Help Getting the Baby to Sleep Through the Night// More Info.

Get her the rainforest mobile from target. It lights up, moves and has stuffed animals (very colorful) did wonders for my baby. Gives them a night light, music, and something to look at.

I doubt that she needs to eat that often at night at 6 months. I would try to wean her down to only one middle of the night feeding, then zero. I know it's hard but try to let her cry herself back to sleep. You will be glad you did.

My grnadchildren always have had a little cereal with thier bottles. It hlps tremendously at bedtime. We mix it with their formula. She takes 2 scoops with each 4 oz of mikk. Right now she is in oatmeal.
Even if she is breast feed, you could pump and add the cereal the give her a bottle for that time. My grandaughter was born a 11.7 and she get hungry so the cereal made a huge difference, She sleeps through the night.

9 hours is quite a long time for a breastfed baby to go without nursing--especially if you haven't introduced solids (which I am in no way recommending).

I faced this same challenge and opted to do a little "dream" nursing. I would put my daughter down around 8, but then would nurse her at 10 just before I went to sleep. She barely even roused but got a little top up and then she would sleep until 4 or 5. Sometimes a little calorie loading does the trick.

I never could let my daughter cry it out--I made it two nights before it was just too much. I can let her cry during a tantrum, I can let her cry when I tell her no, but I really felt like she needed me at night. Only you can know if that is the best thing for you an your child. I've had moms tell me that they cried it out for 3 days and was the best thing they did...others said they did it for weeks to no avail.

Every child is different. Every child goes through different phases. What works today may not work tomorrow. It is great that you have the opportunity to stay home and establish a special schedule with your baby.

Have you started this baby on cereal? Most likely, she is waking up because she is hungry. Don't nurse her at night but give her a bottle of milk with cereal mixed in (you'll have to use a cross-cut nipple for this). Once her little tummy is full, she will sleep longer. As she get older and is eating meat, you can change the cereal to meat mixed with the milk.

Hi E.,,
I personally think she is hungry.the 1st food they say give them is RICE ceral just mix it very thin with your breast milk feed her with a spoon then nurse her ,now at 1st she does'nt realize what food is but she'll catch on quick.The main rule is if adding a new food is to add only one every 2 weeks
Good Luck L. (gramma)

She may need to learn how to get back to sleep on her own - but crying it out is not the only way to accomplish this!! I've used Baby Whisperer (have you ever heard of her?) techniques with both my sons and they have worked wonders. The idea in essence is this - you soothe your baby until she is ready to sleep, then put her in bed while she is awake. If she fusses, you pat her, make a shhhh sound, or do whatever helps her become calm - but keep her in bed if you can. Stay with her until she is asleep or until you feel confident that she is on her way. When learning to get to sleep on their own babies will often cry out of frustration, but you stay with them to let them know you will help them learn and you are there to reassure them. After you do this for a while your baby learns to get to sleep on her own and you can just lay her down and she will go to sleep, and when she wakes at night you do the same thing, as long as she doesn't need a feed or change or anything else, and eventually she will be able to soothe herself back to sleep on her own. If you like the idea and need to know more, I recommend reading :Secrets of the Baby Whisperer." It has done wonders for us!

Also - if you find that nothing works you may consider whether your baby is experiencing some kind of discomfort. My boys both have acid reflux and it disturbs sleep quite a bit when it is not under control. Send me an email if you would like more info. Good luck!! I hope you get some sleep soon!

I just wanted to add - I just read through some of the advice you have been given - so confusing! From my experience 7 is not too early of a bedtime - it is a very good time for bed for baby. And she probably is feeding more than she needs at night, so you may have three factors - a calorie intake problem in which case try to increase calories during the day, or baby doesn't know how to stay asleep, in which case you teach her, or discomfort of some kind is disturbing her sleep. We have had a ton of sleep problems with my kids and so I have read a ton and researched sleep to death, and we have had success overcoming poor sleep. You can do it!!

Have you started her on solid foods yet? My little boy started waking up a lot at night about this age and then I put him on solids and he stopped. Now he's 8 months and started the five times a night wake up routine again, so I increased the amount of solids I fed him during the day and now he's back to only waking up once or twice.

And it's also a good idea to let her cry it out a little and get herself back to sleep. I had to do that with all three of my children at some point or other. I'd suggest always waiting at least 5 minutes before responding to her cries...if they seem to start to become less intense after 5 minutes than there's a good chance she will sooth herself to sleep. If they get worse after 5 to 10 minutes than go and comfort/feed/change whatever she needs.

