Babies: 3 - 6 Months

Advice from a "Sleep Specialist"

lmc929lmc929 member
edited July 2015 in Babies: 3 - 6 Months
Hi Everyone,
I talked to a "sleep specialist" at my pediatricians office and I thought I would share the information I received for the other struggling sleep deprived moms out there. Obviously if you disagree with anything she says, consult your own pediatrician.

My son is 4 months old and started waking up hourly when I first put him down all of a sudden and it was driving me nuts. Here is the run down of what she said:

Around 4 months old - babies start having sleep cycles that are much more like adults. They last somewhere between a half hour to an hour or so and at the end of each of these sleep cycles, sometimes babies will wake up. It is critical that your baby learns to settle themselves back down and learn to fall asleep on their own at this juncture or you'll be up with a baby all night long for months to come. Here is what you do...

If the baby wakes up and isnt CRYING -- i.e, they are fussing, tossing and turning, talking, etc. you leave them alone! She said you may see them chewing their hands, sucking thumbs, tossing and turning, and this is all okay. She said sometimes babies will also cry out and then stop then cry out then stop, and you can let them do this for a while before intervening. Crying consistently however indicates your baby is asking for your help in one way or another. The first thing you can do is try to soothe them in their crib by patting their back or offering a pacifier. 

She was anti CIO at this age and said that she wouldn't suggest letting your baby cry for more than a 10 minute time-span since its their only means of communicating with you. Responding reinforces trust.

Another piece of advice she had - was that the rule of thumb is that they can sleep for about an hour per ounce of milk. So if you know your kid drinks about 5 ounces, they should be able to go about 5 hours before they eat next. So if you put your baby down to sleep at 7pm and they wake up at 10pm -- you do not need to feed them and it can encourage night wakings. If they are acting hungry, by all means feed them, but otherwise try to soothe them another way. 

I also asked her about solid foods and she said the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends waiting until 6 months to start solids -- the reasons -- a baby who is exclusively breastfeed (I dont know if this holds true for formula fed babeis) until 6 months is less likey to become obese and is less likely to develop allergies.

Hope this helps some of you as much as it helped me!

Good luck & good sleep to you all!

Me: 29 DH: 35

Married: 9/29/12

DS #1: 3/8/15

Re: Advice from a "Sleep Specialist"

  • Thanks for the info!
  • Thank you for the info!
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  • DaliaJesseDaliaJesse member
    edited July 2015
    Nice share!! Thanks for the info....it helps lot of moms like me. 

    Yes it is true, even my pediatrician advised me the same introduce solid foods after 6 months so that baby's digestive system will get developed and he will be ready for solid foods. 
  • We had another re-run of the sleep regression tonight, and your advice really helped. I've never been an advocate of crying it out, and I wondered how to help otherwise. Just being there tonight really seemed to help, eventually after almost 3 hours of fussing (not crying as such, but unhappy) and trying everything, I put her back in her cot, watched her flail around without crying, and eventually she put herself to sleep. Thank you, reading this halfway through made everything understandable.
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