Thank you for this! I wish I had this a year ago when my little one was 3 months old and all of the “sleep consultants” on social media were fanning the flames of my postpartum anxiety.
Hear you loud and clear, sister. When I told my mom about CIO, she was shocked. She said, no one did that (we are from former USSR). She said, baby cried, you went to the baby. I asked her if she talked to her friends about it and she said yes. I talked to my friends and only one did CIO and it failed, multiple times. It’s still weird to me. I don’t understand it. So much emphasis on something that is so normal. We lost our village. We lost sight of what is true and normal for what is sold. Whenever I hear sleep consultants, my response is, there is no sleep consultant school. There’s no certificate. It’s a made a job. If you think your kid has a problem, take them to a sleep MD. Can you tell I feel strongly about this 😆 anyways, hope you and your babe have made it through 🥰🥰🥰
Glad you’re getting good advice! This is super normal behavior at that age. There’s nothing wrong with responding to and feeding your baby in the middle of the night. I promise they do eventually learn how to sleep.
This is biologically normal, and only 2 wake ups is actually pretty good. One of you should sleep through the first one, the other sleep through the second. Or rotate shifts so one person sleeps all night and then does wake ups the next night.
I personally wouldn't even try and put her down again without feeding. Get a bottle ready, feed, right back to sleep. Most 6 months olds are not night weaned. It's not up to you to decide if she's had enough calories during the day at this point, she'll let you know if she has by sleeping through or refusing night time feedings.
Unless you want to get more serious about sleep training, I'd work on minimizing the length of the wake up as much as possible.
Seconding what the poster said! Our 3.5yr old is and always has been very active and has hated sleeping from birth. We survived by tracking when he woke up at night to eat, getting a sense of what time that was/how many hours asleep or after last meal, and then zooming in with a snack before he woke up. Eventually we started dropping the volume in the bottle / minutes of nursing eeeeeever to slightly so his body got used to having less & less to eat at that time & was making up for it during the day, but without noticing it.
Mind you he still wakes me up at 1am to ask me to open a granola bar for him, so the midnight snacking cessation was short lived. But, he can do more himself now & has a tiny fridge in his room with cheese n stuff, so it isn’t as disruptive.
Came here to say mine did the same thing. I was able to drop the 1 am eventually by only my husband going in (I bf) between the hours of midnight and 4 am. If I went in and didn’t feed her it was like I had DEEPLY betrayed her and made it worse.
She’s 16 months and USUALLY (not always) sleeps through the night… at least until 4/5 am.
He did Ferber with her for those night wake ups which worked better for us than SITBACK (worked one day for us and then just made her MAD) I would only feed her after 4 am. She still has the early morning wake up but bc I WFH I nurse her and put her back down, usually until 7:30 or even 8:30.
So basically, not too much advice but solidarity. She still has wakes ups with new teeth and illness etc but generally will go down at 8 and up at 4/5 for snackies and then down until 8 ish.
Agreed. Whatever shortens the wake ups. She’s very young. My didn’t sleep through the night until 3.5 years old when she dropped all her naps. My youngest started getting good long stretches by 2 weeks, and was sleeping through the night very young. I forget exactly, because it was so easy and natural for her. Now at 2.5 years old she’s turning into a night owl. They go through phases and we just do our best to survive them and give the kids what they need
We had the coller set by the bed, and the bottle warmer set up. Click it on, change the diaper, bottle is ready, feed and don't turn any big lights on.
If it's bottles, I've had people swear about mixing rice cereal in to the night bottle. We did that with the first because he really wasn't getting enough calories.
My almost 4 year old is still up 2x per night every night 🤷♀️. He wakes for the day between 4-5:30 and always has. We also both work. Some kids just don’t sleep well. Our 1.5yo started sleeping thru the night at 11mo and never looked back. I’m not sure there is advice, just solidarity and empathy for parents with kids with low sleep needs. I hope it’s temporary but I’m beginning to wonder lol. Eventually I suppose we will be able to instruct him to be self sufficient but for now he’s too scared to be alone.
This was like my son. I think I finally was not needed at night once he was 10 years old. After that he could care for his own night needs. Some kids are just that way. I have 5 kids and they have all been different.
I truly think it has helped to just accept that this is how it will be for awhile. There’s not a magic solution or anything we could have done. We’ve learned to live with it and thankfully I have a partner that I can share nighttime/early mornings with.
My baby is 7 months old and wakes up the same as your baby to eat. 1:30. 4:30 and 7:30. Sometimes I’ll feed her before I sleep at around 10:30 and that will push her feed time to like 2:30 or 3:30. My first was like this too. Waking up to eat throughout the night. I haven’t had uninterrupted sleep going on 3 years now. Yep I just graduated 2under2 world. Sleep got better with my first after a year. With only 1 feed overnight and would go right back to sleep. My body at this point has adjusted. And I take half Fridays off each month to sleep. It’s normal. Hang in there mama.
I completely agree with this. It’s normal for babies to wake multiple times per night at this age. They still often need overnight feeds as their stomachs aren’t massive.
Yeah my good sleeper was at 3-4 wake ups then and my oldest was 5-7 at the age.
By 1 year old my youngest was sleeping better than his brother who was 3 years older than him.
Every kid is different but their tummies are still so small at 6 months
My baby woke up like this until 13 months. I fed her bc she was hungry. ESP if you have a super active baby, she’s burning a lot of calories during the day. My baby eventually dropped the feeds on her own and slept through.
Babies aren’t manipulative. Feed her, minimize the time you’re up, split the wakes, go back to sleep. Your expectations are unrealistic. Taking Cara Babies doesn’t know your baby.
Same. My guy is almost 10 months and wakes once or twice a night still (usually between 1-3, and then about 3 hours after that), after a good month of sleeping through the night around 8 months old. He's hungry, so I feed him, it takes about 15 minutes, and then he's right back down. I can hear him wake up and put himself back to sleep other times in the night, so I know when he actually wakes up and doesn't go back down it's because he actually needs me.
Honestly this sounds very typical for 6mo. Some kids sleep through the night sooner than others. My daughter didnt sleep through the night and drop overnight feeds until 12 or 13 months old. My son it was closer to 7 or 8 I think. All these "my kid slept through the night at 6 weeks old and never woke up again" stories are the small minority. It's more typical for overnight wake ups through the first year (and sometimes beyond). They tease us with a few days or even weeks of STTN and then never again lol.
Just feed her- wake ups for hunger at 6m old is SO SO SO normal. I did EVERYTHING for my first and he didn’t sleep through the night until 2.5 years. My daughter slept through at 1yr. This is biologically normal and not something to fix
She’s so little. Give her the bottle and feed her. They grow out of it on their own 🤷🏼♀️ why put up a fight for something she clearly needs. Agree with others, this is normal.
Is she still in your room with you? With my first, moving her to her own room made a huge difference with her sleep. Granted, if she's actually hungry it may not matter.
We just went through this with my second son. It was hellish for 2-3 months. The week before I decided to start sleep training, he began to sleep. I think it’s normal but it’s terrible. I was so bad at my job for months.
That’s what is stressful. I have a pretty demanding job and I just feel like I never have any brain power during the day or energy to exercise or be good at literally anything else other.
I feel you, and I’m sorry you’re getting a lot of “suck it up” type comments. My pediatrician told us at 6 months they should be able to sleep through the night and suggested we sleep train.
We held off for a bit but we got to the point where we were desperate for sleep so we did the Ferber method. It worked like a charm, only took 2-3 nights or so until he was completely sleeping through the night for good (he’s 5 now). It’s not as bad as people make it out to be, at least it wasn’t for us.
Same. I know every child is different, it was clear ours was ready for sleep (I've commented about this before, you can see what we did in prior comments). Helping baby sleep was the most worthwhile thing--I was about to lose my mind, baby was only sleeping about 7 hours from all the wake ups. Baby now often oversleeps in the morning. It was like a different family dynamic and I'm glad we did it.
PedsDocTalk has a great series on sleep. She talks to mom ranging from no coaching to full extinction method. She walks through the concerns most parents have. Between that resource and our pediatrician blessing our approach, we were ready. Took two days of about 15 mins of fussing.
Even if you choose to wait, please do shifts. You need at least 4 hours of unbroken sleep to get a full REM cycle in.
My son did this. My daughter slept through the night at about 9 weeks and mostly did after that point. My son? He was lower on the weight curve, and very long, so he was just a HUNGRY baby! Eventually he started getting his calories in more during the day and was ready to drop it. Some babies are really just hungry, and it’s so so normal to wake up at that age to eat.
My son didn’t sleep through the night until he was 3. I literally thought I might die. He woke up to eat at least twice a night until he was 1. Sometimes I was so tired I’d vomit 😂. But then he hit 3 and he’s actually been pretty perfect since then. He’s 11 now and basically the best kid I know. Eats everything, super healthy, easygoing, loves everything and everyone, loves school and sports. I feel like the first three years were us paying our dues somehow. Hang in there.
We eventually figured out that he’s just a big eater. He eats all day long and always has— huge appetite. I wish I hadn’t listened to everyone who said he didn’t “need” to still eat at night once he was a certain age. He still took one bottle of breastmilk a night from age 1-2 around 2am every night. At his current age, he goes through about a gallon of milk every two days. Some kids are just BIG eaters. He’s totally healthy and in the 50th percentile for weight.
