Author Topic: 6 month old still waking in the night  (Read 864 times)

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Offline Dovely73

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6 month old still waking in the night
« on: December 06, 2013, 10:43:25 am »
Hi,
I really need to get my 6 month old sleeping through the night. His sleep has really changed over time. He's had periods when he's slept through the night and then regressed again. I'm largely to blame as I've fed him in the night so much. His routine is:

7.30     wake & feed
9.30     nap
11.30   wake & feed
1.30     nap
3.30     wake & feed
Sometimes he'll have a short (30 min) nap around 5.00
6.15     solid food
6.45     milk feed
7.00     bed
10.45   dream feed

He's EBF. He often wakes around 9.30 and cries out for a few seconds before settling himself. He then often wakes around 10.30 and wants to be fed. I feed him and he goes straight back down until any time from 2.00-4.00 when he wakes for another feed. Then he'll go through to about 7.00. I know it's only one wake up and could be a lot worse but he's 6 months and should be easily able to go through now. Sometimes I feel like he's waking through habit and think I really must stop feeding him but then last night he was definitely very hungry. He always takes a full feed. He sometimes cries out earlier in the night but settles himself.

He feeds well during the day - takes both sides fully each feed. He's great at settling himself. He always goes to sleep on his own. I put him into his own cot wide awake and he sucks his thumb and goes to sleep. No problem.

The other thing is that he's had loads of reflux. Even at 6 months he has some bad days when he'll spit up 10 or 15 times a day. Other days he won't spit up at all.

We've done a session of sleep training before and it worked brilliantly. I tailed off the night feeding and then stopped but comforted him with a hand on his chest, then progressed to verbal comforting only. After a few days he slept through the night but somehow we're back to where we started. I obviously started feeling him again somewhere along the line. Can't believe I did that. Now we're back to square one!

I'm confused as to whether we should do the gentle sleep training again or if I should wait until solids are more established so I can be sure he's not waking through hunger. There's no way I could have let him last night, he was definitely very hungry. I just don't know what to do.

Offline Violet's mom

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Re: 6 month old still waking in the night
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2013, 15:12:35 pm »
You could give the sleep training a try again but unfortunately you can't sleep train them if they have an unmet need (hunger in your case) trust me I tried to not long ago!  My LO still took one night feed until she was about nine months old.  It's very common, esp for EBF babies based on what other ladies on this site and friends of mine have experienced.  Some people are lucky and getting a baby that STTN.  I have a feeling too since his reflux acts up he might need the extra calories...

Hang in there - I know you are probably exhausted!   Give the sleep training a try but try not to be too hard on yourself if it doesn't work!  HTH!


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