Advice on Not Feeding 5 Month Old at Night in Order to Get Him to Sleep Through

Sorry but your Dr's advice doesn't seem okay with me. That is insane, tough love on a 5 month old?? that is a new one on me! I am all for not jumping with every fuss but not until later. At five mos they are wired to wake if they need something.

My daughter had reflux, she outgrew it by 6 mos, but if they have an empty stomach that esculates the reflux, did your Dr tell you that? Maybe increase the ounces at the feedings?? If he takes more then he needed more. Also don't assume the meds will work, if you are nursing he could be having a reaction to something you are eating too. Some meds work on babies and some don't. For my daughter it helped but at the same time it didn't totally go away until she just outgrew it and moved onto solids.

Also he could still be uncomfortable from reflux and going through teething, growth spurts all of which cause sleep disruption. At 5 mos if he wakes there is very well a good reason.
My daughter didn't go without a night feeding until 11 months of age, my son didn't sleep all night until 10 months!

At 5 mos he is growing fast, brain developing and they know when they are hungry and you did not train him to wake.
I NEVER did cry it out until after the year mark and rarely had to do it after that other then teething and bad dreams or them being sick.

Hi B.. I would recommend reading 12 Hours' Sleep by 12 weeks old by Suzy Giordano. She is a baby consultant in the DC area and has 5 kids, including a set of twins. She talks about which feeding to eliminate first and how to do it. It worked great for our son. I wish I would have found it before he was 9 months old. I just kept thinking he'd figuire it out. I also read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth. Good luck and I am praying for you!

H.

It sounds like you got a mostly good advice on here, but I want to add that you might want to find another pediatrician. They are just fanning the flames and it doesn't sound like it's helping you.

I have heard great things about Partners In Pediatrics. I think they would be a great fit for you! It couldn't hurt to get a second opinion.

You have such a beautiful baby! I hope things get better!

Because your baby has reflux, he may be waking up because he is in pain. Have you ever woken up because of heartburn? It feels so awful! That is how your baby feels when he is suffering from the reflux. You can try haivng him sleep on an incline so that his head is higher than the rest of his body. The best way to do this is to buy a foam trianlge and put it in the crib, cover it with a crib sheet or recieving blanket and have your baby sleep on that. Or you can use pillows UNDER one end of the crib mattress (never put a pillow in the crib). You can also try giving your baby a massage before bed, there is evidence that infants who are massaged sleep for longer periods of time. Personally, I fed my babies at night when they woke up crying for the first year. I just nursed them in my bed so it was really easy for me, I didn't even wake up completely most of the time. I think that sometimes your baby might really be hungry, or maybe some breastmilk helps to alleviate the pain from reflux, kind of like you might drink a glass of milk to combat heartburn. I hope that things will work out well for both of you!

Sleep training usually takes a week to really see results. The 3 day mark is usually good improvement but there is always a regression at day 5 and that usually makes people give up sleep training because it "isn't working".

There are 3 schools of thought. Cry it out is the first. (don't get the 3 day sleep solution...it is not worth the $40) You let your baby scream. usually it is about an hour the first night for each session. Then about half that for the next night and then virtuatlly nothing the third. I had a very hard time doing this with my first two so I went with the baby whisperer style of sleep training.

That is the second type. you pick your baby up to soothe and when they are calm you put them back down until they scream again. The cycle may go on for 100 pick ups/put downs and then 50 and then 3...I find you are still letting them cry a bit but you are with them the whole time. If you try this it works well to have a partner who is there to take every other night. My husband didn't have it in him to sit with them so I did it all by myself and it was difficult but doable.

In both methods I have found a pair of earplugs was my best friend. You can still hear the crying but it takes the frantic edge off.

The third is the sleep lady who says you should put a chair in your childs room and sit with them until they fall alseep. Then the chair gradually moves to the door and then out the door. I don't knwo if this is true for the little ones but this is her method for the toddlers.

