Hi everyone,
I am looking for some help!
I have a 5 month old DD who cant (or wont) resettle herself at night. During the day she is very happy and content. When it is time for a sleep I make sure she is clean and dry and tummy is full and I put her in the cot and she will go off to sleep by herself with very little crying or noise. She will sleep from about 1 to 2 hours at a time during the day, and will have usually have 3 sleeps in a day. When it comes to night time, we have a bath and into pjs and sleeping bag and I feed her sometimes she will go to sleep while I feed her other times I will feed until she is full and put her into bed awake and she will go to sleep herself. But after about 5 hours she will wake and not resettle herself, so I feed her and she will go back to sleep. But after this she will wake every 2 or 3 hours (sometimes every hour)for me to resettle her. This will go on all night until morning and then she will wake when the others get up but with very little noise she will resettle herself and sleep for another couple hours. I have two other children that I dont want to wake so I dont let her cry and make too much fuss at night. I dont understand why she can do it during the day and not at night. I am getting very tired and grumpy having to get up so many time in a night and look after 3 kids during the day. This has been going on for about a month and I have tried a dummy, (she wont suck on it) a comfort toy, (no difference)making her warmer, cooler.
Has anyone got any ideas on how I can get her out of this?

Try a dream feed! I would try to time the dream feed BEFORE bubs normally wakes, say an hour before? Trial and error until you get the timing right...

Try NOT to wake baby, just pick bubs up, feed, burp and back to bed.

Dark room, no speaking...

There is another post about dreamfeed...that may also assist you?

I'm having the same trouble but our little man is only 11weeks, he has dropped a night feed, but the wrong one (10pm) and wakes at 1:30 - 2am for a feed then every hour or so, I have tried the dreamfeed and he certainly has more than if I wake him at 10pm, but still wakes at 1:30 - 2am then every hour or so,during the day he self settles no issues at all,
(I always put him to bed with his eyes open)
if anyone can help that would be great

welcome to my world.... my baby wakes a couple of times during the night now never used to but thats babies for you.... mine is still in my room and he knows i am right beside him so he just feeds and goes to sleep again. it beleive its because he knows i am there if he needs me.

I am happy to feed him and i do it straight away before he wakes too much then he has a sleepy feed and then goes back to bed again... would rather do that than let him cry for me and i do what works for me and my other kids.....

Hiii…Try a dream feed and just pick bubs up, feed, burp and back to bed.
Dark room, no speaking. Thanks for sharing.

actually your baby hasn't dropped the wrong feed, it's dropped the right feed by waking at 2am. it's only inconvenient for mums cos of the time. This is what i learnt after spending a fortune on a sleep consultant to help me and it changed my life: Babies have their deepest most important sleep between 7pm and 12 midnight. if you can get your baby to sleep uninterrupted during those hours that's great. they generate hormones, grow and all that good stuff in those hours. then they come out of that very very deep sleep around 12-1am and so often rouse around then. (4am is another time when babies rouse out of a deep sleep if they manage to self settle after the 1am rouse.) my baby often woke around 2-2.30 for a feed or resettle. waking every couple of hours from then on is not necesarily about a feed especially if you fed within 3 hours of the next wake. it's got everything to do with needing help to go back to sleep unassisted. a baby waking multiple times thereafter can't learn to go back to sleep unassisted till the parent attending shows them what is acceptable behaviour.

a baby of this age can manage with min 5 feeds in the day and 1-2 in the night if we're going to get really clinical. if your baby refuses a breakky boob as mine often did at this age then they only need 1 at night but a minimum of 3-4 hours apart if you want to ignore that tid bit. If you feed to sleep that's fine but wake them up before you put them down again! It's hard but it's essential if you want your baby to wake up in a cot alone and go back to sleep by themselves without a boob in their mouth. so I suggest you resettle in ways other than feeding if she had a feed within 3 hours and be prepared for a bit of crying. consistency is the key here and how you respond is really important. make sure you take a deep breath and compose yourself so your energy is calm and in control and loving and send the message that it's sleep time. try not to pick her up or feed as this all becomes a reason to wake. you could lean into the cot and stroke her head and say "mummy loves you but it's time to sleep baby", or pat her gently and then walk out. i'd let her cry for 3 mins and try again and again until she goes back to sleep.

I'm not saying you do controlled crying and leave her for long stretches, I'm saying if you respond with boob and co sleeping and all the kind of touchy feely stuff it won't stop...why would it? it's too good not to wake up for it.

day time is different cos the type of sleep is different.