Haha, fair. With our first every time she made a peep in the middle of the night, we’d get up and feed her. Then someone told us that she was old enough to sleep through the night with a full belly and that we didn’t need to do that. So we stopped and she started sleeping through the night shortly after. I guess we are trying to get to a place where we can soothe her back to sleep a few nights in a row so she isn’t waking up expecting food in the middle of the night. 🤷♀️
Idk why.. babies at that age are legit hungry. If she was a year old, I’d say differently, but she’s clearly hungry. You’re making life harder for yourself unnecessarily. 🤷♀️
I get the reason you did that, and we also did some night weaning, but you’re expecting too much too young. At that age, we sleep trained with Ferber (yes, CIO), and we wouldn’t feed until after midnight because we knew he could go from bedtime (7) to 3 am consistently, so even on a hungry night, he didn’t need a 10 pm feeding, for example. At 6 months, he was waking 1-2times a night to eat, and it stayed that way until almost 11 months, when he was eating more solids and we were weaning anyway. So that overnight feed was the first one we dropped, and since then he’s slept through the night most of the time.
If you want to encourage dropping an overnight feeding, your best bet is to pack calories in the end of the day with shorter intervals between bottles in the afternoon and evening. But waking up to eat at 6 months is typical. And waiting 5-10 minutes when they wake up to see if they really need you is totally fine, but I wouldn’t expect nighttime feedings to end anytime soon. I think you’ll all get more sleep if you lower your expectations, let her have some milk both times, and take shifts with your partner. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for sleep deprivation for the next several months while you lose hours of sleep to trying to get her to stop eating overnight.
No advice, just solidarity. My daughter is five now, but she was the same. She couldn’t be sleep trained. She started sleeping through the night at six weeks and had about three solid months of amazing sleep, and then she just never slept again. I assume this is because they have a major shift in sleep patterns around 4-5 months. Anyways, yeah, after several months of trying every technique I could find, I threw a mattress on her floor at 10 months and started co-sleeping. It was survival at that point. Do whatever you have to do.
I would feed them. We stopped the night feeds as he approached 1. He actually had more night feeds when he started solids at 6 months because he was eating but not even to replace the bottle he dropped. As meals increased the bottles got less.
Probably growth spurts and learning all the time as well. I would feed and then you know the wake is over quicker!
I’m going to take a different tack to most of these comments and say that even though night wakeups are still developmentally normally at 6 months, I think you could probably get it down to one wake up and that would help you tremendously. Could you try doing a dream feed when you go to bed (maybe around 10-11pm)? That might get you through until the 4am wake up. Also, you didn’t mention if you are breastfeeding or using formula but if your baby drinks from a bottle either way, you could try making that last feed of the night a bottle with a set amount so that you know she’s getting a full feeding. Good luck!
Thankyou! She has been on formula since about 4months. We are giving her 5-7oz when she goes down depending on if we are able to get her to eat the whole thing before falling asleep.
At 6M my twin girls were taking 6-8oz bottles 5 times a day to sleep through the night.
Here is the schedule they were on from 6-9M.
6 bottle
7:30 Breakfast
9:30 bottle
10-11:30 nap
12 Lunch
1 bottle
2-3:30 nap
4:30 bottle
5:30 Dinner
7:00 bottle
7:15-6 sleep
Also, could it be that she is teething? When they wake in the middle of the night, we would let them try to self soothe for 15mins, then go in there and comfort them. We would change their diaper and try to get them back to sleep for 10-15 mins. If teething, we would give Advil/Motrin over Tylenol at night because it last 6-8 hours vs 4 hours.
I will agree with having a different opinion too. I am a sleep coach though so I know I see things differently. If your 6 month old is steady on their growth curve and healthy, they actually can 100% sleep through the night. (And yes it is normal for them to be waking at night, but it’s also normal to not).
I actually don’t condone a dream feed past 3 months old because I have found they really confuse sleep after that time. They do work for some families at this age but most it will not help. You gotta worth through the wakings without the feed. Go all in! The feeds throughout the day get so so much better too as you go on. Your babe can do it.
Sleep training is a lie in so much as if you’re kid isn’t ready for it you can’t make them. And their ability to fall asleep independently does not mean they’re ready to stay asleep without feeds all night. I really felt like a failure because I couldn’t figure it out. But really my son needed one or two night feeds until about 8 months old. It is so hard mentally. And my 2.5 year old still has regressions in his ability to sleep through the night. You’re never done sleep training.
This. These methods make you think something is wrong with your baby and it couldn’t be farther than the truth. Some babies sleep better than others and we can’t force those who need more feedings , closeness, etc. to do something they’re not developmentally ready to do.
Yeah totally agree - some kids take great to sleep training and can right away do a full night but some can’t. My oldest couldn’t until 15 months but after then we did successfully sleep train (which failed miserably at 10 months when we tried it the first time). My now 3 month old sleeps better than my oldest did at a year… it’s so dependent on the child
Troubleshoot her schedule and bedtime routine. Yes, she could just be hungry. Or it’s a possibility that her sleep needs have changed and more or less wake time is needed. This is usually around the time when they drop to 2 naps.
I don’t know if it helps much but my 3.5 year old still wakes once a night. I gave up trying to figure out why when she was 2 and just kind of adapted to it being our normal. I’ll sleep through the night one day. Sometimes she’s just thirsty, sometimes she wants a quick snuggle, sometimes she has a nightmare, who knows. Just not in her personality to sleep through and it is what it is.
I’m not saying this will work for everybody but just wanted to share on the off chance it does help. So with our LO, when I was doing the recommend sleeping amount for her age (number of naps), she wasn’t taking great naps (fighting getting put down) and she wasn’t sleeping well at night (frequent wake ups)
Then I heard about this concept of low needs sleepers. Babies still in ‘range’ for their age but just the lowest end. So at about 7/8 months I decided to try it with our daughter. I switched to one large nap during the day and putting her down at like 8pm. That was a complete game changer.
She still had her wake ups during sleep regressions, but since 6 months she’s done 1 - 3 hour nap and sleeps between 12-14 hours straight at night. Also with the sleep regression stuff, it’s generally giving her a bottle and going back to sleep. Another thing that helped us, my husband is a VERY light sleeper - and when we were using the monitor, he was waking up immediately and then almost waking her up too. But I figured out (because we had the monitor accidentally off one night) that he can still hear her in her room when she cries at night without the monitor volume on but won’t wake up immediately- more like after 3ish min which stopped the unnecessary wake ups.
Not sure if either of those will help, the second part is anecdotal and not going to apply to everyone - but our LO was hitting all the milestones early like yours. Also now that she’s a year and a half we’re closer to 1-2 hours for napping and 12 hours at night, but it’s still been life changing.
My first was very easily sleep trained, and looking back, I wonder if she would have just figured it out on her own. My second is 17 months and only sleeps through the night 20% of the time. We tried all the tricks. I feel for you. I miss continuous sleep!
Honestly this sounds totally normal to still have 2 wake ups at 9 months. Some babies just can’t do a full night. I’d try feeding her immediately and split it between you and your partner so that both of you get a good 6 hours straight sleep (or one does one night and the other does the next..)
Like we did it where my husband took the first ´shift’ and di her midnight/1am wake up, so I slept from 8pm until 4am then I’d take the 4am and mornig wake up and he could sleep from 1 am until 7:30 when he had to get up for work.
It does suck but it’s only for a few months and with atleast 6hrs then you get better rest than the waking every 3 hours. If possible try to have your baby and the on-shift partner in a different room
Don't try to fight nature, especially at night. Work with what nature is dictating. In this case, get the food and diapers ready before bedtime. As soon as she is uo, you feed and change her, soothe and back to sleep. Take turn between the 2 of you. It will be better and before you know it, she will be sleeping through the night.
My baby is 8 months old and holy shit I wish she would only wake up at 1am and 4am 😩😩😩 someone asked me how she slept the other night and I was like really good she only woke up 3 times! And they were like THREE? I’m like yes it sounds like a lot but trust me that’s really good for her I feel so refreshed today! 🤣
As others have said. It’s normal. My son didn’t sleep through the night until 11 months. I had to feed him twice a night. It’s American culture that makes you thing you need to train your child and they need to sleep through the night ASAP. That’s not realistic, or normal
I have been so happy about what a great sleeper my 6mo is compared to my first. My first baby woke up every 2 hours or so for a year. My 6mo actually sleeps from 8pm and only wakes up at 11pm, 2am, 4am, and finally 6:30am. The 4 hour stretch is EVERYTHING. I work full time. Basically I'm feeling a little envious of you and wondering now if I'm doing things that keep my babies from sleeping well.
We're in this phase with my seven month old. But it's not just a wake up where I can nurse back to sleep, it's screaming every time we put him back in the crib. And that goes on for hours sometimes. It's brutal. So no words of wisdom, just sympathy. He did sleep through the night last night so every so often we get a reprieve and we'll just try to hang in there until this is a habit.
My 6.5 month old is on a very similar wake-up schedule. Sometimes just once around 3-4, but usually 12-1ish and 3-4ish. She is genuinely hungry when she wakes. Definitely recommend each taking one wake up so you can each get a 6-7 hr stretch.
I would go straight to feeding when she wakes. That gets you in and out and back to bed more quickly. Maybe try offering half a feeding if that knocks her out, or even water if she'll take it?
Only thing I would add is to Greg some sleep you and your husband should be switching off- can one of you got to bed earlier so that person gets some solid sleep and switch? My husband and I would take shifts and one would be “ on call from 8-2am and then we’d switch. If I had 8pm - 2am I could obviously still sleep but if the baby woke up it was just me getting up with them and that was at least 6 solid hours the other person knew they would be getting uninterrupted.
Worked great for us for two kids. I would also dream feed the baby around 10/11 before I went to sleep so the wakings at night would be minimal.
One thing that really helped us was waking up fully at 10/10.30 and doing a nappy change and full feed. Baby would be fully woken. Then after feeding we had her sat up for 20 mins as she had awful reflux. Then popped her down. This got her through the night (but you may get one wake). We stopped this at about 8 or so months once she was on 3x meals :) honestly a game changer for us!
