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Babies: 6 - 9 Months
gwennec
member
Help! 6 months old and still waking at night
gwennec
member
My LO is a little over 6 months and still wakes up around 2 times a night to feed, sometimes 3. The longest stretch she has ever slept is 6 hours and most of the time she will only sleep 4-5 at a time. She wakes up at different times each night too. I ebf. I talked to a sleep consultant and she said at her age and weight, she should be able to sleep through the entire night. And that I should wait 30 minutes of full on crying before going in to feed her and do this for every wake up. I feel like she still needs to be fed at least once, so should I do a dream feed around 10:30/11pm (she goes to bed between 6:30-7pm)?
I am trying to be strong, but not sure if I can last an entire night of her screaming, even for 30 min intervals.
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Re: Help! 6 months old and still waking at night
I was pretty anti-CIO until MPI's sleep regressed to the point where he wouldn't sleep more than 2 and a half hours at a time (he had been sleeping 5-6 hours, eating and going back down for several more) and refusing the crib after sleeping in it fine for months. I knew in our case that his sleep issue was a learned behavior, so we decided to let him CIO rather than let it continue to get worse. It wasn't fun, but it only took 2 nights of crying (half hour was the longest) and now he's back to his "normal" single waking. It was certainly much easier than struggling with him for hours only to have him end up in bed with us.
Our ped thinks he should be sleeping through the night, and he has on occasion done this, so we are up in the air about letting him cry through his 2am feeding. We are kind of dealing with things one issue at a time to make it a little easier on us.
I just posted something similar to this on the BF board. I am going to try a dream feed tonight and see how it goes. I have never done CIO, I freaks me out. My LO is waking every 2-3 hours and is not even napping good during the day.
Good Luck to you!
Sorry no advice, just know that you are not alone
We have tried and she won't settle down if someone goes in w/o a feeding. It seems to amp her up more when someone goes in, but doesn't give her what she wants. It is almost better when I don't go in at all. I was letting her cry if she woke up and less than 4 hours had gone by since she went to bed. But it just seemed to make things worse. Some nights she will wake up at 10pm, I will feed her and then she will sleep till 3am, then others she will wake up at 10:30pm and then again at 2am, 5am....no consistency unfortunately. I am fine with the 10-11pm feeding, but the other ones are painful.
Definitely try the dreamfeed. It's a godsend. First I did that for a few days, then I started taking longer to go get her when she cried around 4am, then I sent hubs instead, then I let her cio (didn't take long at this point...)
After she stopped waking up at night- pretty much ever- I just stopped coming up to dreamfeed her.
She sleeps from 9pm - 8am now. *swoon*
I could never do CIO for 30 minutes. Instead, when DD2 wakes up, I let her fuss or whimper and wait to see if she settles herself on her own. If she starts crying, I wait five minutes before going to her. If she wakes up and starts screaming, though, I go to her right away.
Before six months, she was waking two or three times a night, but just letting her try to settle herself has helped her she STTN most nights. It's also helped at bedtime and naptime too; I don't have to get her sound asleep anymore, so now I can lay her down drowsy, and she fusses only until I walk away.
Have you tried a paci? We offer one only at bed times if he's extra fussy, but that may only work because we've cut out feeding to sleep all together, except for in the middle of the night.
Our pedi said yesterday that at this age, they should not need to be fed at night and I should let her cry. And so that is what I did, starting last night. It is hard I will admit, to listen to her cry. But I know it won't be long that she will be able to fall back asleep on her own.
If you want to wait 30 minutes, then do so and check on her. But I wouldn't feed her (if its after the dreamfeed). She may figure out if she cries long enough you will come feed her.
I feed her at 730 for bed. She normally sleeps til 3 and then wakes. If you feed at 630/7, yes you may want to try to dream feed if you are still awake (I am out by 9). GL!