Need Help with 'Restless' Baby

He's growing and developing. His mind is growing as well and he may be dreaming. Restless sleep could also be in response to an overactive digestive tract. When you feed him at night before he goes to bed, try some rice cereal and then his bottle. The cereal stays a little longer in the stomach and it may tide him thru the night. Take good care.

Hi J.!
Is he on the verge of crawling? My daughter did this type of thing when she was learning to crawl... Right around 8 months actually. Also, have you tried not feeding him? With my daughter I would let her fuss, not full on wailing, for awhile before going to get her. Then, I would go in and rock her and sing to her for awhile and then put her back to bed (I did it too... Daddy just didn't cut it!). I stopped feeding her at night when she was about 2 months old (unless she was inconsolable, going through a growth spurt, etc, of course). Anyway... Just try soothing him without feeding him. Especially since he's not really eating the bottles anyway. He's probably not hungry, just awake and doesn't know what to do with himself. Good luck!

It does sound like a growth spurt. Give it a week or two and if it doesn't change, then it's probably not a growth spurt. Try encouraging him to eat more during the day so he's getting the calories he needs without having to wake up to do it. 9 months was when we started making sure our daughter was offered 3 genuine meals each day. Sounds like your son might be ready for that now and maybe a couple snacks too?

Did he just learn to crawl or walk or pull himself up? If so, that's probably part of what's going on too. When kids learn a new major skill, it tends to upset their sleep. It'll pass soon and again, should be less than a month of disturbance.

Your son is eating every time because you feed him every time. He is waking so often for the same reason. You are teaching him to wake up for food. He doesn't need to eat this often at this age. Maybe once in the middle of the night. The rest of the times rock him back to sleep and he should stop waking for food so often. A.

J.,
It is time to let your little one "cry it out" during the night. Your son has leaned that you will come and hold him when he cries at night. And you should go to him when you think the cry is not one for continued attention.
Babies can sleep through the night at 9 months and do not need to wake up to eat every hour. Your baby isn't eating every other hour during the day, is he?
Babies will always want their parents and when they start learning to cry in the middle of the night,it's time for the baby to start learning how to self-sooth and put it's self back to sleep. There are many approaches to doing this and sometimes it can be distressing to both child and parent. You need to find the way that fits your family and needs best. There are many techniques and approaches on how to help you baby learn to go to sleep. Baby Wise is a good book, but again, there are so many different ways to help you child. I'm sure there will be many different suggestions from other moms.
Each of my 3 children sleep differently and each had different responses to crying it out. My oldest was never able to be left alone to do this; he would become increasingly hysterical and that would keep him from sleeping. We finally had to co-sleep with him until he was 2 to get him to be able to be comfortable. My other 2 babies fell asleep easily and slept through the night at 9 months.
You can do this and you can do this successfully.
Good luck finding your way.:)

Hi J.
Do you think it could be teething? Sometimes that will get the babies up and restless through the night. Sometimes they need something to soothe, so a pacifier instead of a bottle may work.

I went through that with my baby girl, she's now 10 months. I'm more of a "go-with-flow" kind of mama, so I did what you were doing (getting up to feed). I was tired, but I didn't mind. When I saw my Ped for her 9month appt, I described what my baby was doing and the Ped suggested I start watering down her "waking up in the night" bottles until it was eventually water. Sure enough, this worked! Well, it worked for about a month. Now, she is starting up again, but I think it's because a new tooth is coming in. This time, I'm letting her work it out instead of getting up to give her a bottle. She whines a little bit but eventually goes back to sleep. Of course, it still means I'm waking up when she is crying just to check on her, but I let her soothe herself to sleep. I hope this helps you.

J.,
Hello, I'm a stay at home mom of twin girls and I happened to read about your situation. I wanted to let you know that it's okay to not feed your son at night. Like you when you sleep you don't have to get up every two hours to eat. I believe that your son has you going in circles because he knows that he'll get mommy to come in when he cries. Try letting him cry for at the most 30 minutes in his crib. It's really hard at first. But if you try this at first once a week and then do it more and more your son will probably get the idea that he's not going to get attention, he'll sleep more because his tummy is probably groaning from all the food you're giving him. I think feeding him too much food can cause him to be restless when he sleeps. I hope this helps.