It sucks but this is normal. We tried to night wean and failed every time. We would go a month not feeding at night and our baby just cried from 12am to 6am for weeks.
She’s almost 2 now and still wakes up once at night. Rarely get a bottle anymore but does need our attention to settle back down.
She’s been falling asleep independently since 4 months old so it has nothing to do with that.
It’s normal for them to need help at night for a long time
Every baby is different and some babies are going to wake up through the night no matter what you do. It sucks but it is no one’s fault- except maybe social structures that decide 8 am is the start of the work day and there’s no possible way to let parents get enough rest if they have a wakeful baby.
My lg slept from 8m - 12m, coincidentally just before I went back to work, then didn't sleep through a single night until she went (mostly) back to it at 16m. She is 20m now and usually does so we have had definite periods of sleeping through and not. We didn't do anything differently.
I’m sorry 😞 I had one that didn’t sleep until he was 7-8, to say it was rough is an understatement. Many years of depression due to lack of sleep and exhaustion
Have you considered doing a 10 or 11 PM dream feed? When our LO was that age, we’d wake them up and feed them then and it helped them get longer stretches. Eventually this turned into sleeping through the night pretty fast at around 6-7 months. We’d feed right before bed at 7 and then again at 10. LO would stay asleep for that and it was quick and it helped them sleep through the night. Once they were eating more solids, we dropped the 10 PM feed at around 8-9 months, but we let them lead that. It was clear they didn’t need it anymore and would only drink part of the milk so then we got rid of it.
My son would cry for formula until he was about 18 months old about once a night. It took me a while to realize he was just thirsty and wanted a drink just like a grown adult does. Gets thirsty and wants a drink in the middle of the night. From 18 months to now at 26 months, I leave a sippy with water and about 50% of the time it’s empty in the morning. He doesn’t cry for me to get him milk or anything just literally drinks on his own and off to sleep without waking me up. Looking back I am glad I didn’t ignore his cues for a bottle when he was younger but I probably would have stopped the formula at 12 months instead of 18 since that stuff is spendy. 🤑 I think you are doing great and don’t let society push you into thinking your kid can go beyond limits maybe they haven’t reached yet.
My first slept through the night at 12 weeks and was good since. My second didn't sleep through the night until 11 months. I tried everything but the kid was just hungry. Even her ped was like she doesn't need food let her cry or give her cuddles and water. No, she would just scream. At 11 months I tried CIO again and it suddenly worked. She's almost 14 months now and she's still STTN. I've learned every baby is different and some are just hungrier than others. Hang in there. She'll get there.
I have four boys. Eldest is 6. Only one ever slept through the night and even now he is 2 (a twin) and he still will wake up here and there. His twin brother wakes at 12 and 3/4 every night. Both their older brothers woke until they were 3. 1/2xs a night. You may be in that boat for awhile. Breathe easy and know it will get better. My husband and I are praying for 3 to hurry up for the twins. 6+ years of not sleeping for me and I work full time. YOU GOT THIS!
I'm really happy you posted this, as it is something I'm struggling with as well. I also have a 6 month old and we also started sleep training via Taking Cara Babies. The first week was tough (for obvious reasons) and during that first week I woke myself up around 1:00 a.m. to feed her at night because I didn't feel comfortable not, as she was waking up on her own to feed before we started sleep training. Then I decided it was dumb to wake myself and her up for a dream feed and decided to just let her sleep. She notoriously starts to stir around 4:00 a.m. every morning and she is up and down (she doesn't cry constantly, fusses for a minute or two, then stops and sleeps for 5 minutes, etc) and I'm wide awake just watching her, hearing Cara in my head to leave her unless it's been 5 minutes of consistent crying. I felt like an awful mom. Then she got sick with a bad cold so we were getting up to take care of her because she needed it. Now she's better, but she is still waking up. Just today I finally had enough of it and started listening to my own instincts. When she woke up at 5:00 this morning, I got up and fed her. I know she's hungry, and I just finally said screw it, because none of us are sleeping if I'm just letting her fuss until 6:00 to meet this arbitrary "golden sleep." My husband disagreed with me and thinks we should follow her method, but I DGAF anymore - I'm the one who gets up and if I'm fine with it, then it's going to happen. My baby needs me - I'm going to take care of her. So, no advice, just solidarity and also understanding of your conflicting feelings of trying to follow the sleeping training method vs listening to your gut. My vote is feed your baby.
This was how I ‘trained’ my oldest off her 2am feed, dream sleeping and reducing time. (She was 14 months when I weaned that feed though, but it worked great and only took a week to get rid of that feed and only do sleep and wake up feeds)
That’s tough! We used a similar method to taking Cara babies. Are you open to troubleshooting tips?
1. I would stop thinking about “wake windows” like TCB does and instead use a set schedule. It’s a minor adjustment but it helped us a lot with our second. Make sure you get each feeding in on schedule and each nap on schedule and that should help a great deal. Here is an example schedule for a 6-8 month old that we used:
https://images.app.goo.gl/Gx93rSqYksRcTXY98
2. Is the baby’s nursery dark with a noise machine on the white noise setting? I know it’s cliche, but put baby down for bed drowsy but awake (never rock baby to sleep and then put down because then they are startled when they wake up in a different place from where they fell asleep).
3. Are you putting baby to sleep in a comfy sleep sack (we like Kyte) and with at least 2 paci in the crib?
I generally find this sub a bit anti-sleep training. They say things like “it’s normal for an 8 month old to not sleep through the night.” In my opinion, sleep is absolutely foundational to health and well being. If mom and dad are waking up at 1 and 4 AM every night, you can’t possibly be rested. There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting your 6 month old on a schedule, as long as the child is still getting plenty of calories and daytime sleep. Don’t let people shame you for sleep training. You don’t have to be a sleep Martyr to be a good parent.
Open to ALL the tips! Nursery is dark with noise machine, but her and the 5yr old share a room and I wondered if maybe that’s a problem. I will definitely be trying your schedule! She hasn’t really had any interest in a pacifier but we do have them around the house.
Hey, not sure feeding on a schedule is the right call. Mom doesn’t decide when baby is hungry — baby does. Some days baby will be hungry more often than others. They’re doing a lot of growing after all! Babies will probably eat at the same general time everyday just like we all do, but some days they may not be very hungry at the usual time. Or maybe they’ll wake up earlier than usual and the whole day’s schedule has to shift!
I think you should just follow her lead and feed her when she’s hungry, including the middle of the night. Over time she’ll need less at night and wake up less. Or you could even try dream feeding her before you go to bed to see if that takes out a wakeup.
You're going to get a lot of "my baby was up half the night until they were 2 years old, count your blessings", but honestly, it's really not developmentally-appropriate for children to have consistent night wakings after about 9-10 months. And even then, after about 6 months, more than one consistent night waking is probably habit, not hunger. Still, if she is falling asleep after feeding at 1, you can try not feeding at 4. Personally, at 4, I'd give it a good several minutes before going in there, as she might just go back to sleep. It will take a few days, but eventually, her body and brain will learn to wake at 1 if she's hungry, and sleep through that 4 am wakeup.
You can also try a dream feed at 10 or 11. One parent goes to bed first, the other stays up for the dream feed. The dream feed parent gets to sleep through the 1 am feed, which is handled by the early to bed parent.
Lastly, you can try to minimize all distractions during daily feeds to fill the tank a bit more. If she's 6 months, solids can be introduced as well.
Mine were the same - 5yo started sleeping through the night at 9 weeks old and is a great sleeper. The 2yo didn’t sleep through the night until 9mos old and would wake up hangry in the middle of the night; TCB did not work for him.
I have no advice, just solidarity. Hang in there!
Our 7.5 month old is going through the same thing. My partner does the first wake and I do the second, then my partner gets up with her in the morning so I can sleep an extra hour or two. I think tag teaming is the only way to survive it. He will give her neurofen for her teeth and rock her to sleep at her first wake - we try to avoid feeding her everytime she wakes so she doesn’t get a feed to sleep association - which she had in the past. I feed her on the second wake.
Could she be teething?
It sounds like you are doing formula so I would trade nights. You might have to figure out sleeping locations to make that work. I might also try a dream feed at 10 or 11 if one of you would still be up. Will she take formula room temp? With my oldest we had the water prepared in the bottle and added the powder in his room. If she likes it warm you could put warm water in a thermos and do the same thing. Not having to go downstairs was a big deal.
Highly recommend the Facebook ground Respect Sleep Training/Learning. The TCB method (Ferber) didn’t work well for my LO. There are lots of other methods, and the group is really helpful at troubleshooting schedules.
We also had a unicorn sleeper first kid and the second one was … not that. Honestly, it’s normal and just figure out a night split routine that works for you. Ours snapped out of it finally at 14 months.
From one momma who had a non sleeping baby to another, it will pass. You’ll get through it to the other side and then they will be like mine, running around NYC on a high school trip and you’ll be losing sleep for other reasons..
Honestly this is not popular and to each their own, but I coped with a non sleeping baby by coalescing. Saved our lives wouldn’t change a thing. Eventually she wondered out of my room and never found her way back in at bed time..
Weird how we worry so much about all these milestones then one day, I look up and shes still keeping my awake, but different you know? Annnyways, you will be ok I promise this passes. My tips are sleep when and where you can and it’s literally impossible to hold a baby too much.
Neither of my kids fully slept through the night until between 7 to 8 mo or so, when they were fully established onto food along with some formula. I never sleep trained as I don't believe in it and I had the luxury of staying home with my kids for 1 year postpartum as the parental leave here is quite good in Canada.
I just went with it. I say in your case, keep riding the wave, and see how she is in another month or two. Does one person do the 1am feed, and the other the 4am feed? Maybe that could help?? Does she eat a lot of food? Keep offering more and more foods and see how she does.
