Help!!...9 month old still waking every few hours in night?

Question

Im breastfeeding him, he has 3 meals a day plus porridge for tea and a soothing bath, then a milk feed before bed.

He then wakes me about 4 times during the night i try to wait to see if he settles but he gets worse, then i try the controlled crying techinque and that doesnt seem to work either!
I end up breastfeeding him!

Please help as he has gone from sleeping all through the night up until he was 4 and a half months old.

Thanks

my son has dinner at 5pm ish and has his tea about 8pm ish, i dont think hes hungry but he is quite clingy during the day. I also have a daughter so sleeping during the day is difficult.
my son will not take breastmilk from a cup or bottle (or formula). i tried to wean him off breast and he was a nightmare so i put him back on breast!

Answer 1

Instead of giving him the porridge at tea-give it later in the evening just before you go to bed for the night. The full tummy will help him sleep longer through the night time hours. I had to give my daughter baby cereal with apple sauce mixed into her last bottle at night (10 -11 PM) to keep her from waking every 2 hours. She slept for about 7 hours before waking in the morning. That allowed me to sleep at least 6 hours uninterrupted and made me a much better mother during the day.

Answer 2

Please see my answers (and a few other good ones by other folks) to a few other similar questions--this question comes up all the time. (Just click on my username.)

He is a baby. Baby's digest their food quickly. They go through painful teething. They have needs at night. They may not eat enough during the day as they are too busy and stimulated. Just give your baby what he needs. My baby does the same thing. In fact right now he's awake at night more than asleep!

Sounds like he needs to nurse more during the day. 3 meals is not a lot.

There is a reason breastfeeding puts our babies to sleep.

This will pass. Go with the flow. He is a baby with changing needs! GOod luck.

Answer 3

You should probably stop the night feedings. It is unlikely that he is hungry 4 times a night, and he is using you as a pacifier. Unfortunately breaking the night waking habit of a child is one of the hardest parenting tasks. It can take many nights of little sleep to get him comfortable and self soothing when he wakes at night.

You should try to put your child to bed drowsy, but not totally asleep. This way he learns to get to sleep by himself. If he wakes in the night, try a soothing technique that includes you standing crib side, but with minimal interaction. Do not pick him up, but instead lay your hand on him, touch his face, etc. so he knows you are there and are comforted. Give him a lovey or blanket that has your smell on it (sleep with it yourself for a night).

Most importantly, realize it will take a few nights of consistency.

Best of restful luck to you!

Answer 4

My friends child woke evey 2 - 4 hours until she was 5yrs old. Get used to this. You may never sleep the entire night again. My son is 18mo, he still wakes every 3 hours, just to make sure he's not alone in the house. Try to nap during the day when your baby sleeps to catch up on your hours.

Answer 5

YOu must let him cry it out. There is NO other working solution. Every time you respond to him in ANY way during the night, you are reinforcing the behaviour you want to stop. He does NOT need to eat in the night at his age.

You need to put him to bed at the chosen time, making sure he is clean and has a full tummy. Then close the door and DON'T GO BACK TILL MORNING. This will take between 3 and 7 nights of crying in my experience, with each night being a little easier as he "gets it", that this behaviour is no longer going to result in attention.

I am not just blowing smoke, I have had 7 babies with whom I had to do this at various stages, and who were wonderful sleepers overall because of my training.

Answer 6

Read him stories everynight until he falls asleep, softly of course. He doesn't need to see the pictures or understand the words, but read to him or recite them by heart in the languange he hears around the house most often. He might be having bad dreams. My dad use to do this to me, but he fell asleep before I did and I always demanded stories from the same book each night, but he recited them off the top of his head when he was tired. So he kept repeating the same sentence over and over half-asleep:
Dad: So then donko donkey went to start a band... Then Donko Donky joined the band. Then Donko Donky joined the band.. Then-
Me: Davy Dog joined the band! Sheesh dad!
Dad: *still half asleep* So then Davy Dog joined the band. So the Davy Dog joined the band...

By the end of this, I had learned how to read when he read the stories from the book.

You can also sing him to sleep, he may not need to be read/sung to sleep normally, but this helped me sometimes. I never got tired of hearing"the mocking bird", but I never knew what the heck a mocking bird was.

Answer 7

This is NORMAL!!!!

It's not fun, but it's totally normal. There are many reasons for nightwaking. Your little one might genuinely be hungry b/c he's going through a growth spurt. He might also be seeking the antibodies in your milk b/c he's fighting a bug that hasn't shown symptoms yet. He could be teething or going through a developmental surge.

If you cosleep, that could make nightwakings easier to handle. You could nurse laying down and both go back to sleep.

Answer 8

well when my son and daughter were babys they had a device called the crib rocker. Anytime my child would cry or whimper the device turns on and rocks the crib awesome..... or haveyou tried maybe music playing softly or even television... Dirct Tv has this program for babies. At night they play a mozart type music. They show beautiful pictures.... Hope this helps ..smile

Answer 9

He is hungry. Buy RICE cereal, put a teaspoon full in a dish add a drop of soy formula, stir and feed him. I would put a little on the edge of a spoon give it to them followed by their formula. My son slept nights at 5 months and my daughter at 5 days.

Answer 10

This is totally normal, although that isn't any relief for you. When my twins started doing this after previously sleeping through the night, I started using white noise in their bedroom. I constantly have a fan running and a humidifier just for the noise. When its cold I aim the fan in the direction opposite the babies. It worked wonders.