For this last one we went with cry it out but I still feed him in the middle of the night sometimes. He eats at 10:30 with a dream feed or he will wake at 3:30 and when he does I know that he is really hungry. (we had the habit of waking every 2-3 hours to eat too)

Good luck. Sleep training is totally worth it. I know you can do it.

With all my children, once I knew that they could sleep for a certain amount of hours, day or night, I would never feed them again for that amount of time. During the day I would feed them often but during the night I would make them wait if I knew they could sleep for 5 hours straight. I would just give them a binky to sleep with. These stretches became longer and longer until they were finally sleeping through the night. With my youngest, she did go through a spell were she would wake up a lot at night to have me put the binky back in. So I finally let her cry it out for a few nights and she has been fine since. It took about a week but she figured out that she was fine and could get herself back to sleep. I hope this helps.

Hi B.,

Boys tend to eat more often early on....And reflux babies cause things to be tough, they will wake up from sleeping asking to eat just to wash the acids down.

Is his mattress at an incline (buy a mattress sling from a reflux website so you can incline him at night and not worry about him falling to the end of the mattress)--expensive but worth it.

Also put him to bed without nursing him first, then the about 5-7 days later start shortening the feeding times by 2 minutes a night, also don't jump up and go to him right away wait a set amount of time, I would move him out of your room if he is nursing, he can smell your milk and any snoring will wake him....Reflux babies sleep lightly. Also use a white noise machine or a fan to help drown out snoring etc. that could wake him.

Solids can actually increase reflux depending on what you are giving him. No peaches or anything acidic....Also if you are breastfeeding--no caffiene, garlic, chocolate, citrus, tomatoes, high fat foods, or diary in your diet (diary bothers the majority of kids with reflux)... It takes 2 weeks to get that stuff out of your system.

If he is on prevacid I would see a specialist GI....I wouldn't want my normal pediatrician giving him prevacid, zantac yes, but not prevacid(different medications)...Don't worry prevacid is a safe medication my daughter took it, but I would see a GI if my pediatrician went directly to prevacid.

See a pediatric GI they will have tons of wonderful advice and affirm how tough it is with a baby with reflux.

Also make sure your son is not teething! (Do not give him Motrin--hard on the tummy--ONly tylenol--talk to your pediatrician).

Hang in there,
R.

Hi B.,
I have a 9 month old son who has reflux and we had a lot of challenges of him waking up and wanting to nurse. The doctor also told me to let him cry it out, but I just couldn't do it! I never knew if he was in pain from the reflux or just hungry. And being hungry does aggravate reflux. I also noticed this more when he would be having growth spurts. I wasn't sure if some of this was a learned behavior though, so I got The No Cry Sleep Solution, and it teaches ways to get your baby to sleep through the night without letting them cry it out. This has worked very well for me, and even though we still have some nights that aren't perfect, I have seen dramatic improvements! The author does let you know, though, that results won't be immediate, but rather, gradual. Just knowing that helped me to be patient. I really highly recommend the book!
Good luck! Your baby is still young, and it sounds like you are doing a great job being a first time mom!

well my two kids were still waking up at night at that age. So I think every kid is different. My kids weren't ready to sleep through the night at that age. I think it was because they are smaller and my milk doesn't seem to be as fattening as other moms. So they needed the calories at night. But if you feel that your baby is big enough and ready to sleep through, I would recommend using baby steps. It takes time and patience. I first cut down the feeding time to about 5 minutes and then rocked them to sleep. Then after a few days and they got used to that I eased them to being rocked to sleep without being fed. The next step is that I would sit in the rocking chair with them and rock only if they started crying. As soon as they stop crying I stop rocking. That way they are slowly learning how to fall asleep on their own. So the last and final step is that when they wake up crying I first try to rub their back or tummy when they are still in the crib. If that doesn't calm them then I pick them up but stay right next to the crib until they calm down. As soon as they calm down, I lay them back in the crib. And repeat until they are asleep. Eventually they learn to connect the dots and sleep longer stretches on their own. I don't see any reason why someone would have to use the cry it out method. It seems cruel. There is always a lot of crying involved when teaching babies to sleep but at least my way you don't feel guilty and the baby doesn't have anxiety about being alone. Also learning to sleep is like anything else we learn riding a bike, learning to read it takes patience, time, and understanding not forcing a baby to learn it in one night by themselves. Also don't forget to check for signs of teething if your baby is crying a lot at night. It seems that it always bothers them at night. There were a few times when my son was just crying and not calming down. But then we gave him the Tylenol and he calmed right down. He hadn't been really fussy during the day only at night. And the next day the teeth broke through.

