help...6 month old waking every hour or so at night

[lovingabby]

My 6 month old started waking every hour or so at night it seems when I introduced solids. I have been doing cereal and a little banana in mid morning and early evening. WOuld that cause her to wake up so often? 

One thing to also know is that I have been accidentally parenting her by rocking her to sleep for many reasons. Up until I introduced the solids it was not a problem. SHe would sleep in large blocks at night. Now I think when she wakes up whether it be five minutes later or an hour later she wants to be rocked back to sleep.  I don't really rock her completely asleep but only until she is really sleepy. Any advice on that issue would be helpful. I will let you know that PU/PD and shushing only make her madder and scream louder. I am not sure whether to let her CIO in the crib with me standing beside her comforting her until she sleeps or not is the way to do it either.

Even if she wants to be rocked back to sleep...something is causing her to wake up so often and need to cry to let me know...that is why I asked the solid question above.

She has always taken 45 minute naps and seems fully energized from those naps. However, she is not taking as many (like 2 a day) instead of 4-5 a day before solids.

She is BF about every 4 hours during the day. At night I feed her at 7, then around 11 and not again until early morning (like 4:30). I have thought about trying not to feed her the early morning one.

I am very exhausted due to her waking so often so any ideas??? :? 

Thanks,
Suzanne

[Paulsmama]

Hi, just to let you know that our DS had a lot of tummyaches waking him up at night when we started solids.  We kept solids to the morning for a while and were very slow introducing them.  He actually had quite a bit of problems at first with cereal and banana (at 8 mos we still only give him 2 tsp of cereal per meal max) -- pear and squash seemed to go down better.  There is a lot developmentally going on around 6 mos as well.  Good luck.

[lovingabby]

Thanks for the info on the cereal.  I will try pears and squash instead and see what happens.  Last night was a little better (only every two hours at first and then every hour later). II figured a lot was happening developmentally but I was not sure if waking every hour was typical or not.
Thanks,
Suzanne

[Paulsmama]

I don't know about typical but our third day of rice cereal DS woke every hour in the night.  Next night I think 5-6 times, and we had some overlap with developmental rolling nightwakings.  Started trying some different foods.  All in all we had one HORRIBLE week, another week where he woke 3-4 times a night, then a couple of weeks with 1-3 wakings -- it was about a month until DS started sleeping through again.  I think it was a combination of his system getting used to the foods and us figuring out which foods are ok -- and we're still working our way through the list.

[lovingabby]

Thanks for the info. I too think I have a sensitive DD to foods so will have to figure out things. It is hard to tell what she really has trouble with because she has always been a gassy baby.

Thanks again,
Suzanne

[teezee]

same prob here too and i think paulsmama has it right on the nose!  with everything happening developmentally and with the introduction of new foods it is hard to tell exactly what is going on.  i have been giving dd cereal since aprox 4 months ( on docs advice for reflux ) and had no probs at first but then dd started to get constipated from the rice.  when i switched to barley, she started waking at all hours of the night with gas, so i started with oatmeal and pears with barley once in awhile and she seems to be doing much better!  i have a hungry little piggy who absolutely LOVES her solids but i have to limit her or else we all have a very long night ahead of us.
tawnya