her cry she would go on for hours! ( i have 8 in my house and everyone else needs their sleep) i have no idea what to do. oh after she sleeps in her crib for the short amount of time she likes to go back to sleep in her car seat she prefers to be elevated. how do i break this cycle? please help
I am having the same problem with the waking up but if she likes to be elevated you should elevate her crib on one end with bricks or wood blocks or something like that. It works well especially when they are sick it keeps the stuff draining down out of there heads. My son sleeps better with his crib elevated sick or not.
why do kai musa attacks his face when he is hungry
I asked one question earlier that is much more important for me to find answers to but have just one more. About once a month my son (12months) goes to grandmas house to sleep over so me and my husband can go out and he doesnt do well sleeping over at her house at all. At first I thought it was because he wasn’t home but we went out of town recently and he did fantastic going to sleep(in his pack-n-play) just like he does at home. But when he is at her house she can get him to sleep but he wakes up about 5-6 times a night. Is it because he knows Im not there? Besides the sleeping part he does wonderful over there and loves visiting. What could be wrong?
what age does baby’s start teething and what is the maximum hours an 8weeks old baby can sleep through the night without his milk
Hi Musa
My baby girl is ten weeks this monday, for the last week she has been sleeping through (only waking for her dummy 1-3 times through the night) so is managing without feeds, she fights her naps through the day, sometimes only having 2 hours, sometimes having up to 5 hours through the day, she has between 5-7oz per feed, breakfast, dinner and tea, then we give her a last feed at 9.30 then put her down, she usually goes until 8 am.
Hope this helps
I have a 5,3,2 yr old and (1 on the way). the 5,3 yr olds go to sleep in their own beds after sotries and kisses but during the night visit my bed 2-3 times. We got soooooo tired that we just leave a mattress on the floor with a blanket now coz our bed sometimes is filled with 2 or 3 kids!!! how do we break this habit especially from the 5yr old. she has been doing this for years.
My 15 month old slept through the night until about 6 months. He started waking with teething and I began to feed him to get him back to bed. Now, he is 15 months and still wakes 1-3 times per night to feed. I have tried everything to change this. I know I am not helping him by feeding him. THe main issue is his cry is so shrill, he wakes everyone including my 4 yr old. There is no peace if he is awakened. I am a FNP, so I know what I would tell someone if they asked me about this, but I cannot seem to get the job done.
Please help.
Thank you for your time,
julie
My baby will be 1 in 2weeks and he is still not sleeping thriugh the night. He wakes up crying 2-3 times for a feeding. How can I teach him to sleep through the night? Is this happening because I am feeding him throughout the night? Help!
How to help a baby to go to bed on his own without stress and cry?
My son is 6 months old but his corrected age is 4 months (2 months preemie). We’ve started a bed time routine with him which is bath around 6pm then a bottle and bed around 8pm. He wakes about 3/4 times a night for a bottle. If he doesn’t get his bottle right away he screams. I am at a lost and I do not not know what to do anymore. This has been going on for about 2 months. What makes it worse is that we co-sleep and he is still upset. I’ve attempted to put in his crib. He sleeps for 40 min then wakes up screaming. Instead of moving forword we are moving back words! I just need to be pointed into the right direction.
Hi Dana,
My 8 month old daughter was sleeping 3 naps per day of 45 mins and going to bed around 645pm and waking around 7am with one night feeding occasionally. She falls asleep by herself each time. Lately though, she is not napping longer than 25/30 mins and sometimes not falling asleep at all. We know she is tired, yawning, rubbing eyes, ears, etc. but don’t understand why she won’t sleep. I have tried dropping the third nap because I thought perhaps she only needs 2 naps…but then I don’t know what to do when she won’t sleep for the second nap and is up for over 6 hours before bed! She is still sleeping at night with one waking for feeding, but is now waking up even earlier, sometime between 6 and 6:15am and waking my 4 year old earlier now too.
There is a new tooth but it doesn’t seem to bother her that much.
