What to do?

Ashley - posted on 04/23/2009

I had the same problem with my daughter, she's my first and we were both exhausted. I hired an infant sleep consultant when Avery was 10 weeks old and she taught me alot. She told me that most babies need to be in bed by 6pm, that's just when the circadian rhythms of their brains tell them it's time for sleep and most babies wake up around 6am. If your baby is waking up multiple times per night it's definitely a sign that she is so tired and overstimulated, which makes the brain agitated and makes it hard for her to sleep and stay asleep. I know it can be hard to listen to your baby cry, but I learned that crying is how they wind down to fall asleep. There are age-appropriate lengths of time to let your baby cry herself to sleep and since your child is almost 6 months it may take her an hour to fall back to sleep. It sounds/feels like forever but it's much worse to go to her and stimulate her even more thus making it harder to fall back to sleep. Try an earlier bedtime and if she wakes up throughout the night, see if you can leave her alone to calm herself down and go back to sleep. It will take a few days/nights but soon you both will be sleeping better. Hope that helps!

Nikki - posted on 04/23/2009

same with my son, so i guess wecan all putit down to teething then, i find the teething gels dont work for my son so i give him nelsons teething granuals and they work a treat, i dont like the cio method so i tend to just give him his dummy and he falls back to sleep, sometimes i do have to get himoutta the crib tho and recently hes been having to come into the bed with us and that seems to be the only way he will sleep longer than 2 hours, i know its not ideal and i need to stop doingit but sometimes ur just so tired u would try anything.

Molly - posted on 04/23/2009

I JUST HAD THIS HAPPEN TO ME!!!! and his first tooth appeared yesterday. try baby orajel at night. He slept for 6 hours, without waking! It makes me sad i didn't know, but to be honest, i would rather him not have anything than me just giving him stuff like that unnecessarily! so, try baby orajel and you might be seeing some teeth soon? gl :)

Linda - posted on 04/23/2009

my baby was in a similar routine and then we whent away for the weekend and when we came back he was doin the same not hungry just fussing and he has never realy done this before it has been almost two weeks back at home now, so i too am interested in what people have to suggest on this one

Brandi - posted on 04/22/2009

Do you have something hooked to her crib that will soothe her back to sleep? Maybe she's just used to you going to get her and that's why she's waking up for you so much. When my son wakes up, I give him a few minutes to go back to sleep on his own. If he sounds really upset I go in there of course. I put the pacifier in his mouth and turn the crib aquarium on. They have lots of stuff like that at the store. He just stares at it and falls back asleep. That's the only thing that I could say to try. Maybe your little one is teething and just needs the comfort in the middle of the night. I don't like the CIO method either so I understand doing whatever you can to help them back to sleep. I could never listen to them cry so much. Good luck!