Oh this rings a bell. My son is 17 months now and really only just started "sleeping through the night" a few months ago. Even now he still occasionally wakes up once or twice.
I stopped feeding him when he woke up because it became clear he really wasn't needing the food. It does sound to me that this may be the case with your little one too. At 8 months he should make it through without milk or food. It may be more about checking in to make sure you're still there and feel comforted again I think. Could also be development changes during the times he wakes more frequently than others.

What we started doing was stopped feeding during the night unless nothing else worked. Also we had to stop bringing him into our bed in an effort to help him get himself back to sleep in his crib. Now I just pat him down on the nights he wakes up and don't bring him to bed. He totally fine with that. I guess I have decided that as annoying as his waking is,I cannot control if he wakes up or not. Hopefully The more I do what I am doing he will grow out of it.
Sorry this seems less advice and more just saying we have been (and kinda still are)there.

Good luck

I think maybe hes hot and wakes from it. Try a small quiet fan in his room. And water not formula.

I think it's pretty normal to have a baby that sleeps well, then suddenly starts going through a phase like this for a month or so. Both of my babies did this and I realized later that they were teething! Check for new teeth and possibly ask your doctor about pain relief or other soothing options for teething. It usually is just a phase, though!

Hi! I went through something similar with my son who is now 13 mths, he would wake up every couple of hours and I thought he was teething so I fed him, well after awhile I realized that I was getting no sleep and spoiling him with the milk he really didn't "need" I talked to friends and our nurse and they said to definitely feed him a bigger bottle before he goes to bed. But if your son is on somewhat of a schedule in waking up in the middle of the night, feed him again before you go to bed even if he's asleep, then wake him up(or just get him out of bed) and feed him again before he wakes you up crying. She said by doing this he tummy will be full and it will help tell him that he's not hungry and he'll learn to sleep all through the night. I only recommend it because it sort of worked for me but when you do it you need to start making your bottles weaker...if you're breastfeeding or using formula still just add water to whatever source it is. You want to eventually only have water in the bottle and then see how motivated he is to get up for a bottle of just water. The other thing that I really think worked for me was the fact that my son was so used to getting up and getting want he wanted that we had created a pattern/rountine that wasn't good for either one of us. Shortly after I tried all of this I just let him cry it out and after a few days he was sleeping through the night. I know it's frustrating but hang in there! Eventually your son will sleep through the night!

Hi J.-
Just adding my 2 cents. I know I don't sleep well with a full stomach, so I'd agree that you son's stomach is probably groaning from all the food. And the "cry it out" method isn't cruel as some might have you believe. As I read in a book, "a child never died from crying." It is respectful to your child and yourself to help him learn to comfort himself back to sleep. I'd have to agree, too, it's probably a phase as he's learning to move. And most of OUR issues with sleep, we usually looked back and could blame it on teething. Good luck

J.-
I'm with those that say developmental. Many babies try to "practice" their new found movement in their sleep. It often wakes them and usually wakes us.

The other possibility is teething.

I also had the silent reflux with my daughter and she adjusted her eating habits so she would only take in about 2 oz at a time, day or night, to keep the reflux at bay. But, it doesn't sound like your little guy has reflux, but just in case, try adding a baby friendly probiotic to his bottle. Just one dose a day is sufficient and if he is having any trouble, it will make a huge impact. If he isn't having any trouble, it won't hurt him and it will just make his digestive system that much healthier.

I do believe that this is a phase and he will move past it when he has mastered whatever it is he is practicing. Of course, there will be other phases that do this again...

Enjoy every moment, they don't last long and they are on to something new.
D.

At 8 months, i doubt your son needs the food at night at all. He is probably eating the small number of oz. he for comfort, not for nutrition. If he does need nutrition in the middle of the night, it should take the form of a larger feeding once in the night.

You may want to try going in the other direction - no food, limited comfort to calm him down, leave. He may just be in the habit of waking up, and by responding with the activity you are encouraging that habit.

With my daughter i ended up phasing out wakings one by one - i'd start by saying 'i'm not going in before midnight', and then, 'i'm not going in before 2', and then, 'i'm not going in again after 4 until its time to wake up'. This way we were able to move towards longer and longer sleeping periods without having to do it in one leap.