Help! We don’t know what has changed our little sleeper’s good habits…
Thanks for all your help,
Tracy
My daughter is almost 10 months old. I nurse her exclusively still because when i tried to get her started on solids she had a bad reaction so we’re waiting. Also around the time when we were doing more solids she had a week where she was getting better about night wakings. We had been doing about 3 per night, and then for a week we were down to 1 per night. When i gave her some solid foods suddenly it was back to 3-4 times per night. She goes down for naps and to bed awake and is able to fall asleep by herself and sometimes during the night i hear her wake up and then quickly go back to sleep. Other times she cries until i come in to feed her (sometimes i keep her awake and sometimes i just don’t care because i’m so tired). She also wakes up a lot when she knows my husband and i are still awake-it’s like she doesn’t want to miss out on the “party”. Even if we are as quiet as we can be she still seems to be able to tell if we’re awake or not. Why is this? I like for her bed time to be between 7 and 7:30 pm. We’re not always perfect, but that’s what we shoot for and she takes 2 naps in the day both lasting about 2 hours each. She will sleep 12 hours or more during the night usually-with night wakings. We’ve had a couple of nights where she hasn’t woken me up. Any suggestions on how to improve things? Other things I think may be bothering her in the middle of the night are: teething (she has 6 teeth already-four on top and two on the bottom) and her tummy (since the whole solids thing, her digestion has not been the same, she was pooping at least once per day and now she’ll go several days without going and will hold her stomach sometimes. when i go in she is sometimes holding her tummy like it hurts and that’s why she woke up.) sorry my questions is so long… thanks, Megan
is the fact you’re not feeding her solids on Doctors orders? if not I’d be worried that her iron stores will be severely depleted and she will be underweight.
I am having the same problem. Using the sleep sense method at night worked and is a breeze! I am amazed that it only took a week to get my little girl trained. Thank you Dana!!!
But…..nap times are working with the same methods. I try not nurse her to sleep but every once in awhile it happens because she goes all day without a nap. I tried setting a routine, getting her to nap at 12:30 everyday, feed her a light lunch, change her diaper, maybe read a short story, and then put her down in her crib, do the 3 min rule (let her cry, then go in to comfort her but not hold her) and this can go on for 2 hours. After a week of it, I though maybe my routine was wrong. Or maybe naptime should be a little later when she’s more tired (around 2pm) but she just won’t nap. I’ve tried to stick true to the sleep sense method but I’m not quite sure what I’m doing wrong. What can I do? Do some babies just not sleep during the day? I would think that isn’t good for them, right? Any suggestions?
I dont feed him to go to sleep, I do have a nightly routine, I WAS guilty of holding him until he fell asleep. Now trying to put him in his crib. But he still wakes up after 5 hours, STARVING and has a wet diaper. I will add his is only 5.5 months and is the average height and weight of a 12 month old. Do you think that has anything to do with it? He is a monster baby. How can i get him to sleep longer? My only “offense” is holding him too long before bed until he is sound asleep – but am breaking that habit this week.
my daughter is 16 months old now i have been nursing her to sleep all this time and she wakes up twice atleast in the night and doesnt go back to sleep until i nurse her. i really want her to be sleeping through the night without me b/c with this routine of ours i have to let her sleep in my bed and than whenever she wakes up i nurse her and we go back to sleep thats the only way where i can get some decent sleeping but still i am tierd the whole day….i really need help and hopefully a solution which wont take long to take effect…thanks dana looking forward to your reply..
Hi Dana, Reuben is now three. For the whole time of his life he has never slept through the night. Now he is still waking at least 4 times during the night, and coming into us, despite repeatedly being put back to bed. He is finally awake and fireing on all cylinders between 4-5am (groan).
Goes to bed easily around 7-7.30pm no problems at all.
Any suggestions please help us,
Thank you
My daughter is 18 months and she sleeps in a toddler bed. my problem is i can’t get her to lye down and go to sleep. I put her in the bed, turn on her music and tell her nite nite. as soon as i walk out she gets up and eaze her way back down the hall. so then i closed her baby gate where she can’t get out of the room and some times she cries and cries other times she plays with her toys. So i end up rocking her to sleep and then putting her in her bed and shes fine. HELP
Maybe she’s not ready for a toddler bed yet? Does she put herself to sleep in a crib?
In the past i was bottle feeding my baby to sleep but just recently i started feeding her then putting her to bed without the bottle so that she would be able to sleep on her own and also be able to sleep through the night without my help (hopefully) but my question is how am i suppose to keep her awake when its hard for her to be having a bottle and stay awake? so i have been waking her after her feeding and then laying her in her bed….is that what i should be doing?
thanks dana
I had a similar problem with my daughter and tried a few different ways. It seemed to be easiest for her if I kept her awake while she was eating. I would just tickle her, or talk to her and keep the light on while she was eating. It took about a week before she understood that she was supposed to stay awake while she ate, but once she figured that out it was much easier. Hope this helps!