Two thoughts, maybe she is napping to much during the day? When my daughter was 6 months old she started having to many naps (she was having 3 naps) and then I cut her down to 2 and it worked like a charm. Another thing is she might just need to self soothe back to sleep. If she wakes up just let her try to go back to sleep on her own. Babies have sleep cycles and wake up at different times during the night and have lighter sleep cycles. If she won't go back to sleep go in and comfort her but don't pick her up or feed her. Just give her her paci and tell her "it's ok go night night" and leave. It might take some crying it out for a couple of nights but you can do it. :) Good luck!!

We read Dr. Ferber's book. While I am not necessarily suggesting the cry it out method although that is what we did and our 9 month old sleeps through the night, there is a chapter that might help. It discusses sleep associations. When we were having trouble we were using a twilight turtle. It's like a night light but only stays on for so long. Our son would fall asleep with it but when he would wake during the night the turtle would be off. The room would be dark and he wouldn't sooth himself back to sleep. After reading that chapter in the book my husband replaced the twilight turtle with a standard night light that stays on all night. Now when our son wakes the room is the same as when he went to sleep and he goes right back to sleep. Perhaps the white noise is creating a similar problem for you. Good luck.

I think if she is waking up that much at 6 months old, then you're going to have to let her self soothe and learn to get back to sleep by herself. I don't see any reason to keep a pacifier from her at this age. My daughter's pedi when she was little recommended taking it away by 15 months old or so, but she's still pretty young. I would let her have it at night and see if that helps. Also, she probably doesn't need all of those feedings at her age. You may try to get her back to sleep without nursing at least one of those times. She should be able to go at least 6 hours at this point without being fed, so try to feed her late (before you go to bed) and then try to hold her off until the 4am feeding. She's not waking up because of hunger, so you're probably going to have to let her figure out how to get back to sleep without you. That doesn't mean you have to let her cry for long periods of time by herself, but you should let her have some time to settle and then go in and soothe her without picking her up. Also, get a good bedtime routine going so that she has her cues that it's time to go to sleep for the night. I know how exhausting this can be, so I wish you the best of luck!

We use a white noise cd too. We have a cd player that has a repeat button. That way it plays continually throughout the night. My baby daughter is almost a year and has just started sleeping through the night consistently in the past month. I tried letting her cry it out, but she wouldn't go back to sleep unless I nursed her. I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear, but I have tried to enjoy even the night feedings. I know they won't last too long. Good luck :)

The pediatrician that sees my son started him on fruits at 3 mos.. now that he's 5 months, he's starting him on Veggies and soon he'll start meats, etc. Maybe your baby is hungry and not getting enough to eat? Our Routine when we get home from work/daycare is bottle at 5 p.m., 7:30ish, he gets a baby food jar, 8ish is his bath, and his last bottle is around 9. Also, at mid-morning, he usually has either rice cereal or jar of fruit. For the most part, he sleeps the entire night. If he wakes up, it's usually around 3, so I give him a bottle and he's right back to sleep. I also have a humidifier that's in the room - it's actually kind of loud, but I think the white noise helps him sleep. Good luck!

At this point I would try to get rid of the 4:30am wake up. When she wakes up, just try to ignore her for 15 minutes to see if she'll go back to sleep. She should easily be able to make it from 7pm to 1 am and then to 6 am. I think you just need to retrain her to stop waking up at 4:30. We used white noise also. I downloaded an almost 2 hour long track from iTunes of rain falling on a tin roof and then I burned it to a cd. We found a really cheap alarm clock/radio/cd player and we set the cd to loop so that it was 2 hours of noise that would play all night.

I think our daughter was on the exact same schedule as yours and we did just ignore her at that 4:30 wake up. Amazingly, she would go back to sleep. Around 8 months we had a cry it out episode over the 12:30-1am wake up and then she started sleeping through the night -- 7:30 to 7:30. It was pure bliss. Hang in there, you have a full night's sleep right around the corner.

Hi E.
It seems to me that your little one is a little hungry. I always gave mine a little Rice cereal at their last feeding before bedtime. and, you might try letting her stay up a little longer- seems like there are a lot of little ones with this issue these days- but with my experience in raising 12 children, food was the soother and they all slept all night-
good luck

You're the mom and you know your child better than anyone, but are you sure that she is able to go from 7pm to 4:30 am without being hungry? Have you tried feeding her again in the middle of the night to see if that helps her to sleep longer?

