My 7 Month Old Son Wakes up at Least 5 Times a Night

My sister's son did the same thing. They kept a basket full of pacifiers by his crib so they just grabbed another one & didn't have to search for the one he lost in the middle of the night. For me, my daughter is 5 months old & she sleeps with us. A lot of people aren't in to that, but I find co-sleeping awesome. Not only is it bonding, but noone really loses any sleep that way! Good luck!

We started to put 5-6 pacifier all around him when he slept. That way it was easier to find one in the dark. It may sound crazy but it worked most of the time.

There's a chance he's teething, which means his mouth is sore and the paci helps, but he hasn't really made the connection yet.
Couple of suggestions:
1) teach him to grab and put in his paci in his mouth during the day time! Have it in front of him during tummy time or when he's sitting up and practice reaching for it, then once he's got it grabbed, help him figure out how to put it in his mouth! Baby steps! lol! pardon the pun! :0
2) teething tablets and/or baby orajel at night before you lay him down can help ward off the pain! (some might say tylenol, too)
3) put one paci in his mouth, but leave another close to a hand in his bed, so that he doesn't have to search long and hard to find one!

I'll pray for a restful night sleep for you and baby soon! I know it's hard, but it does get better! :)

I went thru the same thing. You have to take the passy away. Then he will learn to fall asleep on his own. You may have some rought nights but just pat him on the back. Soon he will learn to fall asleep on his own without the passy. They say you are suppose to take the passy away by month six because then they dont remember it. But of course I have a 8 mth old girl that still has it. Luckly she finds her passy at night, our son never did.

I was in your boat just 2 short months ago! I would put a ton of pacifiers in my daughter's crib but at 7 months, she just wouldn't go above and beyond to find them! ha-ha. At 9 months, she does! She is also eating a lot more now. She wasn't much of a babyfood eater until 8 months. I nurse exclusively but feed her a combination of millet, brown rice and lentils about an hour before bedtime. I ground them finely in a blender and boil it in water for 10 minutes (about 3-4T of the powder per cup of water). Store it in separate bowls in the fridge so you have severals days worth. I add a scoop of brewers yeast and thin it out with breastmilk or formula. It has so many nutrients and protein. She is sleeping SOOOO much better since the first night I started this. Gook luck. I know how hard it is to feel completely run down from lack of sleep.

Hi J.!

My girlfriend, who has 6 kids, told me that she put several pacifiers around the crib so her little boy could find one easier in the night. You might try putting multiple pacifiers in the crib with him, so he can find one easier :) Good luck. Not sleeping through the night is no fun...I'm about to endure it for a while!

Our 5 year old son did the exact same thing for years. It was so hard and that's part of the reason we created www.babblesoft.com to help parents track sleep patterns. You can try it free.

We were trying to break our son of the paci (unfortunately)at too early of an age - or should I say my husband was - and looking back I wish we hadn't tried but had done what some others suggested which was to leave several paci's in his crib so if one fell out he could reach around and find another one.

Our daughter did really well with a paci (my husband finally accepted that it was OK if she had one) and she would find one of the 3 to 5 we would leave in her crib and she slept fine and when the time came, it wasn't too hard to break her from it.

Good luck!

yes it could be teething, but I learned with my son, it was because he was hungry and I wasn't giving him enough to eat during the day and his tummy was hurting from hunger. Little did I know that. I felt so bad about this, but my doctor said that since every kid is different I wouldn't have known it was because he was hungry. I started feeding him more and giving him more formula and cereal and he started sleeping all night after that :)

My soon to be 1 year old did the same thing. We would get up every 30-45 minutes throughout the night getting his pacifier for him and having to pat his bottom. Then when he started finding his paci, he would still cry cause he got so used to getting his bottom patted. So I started putting him in his bed at around 9 months and making him go to sleep on his own and he would cry and get really mad but every 10 minutes I would go in there and make sure that he had his paci and lay him back down, without talking to him, and then leaving the room. I swear once he fell asleep he did not wake up again the entire night. I have no idea if thats what he needed but it worked. And he doesn't wake up anymore and he now just lays in his bed at night without crying and falls asleep. I still rock him and naptime cause thats my bonding time but I swear making him go to sleep on his own worked for me. Even when he looses his paci I will get him a new one and he goes to sleep all by hisself and if he finds his paci I don't hear a peep from him.