My baby is 12 months old and goes to sleep on his own!! But, wakes up every night after about 4-5 hours crying I comfort him and put him back to bed…no problem. Then around 4 in the morning he wakes up and will not go back to sleep no matter what I do unless I give him a small bottle….What should I do? I know he should be sleeping through the night but screams until he gets that 4 am bottle of milk. It’s hard to just stop giving it to him because my husband had to work and it wakes the whole house???? HELP PLEASE
What time do you put him to bed? Remember most infants will only sleep a max 11-13hours at night so if you are putting him to bed at around 5pm it makes sense he is awake and ready for your attention at 4am, maybe take the time to slowly readjust the time you put him to bed, my daughter goes to bed at 8pm because i am not into early mornings, so she doesnt get up for a feed and breakfast until 7am, hope this helped
he goes to bed between 8 and 8 30. I’m wondering if he is just hungry at that time and that 4 oz just takes the edge off till morning when he wakes between 730 and 8
Is your baby warm enough? If he kicks his blankets, invest in a baby sleeping bag, they are one of the best inventions ever from Europe! Ssometimes we can be so scared about cot-death that we tend to have the room too cool and babies get cold in the early hours of the morning. I hope that fixes it for you. Good luck!
Try a snack/bottle before bedtime at 8:00 instead and see if that helps. He shouldn’t really need to eat at 4 a.m., he’s probably just used to the habit now and if you want it to stop, you’ll need to make a choice to stop it. It will be hard – maybe do it on a weekend when your husband doesn’t need to get up so early?
I would also like to know why my 11month old goes to sleep on his own at 7:30pm to wake every 4-5hours and is looking for the bottle to resettle? It is starting to wear me down….
thats the problem …we all think that its gunna keep dad awake ..but with the suport from dads it will all work in …we feel comfortable wakeing? but all blend intogether n work ..so mums dont feel so useless..cause they dont have to keep baby as quite cause dadf has to work…WORK TOGETHER..u r doing the right thing..get into a ruteen n stick with it,,[sorry about my typing n spelling but i dont do this stuff..] some times it hard to take advice but just take little bits in n try if it works GREAT.. read lots of good advice …n goooooood luck.xxxxx
My daughter is 3 now, and for 3 years I havent had a full nights sleep, up until 2 years she was up around 5 times during the night, since turning 2, she wakes at 8am, doesnt sleep throughout the day and is still awake mosts nights at 10pm, despite all advice.
poor honey i feel sorry for you and hope you get the chance to have a good night sleep soon, i fear that my daughter will end up this way too, so far its only 9 months of waking up 4-8 times a night every night, and im soooo sick of it, i pray for a good solid nights sleep (Preferably longer) for us both
My 10 month old sleeps great at night. We have a bedtime routine and he falls asleep easily and sleeps through the night. Nap times are totally different and we’re working on them, but I usually end up nursing him to sleep and holding him for the entire nap time. I do a routine similar to bedtime, but my problem with nap training is that he cries & screams even when I’m right there patting his back/belly and shushing him and telling him it’s sleepy time. If I leave the room it gets worse. My question is: how long should I let him cry at naptime? I know the problem is MY inconsistency, but I hate for him to scream when he so easily falls asleep nursing in my arms. I’d rather him get some sleep than no sleep. I’d just like him to nap in his crib.
I am having the same problem. Using the sleep sense method at night worked and is a breeze! I am amazed that it only took a week to get my little girl trained. Thank you, Thank you, thank you!!! But…..nap times are working with the same methods. I try not nurse her to sleep but every once in awhile it happens because she goes all day without a nap. I tried setting a routine, getting her to nap at 12:30 everyday, feed her a light lunch, change her diaper, maybe read a short story, and then put her down in her crib, do the 3 min rule (let her cry, then go in to comfort her but not hold her) and this can go on for 2 hours. After a week of it, I though maybe my routine was wrong. Or maybe naptime should be a little later when she’s more tired (around 2pm) but she just won’t nap. I’ve tried to stick true to the sleep sense method but I’m not quite sure what I’m doing wrong. What can I do? Do some babies just not sleep during the day? I would think that isn’t good for them, right? Any suggestions?
i have the exact problem with one difference my 10 month old doesn’t necessarily fall asleep at the breast. did you get any responses? i would love to find a solution. i have let her cry for a hour and she still didn’t nap.
10 month olds usually have 2 naps a day – around 9:00 ish and 1:00 ish (depending on how long they were awake before the nap). If you are only doing one nap a day, I’d say your baby is overtired by naptime and is unable to unwind for the nap. Try 2 naps and see how it works.