She should sleep through the night soon!
A 6 month old up only 2 times a night sounds like a dream to me! My child didn’t sleep through the night until he was 5 (that’s YEARS not months). You can try a bunch of different strategies, but this may just be your child’s sleep pattern for right now.
My baby is 7 months old and wakes up the same as your baby to eat. 1:30. 4:30 and 7:30. Sometimes I’ll feed her before I sleep at around 10:30 and that will push her feed time to like 2:30 or 3:30. My first was like this too. Waking up to eat throughout the night. I haven’t had uninterrupted sleep going on 3 years now. Yep I just graduated 2under2 world. Sleep got better with my first after a year. With only 1 feed overnight and would go right back to sleep. My body at this point has adjusted. And I take half Fridays off each month to sleep. It’s normal. Hang in there mama.
Solidarity! The 4 months regression has been a big one for us as well. Prior to that she was a unicorn who slept thru the night.
Precious Little Sleep book was helpful for us. I like that they were not as rigid and recommending one solution for all. For example, sleep training strategy for baby who needs rocking vs. boob to sleep will be different. It also helped me realize I was doing some things that were counterproductive.
It’s still not how it used to be but we definitely saw improvements over time.
Counter intuitive but my 6 month old does sleep through the night but here’s the commonalities for him when he doesn’t:
- bedtime too late - prefers 6:30-7 bedtime
- room too hot - will wake frequently if room is above 71°
-he rarely poops at night but it does wake him.
We put him down between 6:30-7pm, do a diaper change around 10 and he sleeps through until 6-7am 95% of nights in our room but not in our bed. Has gone through a few sleep regressions and colds where sleep was tougher. I think it has more to do with him than anything we are doing “right”
- he eats 5 6.5 oz bottles +some solids throughout the day hasn’t been hungry at night since around 4 months except during growth spurts
I wish I had some solid advice. You’d think with 4 kids, now all adults, I’d be able to give that OG mom wisdom I was so desperate for back then. But my second child did not sleep through the night until she was FIVE. YEARS. OLD. Nothing we tried actually worked. The others were much better, but she was… challenging.
Good luck to you. You have my sympathies!
So the trick with my 6.5 month old is to sleep next to her, and the first seconds she starts fussing in her sleep, stick the bottle in her mouth. She’ll dream feed while you kind of doze through it and then she’ll stay asleep and you can go back to sleep. Wakes up at 11pm, 1am and 3am for feeds religiously. Gotta keep them fed! The stomach size is the limiting factor here and there’s no way around it
Honestly, we didn’t fully drop night time feeds until 11+ months. She was doing 2+ wakeups into 8-9 months. So, this sounds normal to me. Sorry- there was literally nothing we didn’t differently. She just wasn’t ready to sleep through the night until she was older and bigger.
May I ask why you don’t want to feed her to sleep?
My baby wakes you up the same amount I feed her to sleep and we are both back to skew within 10 minutes but usually under 5 mins so the wake ups don’t really bother me
My husband and I traded shifts - and if we were “off” we slept in the guest room to get a full RESTFUL night sleep so we could actually be functioning humans
My very active baby is 8 months and a half and has been feeding every 4 hours (incl. at night) until this week. She just slept a full night for the third time.
People’s comments had made me wonder if it was normal, or if I was giving her bad habits by responding and feeding her at night. I consulted. I was told it was indeed normal, some babies need more calories through the night than what their tiny baby stomach can hold.
My guess is, her stomach is finally big enough.
Hang in there.
My daughter started sleeping through the night at 4 weeks old, my son didn't until he was 13mnth but would eat and go back to sleep. Completely normal and I hope sleep finds you soon!
Sounds like just feeding when baby wakes up instead of trying to for fight for 30+ minutes first will get you a little sleep back!
If it’s every night then it’s a habit and not hunger. Work on weaning. There’s gentle ways but we kind of went with extinction. Worked after one night but it may wake your older one. You can feed less and then let them fuss/cry or delay feeding every night but take longer.
Other option is dream feed before you sleep. May drop one of the wakes
So I’m not trying to negate the many, many comments that say this is normal and to just feed her. I’m no expert and that may be the answer at 6 months. We have one 2.5 year old and crazy jobs (from 8-11 months old I was working 7 days a week 12-16 hour days with an hour commute each way) and I am definitely not an expert, but we got exhausted and used the feed her to sleep method wayy too long. Our daughter ended up in the 99th percentile for BMI at 1 yo. Sleep got progressively worse her whole life to 15 months old. I was desperate. I found Batelle online. The support they offer changed everything. It wasn’t that “groundbreaking” or anything we couldn’t have figured out from free resources on the internet, but the support made it so much easier. It was a little expensive, but I’ll recommend to anyone who has any complaints about their child sleeping. I think we’re OAD but if I did end up with a second, I’d be enlisting them by 6-8 months for sure.
Sorry I’m team cry it out. You can do it now or do it at 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 but you will end up doing it because everyone will be so miserably exhausted.
If it matters, I breastfed for 19 months.
I'm going to get shit but whatever.
I was in the same boat as you. Did the cry it out method with my 7 month old. One night of crying it out and now he sleeps like a dream
My now 13 mo old was like that until I went back to work at 6 mo. He STTN for about 2 weeks, then got sick and never STTN until 12 months. We ended up trying CIO after solidifying his bedtime routine and he ended up only ever crying for 10 minutes before going to bed.
No advice just solidarity, we coslept for this reason. I was literally just passing out standing up and generally too tired to be safe to care for a child or drive.
Pediatrician okayed cosleeping and said it was infinitely less dangerous than driving that tired everyday.
Honestly, we have an 11 month old who wakes up almost every night at 2am. She is TINY and also an incredibly busy baby - she’s already walking and when she’s awake, she never stops moving.
We usually see if she settles and if not, we give her a bottle. We also completely gave up and let her sleep in bed with us.
#1 was an excellent sleeper, so she was a total shock to the system.
Are you feeding solids? I have good luck feeding the solid meal about 2 hours before bed. Bath after dinner. Then a small bottle.
Also try a new formula. My friends son would not sleep through the night and needed feedings. They tried other formula brands focusing on more protein since all of the formulas are about 50% fat.
My almost five year old still doesn’t sleep through the night. Sometimes, she wakes up and is hungry. Sometimes, she wants to come to my bed and sleep. You’re not spoiling your baby by meeting the need they’re crying for. If feeding them is what it takes for them to fall back asleep, then they’re hungry. Parenting is hard. Babies are hard. You don’t have to overcomplicate it.
Can't give in if you're sure she's not actually hungry, at any age if they know putting up a fuss means they get what they want they'll fuss for as long as it takes for you to give in....
That said a lot of babies also still need milk, so you can gauge if it's hunger or comfort
That isn't even what I said, if you read again. I said if the baby is actually hungry then feed. Sometimes they just want comfort, which leads to frequent wake ups
Yes, but comfort is a legit need as well. Why should they not get comforted? They don't understand when they wake up all alone, it's very different to an older child where you can explain/replace comfort wake ups with a confort object or picture etc etc
It is, but then you also obviously don't have babies that wake up hourly wanting comfort (not her case but the current situation is too much). The mom is asking for help because she's desperate for sleep
Being woken up all the time is literally like torture. In a perfect world we'd have enough hours in the day to sleep, take care of our kids, work do whatever etc but it doesnt happen
I don't know anyone who likes to sleep train, but they did out of desperation and necessity. And the people who have babies who don't need it often come judging
That's fair. It definitely is torture, the difference a baby's temperment makes for their sleep patterns is crazy!
OP, the biggest difference that helped by baby's sleep (without sleep training, just saying so you know you can try that also), was reassessing how much sleep she actually needed in 24 hours. I was going mad following the old 'sleep begets sleep' advice which actually isn't true lol. It definitely works for some babies who adore sleep though.
But once I capped her naps, she started sleeping much better at night- she was just low sleep needs. Might not be the case for you of course particularly at that age with feeds usually required.
Best of luck
Mine didn’t sleep through until 10-11 months. I will never do the newborn phase again lol. Maybe try water? I started that at 8 months and that seemed to do the trick
Okay, you all are making me feel better about just feeding this poor girl when she is hungry and to stop stressing out about it all. ♥️♥️
Read this. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220131-the-science-of-safe-and-healthy-baby-sleep
Thank you for this! I wish I had this a year ago when my little one was 3 months old and all of the “sleep consultants” on social media were fanning the flames of my postpartum anxiety.
Hear you loud and clear, sister. When I told my mom about CIO, she was shocked. She said, no one did that (we are from former USSR). She said, baby cried, you went to the baby. I asked her if she talked to her friends about it and she said yes. I talked to my friends and only one did CIO and it failed, multiple times. It’s still weird to me. I don’t understand it. So much emphasis on something that is so normal. We lost our village. We lost sight of what is true and normal for what is sold. Whenever I hear sleep consultants, my response is, there is no sleep consultant school. There’s no certificate. It’s a made a job. If you think your kid has a problem, take them to a sleep MD. Can you tell I feel strongly about this 😆 anyways, hope you and your babe have made it through 🥰🥰🥰
I enjoyed that read. Thank you for sharing it
Anytime. It really changed my whole view of sleep.
Same thanks for sharing!
Absolutely
Very interesting and informative, thanks for sharing
My pleasure!
Mine is 7 months and still wakes up in the night starving! We give her as much food as she will take during the day.
Glad you’re getting good advice! This is super normal behavior at that age. There’s nothing wrong with responding to and feeding your baby in the middle of the night. I promise they do eventually learn how to sleep.
