Babies: 6 - 9 Months
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LO will not STTN!
LO will not STTN and DH and I are going crazy! Maybe once a week he will sttn but otherwise he wakes up once sometimes even twice to eat in the middle of the night. And it isn't a little "i'm hungry" whine, it's a full out scream. Sometimes he is sitting up screaming in his crib, sometimes he is on all fours trying to crawl. We've tried the Ferber method and so far there are no results. (We live in an apartment so it's hard to let him be loud in the middle of the night.) We feed him both baby food and a bottle before bedtime. We can't see or feel any teeth, so I'm not sure what the deal is.
Any suggestions on how to get my little monster to sleep would be wonderful!
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Re: LO will not STTN!
Is there a reason you don't want to feed him? I can understand if he were waking 5 or 6 times every night and you were feeding him each time, but once or maybe twice doesn't seem a big deal to me. If N's hungry, I feed him. He's usually back asleep within 15 minutes.
As for Ferber, it sounds like you aren't really following it as strictly as you need to (based on your comment about not letting him be loud). It won't work (or at least it won't work as well as it could) unless you stick to it like the book describes.
The only thing that's consistent about my DS's sleep is that it's inconsistent. Just because he was doing something last week doesn't mean it'll be the same this week.
I still feed DS at least once in the middle of the night, but the time varies wildly - sometimes it's 1 AM, sometimes 4. He's NEVER been consistent in his sleep.
THIS My DD seems to change things up weekly. One week she goes down so easy at night, the next week she fights it. One week she's up once a night, the next week twice. If your son is getting up more than usual he might be going through a growth spurt. I know there is usually one a 6 months but I'm not sure when the next one typically is. But even so, my DD never seemed to follow the typical growth spurt schedule.
He'll sttn eventually. Good luck!
LOL! Love it. Also I personally don't expect my baby to sleep all night and not eat anything. Small tummies!
LMAO! I have the same case.
My LO still wakes up at least once a night and sometimes twice. BTW STTN is considered 6 hours or longer, so my baby does STTN, his night, not mine. As for the definite 1 feeding, its usually between 1 and 2am and I know he's hungry because he's fussing with his eyes closed. As soon as I pick him up and sit down he has his little hands up reaching and his mouth puckered open. Now granted I am decreasing the amount I give him at that time in order to boost his daytime intake but if he's hungry I feed him.
I am kind of happy to read that others are having our same issues! My little boy is almost 7 months old and has slept through the night MAYBE 3-4 times since birth... and definitely nothing recent. I feel like everyone who had a baby after me has a baby already STTN so it gets annoying to hear about that. This makes me feel more normal!
My son goes to sleep ok but he just has a problem STAYING asleep
Waking up twice a night when he is CLEARLY going through major developmental milestones is actually very good. Your little "monster" is trying to figure out his new skills and because he is growing and developing so much, he may actually *gasp* need to eat.
One thing you could try is getting him to eat more during the day. How many ounces of formula/bm and solid is he eating a day?
We'll miss you sweet Debbie Girl (4.21.12) and sweet Cindy Girl (8.9.12)
Gabe only woke up twice last night and I cried this morning I was so happy. We were at 7 the night before. I feel ya!
We'll miss you sweet Debbie Girl (4.21.12) and sweet Cindy Girl (8.9.12)
I guess I may not be much help with what you are looking for. But my opinion is to feed him if he is hungry at night. My LO has just started to STTN sometimes. But most of the time she wakes up once or twice and I nurse her and she goes back to sleep. Contrary to what a lot of people say, it is normal for many babies to still need to wake up and eat at night up until around a year old. Not to mention it helps comfort them to suck, nursing or a bottle, when they wake up upset in the night. I know a lot of people won't agree with me, but that's fine with me. You obviously can decide for yourself if your baby needs to eat at night or if you will try some method to get him to not wake up and cry. GL with whatever way you choose!
EDIT: Lol. I guess I should have read the other posts before. I guess a lot of others will agree with me! And btw, mine was one of the ones who would wake up 4 or 5 times a night. So last night she woke up technically twice before we got up for the day and that was fine. Even though she STTN the two nights before that. But, she is sleeping much better now in the last month or so than she used to. Although when her teeth come in she sleeps terribly!
This! DH has just been quizzing me this week on why DS doesn't sleep through the night, and after reading all of these responses to him he sees we are normal just as I've been telling him!!We had similar wake ups lately where Abby would be screaming as loudly as she could. Usually if she wakes for food, she has a certain little cry, but when she was waking and sitting or on all fours, she was hysterical. I think that what was happening was that she was just stuck. She was sitting up and had no idea how to be lying down again. We just had to ease her back down onto her mattress and help her calm down by rubbing her hair. She wasn't hungry. We were trying to feed her for a while, but she was just playing with her bottle instead of eating, or just passing out while we tried to feed her.
It is very possible that LO is waking because he is hungry, but if you get the feeling that hunger isn't the issue, the culprit could be that he just doesn't know how to move his body. It took Abby a few weeks to figure out how to get herself unstuck (usually anyway, sometimes I will still go in to find her sitting up and crying because she is just so tired but can't lie down). Hang in there.