[HopeWishWait]

So Conner is still getting up 1-3 times a night, which doesn't exactly BOTHER me but at his 6 month appointment the doctor gave me the "He shouldn't need to eat at night anymore, stop giving him a bottle" lecture. Which I didn't follow because he would have just layed there and screamed himself to into a frenzy for the rest of the night. (He's not one of those babies that will cry until they realize its not coming and then go back to sleep...nope, not this kid. Too stubborn, no IDEA where he gets it...... ) Anyway, I'm exhausted so..does anyone have any advice, tips, stories, caffeinated beverages they'd like to share with me?

[Trannyfromtheuk]

Have you tried offering him water instead??
I've heard this works for some babies. They realise they are not getting milk and soon stop waking for it when they realise its only water thats on offer.

[HopeWishWait]

I hadn't heard of that, interesting. Definitely worth a shot Thanks!

[*krista*]

I'm no help since I have zero experience with babies, but did I ever mention how cute Conner is?? I love those pics in your siggy, he is such a handsome little man!

[Alison81]

DD was a horrible sleeper. I tried everything. And she would also just cry all night if she didn't get nursed to sleep. I also tried giving her water in a bottle, but it made it worse because then she would go to sleep, but wake up an hour later because she didn't actually get anything. I wish I had worried less about it. I also was told at 6 months old she should sleep through the night, and I just ended up frustrated and with less sleep because of what I thought she was "supposed" to do.

When she was around 9 months old she was just ready, and started sleeping through the night. I kept a very consistent bedtime routine with her, and one day she just started sleeping without waking. Of course she still had a bad night here and there with teething, but for the most part she knew the routine and would sleep all night. I wouldn't worry too much. I sometimes think me worrying about her not sleeping made it worse. Just set up a very consistent bedtime routine, and I am sure he will eventually sleep all night.

[HopeWishWait]

What kind of routine did you do with her, Alison? He's been varying so much lately on when he gets tired and when he's too angry to sleep (he's getting 4 teeth in at the same time) that it's been hard to keep him on a really tight schedule.

And thanks Krista, We're going up to visit my family this week so I'm sure there will be a bunch of new pictures soon.

[Frozendesire]

I agree with Alison. I think babies will sleep through the night when they are ready. Dustin still gets up alot at night. Any where between 3 and 5 times. I'm SO exhausted haha. I think sleep can be interrupted by so many things. Digested new solids, brain growth, physical development, etc etc. So much is happening in such a short amount of time for these little guys!

I hope he starts sleeping through the night for you very soon! I'm right there with ya! Just keep up a good routine and it will happen eventually.

[Mars]

Caitlyn, I SO share your same predicament!

I have tried the water thing but Amara's not a fan of water so she doesn't take it. I did cut out feeding her every time she got up and I feed her once now. I try to do it mid-way between when she goes to sleep and when she will usually "wakes" in the morning. So far he sleeping has started to become more consistent with her waking once but she still has a few days when she wakes more. Once she starts to wake consistently only once, I will try to stop the feeding all together.

Conner is a cutie! I am no help with the sleeping since Jack is younger and still wakes at least once a night. I am zombie.

[misfitinmn]

Like Alison, I spent a lot of time worrying and obsessing over sleep - and to add to my obsession, Ben was swaddled until he was 7 months old and I literally thought he would NEVER outgrow it, and he'd have to be swaddled until he was headed off to college.

When he was 9 months old, after several flukey nights where he slept through, I knew he was not getting up because he needed to eat. We were going through a stressful period of time with my grandpa passing and I just physically could not handle getting up several times a night anymore, so we had to do a bit of CIO. I don't think it would have worked before 9 months, but it worked then! I would go in and just let him know that it was bedtime and he needed to go to sleep. Call me a horrible parent, I would have called myself that before I had him, but once he started sleeping through the night, I became a much, MUCH better (and more rested) parent, and he has a MUCH more consistent schedule now.

For the record, for a long, long time (probably from 2-3 months old) we have used the same bedtime routine (with a few minor modifications) and he is ALWAYS in bed between 7:30-8pm. We've always done bath every other night (lotion on the non-bath nights), read a book, we used to nurse (now I just sing him a goodnight song), and off to bed he goes.

Good luck! I know it's awful when you're living in it, but he'll sleep better for you eventually!!

[LisanAndy]

One thing I know that helped us (Rylie sleeps from 8PM-7AM and has been since she was 4 months. Taylor was a bad sleeper and we developed this routine and it worked wonders) is she is not allowed to EVER sleep past 4 PM. She takes a 30 min nap from 10:30-11 AM some days (if she does, I won't let her sleep past 11) but most days she's up at 7AM, stays up until 2PM and sleeps till 4 and is up until bed time. I also, at around 5 months, let her cry for 10 mins, I'd go in and rub her back but wouldn't pick her up. Andy and I kept this up for almost 2 hours at night for 2 or 3 days and she's been perfect since. It's not easy to listen to her cry but she's a much happier little girl and I'm a well rested, happy mommy! Good luck!!

[HopeWishWait]

Alright so...cut out the late afternoon nap and start a more solid routine. Going to try that and see how it goes! Thanks ladies, you are all such a big help.

