71/2 Month Old Wont Sleep Throught the Night

I have 7 month old triplets. They all sleep in their cribs, and two are great sleepers (7pm-7am since two month old), the third sounds a lot like your daughter. He used to sleep 8-10 hours straight and lately he started waking up more. He goes down at 7pm, and was waking between 10-11. Then again around 2am, and 5am. We were exhausted! I used to give him a bottle, but last week I let him cry. It took 40 minutes of crying the first night. The second night he woke at 12:00 and cried for 20 mintues. The third night he didn't wake til 5:30. I didn't let him cry obviously since he had been asleep for nearly 10 hours. I fed him and put him back down. He slept until 8:30am. I know crying it out doesn't work for everyone, and I totally understand that as it was very difficult for me to hear him cry. But I just kept thinking to myself, "I'm helping him become a better sleeper". I know in the long run it will be better for him if he sleeps. I don't know if the cry it out method would work if he was sleeping with me. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't. If you're willing to try to move your daughter to her crib, that might help. If you want to continue co-sleeping, I'm not sure how to help. Good luck. I know interrupted sleep is exhausting...hang in there!

If she sleeps in your bed she can smell your milk so it will be really hard to train her to sleep all night.
It would be like Kirsti Allie sleeping with a chocolate cake in her bed. ;)
My son slept in a crib in our room and woke me up every 90 minutes around the clock to nurse. He was eating solids and really enjoyed them but during the day he would only nurse for a few mintues because he wanted to look around and play.
I ended up sleep training him - it took 3 nights of crying but then he slept all night and ate and nursed more during the day and actully had a growth spurt.
You need to talk with hubby and come up with a plan of action and go from there. I'll get some flack about letting my son cry it out - aparently some moms think any crying will permanently scar a baby. ;) You know your baby and what she can handle better than anyone.

Just a thought, not a criticism, but I'm reading a lot of times on here about moms who have this type of problem with their little one. It seems to me that whenever I see this problem, the child has been fed on demand. I don't disagree with feeding a child when they need it, but am wondering if sometimes a little bit of scheduling, but allowing for some on demand feeding with it would help prevent the children from getting to this 'snack all night' type of thing. I know this idea is probably too late for you, but if you think it has any merit, it might help you with a future child.. and perhaps someone else reading this may find it helpful.

I basically fed my children on demand too, but did try to be sure there was a reasonable schedule to their demand time as well. The thing is, you have to be able to get your rest or you aren't able to be as good a Mom as you could be, so it isn't like you're being mean or denying your child.. just the opposite, you are training the child and giving yourself the opportunity to be all you can be for the child the rest of the day.

My son moved from our bed to his own at about 12 months old and started sleeping better then. Honestly though, he didn't sleep through the night until he was 3. Two weeks later, his little sister was born and I went through three more years of interrupted sleep. Now, at seven and ten years old, they both sleep just fine and wake up to an alarm clock to get ready for school.

Dear J.,
It sounds like your baby is really eating well between nursing and solid foods. That's awesome!
My guess is, since she is sleeping with you, that when she fusses you are assuming it's because she's hungry and you want to feed her so she will sleep so you can also get some rest.
But, I'm wondering if she's not really hungry or even really awake...she's just rooting around and instead of going back to sleep on her own, she relies on the booby to be there.
I know you love sleeping with her, but the key word is "sleeping".
I would definitely try transitioning her to her own crib because she really needs to be okay with sleeping somewhere else. Start by getting her used to it during the day so if she semi-wakes up, you can give her a few minutes to have a chance to drift back off to sleep.
Having the booby right there when she stirs at night has been her routine so obviously she will fuss when that routine changes, but you do need to start getting her used to changes now as far as soothing herself.
I'm kind of "old school", and I tend to think it's not the best thing to race to pick up or feed a baby every time they fuss. I think trying to help her learn to get back to sleep on her own at night will be very difficult to do in the bed with you and your husband 5 inches away.
You say you're preparing to get into a nursing program and I think that's amazing. Go for it!

