My baby doesn't sleep well through the night - Help pls

[arvi]

My son who is turning 8mo old is not sleeping well through the night. He wakes up every 1-2 hrs and cries a lot. Its quite difficult for us to sleep as well. We feed him enough right before his bedtime but still wakes up and asks for milk (I still breastfeed). Sometimes even breastfeeding doesnt calm him down.

What can I do? Are there any good books you could suggest for putting baby to sleep.

PS: I'm afraid that he is not sleeping well coz of the fall he had last week. But even otherwise he didnt have a good night's sleep before. Please help me to fix this.

[ISHAYA]

Hi Arvi,

My Baby too wakes in night and some times very hard to put him to sleep. However there is time he sleeps very well. What I observed is some times he get up and  I get late to put him sleep or if I am too hurry to put him sleep he tent to be up for long time.
There are times if he is not feeling well, like mild cold or he feel too cool/warm then also he tends to stay up.
Most of time if my son is crying in the night, I find it at lat he is sick or allergic to some thing. So it’s like he is communicating to us via cry. The last time when he cried and less sleepy in night, he was having a bad cold + skin rash which was shown out after couple of days. I felt so sorry for him. Mean while I was guilty not for knowing my baby.
If a baby is crying at night then for sure there is some thing wrong, just be patent and observe your babies feeling. 
Good luck.


 

[FloridaMom]

My son who is turning 8mo old is not sleeping well through the night. He wakes up every 1-2 hrs and cries a lot. Its quite difficult for us to sleep as well. We feed him enough right before his bedtime but still wakes up and asks for milk (I still breastfeed). Sometimes even breastfeeding doesnt calm him down.

My little one did the same thing to me (every 1-2 hours she was crying and only nursing could calm her down), so I had to introduce a pacifier. It didn't solve the problem, but at least I didn't have to nurse her that often. There is a good book that can help you http://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Sleep-Habits-Happy-Child/dp/0449004023. I got this book from the library. Lots of people on this forum recomend it. It did work for me but not for long 1-2 months only and then things went back to "normal". For no apparent reason, no changes in the schedule, she started getting up once or twice at night again. She is 26 months old and even now she will sleep through the night once-twice a week. I read 2 books about sleeping habbits and tried them on my child, both technics worked but only for a month or two and I didn't have enough energy to go through the "training"again.
I gave up. Just let it go as it goes. I have a friend and 2 of her kids were bad sleepers but her baby #3 started sleeping through the night being 2 weeks only. She didn't do anything different with this child, she says she is just getting rewarded for all the sleepless night with 2 elder kids.
So I would recommend you to read that book and follow the instructions. It should help you. My PCP told me to just let the child cry out, because as soon as they start solids they shouldn't cry for food. Good luck, you really need one.

[Ezhik]

I had this problem for about a month over the summer: up every hour, wanting to nurse. I solved it by moving him into his own room. For some reason it seems he started being a really light sleeper, and every time I rolled over or *moved* it woke him up. He was used to being nursed when he woke, so that's what he wanted.

Within a week of settling him in his own room, he was sleeping through most of the night, nursing 1-2 times and self-settling if he woke at other points. I think that he would have self-settled before, but he heard me and wanted me. Now he is in his own room we both get more sleep! Although he has recently decided that the morning starts at 4am...

Hope this helps

[AussieMumofOne]

I can highly recommend 'Save Our Sleep' by Tizzie Hall! Worked wonders for us, the routines are wondeful and really gave BC (and me!) a sense of security and a general idea of how our days would pan out. Of course we have our bad days, but he is mostly a dream and I think the routines have helped so much.  Good luck!

[Tilly]

Arvi could it be his teeth? moving or coming through.

The fact that he is waking crying could be pain - its more noticeable at night (for babies that's true too). And he could be breastfeeding more to sooth his gums. Try some pain relief and see if it stops then you know. Or he's calling out to you - separation anxiety may also have started for him. We've seen both and if its not teething pain then baby pain relievers wont stop the crying so then you can try strategies for the anxiety.

Our little boy has never been a wonderful sleeper - have read so many sleep books and tried so many things and we seem to take two steps forward and one back. 

For us Dr Sears, Pinky McKay and Elizabeth Pantley's books are favourites - realistic and gentle and they know what they're talking about - all big researchers into child development.

Be warned of sleep trainers and leaving baby to cry alone (or protest until they become distressed) - let them grizzle a bit and protest sure but if they are getting upset then step in quickly - if its separation anxiety leaving him wont help.