Good Luck,
K.

I just went through the same thing with my 6 month old girl. We reduced her feeds when she woke until we eventually eliminated them. We let her cry for a bit and she ended up soothing herself back to sleep. It is hard to do, but might be worth a try. Ours is sleeping all night now from 7pm to 7am. Good luck, it is a hard transition!

Formula makes them go longer between feedings. When I stopped nursing at night and gave my daughter formula before bed, the first night, she slept through the night.

Hello E. P., I would like to suggest that you let the baby stay up a little later (an hour or two)and give her another feeding before she goes to sleep. My opinion is that the baby is restless and hungry: thus, is not sleeping. Another thing you may try is a warm wipe down when the baby will not sleep. D. W. p.s. I am a mother of five and grandmother of fourteen.

E.,
I'm so sorry that you are going through this, I know from experience that it can be tuff to have a baby all of a sudden start waking up a lot. My daughter was sleeping through the night until about 5 months, she was then waking every 4 hours. I would nurse her every time she would wake, because it was obvious that she was hungry. I had wanted to put off solid foods for a few more months, but she just needed it. I started with a little bit of rice cereal in a bottle before bed, that helped for about a week. I eventually had to start giving her real food during the day so she could be full and happy through the night. I later discovered that my problem was that I wasn't producing enough milk, but my baby was really ready for food.
So I would suggest pumping, make sure that you are making enough milk to satisfy her. Nurse her in a quiet place before bed so she wont get distracted and can really fill up. Then maybe consider giving her a nighttime bottle with some cereal in it. If you are ready to start feeding, then you could just feed her some cereal and still nurse her at night. At about this age they start needing more and not everyone can supply the milk to satisfy them. That isn't to say that it isn't possible though, I know many people who have strictly nursed for a year, so whatever you are comfortable with. Good luck, and I hope she starts sleeping for you.

Hi E.,

I also have a 6 month old. We were able to teach him to sleep through the night around 7 weeks old. First of all, you have to stop feeding her through the night. Basically what you do to teach her is, and you and your husband are going to have a few days of lack of sleep but this worked for us, everytime you hear her begin to figit awake, but she is not fully awake yet, go to her and put your hand on her chest, give her the pacifier, and do this, she should eventually fall back asleep, this is coaxing her back to sleep. You are probably going to have to do this several times during the night for the first few nights, but she will eventually stop figiting herself awake at night. Also, another cause of her waking up maybe her teething, my son is also 6 months and he has cut 2 bottom teeth, he has started to wake up in the middle of the night again, we give him a pacifier which helps soothe his teething. Don't feel bad right now to give your baby a pacifier if need be. hope this helps for you.

L.

I did Babywise.

You not only need to use it as a reference but make sure you are following each step completely. All of my friends have used this method and all of our children sleep.

It does mean she will need to cry it out. Do it on a weekend and find a part of the house where you cannot here her but keep your video monitor by you so you can check on her.

I can't recommend the book The No Cry Sleep Solution highly enough. It helped me tremendously with my now 4-yr-old. Your daughter is the perfect age to implement the steps it outlines. good luck!

It sounds like to me if she isn't getting enough to eat. When babies get older breast milk needs to be suplemented. your breast milk may not be giving all of the increased nutrition that she needs. Please consult your doctor.

I have always had great success with my son sleeping through the night as long as we turn on a white noise maker. Occasionally he will wake up and cry, and I just go in and tell him "it's ok" and tell him to lay down and snuggle and he will sleep through the rest of the night.

I know all children are different and they wake up for different reasons. My advice would be to invest the $14 at Walmart for a white noise maker and if it doesn't help, just take it back.

My son is 2 now and he has slept with it since he was 2 weeks old. Before he goes to bed he turns it on himself and when I get him out of bed in the morning, he turns it off.

I hope you get some great advice through this forum and are able to find the solution that best works for you!

7pm may be too early a bedtime for a six month old. Our twins were going to bed around 9 or 10pm at that point and getting up around 6 or 7am. That may be a bit long for a breastfed baby to go without nursing, but 5 times a night does seem excessive. One trick that we learned from Brazelton's book is that babies wake and settle often through the night and that they need to learn how to settle themselves back to sleep. We started the 2 1/2 minute rule at 6 months. If one of the boys woke up, we waited 2 1/2 minutes. If they went back to sleep, so did we. If they didn't they obviously needed something from us.