Not sleeping through the night :(

Teresa - posted on 12/07/2011

My twins were sleeping 12 hour nights at 6 months (after only waking once a night from 3 months)... for about a month. Then they were waking once or twice a night til 14 months (started weaning at 13 months and they started sleeping through on their own).

My son, on the other hand, pretty much never slept longer than 4 hours til a year and a half and only slept through the night (10-11 hour night) half a dozen random times til he was 2 and didn't wean til 3.25 years.

Every kid is different. My best friend's mom tells how none of her kids slept through the night til they were 5 and she has three kids all 5 years apart. Yep, poor lady didn't sleep for 15 years!

Ania - posted on 12/07/2011

She is a breasted baby there is nothing you can do at this age....BF babies usually don't sleep through the night for a long time. Just wait that's my only aadvice. I tried different things with my son but nothing worked so I just gave up and waited until he was 12 months and then slowly one by one I cut his night feedings almost without crying

Natalie - posted on 12/07/2011

Um, she may just be teething. Or going through a growth spurt. Baby training/sleep training is not effective past 10 minutes. If she cries more than ten minutes, you are doing nothing but torturing her...in my opinion.

But I'm an attachment parent, so, my views about baby training, sleep training and nursing at night might be totally different.

Heather - posted on 12/06/2011

That sounds pretty normal to me for a 7-mo-old. Ours was up then every 3-4 hours to nurse. He was hungry; I fed him. Makes sense to me (i.e. eyeroll at your doctor). I hear the occasional story of babies sleeping through the night but it's rarer than you think. Most babies go through phases where they sleep better or, from our perspective, worse. It took our kiddo a good 21 months to begin to sleep through the night. Seriously. Now that he's almost 2 and teething hard, he's up again crying at 4am every night. Yawn. Yep. Hang in there.

Lori - posted on 12/06/2011

Between teeth, developmental milestones, colds, etc. it's tough for little ones to sleep through the night all night every night. My oldest started sleeping through most nights when she was 17 months old, and my LO is now 12 months and usually wakes 1 or 2 times per night. I just nurse her, and she goes right back to sleep. I know how much sleep deprivation sucks, but I also know she will start sleeping through on her own when she's ready. Feeding your 7 month old during the night now is NOT going to prevent her from learning to sleep all night long. It's gonna get her back to sleep sooner so you can both get more rest.

Jessica - posted on 12/06/2011

My daughter just turned 7 months. Before she was 4 months she would have at least a 6 hour sleep every night. Then she regressed and is just starting to get away from up every 2 hours again. Last night was every 2, but the 2 nights before that were better (4 hour stretches!). My first daughter never had a 6 hour stretch until she was almost a year. I always nurse/d my girls back to sleep in the night, since it was calming for them.

Julienne - posted on 12/06/2011

The more we worried about what my son was meant to be doing the more stressed we became. My daughter started sleeping through the night at 18 weeks and my son still isn't and he is one next week!! It takes 5 minutes to feed and then put him back into bed and he sleeps, or an hour of screaming and then feed anyway. He is sleeping through every 2nd or 3rd night at the moment.

Let her nurse.. if its not bothering you. Just make the decision as to what you and your partner etc want to do and then stick with it. Good luck

Liz - posted on 12/05/2011

If it breaks your heart to not feed her, then feed her. It's totally normal. My son slept 7-9 hour stretches before waking when he was 6 months old. He's 15 months old now and has rarely slept that well since.



-- separation anxiety (usually starts around 7-8 months)

-- teething

-- huge mental development (you will see your baby change a lot in the second half of the first year -- breastmilk is brain food too)

-- physical milestones like crawling, cruising, walking, etc.



It's tough being a parent. I think your doctor sounds old-fashioned and ill-informed. My ped told me, "It's just part of being a parent. Some kids don't sleep through until 3 years old."



Even Dr. Weissbluth (famously fanatical about babies' sleep and an extreme advocate for CIO) says it's perfectly normal and fine for babies to have night-feeds until 9 months. (I'm not a fan of his, but I just use him an example of someone publicly extreme, and your doctor is apparently even MORE extreme?)

Celeste - posted on 12/05/2011

Sorry, but I wouldn't listen to your doctor. There could be a variety of things that's going on:
-teething
-growth spurt
-learning a new milestone

My twin boys weren't sleeping through the night and I'd always feed them. It isn't up to me to say that they're hungry or not.

Kristina - posted on 12/05/2011

what if you pumped and gave her the bottle and slowly watered it down so eventually its only water she might not wake up for the water. i have read a lot of other mothers suggest this my lo who will be 7 months on the 13th doesnt sleep through the night but is waking less and less.he never did. or maybe if you have your Husband get up and try to rock her back to sleep.