my daughter was the same way. what finally worked for me was moving her to a crib and deciding how many times per night to nurse her and sticking to that schedule NO MATTER WHAT. eventually she will learn to abide by your schedule. i agree with the comment below that nursing on demand is not a great way to go at this age. at her age she can probably be night-weaned, or you might want to continue nursing her once or twice per night. put her in a crib (either in her own room or right next to your bed). have your husband sleep in the room with her, and you sleep in a different room temporarily. when she cries, your husband can comfort her or let her cry, depending on your philosophy on this. for us, believe it or not, this worked! my husband made the sacrifice to take over the night wakings until she learned that she wasn't going to be breastfed at night anymore. it wasn't until i completely removed myself from the picture that she finally stopped waking up. don't give up after a few days! a little crying is not going to hurt her. it took us a few weeks. people have different beliefs about this, but i think babies need the uninterrupted sleep as much as we do. if you don't do it now, you will have to do it eventually, because most likely she's not going to stop wanting to night nurse on her own. you need to decide when to end it, and the sooner you do, the sooner you will get some rest!!

I have two kids that have slept with us and nursed and neither one of them were the perfect sleepers, but I can tell you what worked for us. I noticed that there are windows with children in their development. With both of my kids around 1 year old they seemed ready for a sleeping shift. (Nothing ever worked for us before 1 year). At around a year I put a toddler bed next to my bed and made it exciting during the day for them to play in it, put animals in it and pretended to put them night-night. Then I would nurse them to sleep then move them to the toddler bed. I would not let them nurse again until 5am! It took 1 week of crying(with me snuggling them and telling them its not time); each night would get a little easier. I always let them come into my bed when they wake up so they don't hate the toddler bed. Now my daughter who is 18 months old sleeps through until 5am(most nights) and wakes up exactly at 5 to nurse then goes back to sleep with me for a few hours. I tell her I have to check the clock to see if its night-night time or OK to nurse. She will actually bring me the clock sometimes to see if its time to nurse. I'm now teaching her to notice when its light or dark; so I'm now going to have her wait to nurse till its light out to try to gain that extra hour or two of sleep. Of course this works great most nights, but when we travel or she gets sick it can throw it off and we have to re-establish our routine which goes more smoothly each time. There are the occasional babies I hear of that sleep through the night that sleep with their parents and nurse, but I think its pretty rare. Most of my friends have chosen to co-sleep and they all have similar sleep patterns. The babies feel much more connected to mom. I think its worth it and somehow most nights I do feel rested; especially when they are in the toddler beds for long stretches at a time. Good luck and enjoy this time!!

Hi there-

I think it's awesome that your daughter is sleeping with you. My daughter tossed and turned a lot and woke up many times to nurse when she slept with us until we moved her to her crib. I think being so close to you they can smell you and smell milk and just want to snack all night! My daughter has a lovey that she curled right up with in her crib and the transition was pretty easy. She sleeps so much better. Sometimes she'll wake up once but that's it and she's 10 months. Just a thought. (=
K.

Hi J.,
I HIGHLY recommend reading the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth for age appropriate sleep needs and schedules. He doesn't talk alot about the family bed, I would use it more as a guide on sleep scheduling. The first thing I would try is putting her to bed at least an hour earlier. You may find she wakes less at night and sleeps later in the morning. My daughter's schedule at this age was: wake up at 6:30-7:30am, naps at 9am and 1pm for at least 1 hour each, bedtime at 6-6:30pm. We stopped co-sleeping at about 3 months because my hubby was waking her up with his restless sleep. She slept through the night the very first time she slept in her crib in her own room. Dr. Weissbluth encourages 1-2 night feedings until about age 9 months. As a dental professional of 19+ yrs, I don't recommend unrestricted night feeding once a baby has any teeth due to the risk of Early Childhood Caries. If the ONLY thing a baby has to eat is breastmilk and isn't exposed to ANYONE'S saliva, which introduces cavity causing bacteria into the mouth that they aren't born with, the risks are less. But.... why chance it? I'm not a huge fan of long term co-sleeping as it can cause intimacy issues between parents and may cause sleeping co-dependency, but whatever works for each person and child is important. Email me if you have questions regarding healthy sleep schedules.
Sincerely,
L.