My little girl is 10 weeks old. Just to be upfront on this question - I do believe in routines and schedules for babies. I know when they are teeny tiny, you have to go with the flow, but I followed Healthy Sleep habits, Happy Child with my son who is 2.5 when he was young and we had great success. I'm a big advocate for teaching good sleep habits (no co-sleeping, teaching self soothing when appropriate, etc. etc.)
Now, all that said....... I need some guidance with my 10 week old girl. She WAS sleeping about 8 hours at night and then a bottle, and back to sleep for a few more hours. However, for about the past 1.5 - 2 weeks she is waking up every 3 or so hours. I know that she doesn't need to eat and believe that sleeping through the night is more of a developmental thing than an eating thing at this age. She wakes up crying hard. I think with my son at this age we would have let him cry a couple mins and see what happens, but now with two children, I feel like I can't even let her fuss much because all can be heard by my son and last thing I need is two kids awake at 1 am :)
I guess just looking for some age appropriate suggestions on how to handle these new nightwakings and move towards a full nights sleep from some moms who believe that this IS possibe for younlger babies. I know a lot of people say they have two year olds etc that STILL don't sleep through the night, but I personally subscribe to the idea that babies can and should be tought good sleeping skills by around 3 months old so would love some advice on stretching sleep back out and how you handle any amount of crying it out with other siblings involved.
She is formula fed, on medicine for reflux and we nuse white noise, swaddling, etc. When she cries at night, I change her and feed her and put her right back down (no talking, low lights, etc.) If's she's not asleep when I put her down, she generally starts crying within a few minutes again.
She is 10 weeks. She wakes up crying, feed her! Do not try CIO now, that would be cruel. If she was older like 9, or 10 months and started waking up,
that would be different.
Your daughter, is NOT your son. They will not have the same sleeping patterns, needs, wants, fears, insecurities, etc. Some babies (like your son) absolutely can have good sleeping skills by 3 months old. Some can't. Your daughter might have needs right now, that interrupt the methodologies you "subscribe" to. Your daughter might need something your methodology says she shouldn't. You can't be so rigid, because if one way worked for every baby...we would have no sleep issues with any. If she is waking up "crying hard" something is wrong. A 10 week old can't manipulate can't pretend, can't fool you. She NEEDS something. A routine and schedule won't fix that. You have to figure out what the need is. She is on medication for reflux, could she be in pain? A 10 week old CAN and often IS hungry at night. I she is growing, her body might need that energy. Her formula might not sit right in her stomach. That can be very painful. Your focus is on the wrong thing. You are worried about a schedule and crying, instead of adressing WHY she is crying HARD. This is not a fuss, this is something wrong. Please, focus on your child, not the schedule. I am a firm believe in doing what's best for your child. You believe in schedules, and that's great. However, your focus on the schedule, is misguided right now. Address the problem, and when that is fixed, then go back to the schedule.
At 10 weeks old, she very likely does need to eat. She may have gotten used to going 8 hours, but now is growing again. If you were talking about a 5 or 6 month old, I'd say that they might be waking up for something else. At 10 weeks old, if she is waking up crying hard, feed her! If that works (she calms and goes back to sleep) then I'd say you have your answer-she's hungry. You're not teaching her bad sleep habits, just that you're there to meet her needs. Good luck!
I would say she's not feeling better or going through a growth spurt. Give it time and she'll go back to sleeping longer. But 8 hours a night plus some is amazing...you're lucky even with sleep training!
I suspect she may have hit a growth spurt, when she was truly hungry at night, and now that she's past the growth spurt, waking has become a habit. Now that you're feeding her at night, she has become accustomed to it, so she wakes up and expects to be fed, even though she doesn't need it. I hate to say it, but you really might just need to let her fuss a little (or offer her water instead of formula, which she will probably reject because she doesn't really NEED anything).
I remember going through this, and my 2 year old never woke up. Surprising but true! If you're able to have baby sleep farther away from your 2 year old, that may put your mind at ease a bit more, too. My kids' rooms were right next to each other, though, and we let the baby cry until she went back to sleep (honestly that never lasted more than a few minutes though), and my older one was unfazed by it. Toddlers sleep the sleep of the dead, seriously.
As a Weisbluth fan, you are probably already putting her down at 6pm - but if you've moved bedtime later, maybe try moving it back to 6pm. A later bedtime can really screw up baby's sleep patterns.
When mine would wake I would give them 5 minutes to see if they would go back to sleep on their own if they were not crying hard (just fussing). I do agree with you that babies tend to get up in the middle of the night at older ages because we train them too. both of my boys slept through the night from about 6 weeks on, but we still had the occasional issues, often during a growth spurt, so we would just feed them and put them back down. Also, teething is a possibility, some babies teeth very young. good luck.
If I remember correctly Weissbluth doesn't reccommend truely sleep training or cry it out till after 4 months old. She is still only 10 weeks. Give ehr a break - she could be having a growth spurt and be hungry, or her reflux meds might need adjusting, or she could have a cold or ear infection. I would say if she wakes crying hard, change, feed, burp and put her back down all in the dark.
Give her another month and half before trying CIO, lots can change in that time. We didn't let our second CIO for fear of waking the first, well, I wish we had, because he is 3 and a half and still wakes about 2x a night and comes to find me now.....uhg. I would say once she is big enough to CIO, do it - turn on white noise in the big boy's room and close his door to muffle her noise, and warn him before bedtime, that you are going to do this to teach her to sleep on her own, so he is not worried about her if he does hear her.
Good Luck!
You mentioned in your other post that your son is sick ~ maybe your daughter has a touch of it too.
Hey! I was going to offer the same suggestion that Cindy gave. I'm totally with you on the schedules. I followed strict schedules for both my daughters and both were great sleepers. I intend to do the same for my third, a boy, due to be born in December. Any time my girls would regress on their sleeping habits, it was because they had an ear infection, a cold, or needed an adjustment on her reflux meds (for the one that did have reflux).
Good luck! Keep at it!
If she was sleeping well and suddenly stopped sleeping well I would have her examined by your pediatrician to make sure there's nothing medically wrong like an ear infection or something. It almost sounds like it's uncomfortable for her to lay down. Could the reflux medication need an adjustment? Cry it out never worked with my kids so I have no advice on that. I did find the book, "Sleepless in America" by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka helpful.