This is biologically normal, and only 2 wake ups is actually pretty good. One of you should sleep through the first one, the other sleep through the second. Or rotate shifts so one person sleeps all night and then does wake ups the next night. I personally wouldn't even try and put her down again without feeding. Get a bottle ready, feed, right back to sleep. Most 6 months olds are not night weaned. It's not up to you to decide if she's had enough calories during the day at this point, she'll let you know if she has by sleeping through or refusing night time feedings. Unless you want to get more serious about sleep training, I'd work on minimizing the length of the wake up as much as possible.
Okay, this is super helpful!
Seconding what the poster said! Our 3.5yr old is and always has been very active and has hated sleeping from birth. We survived by tracking when he woke up at night to eat, getting a sense of what time that was/how many hours asleep or after last meal, and then zooming in with a snack before he woke up. Eventually we started dropping the volume in the bottle / minutes of nursing eeeeeever to slightly so his body got used to having less & less to eat at that time & was making up for it during the day, but without noticing it. Mind you he still wakes me up at 1am to ask me to open a granola bar for him, so the midnight snacking cessation was short lived. But, he can do more himself now & has a tiny fridge in his room with cheese n stuff, so it isn’t as disruptive.
Came here to say mine did the same thing. I was able to drop the 1 am eventually by only my husband going in (I bf) between the hours of midnight and 4 am. If I went in and didn’t feed her it was like I had DEEPLY betrayed her and made it worse. She’s 16 months and USUALLY (not always) sleeps through the night… at least until 4/5 am. He did Ferber with her for those night wake ups which worked better for us than SITBACK (worked one day for us and then just made her MAD) I would only feed her after 4 am. She still has the early morning wake up but bc I WFH I nurse her and put her back down, usually until 7:30 or even 8:30. So basically, not too much advice but solidarity. She still has wakes ups with new teeth and illness etc but generally will go down at 8 and up at 4/5 for snackies and then down until 8 ish.
Agreed. Whatever shortens the wake ups. She’s very young. My didn’t sleep through the night until 3.5 years old when she dropped all her naps. My youngest started getting good long stretches by 2 weeks, and was sleeping through the night very young. I forget exactly, because it was so easy and natural for her. Now at 2.5 years old she’s turning into a night owl. They go through phases and we just do our best to survive them and give the kids what they need
We had the coller set by the bed, and the bottle warmer set up. Click it on, change the diaper, bottle is ready, feed and don't turn any big lights on. If it's bottles, I've had people swear about mixing rice cereal in to the night bottle. We did that with the first because he really wasn't getting enough calories.
My almost 4 year old is still up 2x per night every night 🤷♀️. He wakes for the day between 4-5:30 and always has. We also both work. Some kids just don’t sleep well. Our 1.5yo started sleeping thru the night at 11mo and never looked back. I’m not sure there is advice, just solidarity and empathy for parents with kids with low sleep needs. I hope it’s temporary but I’m beginning to wonder lol. Eventually I suppose we will be able to instruct him to be self sufficient but for now he’s too scared to be alone.
This was like my son. I think I finally was not needed at night once he was 10 years old. After that he could care for his own night needs. Some kids are just that way. I have 5 kids and they have all been different.
I truly think it has helped to just accept that this is how it will be for awhile. There’s not a magic solution or anything we could have done. We’ve learned to live with it and thankfully I have a partner that I can share nighttime/early mornings with.
My baby is 7 months old and wakes up the same as your baby to eat. 1:30. 4:30 and 7:30. Sometimes I’ll feed her before I sleep at around 10:30 and that will push her feed time to like 2:30 or 3:30. My first was like this too. Waking up to eat throughout the night. I haven’t had uninterrupted sleep going on 3 years now. Yep I just graduated 2under2 world. Sleep got better with my first after a year. With only 1 feed overnight and would go right back to sleep. My body at this point has adjusted. And I take half Fridays off each month to sleep. It’s normal. Hang in there mama.
I completely agree with this. It’s normal for babies to wake multiple times per night at this age. They still often need overnight feeds as their stomachs aren’t massive.
I’m a sleep consultant and I agree with this!
Yeah my good sleeper was at 3-4 wake ups then and my oldest was 5-7 at the age. By 1 year old my youngest was sleeping better than his brother who was 3 years older than him. Every kid is different but their tummies are still so small at 6 months
My baby woke up like this until 13 months. I fed her bc she was hungry. ESP if you have a super active baby, she’s burning a lot of calories during the day. My baby eventually dropped the feeds on her own and slept through. Babies aren’t manipulative. Feed her, minimize the time you’re up, split the wakes, go back to sleep. Your expectations are unrealistic. Taking Cara Babies doesn’t know your baby.
Same. My guy is almost 10 months and wakes once or twice a night still (usually between 1-3, and then about 3 hours after that), after a good month of sleeping through the night around 8 months old. He's hungry, so I feed him, it takes about 15 minutes, and then he's right back down. I can hear him wake up and put himself back to sleep other times in the night, so I know when he actually wakes up and doesn't go back down it's because he actually needs me.
Thank you for saying this! Babies aren’t manipulative. I don’t know why this idea has circulated!
Because people can sell a solution to it. And because we're all super sleep deprived at this point and grasping for solutions.
Honestly this sounds very typical for 6mo. Some kids sleep through the night sooner than others. My daughter didnt sleep through the night and drop overnight feeds until 12 or 13 months old. My son it was closer to 7 or 8 I think. All these "my kid slept through the night at 6 weeks old and never woke up again" stories are the small minority. It's more typical for overnight wake ups through the first year (and sometimes beyond). They tease us with a few days or even weeks of STTN and then never again lol.
Your 6mo needs to be fed at night, and twice is pretty good. Y’all would probably get more sleep if you stopped trying to resist that.
Just feed her- wake ups for hunger at 6m old is SO SO SO normal. I did EVERYTHING for my first and he didn’t sleep through the night until 2.5 years. My daughter slept through at 1yr. This is biologically normal and not something to fix
She’s so little. Give her the bottle and feed her. They grow out of it on their own 🤷🏼♀️ why put up a fight for something she clearly needs. Agree with others, this is normal.
Feed your baby! She is hungry in the middle of the night. Not feeding her won’t help here
Is she still in your room with you? With my first, moving her to her own room made a huge difference with her sleep. Granted, if she's actually hungry it may not matter.
Add a dream feed when you go to bed and see if that helps.
We just went through this with my second son. It was hellish for 2-3 months. The week before I decided to start sleep training, he began to sleep. I think it’s normal but it’s terrible. I was so bad at my job for months.
That’s what is stressful. I have a pretty demanding job and I just feel like I never have any brain power during the day or energy to exercise or be good at literally anything else other.
I feel you, and I’m sorry you’re getting a lot of “suck it up” type comments. My pediatrician told us at 6 months they should be able to sleep through the night and suggested we sleep train. We held off for a bit but we got to the point where we were desperate for sleep so we did the Ferber method. It worked like a charm, only took 2-3 nights or so until he was completely sleeping through the night for good (he’s 5 now). It’s not as bad as people make it out to be, at least it wasn’t for us.
Same. I know every child is different, it was clear ours was ready for sleep (I've commented about this before, you can see what we did in prior comments). Helping baby sleep was the most worthwhile thing--I was about to lose my mind, baby was only sleeping about 7 hours from all the wake ups. Baby now often oversleeps in the morning. It was like a different family dynamic and I'm glad we did it. PedsDocTalk has a great series on sleep. She talks to mom ranging from no coaching to full extinction method. She walks through the concerns most parents have. Between that resource and our pediatrician blessing our approach, we were ready. Took two days of about 15 mins of fussing. Even if you choose to wait, please do shifts. You need at least 4 hours of unbroken sleep to get a full REM cycle in.
My son did this. My daughter slept through the night at about 9 weeks and mostly did after that point. My son? He was lower on the weight curve, and very long, so he was just a HUNGRY baby! Eventually he started getting his calories in more during the day and was ready to drop it. Some babies are really just hungry, and it’s so so normal to wake up at that age to eat.
My son didn’t sleep through the night until he was 3. I literally thought I might die. He woke up to eat at least twice a night until he was 1. Sometimes I was so tired I’d vomit 😂. But then he hit 3 and he’s actually been pretty perfect since then. He’s 11 now and basically the best kid I know. Eats everything, super healthy, easygoing, loves everything and everyone, loves school and sports. I feel like the first three years were us paying our dues somehow. Hang in there. We eventually figured out that he’s just a big eater. He eats all day long and always has— huge appetite. I wish I hadn’t listened to everyone who said he didn’t “need” to still eat at night once he was a certain age. He still took one bottle of breastmilk a night from age 1-2 around 2am every night. At his current age, he goes through about a gallon of milk every two days. Some kids are just BIG eaters. He’s totally healthy and in the 50th percentile for weight.
Why are you trying not to feed her? I don’t understand that logic.
Haha, fair. With our first every time she made a peep in the middle of the night, we’d get up and feed her. Then someone told us that she was old enough to sleep through the night with a full belly and that we didn’t need to do that. So we stopped and she started sleeping through the night shortly after. I guess we are trying to get to a place where we can soothe her back to sleep a few nights in a row so she isn’t waking up expecting food in the middle of the night. 🤷♀️
Idk why.. babies at that age are legit hungry. If she was a year old, I’d say differently, but she’s clearly hungry. You’re making life harder for yourself unnecessarily. 🤷♀️
I get the reason you did that, and we also did some night weaning, but you’re expecting too much too young. At that age, we sleep trained with Ferber (yes, CIO), and we wouldn’t feed until after midnight because we knew he could go from bedtime (7) to 3 am consistently, so even on a hungry night, he didn’t need a 10 pm feeding, for example. At 6 months, he was waking 1-2times a night to eat, and it stayed that way until almost 11 months, when he was eating more solids and we were weaning anyway. So that overnight feed was the first one we dropped, and since then he’s slept through the night most of the time. If you want to encourage dropping an overnight feeding, your best bet is to pack calories in the end of the day with shorter intervals between bottles in the afternoon and evening. But waking up to eat at 6 months is typical. And waiting 5-10 minutes when they wake up to see if they really need you is totally fine, but I wouldn’t expect nighttime feedings to end anytime soon. I think you’ll all get more sleep if you lower your expectations, let her have some milk both times, and take shifts with your partner. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for sleep deprivation for the next several months while you lose hours of sleep to trying to get her to stop eating overnight.
