5, 6 And Sometimes over a Dozen Times a Night!

Holy mackeral. You nurse him 5-6 times a night. Bless your heart. I wish you had written a few weeks ago instead of waiting til the night before you start work.

Stop the nursing in the middle of the night. I know it's hard. But he does not need the night nursings. It is a WANT and not a need. He is using nursing to soothe him back to sleep. You are a glorified pacifier. If you want him to learn to sleep, you need to stop the night nursing.

I will tell you that other peds will tell you that he is not too young to cry it out. If you and your husband cannot deal with letting him cry it out, then your husband needs to go into him instead of you because you represent the nursing aspect of night time. It will be hard on your husband, but if he supports you not ending up in the hospital over exhaustion, then he will do this.

Have him go sit in floor beside the crib (hopefully with his back to wall and a pillow to sit on). He should put his hand through the slats and touch your baby's foot. NOTHING ELSE. No talking, no picking him up, no standing beside the crib. He will cry like nobody's business because he wants what he wants. If he is able to stand in the crib, he will lay down in order to feel Daddy's hand on his leg and be closer to him. Hopefully he's not able to stand in the crib yet - it's easier to do this if he isn't.

He will eventually wear himself out crying and fall asleep. ON HIS OWN. Your husband needs to continue to do this until he is no longer waking up so much. And your son WILL stop waking up because there is nothing to wake up for.

I urge you to do this so that you can make it through your days. If you don't, you will crash. Keep his 8:30 bedtime, having given him cereal before bedtime and a good nursing. Don't let him fall asleep nursing on you - put him down awake, but groggy. Walk out of the room before he is asleep, even if he cries. He needs to fall asleep WITHOUT you in there so that he knows where he is and allows himself to drop off.

It's going to be hard, but you need to do it. None of what is going on in the middle of the night now is worth you being in the hospital over, mama. Tell your husband this.

Good luck!
Dawn

Well, my first thought is he's not ready for cereal and he's in pain due to gas. That's what happened to my granddaughter. She just couldn't eat cereal until she was over 6 months. I'd lay off the cereal, he needs your breast milk instead.

Your breast milk is total nutrition. Every bite of other stuff you give your baby is depriving him of nutrition. He doesn't need cereal, he needs to get his nutrients from you instead of a box. He may just be hungry and need that nursing times.

So test this theory. Stop all cereal for a week. Only breast feed and see if he sleeps more.

I think that you need to try to stop nursing him to sleep. He thinks that the only way he can fall asleep is to nurse, so every time he wakes up, he wants to nurse back to sleep.

It's a gradual process. Night one - nurse him before bed until he's really really drowsy, but not fully asleep. Put him in his bed. Do this every time he wakes up in the night. After a few days, nurse him until he's sleepy, but a little less asleep than previously. Keep working, gradually putting him down more and more awake. Eventually, when you are nursing him before bed, you will put him into his crib fully awake to fall asleep on his own. You might even slighly change your nighttime routine at that point, putting the nursing before the lullabies so you are definitely NOT nursing him to sleep.

Then you can start working on cutting out the night feedings - sending Daddy in to cuddle with a sippy cup of water instead of you going in to nurse in the night. Once babies know how to fall asleep on their own and start only getting a sippy of water during the night instead of milk, they usually start sleeping better pretty quickly, because it's not worth waking up and yelling for mom and dad for water.

Good luck.

PS - I'm assuming your baby doesn't have anything medical going on, like reflux. If he has reflux, that changes everything...

Your child is at a wonder weeks period. Google it. With that said, you need to stop nursing to sleep. Nurse until drowsy, then put in crib. Repeat until he falls asleep. In a few days, he will figure it out.

Try to expose him to sunlight in the morning and in the afternoon. The sunlight is a natural timeclock for your body, telling it when to be awake and when to fall asleep (when its dark). If its too cold or raining outside, at least keep the windows open - even a little daylight will help.

Are you swaddling him? If not, it may be worth a try. The extra security feeling might help him sleep. Perhaps the mattress isn't comfortable? We coslept for a bit, and just went right from that to a twin mattress on the floor. I don't know if that would work, but you never know. It's comfortable for the adult too, because you can snuggle on the mattress with him and if you fall asleep with him, it's ok.

He thinks he needs you to nurse him in order to be able to fall back to sleep, so that's the habit you need to break. If you nurse him a little earlier, like after bath, but before lullabies and lay him down awake, he will learn to self-soothe and learn that he is capable of going to sleep without a nipple in his mouth. He will cry a bit at first, but he's ok and you're not doing psychological harm, you're simply teaching him a necessary skill. Once he learns that he can go from awake to asleep on his own, his naps will lengthen and his nights will be better.
Good luck!

Did he sleep well before you moved him to the crib when he was in the rock'n'sleeper? My guess is that he was more secure by being in a small space and he moved all night right? I would go back to this unless he is over the weight limit. You might need to try letting him sleep in his infant carseat and see if that makes a difference. At this age there are some babies that do not sleep through the night and who do need to eat, but that is excessive if he is not having tummy problems. But, he is pretty young for all that food. Usually you don't start any foods besides rice or oats before 6 months and then only one at a time.

Hi M.,

He is too young to cry it out. Both of my boys would wake at night usually once and sometimes twice until 18 months old. I nursed both of them - but put my baby on a sleep schedule from this website: http://www.babycenter.com/0_sample-baby-schedules-for-5-a...

Try something like this: http://www.babycenter.com/0_sample-baby-schedules-for-5-a...

You will probably both want the nursing times for both nursing reason and for the bonding/cuddling but if you are tired, be doubly sure to nurse rather than resort to formula. If you don't nurse regularly, you will have your milk supply decrease.

Good luck - he will be sleeping before you know what happened and you will miss these days. C.

He is too young to allow to cry (if ever in my opinion). He wants to be with his mom...totally normal. Does he have a lovie? How about some music and light he can turn on himself during the night. For me, what worked is not going into my son's room unless the crying continued for more than a few minutes.

The Sleepeasy Solution by Jennifer Waldburger. AMAZING book, full of good advice and easy to implement. I highly suggest it. I used it with my daughter when she was 4 1/2 months old with fabulous results. It's not easy at first but it only takes a day or two and then you start to see results. No sleep for you or baby is no fun. :-(
Good luck!!

My daughter woke 8-12 times per night for a YEAR. I thought I would die, and I'm not kidding. The thing is, that sometimes nothing works and it's a phase that you need to go through.

I'm sorry, I wish I had better advice, but the fact is that for us, it was easier to just nurse each time and then put baby back in the crib. I survived, I promise you can too!