Cait, did you read the link someone posted in our PR recently? Let me go search it out as it really helped me relax about the whole "sleeping through" thingy, Kirsty still doesn't sleep through, although she has done this past week due to being poorly

Here is the thread: http://www.justmommies.com/forums/f6...lose-soon.html

This page really explains a lot about the happenings to our babies at this age and the disrupted sleep: Ask Moxie: Q&A: what are sleep regressions anyway?, following is the most relevant part to us...

The "8-month sleep regression" (which for some babies is closer to a 9-month sleep regression) is related to the 37-week spurt. For some reason that one just seems to cause more waking, too, than some of the other spurts do. It might also be particularly hard because many babies are smack in the middle of working on crawling or walking, and also teething. (At Casa Moxie we've had probably 8 weeks of crappy sleep between teething, the 37-week spurt, crawling, teething, and now pulling up. Every now and then he'll have an easy night, but boy is it rough being a 9-month-old.)

Bear in mind that individual kids have different reactions to all kind of spurts (physical, developmental, etc.). Some teeth painfully for months, while others just pop a tooth with no symptoms. Some will wake in the night practicing crawling for weeks, while others never do and just take off one day with no warning to you. The developmental spurts are the same, so you might have a kid who has 3-4 nights of wacky sleep and then learns a new skill, or you could have one that spends 3-4 weeks waking up before every spurt.

After months of struggling to have Kirsty accept a bottle, having her still not crawling or attempting to crawl, she only mastered rolling both ways recently, and she still has restless nighttime sleeping... I too am very much thinking, babies will do these things when they are ready, just like Lisa says. I, too, have had a rigid bedtime routine with Kirsty from 3weeks old.

We have always had bedtime cutt-off at 8pm (now 7pm). Now we do her bath at 6:30 or 7 depending how tired she is, but no later than 7pm. (daytime napping must end at 4:45/5pm for her). We have the following routine:

dinner around 5pm, then play on the floor with me or daddy until 6:30/7pm.
Bath with mummy
daddy dries her & puts her PJs on
mummy feeds her her bottle
as I lay her down, I say our sleep cue phrase of "sleepytime darling", kiss her and lay her down with dummy and blanket

The Baby Whsiperer recommends using the sleep cue phrase, I use the same phrase for daytime & nighttime sleep.

Set out a routine you want to do, it may include quiet play, reading a story, watching a favourite cartoon, etc, anything you wish. But keep the same things in the same order every night and he will soon learn to expect what comes next, eventually leading to bed.

Sorry this got so long!

[HopeWishWait]

I had missed that post, thanks Fi! I'm going to start him on a routine tonight, it will be a little hard with Nic switching shifts every week so I guess he gets left out of it I'm not really worried that he's not sleeping, I've always thought that sleeping through the night was just one of those things that will come when it does but I'm exhausted every day and then up 3 times a night, I feel like I have a newborn all over again, so I really want to do everything I can to encourage him to start sleeping.

[Resi]

I'm no help what so ever. Oliver still wakes up several times each night and he is almost 14 months. That has a lot to do with co-sleeping, BF'ing, and comforting nursing.

I'm going to read what everyone else said now!

[ShannonMVT]

Matthew still wakes up, but when it's more than a few times it seems to be something else going on. I don't mind waking once, that pretty much always happens b/c he needs to eat. We have a bedtime routine here and try to have bedtime around about the same time. There is a happy medium with his naps...if I let him nap too late then he isn't tired for bedtime. BUT if I try to keep him up awhile to "tire him out" before bed then that is a bad bad bad thing b/c he gets overtired. Of course Conner is older so his napping scenario is prob different than Matthew's.

[soImarriedAnerd]

I don't get how anyone can tell you that "he shouldn't be hungry"?! How the heck would the doctor know, thats like telling an adult only to have 3 meals a day because your not really hungry--NOT true in my case! LOL Its not like he is obese and you need to be worried about wt. If they have a growth spurt physically or even with other developmental milestones they eat more because they need it. They know what they need and how often.
I would strongly NOT recommend water though....it most likely will make the issue worse because you "fake" fill them up and then they will wake up early/more because they are still hungry...not to mention the wetter the diapers that will more likely wake them also. And its like cereal....NO nutritional value at all.
My opinion would be...if YOUR ok with it and HE is ok with it and everyone is healthy....keep doing what your doing and ignore the "they should be doing xxx" things. Sounds to me like your doing just great on your own

[HopeWishWait]

I had tried water for one night a while back and it basically worked like the others said, that he woke up an hour later because he was still hungry. But like last night, I know he wasn't waking up because he was hungry...because during the day he eats ever 4-5 hours but he woke up 3 hours after his last bottle, which he never does. So I'm guessing maybe the teething or maybe because he's starting to learn to crawl more and all these milestones are kind of coming at once. Once a night I can totally understand, heck I wake up hungry once a night But 3 or 4 seems like a little bit more than needed especially since I know he CAN do it, he has before for a couple week stretches at a time (dang you growth spurts!)

[soImarriedAnerd]

oh so he has longer periods between feedings during the day then at night. London would do that....my way of fixing that was to just kind of "encourage" him to eat more frequently during the day then he seemed to go longer at night.

I just put Kirsty's waking down to teething, trying to get moving, and growth spurting all at once. She pooped a top side tooth through just over a week ago and slept better at night after that. Then she got sick

Can you feel any toofers through his gums?


ETA: What a fab typo... You know it should say popped!!!