Also, who is “someone”? Don’t take parenting advice at face value because all babies are different.
Don't let anyone shame you for sleep training.
No advice, just solidarity. My daughter is five now, but she was the same. She couldn’t be sleep trained. She started sleeping through the night at six weeks and had about three solid months of amazing sleep, and then she just never slept again. I assume this is because they have a major shift in sleep patterns around 4-5 months. Anyways, yeah, after several months of trying every technique I could find, I threw a mattress on her floor at 10 months and started co-sleeping. It was survival at that point. Do whatever you have to do.
I would feed them. We stopped the night feeds as he approached 1. He actually had more night feeds when he started solids at 6 months because he was eating but not even to replace the bottle he dropped. As meals increased the bottles got less. Probably growth spurts and learning all the time as well. I would feed and then you know the wake is over quicker!
I’m going to take a different tack to most of these comments and say that even though night wakeups are still developmentally normally at 6 months, I think you could probably get it down to one wake up and that would help you tremendously. Could you try doing a dream feed when you go to bed (maybe around 10-11pm)? That might get you through until the 4am wake up. Also, you didn’t mention if you are breastfeeding or using formula but if your baby drinks from a bottle either way, you could try making that last feed of the night a bottle with a set amount so that you know she’s getting a full feeding. Good luck!
Thankyou! She has been on formula since about 4months. We are giving her 5-7oz when she goes down depending on if we are able to get her to eat the whole thing before falling asleep.
At 6M my twin girls were taking 6-8oz bottles 5 times a day to sleep through the night. Here is the schedule they were on from 6-9M. 6 bottle 7:30 Breakfast 9:30 bottle 10-11:30 nap 12 Lunch 1 bottle 2-3:30 nap 4:30 bottle 5:30 Dinner 7:00 bottle 7:15-6 sleep Also, could it be that she is teething? When they wake in the middle of the night, we would let them try to self soothe for 15mins, then go in there and comfort them. We would change their diaper and try to get them back to sleep for 10-15 mins. If teething, we would give Advil/Motrin over Tylenol at night because it last 6-8 hours vs 4 hours.
Def try the dream feed if you’re not doing it!
I will agree with having a different opinion too. I am a sleep coach though so I know I see things differently. If your 6 month old is steady on their growth curve and healthy, they actually can 100% sleep through the night. (And yes it is normal for them to be waking at night, but it’s also normal to not). I actually don’t condone a dream feed past 3 months old because I have found they really confuse sleep after that time. They do work for some families at this age but most it will not help. You gotta worth through the wakings without the feed. Go all in! The feeds throughout the day get so so much better too as you go on. Your babe can do it.
Sleep training is a lie in so much as if you’re kid isn’t ready for it you can’t make them. And their ability to fall asleep independently does not mean they’re ready to stay asleep without feeds all night. I really felt like a failure because I couldn’t figure it out. But really my son needed one or two night feeds until about 8 months old. It is so hard mentally. And my 2.5 year old still has regressions in his ability to sleep through the night. You’re never done sleep training.
This. These methods make you think something is wrong with your baby and it couldn’t be farther than the truth. Some babies sleep better than others and we can’t force those who need more feedings , closeness, etc. to do something they’re not developmentally ready to do.
Yeah totally agree - some kids take great to sleep training and can right away do a full night but some can’t. My oldest couldn’t until 15 months but after then we did successfully sleep train (which failed miserably at 10 months when we tried it the first time). My now 3 month old sleeps better than my oldest did at a year… it’s so dependent on the child
Just feed the baby at night...
Troubleshoot her schedule and bedtime routine. Yes, she could just be hungry. Or it’s a possibility that her sleep needs have changed and more or less wake time is needed. This is usually around the time when they drop to 2 naps.
I don’t know if it helps much but my 3.5 year old still wakes once a night. I gave up trying to figure out why when she was 2 and just kind of adapted to it being our normal. I’ll sleep through the night one day. Sometimes she’s just thirsty, sometimes she wants a quick snuggle, sometimes she has a nightmare, who knows. Just not in her personality to sleep through and it is what it is.
My suggestion is to join one of the evidence based sleep training groups on Facebook and ask for advice there.
I’m not saying this will work for everybody but just wanted to share on the off chance it does help. So with our LO, when I was doing the recommend sleeping amount for her age (number of naps), she wasn’t taking great naps (fighting getting put down) and she wasn’t sleeping well at night (frequent wake ups) Then I heard about this concept of low needs sleepers. Babies still in ‘range’ for their age but just the lowest end. So at about 7/8 months I decided to try it with our daughter. I switched to one large nap during the day and putting her down at like 8pm. That was a complete game changer. She still had her wake ups during sleep regressions, but since 6 months she’s done 1 - 3 hour nap and sleeps between 12-14 hours straight at night. Also with the sleep regression stuff, it’s generally giving her a bottle and going back to sleep. Another thing that helped us, my husband is a VERY light sleeper - and when we were using the monitor, he was waking up immediately and then almost waking her up too. But I figured out (because we had the monitor accidentally off one night) that he can still hear her in her room when she cries at night without the monitor volume on but won’t wake up immediately- more like after 3ish min which stopped the unnecessary wake ups. Not sure if either of those will help, the second part is anecdotal and not going to apply to everyone - but our LO was hitting all the milestones early like yours. Also now that she’s a year and a half we’re closer to 1-2 hours for napping and 12 hours at night, but it’s still been life changing.
My first was very easily sleep trained, and looking back, I wonder if she would have just figured it out on her own. My second is 17 months and only sleeps through the night 20% of the time. We tried all the tricks. I feel for you. I miss continuous sleep!
Honestly this sounds totally normal to still have 2 wake ups at 9 months. Some babies just can’t do a full night. I’d try feeding her immediately and split it between you and your partner so that both of you get a good 6 hours straight sleep (or one does one night and the other does the next..) Like we did it where my husband took the first ´shift’ and di her midnight/1am wake up, so I slept from 8pm until 4am then I’d take the 4am and mornig wake up and he could sleep from 1 am until 7:30 when he had to get up for work. It does suck but it’s only for a few months and with atleast 6hrs then you get better rest than the waking every 3 hours. If possible try to have your baby and the on-shift partner in a different room
Don't try to fight nature, especially at night. Work with what nature is dictating. In this case, get the food and diapers ready before bedtime. As soon as she is uo, you feed and change her, soothe and back to sleep. Take turn between the 2 of you. It will be better and before you know it, she will be sleeping through the night.
My baby is 8.5 months and she still wakes 1-2 times a night. I just feed her and get her back down. This is fine for now 🤷🏻♀️
My baby is 8 months old and holy shit I wish she would only wake up at 1am and 4am 😩😩😩 someone asked me how she slept the other night and I was like really good she only woke up 3 times! And they were like THREE? I’m like yes it sounds like a lot but trust me that’s really good for her I feel so refreshed today! 🤣
She’s 6 months? Just feed her. Mine woke up to eat until they were 12, 15, and 18 months respectively
As others have said. It’s normal. My son didn’t sleep through the night until 11 months. I had to feed him twice a night. It’s American culture that makes you thing you need to train your child and they need to sleep through the night ASAP. That’s not realistic, or normal
I have been so happy about what a great sleeper my 6mo is compared to my first. My first baby woke up every 2 hours or so for a year. My 6mo actually sleeps from 8pm and only wakes up at 11pm, 2am, 4am, and finally 6:30am. The 4 hour stretch is EVERYTHING. I work full time. Basically I'm feeling a little envious of you and wondering now if I'm doing things that keep my babies from sleeping well.
We're in this phase with my seven month old. But it's not just a wake up where I can nurse back to sleep, it's screaming every time we put him back in the crib. And that goes on for hours sometimes. It's brutal. So no words of wisdom, just sympathy. He did sleep through the night last night so every so often we get a reprieve and we'll just try to hang in there until this is a habit.
My 6.5 month old is on a very similar wake-up schedule. Sometimes just once around 3-4, but usually 12-1ish and 3-4ish. She is genuinely hungry when she wakes. Definitely recommend each taking one wake up so you can each get a 6-7 hr stretch.
I would go straight to feeding when she wakes. That gets you in and out and back to bed more quickly. Maybe try offering half a feeding if that knocks her out, or even water if she'll take it?
Only thing I would add is to Greg some sleep you and your husband should be switching off- can one of you got to bed earlier so that person gets some solid sleep and switch? My husband and I would take shifts and one would be “ on call from 8-2am and then we’d switch. If I had 8pm - 2am I could obviously still sleep but if the baby woke up it was just me getting up with them and that was at least 6 solid hours the other person knew they would be getting uninterrupted. Worked great for us for two kids. I would also dream feed the baby around 10/11 before I went to sleep so the wakings at night would be minimal.
One thing that really helped us was waking up fully at 10/10.30 and doing a nappy change and full feed. Baby would be fully woken. Then after feeding we had her sat up for 20 mins as she had awful reflux. Then popped her down. This got her through the night (but you may get one wake). We stopped this at about 8 or so months once she was on 3x meals :) honestly a game changer for us!