I know lots of mothers would think that I sound like a *** mother but I had one baby that was attended to with boobs and hugs and all that and he never slept though the night till he was 2 ish often waking 9 times a night and with the second I got help to address how I responded to this kind of waking when she was 9 weeks old and at 8 months she sleeps 6.15 - 6.15am all night without a feed since 4 months old. I was very reluctant to be firm with a baby but now's the time to set the rules with love. at 2 years old its MUCH harder and they scream a lot louder!

Hi I know exactly what you are going through as I was in your shoes 2 weeks ago. My DD is 4 1/2 months old and would go down at 7pm and then normally want another feed at around 4am.

However she started waking at around 2am etc and at first I thought she was hungry so I would get her up and feed her only to have her fall asleep within 5 minutes of being on the breast. And then wake again 2 hours later. So I decided one night that if my DD woke before 4am I would not pick her up, instead I would gently pat her back or bottom (because she sleeps on her side) and quietly shhh her.

The first night when she woke around 2am it took 40mins for her to drop off again with me shhhing and patting her bottom. However she was not screaming and crying all that time. SHe would cry, then be quiet for a minute and then cry again etc. I found that because I was there comforting her and she was crying on and off it was easier for me to listen to rather than leaving her to scream and cry without me in the room.

The second night when she woke again around 2am I again went into her room, no talking keeping the room dark and patted and shhed her. This time for only 15 minutes (as she then settled again.

The 3rd night only needed 5minutes and around this time she also learnt to suck on her fist to help sooth her.

Fast forward to now and I have found that if DD stirs in the night I give her 5 minutes. If she doesn't settle in that time I go in and shh and pat her bottom to which she intantly goes back to sleep, however the last few nights when she has woken up at 4am I have gone in and shhed her instead of getting her up for a feed and she has been going back to sleep. So apart from the 5 minute wake up at 4am she has been sleeping from 7pm- 7am. No dream feed needed (I did try it initially in the early days but didn't work for me)

I figure if DD needed a feed at 4am she wouldn't be able to re settle herself and would be crying for a feed.

Good luck. Hang in there smile

I have a six month old who generally wakes once at night at 4am but sleeps through every third night. Now that we are bottle feeding I refused to feed him to at least 5am as it mucks up his routine so resettling it is... And I have learnt that my 2.5yr old can and will sleep through an hour of DS2 screaming at top of his lungs (FYI its not this bad most of the time just odd occasion). On the odd occasion DS1 has been woken he has gone back to bed without issues.

I have come to realise that I am my own worst enemy as I usually attend to bub too quickly. Rationale being that I am wake now and if I just nip this in the bud I can go back to sleep. But what I was actually doing is going in and trying to resettle when bubs was just stirring and only grizzling or crying with alot of pauses, instead of waiting for proper I'M NOT GOING BACK TO SLEEP crying. Because I was going in when bub was just stirring I would wake him up properly and then it would be so much worse.

Last night I turned off the monitor and bubs slept through til 5:20am, maybe he stirred and I didn't hear him. I can hear crying from my bedroom without monitor but was originally keeping it on so I could get there quick before DS1 woke up.

Hope this helps.

I read somewhere that it is common for babies to sleep really well at the start of the night but not later in the night. Can't remember the reason. Mine do the same. The dreamfeed works for some bubs but for others they just wake at the same time, esp if it is not really hunger that is the reason they are waking. I guess doing a night feed will help rule that out. Otherwise I would try putting her on a strict routine for a week (if you can re lifestyle) as she may be getting too much sleep during the day which is mucking up her nights. I found the Dream baby guide quite good at explaining how an inbalance during the day can muck up their nights. That's all I can think of... sorry.

I find it quite distressing to read that you are actually expecting a 6 month old to sleep 12 hours without a feed if they are waking for one..... I am sure it would be fantastic but realisticly i go to bed about 10 and still have a drink before bed and if my kids including the 9 year old want a drink at 2 am or 4 am they get one....

the western culture is the only one that expects babies to sleep through the night at an early age alone without feeding! i actually find this crazy..... Yes i would love the sleep but yes i decided to become a mummy

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. DD has settled down a little and is sleeping better at night, we still have the odd night where she wake up lots. I dont mind getting up once or twice in a night its when it is five or six times that I get frustrated with. Might have just been a phase she was going through.

That's good that your getting a little more sleep, mine is getting worse, we bottle feed I was unable to breast feed, I don't pickup up until/unless the crying turns to screams, and he has now started doing it during the day, I have followed all the above and just find that if I pat or shhh it winds him up and he screams longer and louder.

I have to go back to work a couple of days a week as of next week and I'm not looking forward to trying to do it on no sleep

Hi, I was having trouble getting my little one to sleep and I found this PDF document extremely helpful, http://www.thepdfportal.com/how_to_get_your_baby_to_sleep_through_the_night_1_6.pdf
I hope this helps some one