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February 2011 Moms
Still not sleeping through the night!
My son is almost 6 months old and he still isn't sleeping throught the night. He went to bed last night at 8:30 and woke up at 12, 4, 6 and 8. I don't understand this whole 2 hour thing when he's emptying me most every time. I thought it might be a growth thing, but its been going on for 2 weeks.
He gave us a little teaser about 2 months ago where he slept 8-10 hours for a full week! When will that day come again?
He's eating rice cereal and nursing before bed, so I don't know what else I can do. Any advice would be great.
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Re: Still not sleeping through the night!
Mine isn't either. Sadly for us, this is normal. And STTN isn't always about food either. In fact, at this age, that typically isn't the issue. It has to do more with being able (or unable) to self sooth in the night. Or simply just wanting mommy/daddy to be around. Which is understandable.
Anyhow, no solutions for you, just want you to know that is normal. Some kids are just slower to learn that than others. And 6 months really isn't late for that. There are really a lot of kids who, at a year, still aren't STTN.
We did Ferber at 11 months with DD1, and I am guessing we will wait that long, or close to it, with DD2 also. In the long run, it's really a short stint in their lives. I know it's not fun waking up, I am right there with you! But it will be over soon
Audrey isn't STTN either, but she has gotten better lately. About 3 weeks ago, she was waking 6-8 times a night. But now she's down to 1-2 wake ups.
Are you feeding him every time he wakes? Or does he just want you to come in and comfort him? He shouldn't need to eat every 2 hours overnight. I hate to say this, but have you tried letting him cry for a few minutes before going in there? He might find a way to comfort himself back to sleep, and then he'll start doing that instead of crying if he's not really hungry. We were hesistant to try letting DD cry, but one night she woke up only an hour after eating, and we let her cry for 4 minutes (DH was going to go in at 5 minutes), and she went back to sleep. She's gotten a lot better since then.
You might want to try a night where you pump a bottle and let DH go in and feed him at the first wake up. Auds was doing a lot of comfort nursing during the night, so offering a bottle helped stop that, I think. Also, we feed her a ton of cereal mixed with veggie or fruit about 30 minutes before bedtime. And the biggest thing that helped us is going longer between her daytime feedings. I know it sounds weird. We were feeding her every 2-3 hours during the day, trying to make sure she got enough calories in during the day so she'd sleep longer at night. But it seems that she just got used to eating every 2-3 hours, 'round the clock. Now we feed her every 3-4 hours, and she's started stretching her nighttime feedings out as well (and even longer).
Good luck, I hope you find something that works! The good thing is that if you try something new, and it doesn't work, you can always go back to your regular routine the next night without disrupting things too much.