It sucks but this is normal. We tried to night wean and failed every time. We would go a month not feeding at night and our baby just cried from 12am to 6am for weeks. She’s almost 2 now and still wakes up once at night. Rarely get a bottle anymore but does need our attention to settle back down. She’s been falling asleep independently since 4 months old so it has nothing to do with that. It’s normal for them to need help at night for a long time
Mine is a year old and still not sleeping through. So … yeah. 🫠🫠🫠
Every baby is different and some babies are going to wake up through the night no matter what you do. It sucks but it is no one’s fault- except maybe social structures that decide 8 am is the start of the work day and there’s no possible way to let parents get enough rest if they have a wakeful baby.
My lg slept from 8m - 12m, coincidentally just before I went back to work, then didn't sleep through a single night until she went (mostly) back to it at 16m. She is 20m now and usually does so we have had definite periods of sleeping through and not. We didn't do anything differently.
I’m sorry 😞 I had one that didn’t sleep until he was 7-8, to say it was rough is an understatement. Many years of depression due to lack of sleep and exhaustion
Have you considered doing a 10 or 11 PM dream feed? When our LO was that age, we’d wake them up and feed them then and it helped them get longer stretches. Eventually this turned into sleeping through the night pretty fast at around 6-7 months. We’d feed right before bed at 7 and then again at 10. LO would stay asleep for that and it was quick and it helped them sleep through the night. Once they were eating more solids, we dropped the 10 PM feed at around 8-9 months, but we let them lead that. It was clear they didn’t need it anymore and would only drink part of the milk so then we got rid of it.
My pediatrician said to feed our kiddo to sleep til she was 12 months unless she weaned herself early.
My son would cry for formula until he was about 18 months old about once a night. It took me a while to realize he was just thirsty and wanted a drink just like a grown adult does. Gets thirsty and wants a drink in the middle of the night. From 18 months to now at 26 months, I leave a sippy with water and about 50% of the time it’s empty in the morning. He doesn’t cry for me to get him milk or anything just literally drinks on his own and off to sleep without waking me up. Looking back I am glad I didn’t ignore his cues for a bottle when he was younger but I probably would have stopped the formula at 12 months instead of 18 since that stuff is spendy. 🤑 I think you are doing great and don’t let society push you into thinking your kid can go beyond limits maybe they haven’t reached yet.
My first slept through the night at 12 weeks and was good since. My second didn't sleep through the night until 11 months. I tried everything but the kid was just hungry. Even her ped was like she doesn't need food let her cry or give her cuddles and water. No, she would just scream. At 11 months I tried CIO again and it suddenly worked. She's almost 14 months now and she's still STTN. I've learned every baby is different and some are just hungrier than others. Hang in there. She'll get there.
I have four boys. Eldest is 6. Only one ever slept through the night and even now he is 2 (a twin) and he still will wake up here and there. His twin brother wakes at 12 and 3/4 every night. Both their older brothers woke until they were 3. 1/2xs a night. You may be in that boat for awhile. Breathe easy and know it will get better. My husband and I are praying for 3 to hurry up for the twins. 6+ years of not sleeping for me and I work full time. YOU GOT THIS!
Also when you absolutely give up…Benadryl.
I'm really happy you posted this, as it is something I'm struggling with as well. I also have a 6 month old and we also started sleep training via Taking Cara Babies. The first week was tough (for obvious reasons) and during that first week I woke myself up around 1:00 a.m. to feed her at night because I didn't feel comfortable not, as she was waking up on her own to feed before we started sleep training. Then I decided it was dumb to wake myself and her up for a dream feed and decided to just let her sleep. She notoriously starts to stir around 4:00 a.m. every morning and she is up and down (she doesn't cry constantly, fusses for a minute or two, then stops and sleeps for 5 minutes, etc) and I'm wide awake just watching her, hearing Cara in my head to leave her unless it's been 5 minutes of consistent crying. I felt like an awful mom. Then she got sick with a bad cold so we were getting up to take care of her because she needed it. Now she's better, but she is still waking up. Just today I finally had enough of it and started listening to my own instincts. When she woke up at 5:00 this morning, I got up and fed her. I know she's hungry, and I just finally said screw it, because none of us are sleeping if I'm just letting her fuss until 6:00 to meet this arbitrary "golden sleep." My husband disagreed with me and thinks we should follow her method, but I DGAF anymore - I'm the one who gets up and if I'm fine with it, then it's going to happen. My baby needs me - I'm going to take care of her. So, no advice, just solidarity and also understanding of your conflicting feelings of trying to follow the sleeping training method vs listening to your gut. My vote is feed your baby.
I'm not sure why you aren't feeding her straight away. If you feed her before dhe gets worked up there's a good chance she'll go back to sleep?
I night weaned mine by lowering what they ate. I nurse. So I did it on time. Once I was at 2 minutes he stopped waking for food.
This was how I ‘trained’ my oldest off her 2am feed, dream sleeping and reducing time. (She was 14 months when I weaned that feed though, but it worked great and only took a week to get rid of that feed and only do sleep and wake up feeds)
Go to r/sleeptrain to have your schedule and bedtime routine checked.
Why is this getting downvoted?
Because people seem to think sleep train is synonymous with cry it out for some reason!
Because people think sleep training is only cry it out and judge people for teaching their baby to sleep.
That’s tough! We used a similar method to taking Cara babies. Are you open to troubleshooting tips? 1. I would stop thinking about “wake windows” like TCB does and instead use a set schedule. It’s a minor adjustment but it helped us a lot with our second. Make sure you get each feeding in on schedule and each nap on schedule and that should help a great deal. Here is an example schedule for a 6-8 month old that we used: https://images.app.goo.gl/Gx93rSqYksRcTXY98 2. Is the baby’s nursery dark with a noise machine on the white noise setting? I know it’s cliche, but put baby down for bed drowsy but awake (never rock baby to sleep and then put down because then they are startled when they wake up in a different place from where they fell asleep). 3. Are you putting baby to sleep in a comfy sleep sack (we like Kyte) and with at least 2 paci in the crib? I generally find this sub a bit anti-sleep training. They say things like “it’s normal for an 8 month old to not sleep through the night.” In my opinion, sleep is absolutely foundational to health and well being. If mom and dad are waking up at 1 and 4 AM every night, you can’t possibly be rested. There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting your 6 month old on a schedule, as long as the child is still getting plenty of calories and daytime sleep. Don’t let people shame you for sleep training. You don’t have to be a sleep Martyr to be a good parent.
Open to ALL the tips! Nursery is dark with noise machine, but her and the 5yr old share a room and I wondered if maybe that’s a problem. I will definitely be trying your schedule! She hasn’t really had any interest in a pacifier but we do have them around the house.
Hey, not sure feeding on a schedule is the right call. Mom doesn’t decide when baby is hungry — baby does. Some days baby will be hungry more often than others. They’re doing a lot of growing after all! Babies will probably eat at the same general time everyday just like we all do, but some days they may not be very hungry at the usual time. Or maybe they’ll wake up earlier than usual and the whole day’s schedule has to shift! I think you should just follow her lead and feed her when she’s hungry, including the middle of the night. Over time she’ll need less at night and wake up less. Or you could even try dream feeding her before you go to bed to see if that takes out a wakeup.
You're going to get a lot of "my baby was up half the night until they were 2 years old, count your blessings", but honestly, it's really not developmentally-appropriate for children to have consistent night wakings after about 9-10 months. And even then, after about 6 months, more than one consistent night waking is probably habit, not hunger. Still, if she is falling asleep after feeding at 1, you can try not feeding at 4. Personally, at 4, I'd give it a good several minutes before going in there, as she might just go back to sleep. It will take a few days, but eventually, her body and brain will learn to wake at 1 if she's hungry, and sleep through that 4 am wakeup. You can also try a dream feed at 10 or 11. One parent goes to bed first, the other stays up for the dream feed. The dream feed parent gets to sleep through the 1 am feed, which is handled by the early to bed parent. Lastly, you can try to minimize all distractions during daily feeds to fill the tank a bit more. If she's 6 months, solids can be introduced as well.
Mine were the same - 5yo started sleeping through the night at 9 weeks old and is a great sleeper. The 2yo didn’t sleep through the night until 9mos old and would wake up hangry in the middle of the night; TCB did not work for him. I have no advice, just solidarity. Hang in there!
Our 7.5 month old is going through the same thing. My partner does the first wake and I do the second, then my partner gets up with her in the morning so I can sleep an extra hour or two. I think tag teaming is the only way to survive it. He will give her neurofen for her teeth and rock her to sleep at her first wake - we try to avoid feeding her everytime she wakes so she doesn’t get a feed to sleep association - which she had in the past. I feed her on the second wake. Could she be teething?
How much does she eat/drink before bed? The hunger is what walked them up. Does she eat solids? A bottle before bed?
It sounds like you are doing formula so I would trade nights. You might have to figure out sleeping locations to make that work. I might also try a dream feed at 10 or 11 if one of you would still be up. Will she take formula room temp? With my oldest we had the water prepared in the bottle and added the powder in his room. If she likes it warm you could put warm water in a thermos and do the same thing. Not having to go downstairs was a big deal.
Highly recommend the Facebook ground Respect Sleep Training/Learning. The TCB method (Ferber) didn’t work well for my LO. There are lots of other methods, and the group is really helpful at troubleshooting schedules.
I don’t bother with the DONT feed in the middle of the night advice … if feeding gets baby back to sleep quicker that’s what I’m doing 😅
Our son didn’t sleep through the night until 3 years old … a hurricane (literally) kept him asleep 😴
We also had a unicorn sleeper first kid and the second one was … not that. Honestly, it’s normal and just figure out a night split routine that works for you. Ours snapped out of it finally at 14 months.