Good luck!!

This hapened to my son as well around 8 months - he'd been sleeping really well then started waking up really frequently. We sponstaneously decided to let him cry it out, after he had worked up four or five times between 7 and 11 pm! And it worked like a charm. It only took a couple nights. We did go back in an comfort him periodically, but we let him go quite a while (maybe half an hour?). He was literally much better just the next day. I know some people think this is mean, but I must note that when he was waking up all the time, in the morning and during the day he was really cranky because he was so tired. When we let him cry it out, he woke up the next day with a huge smile on his face! So, I don't think there was any psychological harm done :)

It sounds like it's time to let your son put himself back to sleep. I don't know how you get him to sleep initially at night, but I agree with the previous post about "cry it out". All 3 of my children woke at night every couple of hours at night until I started "cry it out". I was at the point that I couldn't focus throughout the day from exhaustion. I couldn't even carry on a normal adult conversation. By 8 months babies don't need to eat at night, and they can put themselves back to sleep, but it's easier to have mom do it. If you have a good bedtime routine then don't mess with it, but try not going to him, at least not right away, when he wakes in the middle of the night. Give him 5 or 10 minutes, and see what happens. With all of my kids, though, I had to start putting them to bed and let them cry it out, and get themselves to sleep, before they stopped waking in the night. One thing that helped my daughter was taking the shirt that I had worn that day to bed with her. It has become her blankie - in her case it is now any white cotton t-shirt. She wanted to take a part of mommy to bed with her. Good luck getting some sleep - I know that it can be tough.

I agree with the idea that he may be restless due to new found mobility...

But, there is the possiblity that he is now "trained" to wake up frequently because there *is* always food and attention on the ready when he does. We went through this with our daughter and unfortunately gave in to it so that when she was 10 months old, she was a terrible sleeper. We ended up doing cry it out and only offering a bottle BEFORE she went to bed, and then again only if she woke AFTER 4:30 am. At that point, she was most definitely capable of sleeping through the night.

Call your pediatrican, see what they recommend. Good Luck!

Hi J.,

I don't have time to read the other posts, but I'm wondering if your son is getting ready for another developmental phase. Would you believe that children "practice" walking and crawling in their sleep? It's true. When kids are in a phase of learning a new skill, they will often rouse at night because their body is trying to do just that. I know it's so, so hard to wake up every time, but my guess is that this isn't a permanent situation. I'm sure that's not much consolation in regard to your getting a good night's sleep, but it might explain the "why" of what's happening.

You might consider not going into his room unless he's crying. Some infants will wake, talk to themselves, and then fall asleep again without any adult help. My advice would be to let him talk or fuss for a few minutes before going in. And you are right, Daddies are usually associated with playtime. You could ask your husband to change his manner with your son at night, but I know that can be a tall order for some guys. No foolproof answers here!

My very best to you...sounds like your little one is a typical baby!

My son was a restless sleeper as a baby. He moved and grunted all night long. He made so much noise that we had to move him to the far room down the hall or we would have been awake all night long worrying with each noise.

If you can, try to ignore some of the noise and movements--especially if he just goes back to sleep. This is training your self.

And don't feed him at night any more, unless he wakes up screaming for the food. He is probably not hungry at night any more.

Have you considered the possibility that he is teething? Instead of feeding him, try putting some oragel or whatever on his gums to sooth them, then put him back down.

Feeding too often really isn't good for his tummy. Besides, you're setting him up to solve every problem with food--or at least, there's that potential. Formula takes longer to digest than breastmilk, so you're just putting more and more in--no wonder he doesn't want much. You could definitely try increasing how much he eats before bed.

I know a lot of people are for feeding on demand, but I know a lady who used to work as a nurse in ICU, and she said even tiny preemies are fed on a strict 3 hour schedule, because they do better than if fed on demand. If such a tiny baby does better on a schedule, why wouldn't an older child as well? I've discovered with my son that when I feed him too close together, he burps up more. So I would look at his daytime routine and see what you can change (maybe an extra ounce per feeding?). I hope you get this figured out! I know about getting up in the night too much (my son has eczema, so he is restless with the itching at night... hope we figure that out soon too!)