We recently tried to help our baby boy learn to "self settle" in his cot alone (he has turned one so we thought time to try again) and after three days of this he now screams if he's taken near his cot or we turn on the mobile.   So for us its back to bouncing him to sleep on the exercise ball with lots of cuddles to heal from the trauma  one day he'll get it.

Let us know what works

[arvi]

Thanks for your replies friends. Will try those and let you know how it goes.

[lizaveta]

this may not be too helpful, but some babies just don't sleep through the night. for example, my daughter. she is 19 months old and is still waking up EVERY night. we are sick and tired of it, of course, but considering that there is nothing wrong with her, and the eternal teeth may or may not be to blame, i've just given up so to say and feed her every time she wakes up. i am assuming that once i stop breastfeeding, at two, she will stop waking up too. this is what happened to a good friend of ours. as soon as the milk dried up they started having better nights.

[a mommy]

I'm not sure if him not sleeping through the night is a new development or an ongoing thing?  Or how long he is up for when he wakes up?

Our son is a very poor sleeper. We went through about a year of him waking up every half an hour or hour throughout the night, almost every night, and he would be up for a long period of time. I do not know why he was waking, but to me it indicated something was wrong. Finally, he slowly improved, getting up less and less often, and around 19 months, he started to sleep through the night. He still gets up some nights, but he is also teething, and that really bothers him. This is based on our experience only, and everyone needs to decide what they are comfortable with trying. So, here are just some of my thoughts. 

Book recommendations: the books that I found to be the most helpful, and was the most comfortable following some of the ideas (and believe me, I was desperate read a lot of books on the subject), were books by Elizabeth Pantley, Dr. Sears and Tracy Hogg. I read the Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child and found it to be a very good resource for learning about children's sleep. However, for me personally, I was not able to follow his advice.

I am not sure if you have introduced solids, but if you have, have you kept track of what you have been introducing, and noticed one common food or groups of foods that those nights seem to be worse? Also, since you are breastfeeding (congratulations on that), could something you are eating be bothering him? Is it possible he has an intolerance or allergy you are unaware of? One child I know cannot have food high in fibre, so all beans, lentils, etc had to be cut out. This could be anything, not just food - the material of the clothes he is wearing, anything in the air....

Teething can bother some children quite alot, and wake them. Have you tried any painkillers to see if it helps?

Is his routine working for him? Could he be overtired or undertired by the time he gets to bed, and is waking because of that?

How is he falling asleep? If every time he is falling asleep in your arms or at your breast, when he starts to transition through his sleep cycles, he may realize something is different, and wake up to be comforted back to sleep the same way.

You say you feed him right before bedtime. Is it possible his stomach is bothering him?

Some people are just very light sleepers. Could something in his sleep environment be waking him? Is it too light in his room, and waking him as he transitions through his sleep cycles? Could he be too cold or hot? Is his sleep surface comfortable for him? Or maybe he just senses mommy and wants a snack?

I don't know how comfortable you would be with alternative therapies, but have you considered trying one? An osteopath or cranio sacral massage therapist may help him be able to relax, or relieve any pressure in his body. If he is out of alignment, a chiropractor may be able to help. A naturopath may be able to recommend supplements that would help. Or a homeopath may work for you. I don't know if it was related or not, but when our son first started to sleep through the night, it was a couple of weeks after visiting a homeopath. She hooked him up to a machine, which gave a reading on what his body was doing, and we went from there.
 
I hope you can get some sleep soon!

[khatty]

My daughter never slept through the night until she was 2 1/2.  I breastfed and just came to accept that she would wake up 2-3 times every night.  I was an exhausted mother, but I just tried to nap/sleep whenever I could.  I found co-sleeping and breastfeeding made it slightly easier to accept being awake a few times in the night.

She is now almost 3, and will sleep through the night about 4-5 times a week and the other 2-3 nights a week she is only waking up once and wants a glass of water and will fall back asleep within 30 minutes.

I know it doesn't help now, when you can barely keep your eyes open and everything else in your life is on hold because you are too sleep deprived to do much, but this phase will pass.  At some point, your child will sleep through the night.  Until then perhaps consider just accepting your child for their needs, regardless of the time of day.

I read Dr. Sears and Pantley and a few other books, and tried many techniques, but in the end nothing worked or changed my dd sleeping, accept time/age.  I found it easier to just accept it, and let myself be o.k. with it, vs fight her.  I found it easier to respond to her needs 24 hours a days if I cut back on my other commitments.  It is (and sometimes still is tough) to give up so much of my life to meet her needs, but I remind myself, they are only little once, and I can have my life/activities back in a few years, she will never be little again.

