5 month old baby will not sleep at night on her own.

[gemmamarshall]

my daughter is nearly 5 months old and just will  not sleep in her cot, even in bed with me, she wakes every hour to feed from the bottle. she's now on solids, but this has made no difference at all, she still takes 6 ounces every four hours, and wont sleep at night, she'll sleep in her pram if i'm out and about. occasionally if i put her in bed with me she'll got a few hours. and then at 3 in the morning until about 4.30 she wants to :evil:  play, i know i should just leave her but this distresses her to much, surely theres an easier way to help her sleep. please give me some suggestions thanx

[Maddy's Mum]

Hi there,

I think there are a few issues which you will need to focus on:

*Teaching DD to self soothe so that she can fall asleep on her own and transition from one stage of sleep to another
*Make sure she is on good 4 hour routine consistently during the day
*Implement DF and possible cluster feeding
*Use PU/PD and pat/shush to aid her to self soothe, no more feeding to sleep

At five months she should really be on a consistent 4 hour EASY during the day - This is for a number of reasons - you want to give her a really good feed which will mean that she is able to go for the next four hours and have a good sleep - instead of snacking and not being able to get through a whole 4 hour cycle without needing another feed.

There is also a problem with DD being reliant on feeding now for getting to sleep - so we have to teach her how to self soothe so that she can get to sleep by herself and when she wakes in the night from one sleep cycle, she can get back off to sleep.

So the plan is:

1. Increase awake and feeding time to get DD on 4 hour EASY routine to ensure that she gets an adequate feed each time and has adequate awake time between naps to promote longer naps
2. Implement a dreamfeed at night to 'tank her up'
3. Do PU/PD to aid DD to sleep and when she wakes in the night instead of feeding/rocking to sleep

So the best way to attack getting DD onto a definet 4 hour EASY routine during the day is to do it gradually by increasing the time between feeds by 15 minutes per day.

Also implement a dream feed at night, to get more calories into DD to enable her to go longer at night.

Tracy also gives the example of a 5 month old in the book who was also snacking so she suggested getting Dad on board to do PU/PD when she woke in the night and not feeding until 5am - at which point she took a good feed instead of snacking because she was hungry. Now, you know your baby best and the little one in this case study was a little older than your little one, so I would urge you to pick a time that you feel comfortable with and stick with that and use PU/PD until that time.

At 5 months PU/PD can be done most effectively in the following ways: If DD is burrowing her head into the mattress or turning her head from one side to the other, don't pick her up right away - reassure her with your voice in a low reassuring tone. When you do puck her up - hold her for only 2 or 3 minutes and put her down even if she is still crying then pick her up again and follow the same pattern. See if she can settle herself on her own for a few moments and perhaps lapse into the matra cry - lay her on her back and hold her little hands whilst talking to her.

Good luck and let us know how you get on!

Dee
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