Hey Dana!
After reviewing several of the blogs on your site, it seems that I’m all over the place. God help me! I’m doing a little co-sleeping and definitely breastfeeding my 9 week to sleep. He just goes that way, but you’re right. He’s back up every 2 hrs on the dot. It takes some time to learn the various cries and so forth, but I now know his “I’m sleep cry” which is almost always time for feeding. What do I do?
I read a fantastic book called The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer (by Tracey Hogg). In it she outlines a pattern which your baby lives by. It goes like this. Eat, Activity (changing, playing etc) Sleep, time for You (The EASY routine). This means that your baby gets fed when he wakes, and then goes to sleep on his own when he’s tired. It takes a bit of effort at the beggining, to get both you and him used to it, but it does work. For night feedings I found it better to feed, then change him to wake him up a bit before putting him back into his cot. (It also saved the double change – when he poo’d during the second half of the feed after I’d changed him!)
Oh, Obviously at night you don’t do the activity bit – just feed and back to bed, with a change if needed!
Every since my daughter was born I nursed her to sleep and she would wake up a couple of times a night and as soon as I would nurse her she would go right back to sleep. Finally at 8 months I was so tired that I decided to put her in her crib and let her cry and I would go in and console her every 10 to 15 minutes until she falls asleep. She does sleep fall asleep after crying for about a hald hour and she sleeps through the night. My question is, how long before she doesn’t cry herself to sleep for a half hour and she’s used to it?
Hi Jennifer
our daughter is 12 months old now and we have had very big problems with sleep. She did the same as your baby and cried for half an hour or more to get to sleep. For the past month she has been going to sleep most nights without crying – One thing i found that really helped was to pick her up after 5 minutes crying and put her over my shoulder and rub her back until she burped ( i think this was what was stopping her from sleeping) The hardest part was putting her back into her cot – she would be heartbroken and cry even harder! But ONLY FOR A FEW MINUTES! Here i was about to pick her up again because im a big softie and she would go to sleep. Now i know what the problem is if she cries when i put her down – it does get much easier to judge as they get older. My daughter knows when bedtime is now – 6.30 and she will come to me rubbing her eyes and yawning to be put to bed. Good Luck and peaceful sleep!
Hi Jenifer
My daughter is 17 month-old. She usually goes to bed at 10 a.m and wakes up every after 3 hours.She cries and I put her over my shoulder and she sleeps deeper after 20 minutes.It’s really terrible.
How can I make her good sleep?
Not long – usually a week will break a habit. You haven’t said how long this has been going on for, so it’s hard to say.
My son is 4 months old. We succesfully started sleep training almost 2 months ago. We have a great bedtime routine and he goes to sleep wonderfully at bedtime as well as naptimes (still napping multiple times a day). He was 9lbs/22inches at birth and is close to 18lbs/25 inches now. He was consistantly eating HOURLY but up to sleeping 4-6 hours at first and then waking every 1-2 hrs after at night. He seems to have had a growth spurt about 2 weeks ago and now he is waking EVERY HOUR (sometimes every 30 minutes)! I got in the bad habit of nursing him back to sleep because for a long time he really was that hungry. Now its just a bad habit but how do I get him to stop waking every hour? I know that he is old enough and big enough to sleep through the night. Please help!
You’re in my boat. I noticed yesterday that when I fed him milk just before laying him down for the night, he stayed for much longer without waking up for a feeding. I think we’re supposed to leave them to cry, but I can’t do that right now. I’m a big sucker! lol.
My son who is now 7 used to do this until he was 6 months old and it used to really get me down! My sister suggested that he must have enjoyed getting picked up and the cuddle he got when nursing. So, instead I decided to have a small bottle of water ready and whe he cried, I went to him but kept everything low key(no light , no talking, no looking at him and DEFINETELY no picking him up) and gave him a drink through the cot’s bars. This routine lasted about 3 nights and he figured it was not worth his while to wake up in the night any longer!
Babies don’t need any other liquids other than breastmilk or formula until after 6 months, so water is just replacing the feeding (just my opinion) and is unnecessary if your son is getting enough milk in the day. Since he seems to be feeding a lot, he’s probably just learned that nursing is comforting and he doesn’t need the nutrition. Try other comforting measures (rocking, patting, shushing) for awhile and see if he can put together longer stretches of sleep.