Good Luck to you, sleep/nap whenever you can, and hopefully this phase will pass quickly.

[lizaveta]

khatty,
it's nice to read of someone who went through what we are going through. my husband thinks it's my fault for spoiling my daughter, but i still breastfeed too, and my daughter who is 19 months now has never slept through the night. this makes life somewhat difficult and lately she has started waking up every 2 hours, 12, 2, 4, 6, 8. it might be her teeth but that is an old card to play. in any case, i take solace in that during the day she is a great kid and that once i decide to give up breastfeeding, things will get better. was weening hard? my daughter took well to not drinking milk during the day but i  am afraid of the night weening process.
liza

[khatty]

I weaned very very slowly.  I started the process about 20 months, reducing the feedings one at a time.  I removed the day time ones first, starting with late afternoon, then lunch, then morning, until I was only feeding at bedtime and during the night.  I used distraction and sippy cups of milk or water.  It was sorta a 3 steps forward 2 steps back process but I did eventually get to only night feedings.  Then I moved on to eliminating the night feedings, they were much harder.  I replaced a feeding with reading books instead.  I admit to reading for more than hour to get her to sleep some nights, and then again reading for an hour in the middle of the night to get her back to sleep.  A lot of nights I just gave up and breastfed instead.  Slowly I started to see that 1 or 2 nights a week I could get her to sleep without feeding, and then it was 2-3 nights, etc.  Again, it was a slow process and there where weeks we went backwards.  Around 29 months I was down to feeding her at night or to bed only once per week.  I admit that I was actually sad, I was a little sorry to see our bond fading.  We are still really close, but after wanting her to sleep without feeding when it actually happened I cried.

Of course, now I am happy that she can fall asleep with me just laying beside her.  She is sleeping longer/better so I am finally less sleep deprived.  Weaning has meant a little more freedom for me, which is good since I am due any day now to have a new baby.

I remember being really really frustrated and exhausted when she wouldn't sleep.  I would read the books and try the techniques, and they always seemed to fail.  Which then made me feel like a failure that I couldn't 'make' her sleep.  Of course, due to sleep deprivation, I'm sure I wasn't thinking straight either.  I would be frustrated during the day that I couldn't get the easiest of tasks completed.  I can say that I fought with her sleep pattern until about 16 or 18 months and then I finally just gave up and accepted it.  Accepting her for who she was - sleep patterns and all - was such a relief.  I wasn't any less tired, but I did feel better.  I just let it be o.k. that my house was a MESS and the only thing I was really accomplishing was bonding with my daughter.

I also struggled with lots of family and friends telling me I needed to 'make' her sleep.  I eventually just learned to ignore them.  I could beat my head against a brick wall, or I could accept that my daughter didn't like to sleep.  Acceptance was much much easier on me, her, and our bond.

I really feel for you, not sleeping and having a baby that needs you all the time is difficult.  It is really difficult to Give that much of yourself that often for such an unknown long period of time.  It is even more difficult if the family and friends around you won't/don't understand the breastfeeding relationship and don't support you.  Hugs and Karma to you.

[Stellajo]

I can highly recommend 'Save Our Sleep' by Tizzie Hall! Worked wonders for us, the routines are wondeful and really gave BC (and me!) a sense of security and a general idea of how our days would pan out. Of course we have our bad days, but he is mostly a dream and I think the routines have helped so much.  Good luck!

I second AussieMumofOne's recommendation.  I used Tizzie Hall's "Save Our Sleep"!!  Without it I would have been in a madhouse by now 

Cheers,

[sarahjean]

Are you feeding solids as well as nursing? Both of my babies had trouble sleeping through the night at that age and I found that feeding them I nice big bowl of oatmeal before bed worked like a charm!

[lizaveta]

wow, that account of slow weaning was really something. i am also just feeding at night, and giving up daytime feedings was easy enough. but the night, that's another story. there are neighbors to consider. and i feel like my 20 month old daughter is just getting worse and worse at sleeping at night. maybe i should cut her nap (2 1/2 hrs) but that is the only free time i have during the day and i would sure be sad to see them go. she wakes up every 2 hours now, at 12, 2,4,6, and finally 8. i feed at all of these. so,  i wanted to wean at 2 but it doesn't seem that easy. maybe i should start sooner to get there. i don't think reading would work, in the middle of the night? maybe she would be rocked to sleep once but the rest of the time she screams "mama" with such an intensity that it makes your blood curdle.
good luck to all of us in the same boat,
liza

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