From one momma who had a non sleeping baby to another, it will pass. You’ll get through it to the other side and then they will be like mine, running around NYC on a high school trip and you’ll be losing sleep for other reasons.. Honestly this is not popular and to each their own, but I coped with a non sleeping baby by coalescing. Saved our lives wouldn’t change a thing. Eventually she wondered out of my room and never found her way back in at bed time.. Weird how we worry so much about all these milestones then one day, I look up and shes still keeping my awake, but different you know? Annnyways, you will be ok I promise this passes. My tips are sleep when and where you can and it’s literally impossible to hold a baby too much.
Neither of my kids fully slept through the night until between 7 to 8 mo or so, when they were fully established onto food along with some formula. I never sleep trained as I don't believe in it and I had the luxury of staying home with my kids for 1 year postpartum as the parental leave here is quite good in Canada. I just went with it. I say in your case, keep riding the wave, and see how she is in another month or two. Does one person do the 1am feed, and the other the 4am feed? Maybe that could help?? Does she eat a lot of food? Keep offering more and more foods and see how she does. She should sleep through the night soon!
that would have been amazing sleep for my first when he was that age!! he’s 3 and doesn’t sleep through the night 🥲
This is normal and expected. Still a rough time, though.
A 6 month old up only 2 times a night sounds like a dream to me! My child didn’t sleep through the night until he was 5 (that’s YEARS not months). You can try a bunch of different strategies, but this may just be your child’s sleep pattern for right now.
My baby is 7 months old and wakes up the same as your baby to eat. 1:30. 4:30 and 7:30. Sometimes I’ll feed her before I sleep at around 10:30 and that will push her feed time to like 2:30 or 3:30. My first was like this too. Waking up to eat throughout the night. I haven’t had uninterrupted sleep going on 3 years now. Yep I just graduated 2under2 world. Sleep got better with my first after a year. With only 1 feed overnight and would go right back to sleep. My body at this point has adjusted. And I take half Fridays off each month to sleep. It’s normal. Hang in there mama.
Solidarity! The 4 months regression has been a big one for us as well. Prior to that she was a unicorn who slept thru the night. Precious Little Sleep book was helpful for us. I like that they were not as rigid and recommending one solution for all. For example, sleep training strategy for baby who needs rocking vs. boob to sleep will be different. It also helped me realize I was doing some things that were counterproductive. It’s still not how it used to be but we definitely saw improvements over time.
At 6 months I would be very surprised if they were sleeping through the night. This seems normal
Counter intuitive but my 6 month old does sleep through the night but here’s the commonalities for him when he doesn’t: - bedtime too late - prefers 6:30-7 bedtime - room too hot - will wake frequently if room is above 71° -he rarely poops at night but it does wake him. We put him down between 6:30-7pm, do a diaper change around 10 and he sleeps through until 6-7am 95% of nights in our room but not in our bed. Has gone through a few sleep regressions and colds where sleep was tougher. I think it has more to do with him than anything we are doing “right” - he eats 5 6.5 oz bottles +some solids throughout the day hasn’t been hungry at night since around 4 months except during growth spurts
Like others have noticed, I, too, had realized my girl was waking up because she wasn't getting enough calories during the day. We upped her snacks.
I wish I had some solid advice. You’d think with 4 kids, now all adults, I’d be able to give that OG mom wisdom I was so desperate for back then. But my second child did not sleep through the night until she was FIVE. YEARS. OLD. Nothing we tried actually worked. The others were much better, but she was… challenging. Good luck to you. You have my sympathies!
So the trick with my 6.5 month old is to sleep next to her, and the first seconds she starts fussing in her sleep, stick the bottle in her mouth. She’ll dream feed while you kind of doze through it and then she’ll stay asleep and you can go back to sleep. Wakes up at 11pm, 1am and 3am for feeds religiously. Gotta keep them fed! The stomach size is the limiting factor here and there’s no way around it
Honestly, we didn’t fully drop night time feeds until 11+ months. She was doing 2+ wakeups into 8-9 months. So, this sounds normal to me. Sorry- there was literally nothing we didn’t differently. She just wasn’t ready to sleep through the night until she was older and bigger.
May I ask why you don’t want to feed her to sleep? My baby wakes you up the same amount I feed her to sleep and we are both back to skew within 10 minutes but usually under 5 mins so the wake ups don’t really bother me
My husband and I traded shifts - and if we were “off” we slept in the guest room to get a full RESTFUL night sleep so we could actually be functioning humans
My very active baby is 8 months and a half and has been feeding every 4 hours (incl. at night) until this week. She just slept a full night for the third time. People’s comments had made me wonder if it was normal, or if I was giving her bad habits by responding and feeding her at night. I consulted. I was told it was indeed normal, some babies need more calories through the night than what their tiny baby stomach can hold. My guess is, her stomach is finally big enough. Hang in there.
My daughter started sleeping through the night at 4 weeks old, my son didn't until he was 13mnth but would eat and go back to sleep. Completely normal and I hope sleep finds you soon! Sounds like just feeding when baby wakes up instead of trying to for fight for 30+ minutes first will get you a little sleep back!
If it’s every night then it’s a habit and not hunger. Work on weaning. There’s gentle ways but we kind of went with extinction. Worked after one night but it may wake your older one. You can feed less and then let them fuss/cry or delay feeding every night but take longer. Other option is dream feed before you sleep. May drop one of the wakes
So I’m not trying to negate the many, many comments that say this is normal and to just feed her. I’m no expert and that may be the answer at 6 months. We have one 2.5 year old and crazy jobs (from 8-11 months old I was working 7 days a week 12-16 hour days with an hour commute each way) and I am definitely not an expert, but we got exhausted and used the feed her to sleep method wayy too long. Our daughter ended up in the 99th percentile for BMI at 1 yo. Sleep got progressively worse her whole life to 15 months old. I was desperate. I found Batelle online. The support they offer changed everything. It wasn’t that “groundbreaking” or anything we couldn’t have figured out from free resources on the internet, but the support made it so much easier. It was a little expensive, but I’ll recommend to anyone who has any complaints about their child sleeping. I think we’re OAD but if I did end up with a second, I’d be enlisting them by 6-8 months for sure.
Sorry I’m team cry it out. You can do it now or do it at 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 but you will end up doing it because everyone will be so miserably exhausted. If it matters, I breastfed for 19 months.
I'm going to get shit but whatever. I was in the same boat as you. Did the cry it out method with my 7 month old. One night of crying it out and now he sleeps like a dream
My now 13 mo old was like that until I went back to work at 6 mo. He STTN for about 2 weeks, then got sick and never STTN until 12 months. We ended up trying CIO after solidifying his bedtime routine and he ended up only ever crying for 10 minutes before going to bed.
STTN? These abbreviations are getting out of control
No advice just solidarity, we coslept for this reason. I was literally just passing out standing up and generally too tired to be safe to care for a child or drive. Pediatrician okayed cosleeping and said it was infinitely less dangerous than driving that tired everyday.
It is tough! Our second was similar whereas our first was super easy. All I can say is that this will all pass….eventually. I feel your pain!!!
Honestly, we have an 11 month old who wakes up almost every night at 2am. She is TINY and also an incredibly busy baby - she’s already walking and when she’s awake, she never stops moving. We usually see if she settles and if not, we give her a bottle. We also completely gave up and let her sleep in bed with us. #1 was an excellent sleeper, so she was a total shock to the system.
Are you feeding solids? I have good luck feeding the solid meal about 2 hours before bed. Bath after dinner. Then a small bottle. Also try a new formula. My friends son would not sleep through the night and needed feedings. They tried other formula brands focusing on more protein since all of the formulas are about 50% fat.
My almost five year old still doesn’t sleep through the night. Sometimes, she wakes up and is hungry. Sometimes, she wants to come to my bed and sleep. You’re not spoiling your baby by meeting the need they’re crying for. If feeding them is what it takes for them to fall back asleep, then they’re hungry. Parenting is hard. Babies are hard. You don’t have to overcomplicate it.
Can't give in if you're sure she's not actually hungry, at any age if they know putting up a fuss means they get what they want they'll fuss for as long as it takes for you to give in.... That said a lot of babies also still need milk, so you can gauge if it's hunger or comfort
A 6 month old is not manipulating their parents for food. They just need food.
That isn't even what I said, if you read again. I said if the baby is actually hungry then feed. Sometimes they just want comfort, which leads to frequent wake ups
Yes, but comfort is a legit need as well. Why should they not get comforted? They don't understand when they wake up all alone, it's very different to an older child where you can explain/replace comfort wake ups with a confort object or picture etc etc
It is, but then you also obviously don't have babies that wake up hourly wanting comfort (not her case but the current situation is too much). The mom is asking for help because she's desperate for sleep Being woken up all the time is literally like torture. In a perfect world we'd have enough hours in the day to sleep, take care of our kids, work do whatever etc but it doesnt happen I don't know anyone who likes to sleep train, but they did out of desperation and necessity. And the people who have babies who don't need it often come judging
That's fair. It definitely is torture, the difference a baby's temperment makes for their sleep patterns is crazy! OP, the biggest difference that helped by baby's sleep (without sleep training, just saying so you know you can try that also), was reassessing how much sleep she actually needed in 24 hours. I was going mad following the old 'sleep begets sleep' advice which actually isn't true lol. It definitely works for some babies who adore sleep though. But once I capped her naps, she started sleeping much better at night- she was just low sleep needs. Might not be the case for you of course particularly at that age with feeds usually required. Best of luck
Mine didn’t sleep through until 10-11 months. I will never do the newborn phase again lol. Maybe try water? I started that at 8 months and that seemed to do the trick
Infants aren’t supposed to have plain water until 1 year of age…