Sleep - Magdalena,NM

All of my babies were breastfed about a year, and they all didn't start sleeping through the night (meaning from like 9pm til 7am) until about a year. Doctors define sleeping through the night as 6 consecutive hours... She could be going through a growth spurt and just needs to eat more. My first baby wouldn't touch ANY food until 9 months, and then just cheerios. Sometimes nursing more during the day can help her sleep better at night, by giving her more calories. Also, this is a time period where she is learning TONS of new things! Crawling, sitting up, language, walking soon - all of those things make her brain activity increase, and can make her wake more frequently - I recently read a study that shows the waking helps their brain development during the first year.
She won't wake up during the night forever, and all of my kids sleep just fine now... just do what you feel is right for you and your baby - feeding her because she's hungry at 2am is not a bad habit, it's just what we have to do sometimes :)

It's wonderful that you're nursing her! Babies sleep habits/schedules change and it often happens around 4-6 months. First, I would wonder if adding the cereal has caused the sleep disturbance. Babies often aren't ready that early to digest food, especially grains. So she may have started waking due to gas or her little belly trying to digest a food she's not ready for. If she is still not liking it, don't force her! At this age, breastmilk is her primary nutrition. She does not NEED the rice cereal. And any battle over food is a losing one, really.

Please read the No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley for some ideas on sleep that might work for you. The book is available at the library and at the lending library at http://www.inspiredabq.com. They also have a class coming up called Make Your Own Babyfood which might help you make something your baby prefers more and give you some general ideas on food and nutrition for your baby.

Yeah she is still on the young side for the cry it out so I wouldn't do that right now. lots of babies go through little spouts of night wakings and sometimes it's just due to teething or because they are growing (which they do around 6 months) I would just kinda go with the flow right now....give it a couple weeks and see if she just goes back to sleeping through the night on her own. Also my second woke up all the time until I finally stopped nursing her at 13 months. She cried for maybe 10 min. for a night or two and then just slept through the night. I think because I waited until she was old enough to be on all solid foods and old enough to not need to eat at night made it such an easy transition.

Since she seems to have an aversion to the cereal and baby food, have you tried making your own? A friend of mine had the same problem but once she started making the baby her own food, she ate it. If she was eating an apple, she would put one in a food processor and make applesauce and then feed it to her daughter. I guess something about seeing mom eating the same food helped? It's hard to say but worth a try for good sleeping. Also, if she likes the baby cookies or snacks you could incorporate those into her bedtime routine. Something to fill her belly a little more for the night.

Is she teething? Maybe she's waking up, not so much because she's hungry, but maybe her poor little mouth is hurting. My son had JUST begun sleeping through the night, when teething began. Blew all our hard work out of the water. Now that he eats baby food 3x/day, he's a happy little snoozer again :) Best wishes!

children will often wake during the night when they are teething. You can just about mark your calendar for 6, 12, 24 & 36 months, because they will probable start waking at night. Under six months of age they can only have Tylenol, after six months they can have Motrin. For my kids Motrin worked better when teething. Both of these medications work well, but only as directed. More IS NOT BETTER. The important thing to remember when they wake during the night is to address the problem as quickly as possible and remain with your routine. It usually took about a week to get them back to their routine each time they started waking during the night. Our pediatrician told us that by six months they did not need to be feed during the night, even if they were waking.
With anything....please check with your pediatrician's office.
Hang in there, you're both going to be okay :)

The NO CRY sleep solution book is great:)
Breasfed babies will wake more often due to needing more food than a formula fed baby. This is actually a good thing. Read more about this topic- is is good info.
It is a myth that rice cereal makes them sleep longer- please do not force her to eat when she is not ready:) It will cause more problems later on.
There is no bad schedule as they are so little, the book will give you alot of insight into helping her in a natural safe way without causing more anxiety to you and her.

I think you're wonderful for continuing to feed your baby her perfect food. Please don't let anyone, even an expert, tell you there is some perfect age for any of this stuff. If she's not interested in food, just go with it. She won't go off to college not eating food...

A couple of thoughts:

She could be teething. Think twice before giving her medication for this--ALL medications have side effects. I am working on a theory about it not necessarily being our job to take every bit of pain away from our children, and teething pain is the beginning of this. We are going to have pain in our lives, and if we don't cope with it as it comes on naturally and harmlessly, where does that leave us later?

She could be growing and this means she needs more food right now. Denying her this is no good for her little system.

You can try making your own baby food--we found a white plastic food grinder that ground up anything we were eating and made it interesting and easy. Have you ever tasted baby food? Blech. Also, rice cereal isn't great for babies (high glycemic index, less than ideal type of iron). If you dry-toast grains in the frying pan until they smell nutty and then grind them up in a clean (preferably new!) coffee grinder, you can cook them up easily and make your own yummy baby cereal.

Consider bringing her into your bed. You'll get a heck of a lot more sleep and lots of yummy, sweet snuggle time. That's what she really wants, and how we're biologically designed. Babies don't have to be so hard. I've written a whole lot about this on other posts...we have three amazingly easy kids who love to sleep and we didn't ever "teach" them a thing about it.

I know these aren't the most popular ideas, but you can do some research and listen to your heart and I bet you'll find your perfect solution. I would really caution against crying it out...it's not good for babies, no matter what their age, and can cause problems for them due to incredible amounts of stress hormones. There's a reason it hurts your heart! And comfort is a perfectly important and real need for babies, so if they nurse for comfort, it's okay in my book. I will give them whatever they ask for--they're pretty smart about their needs.

My last thing, that got me through all of those tough times, was to remember how incredibly brief this time is in your baby's life. I promise, you'll be looking back soon and asking yourself where the time went. You can do anything for a little while. Just enjoy it, every bit of it, while you can. Best of luck to you!

Hi T. she is already on a bad schdule. 8 months old should be using a cup, and should not need to be eating during the night, breast feeding can be very habit forming to some baby's and it becomes more about security than hunger. J.

I'm interested in the answers you get! Good luck.

sounds like my baby. She wakes up at 1:15 and 5:30 every morning but will go back to sleep once she has eaten a lot. I know I need to feed her more during the day and I know she can sleep longer. She doesn't eat food just like your baby. It is a challenge (unlike my son who started babyfood at 4months). He didn't sleep through the night until he was 11 months old and off breastmilk .... so I think they are just hungry and we need to get more calories in them during the day. Last night I only fed her from one side and she was sooooo not happy but she finally fell asleep after fussing and crying a little. Not a lot but I could tell she was unhappy about not getting her full share. But I know that the more I feed her at night, the less she will eat during the day and it is a vicious cycle... not much more I can do, except let her cry. rock her back to sleep during the night etc. She won't take a bottle... I can't wait to hear more advice from other mamas! Good luck!

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