He Just Will Not Sleep at Night or All Night!

Try swaddling. He may not be to in to this at this stage but you could try it. Newborns like to be swaddled...it makes them sleep longer and feel safer. Perhaps he has never felt calm at night. Other than that...ask a ped.

My mom is a nutritionist for WIC and told me this when another mom on the forum had the same question:

Have you started him on solids? They don't have the same protein content and calories as formula or breast milk, so make sure that he's still getting as much formula (or breast milk) as before. If he isn't, then he's probably waking up hungry because his belly gets emptied faster on solids and he needs more calories! The solids, at 4-6 months of age, should just be on top of what he's getting from the breast or the bottle. They're just there to get him used to the concept of eating foods.

I believe the minimum for a 4-month old is 40 oz. of formula per day, if I recall my mom's advice. And that is the minimum. If you think that, ounce for ounce, solids can replace rather than complement any percentage of his daily formula, you will probably end up with this problem.

Hope this helps!

L.

At 4 months he may still be a bit little to start sleeping thru the night and way too young for all that solid food. At 4 months they are just getting a taste and their nourishment is to come from breast milk or formula. He may just be hungry.
Try switching to just one solid meal and getting him to bed early. That usually does the trick. Move his bedtime up by 1/2 hour or one hour and you'll see a difference.

C., how hold is he? If he is 4 months (in your about me-not sure if that's old info), then he will still be eating every few hours. Is he having anything between lunch and 8:30? That would be a long time to go if not, and if he gets more during the day, he may not wake up for it as much at night. Something else you might try is putting him down for the night earlier, say 7:30. Often if babies get "over-tired" it is actually harder for them to go to sleep, and while they are still so young, they need 14+ hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. Also, I would be very cautious of Babywise. Some of their methods if followed strictly can result in malnourishment. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends waiting until closer to 6 months to start any solids. Good luck!

I had trouble with my son doing the same thing. I would tried to make sure he was full before bed, but I think his belly trying to digest is what kept him from fully sleeping. So now, he has dinner about 5:00 & last milk about 7:30-8, bed at 9. Giving him time after he eats is what seemed to have worked for me.

I highly recommend getting the book Babywise and Babywise II by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo. It has great principles to use for raising your infant and toddler as well as helping your infant to sleep through the night. They also have a book Kidwise, if I am not mistaken I think there is a Teenwise as well. Hope this helps.

Read the book BabyWise!
It worked wonders with our son and with the children of all my sane friends:)

Try the book Babywise by Ezzo for helpful advice

How old is he? Are you talking about the 4 month old? Is there cereal in the bottle? How big is the bottle? He may need an 8oz at 9 instead of a 4oz. Has he always awaken at these hours?

When your 4 month old grandson wakes up at 1 AM for a feeding, don't turn a light on in the room, or leave other lights on throughout the house. Also,don't start talk, sing or be overly active while he's feeding. This will allow him to concentrate solely on getting his belly full and going right back to sleep.

Our doctor told us to mix 2 TBSP of rice cereal with formula at bed time and 1 TBSP to 2 TBSP rice cereal in the AM feeding. We only did the AM feeding a few times and after that our son was more than full with the 8PM feeding and would sleep till 6 AM every morning.

Good luck, T. S

A few ideas to try.........Maybe feed him more during the day. My oldest child nursed every 2.5 hours during the day for the first 4 months, but slept all night (about 12 hours by the time she was 4 months). This completely depends upon your child. My other two didn't need to eat quite as often. Also, he might need to learn to go to sleep without the bottle, then when he awakens at night, (everyone does) he will have the skills to put himself back to sleep without the assistance of a bottle. If he has a high need to suck, try a pacifier. Also, as crazy as this sounds, often when I put my children to bed earlier, they tended to sleep better and longer. I remember trying to keep my first child up until 9 hoping that she would then so tired that she would sleep better. The opposite happened. When I was tired and put her down earlier (like 7:30 or 8:00) she slept better and longer. Good luck. I hope this helps.

Hi, I would suggest feeding him dinner way before 8:30, that is awfully late. Is he still 4 months old and does dinner mean just a bottle or is he older now and dinner is food? I would also try putting him down a little earlier and see if that helps. I put a few teaspoons of rice cereal in my sons bedtime bottle and it helped a great deal. Babies tend to get over tired and if you miss that window of opportunity it can be hard to get them to fall asleep on their own. Set a routine and you'll have it figured out (just in time for him to change his schedule again :) Good luck!!

I have a daughter that just turned two in June and I went thru that with her. I also have a 10 1/2 month old little girl that is doing this now. The way I broke taylor of waking up 5 to 6 times a night was i stopped putting milk in her bottle at night. She would only brink milk from the bottle and water and juice from a cup during the day. So I started putting water in her bottle at night and slowly put less and less in her bottle. She goes to bed at night now with a sippy cup and very rarely wakes up at night any more. Just a thought, the first couple of nights were a bit hard but after that sleeping was great. Good luck !!

That's a VERY normal pattern for a baby. Even my toddler wakes every few hours all night long.

Babyfood in his milk he wants sometime that's going to keep him full.