Try adjusting his feeding schedule. Breakast lunch and super just like you. Maybe a little cereal in the evening. A little applesauce or fuit with the cereal during the day and then drop one of the feedings. He should adjust to the food and not miss the feeding
Let him fuss a little and see if he goes back to sleep on his own. I'm sure that you will get lots of advice to draw from and you will make the right decision. Good Luck!!!

At 5 months, babies can definitely fall into habits of waking up even when they don't need it. Don't fall for the 'if they're waking up they must need something' thing. When my son was 4 months old, he was doing really well - only waking once at night to eat around 2am. One night I fell asleep on the couch out of pure exhaustion. The baby was asleep in a bassinet in my room. At 2:00, my husband came to get me to tell me it was time to feed the baby. Since I hadn't gotten ready for bed, I rushed to brush my teeth & use the restroom first so that I could just fall back to sleep after he was fed. I could hear him crying & I was rushing to get back to him. Just before I got back to him, he stopped crying & went back to sleep. After that night, he slept through the night every night. He was obviously just used to waking & eating.

I think your doctor is right on - 5 months is a great time to do some sleep training. But I do have one suggestion as to how to make it go fairly smoothly. Start with one of the feedings that you want to cut out. If he's usually eating at that time for 10 minutes, cut it down to 9 minutes. Cut it down 1 minute a night. He we gradually replace the calories at other times during the day. When you get down to just a minute or two, then you can try some variation of a cry-it out/soothe them back to sleep thing. With my daughter, once I started this, she just gave up the feeding all by herself & started sleeping through. I got the idea for this from the book 'How to Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems' by Ferber. I HIGHLY recommend this book. It has saved me, my sleep & my sanity over the past 5 years. Ferber is a sleep scientist. He gives step by step guidance on how to get your child to sleep well & independently without too much trauma. If you want any info. on his methods, message me. I swear by it. I've had great success with all 3 of my kids with this and he addresses just the kinds of issues you are having, and he recommends starting his methods around 5-6 months. Check it out! You'll be very glad you did. Good luck!

I don't know what other people have said, so I may just be repeating what they did, but with ours, when it got to that point, we just did not feed them. We, either my husband or I, (often it was better if my husband went because he was not the one with the goods, so to speak)would go in there, lay them back down, tell them we love them and leave. We also used a pacifier. We would do that until they went back to sleep and it was rough for a couple of nights, but in the end it was worth it. Anyways, that's what we did

Sounds like he could be uncomfortable or in pain. I'm not sure I'd go with your doctor's tough love approach. Does he wake really abruptly, appearing to be uncomfortable or is it more sleepiness? I got my daughter to sleep through the night--much later than 5 months--by holding her and talking to her. My husband played an important role by going in and that finally got her to sleep through the night. We used the No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. But to me, finding out the extent of the reflux is crucial. Otherwise, you could do the cry it out method, only to realize how much discomfort (and maybe pain) he is in. If you're in the Boulder/Denver area, you could check with Dr. Roy Steinbock at Mindful Pediatrics. http://www.mindfulpediatrics.com He has a reputation for diving a little deeper than just "uh oh, put him back to sleep, his reflux is fine." Hang in there!