This happened with my daughter! I went and bought the Advent glow in the dark pacifiers and made a circle around her in the crib, that helped her, in the morning there were always a few on the floor. Your son is at the age to sleep train as well, where you know he is ok to sleep through the nite and you just tough it out and let him cry.

This is a frustating thing, at this stage I put several pacis (4-6) in the crib near their face and during the day during naps I would teach them to get the paci themselves by putting their hands on the paci and to their mouth. Being consistent at nap time with the extra pacis helped them catch on for nighttime.
I also put in a teether pal as a companion around this age to comfort, (transition object) these are at Walmart for 1.00 they have rabbits and bears pink and turquoise with teether chews for hands and feet. This was a great comfort object and later great for ongoing teething. Best wishes I'm sure he is so cute at this age.

Mom of 3yr old twins

Hi J.! My son will be 7 months this weekend. He was sleeping so good for a month or two, and then about 3 weeks ago he started waking up about 3 or 4 times a night. I thought I was going to loose my mind. I tried everything, and then someone on this site had said may I should feed him a couple of extra feedings during the day. So I asked my baby sitter to feed him an extra meal during the day and now he is sleeping great! He goes to sleep around 9:30 and stays asleep until 7 or 8 am the next morning! Oh what a good night sleep feels like. I hope this works for you also! Good luck, and message me on here if you want since our boys are around the same age!

I'm not one of the advocates of crying-it-out because there have been cases where a baby has had a middle ear infection and been in pain, etc. If your baby is crying, he is trying to communicate with you. He may be hungry, cold or just needing comfort.
At this stage, he is most likely teething and in some discomfort and this could well be the reason for his waking up.
Just ride it through because before you know it he will be a year old, walking and sleeping far, far better - probably through the night.

J.,

As silly and simplistic as it may sound, I used to litter Brian's bed with "pacis". That way, there was a pretty good chance of him finding one!

Hi J.,
maybe try feeding him more before bedtime i think he might be a bit hungry .you could try a little rice ceral very thin but never add more than 1 new thing to his diet every 7 days to check for alergies.
good luck L.

It sounds like your child is still hungry. It may be time for him to have more or a change of kinds of food.

Hi there,

I have not had that problem but have heard if you place multiple binkies in the crib... about 10 then he will have a better chance of finding one in the night. When you put him to bed show him where all the binkies are, aswell as the one in his mouth :) I used to have put 4 bottles of water in the crib for my son to find in the middle of the night... now there is only 1. hope this helps.

Around 7 or 8 months my daughter stopped sucking her thumb and decided that she wanted a passie. It was very frustrating because of the very reasons you explained. While she could always find her thumb in the middle of the night, she would loose her passie. We started keeping lots of passies on a table by her bed. If she woke up in the middle of the night, and didn't go back to bed after a while, one of us would just go in and get a passie and plug her up. We didn't engage with her or talk to her.We just gave her the passie and left. Luckily we only had to do this for about a month and a half. After that she figured it out on her own. Now she sleeps through the night like a champ. Hope this helps. Good luck!

My little one started waking up like a newborn right at around 5 months. I was going crazy and needed sleep in the worse way. That's when we did the Ferber method to help our little girl learn how to fall asleep. You don't just let her cry it out, you go in and "check" on them at various intervals so they know you are there. It is hard not to pick them up and hold them the first night or two, but after that I SWEAR it is SOOOO MUCH better. Apart from sick episodes or travel, we have had solid sleeping nights since then - 17 months!

Have you tried co-sleeping? Maybe if you are close to him and can feed him without getting up, you might be able to make him feel more secure and he will stop waking so often. Then you can slowly transition him back to his own crib. Just an idea.