Yes, that’s why I did it when he was 6 months old to do this. From 6 months, as you rightly say, there is NO need for them to get any nutrition and night time thus no need to feel guilty about giving them water instead. Besides, the water is just to train them that if they cry at night (at 6 months + old), they will not get picked up and nursed just to get a cuddle and that night time is for sleeping.
Hello Dana,
My baby is 8 months! Our bedtime routine involves the following: he takes a bottle at 7:00 p.m. he bathes at 7:30, we used to just leave him in the crib and he would fall asleep on his own, until he figured out how to sit up and stand on his own. We have 2 problems: #1 when we put him down he can’t fall asleep because he is to excited sitting up and standing in the crib. #2 he is waking up at 2:00 a.m. everyday! He is FURIUOS.. we have let him cry and it gets worse, I don’t want to pick him up but he can go a whole hour crying.
Please help!
My baby girl is 8 weeks old and since she was born of course she loves to fall asleep on my arms and as soon as I put her down on her bed she wakes up!!!! Can you please share some suggestions?
Aloha
You’re supposed t wait about 20 minutes before you put her down to sleep- it’s a question of waiting until she’s in a deeper sleep If you put her down while in REM, she’s more likely to wake up. SO, you need to get familiar with her sleep cycles to when to put her down, but generally, it’s about 20 minutes.
you should check if she’s having colic. Mine was like that too. Normally they get good comfort in your arms. I try a technique and I hope it’ll work for you. I try putting her to sleep on her belly. I don’t know if it soothed her or something but it did work. Also I took her to the doctor and was given colic medicines.
REM doesn’t happen until 4 months of age, because they do not have the cortizol (sp?) until then.
My son was the same way…he slept great in my arms, but would wake as soon as we’d place him on his back in the bassinet. This went on for five weeks. Finally, we tried swaddling him and for the first time he slept on his back in the bassinet and slept for longer stretches than ever before. We ended up swaddling him until he was four months old. Try swaddling…if you have trouble doing it with a regular blanket, try a Halo Sleepsack Swaddler. Good luck!
try lining her cot with a t-shirt that you have worn so that your baby can still smell your scent once you put her down. Combine this with swadling her with a cotton blanket so that she still feels secure. Another tip I have hear of is to warm her bed up with a hot water bottle so that she is cosy and snug and won’t realise that she is no longer in your warm arms. Otherwise: just enjoy her cuddles, she will grow out of it eventually, even if it is frustrating at the moment.
Try not letting her fall asleep in your arms, but in the crib. Put her in sleepy, but awake, and let her fall asleep there. She wakes up because of the transfer. Plus, you’ll find this much harder to keep up once she’s bigger and habits are formed. It’s okay if she cries a little bit to get herself to sleep – it won’t hurt her one bit and she’ll learn how to do it herself without needing you to help her.
P.S. Health officials warn not to put babies to sleep on their tummies, as it may be a cause of SIDS. Always put your baby to sleep on her back.
My son is two and half. He was sleeping the night in his crib, until one night he was sick and coughing alot so I let him lay with me because i was nervous he would choke or something. Well he stayed with me for about 3 nights and then when he got better and i went to put him back in his crib…he screamed as if I was hurting him. I tried leaving him in there and it was awful, so of course I gave in and now 3 months later he is still in my bed! Help how do I get him back in his crib???
your not alone! i’ve done this many times with the kids especially when they have been sick in their own beds and there was no where else for them to sleep that was clean! It doesn’t take them long to get used to cuddling you. I usually lie with them in their beds or on the floor next to them until they fally asleep. that was they feel i am still there. (although at the moment we are playing the yoyo game where they visit mummys bed during the night!
if my 6 month old wakes at 3 or 4 am crying should I feed him or let him cry?
thanks
feed him he’s only 6 months. Poor little baby
At 6 months old, he’s probably ready to sleep through the night without feeding, unless he has an underlying medical condition. It’s up to you whether you want to continue nursing in the night or not, but he’s at the right age to start sleep training.
If your son is like my son, then feed him. My son has never eaten large quantities of milk at one time. I would try but even at 6 months, he would only drink 3-4 oz at a time. So he would wake up at 2 am or 4 am. His poor tummy would be growling so I would feed him. Around 8 months he started sleeping through the night occationally. Over time he gradually started sleeping through the night on a regular basis and around 11 months he started sleeping completely through the night every night with no problems.
Just make sure you follow a set routine for these night wakings (lights stay off, no talking, change diaper, feed, back in bed or whatever your routine is) and he isn’t fully asleep when you put him back in the crib (so that he knows how to get himself back to sleep) and he will eventually start sleeping through the night when he is ready.