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Dr. Jen Is In: Getting your baby back to sleeping through the night

"My 3rd child is going through something I haven't experienced before.
She was only getting up once or twice in the night, but now at 10 months she is fighting sleep and naps, and wakes every 45 minutes at night. We've heard that it might be because she's learning new things or I may need to feed her more before bed. She is genuinely hungry very often, and feeding her different foods doesn't help. We are so sleepy we can barely function. Help!" -KreitzInKansas

Here are Dr. Jen's sleep through the night tips
First, I’d check in her mouth and see if she’s teething. This is a common reason for babies at this age to have a new sleep pattern. Baby teeth traditionally start coming in between six months to one year of age — give or take a few months on either end. As new teeth erupt, there is minor inflammation of the gum tissue that causes pain and even a low-grade fever (less than 101°F). You can help alleviate this discomfort by letting your baby gnaw on something cold and/or textured, or talk with your pediatrician about possible medication for pain relief (some doctors feel differently about this than others).

If she is not teething, I’d encourage you to push her last feeding until an hour or so before bedtime and then (brace yourself) let her cry it out. You were lucky with your last two children in that they did not have the kind of wakening episodes your youngest is going through. Ignoring the middle of the night cry is hard for most parents to do, bu it's effective - once your baby has demonstrated that she can sleep through the night. You may want to consider coming in to check if she’s ok, and then leaving and not coming back again. Eventually, she’ll get tired! And you’ll be less tired! Good luck.
xo Jen

Dr. Jen® is a real pediatrician, a mother of four (girl twins & boy twins!) and an inventor - and she's smiling through it all! Learn more about Dr. Jen®, the multi-tasking mommy doctor that "gets it", by visiting her website !

* This information is not a substitute for personal medical, psychiatric or psychological advice.

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Comment by Amy Cassels on July 12, 2011 at 2:06pm: TY Nikki i'll ask him Dr. about doing this, i'm just afraid to do any thing for he had sugar issues and was told to feed him on command but was also never told how long to do this for..

Comment by Nikki El on July 10, 2011 at 8:19pm: Hi Amy :) I went through a similar situation w/my son. Not sure if you've tried it, but just in case, I have a suggestion: try spacing out meals during the day to 3 to 4 hours. It's a little counter-intuitive, but I guess babies take in more milk and food if there is adequate time between. I was nursing my son every 2 hours from birth-- the doctor said that made sense for the first few months...but, after that, I was only blunting his appetite so that he took in less food/breast milk throughout the day and was more hungry (and waking) at night. One thing to compare it to is adult eating habits-- one way to LOSE weight is to eat six small meals a day spaced only a couple of hours between so you never get hungry enough to eat a large meal. Similarly (but coming from the opposite angle), we want a good amount of time between baby's meals so that they are hungry enough to take in a significant portion when they eat. When I switched from 2 hours to 3.5 hours between meals, my son started sleeping MUCH better! He stopped nursing at night altogether! Good luck!

Nikki @ http://onbecomingmommy.wordpress.com

Comment by Amy Cassels on July 10, 2011 at 3:13pm: Consider yourself lucky this is my 1st and he is 10 months and has never slept more than 4 hours at a time, he usually wakes every 2-3 hours looking for milk (BF). Yes, i've tried the cry it out but he STANDS in his crib and wales.

I've tried and tried but nothing, and if he gets to upset he has gotten sick (thrown up) and breathing way to hard it has scared me. So I deal with getting up and thats that..

Comment by Nikki El on July 9, 2011 at 9:57pm: The same thing happened to my little guy-- he had slept fine every night for months and then started waking every half hour or hour. Everyone (including my pediatrician when I called) said he was teething or hungry and to let it go. Although he had no other symptoms, when I took him in for his regular pediatric visit about a week after the sleep problems started, I found out he had a double ear infection! Really, he had no fever, no tugging at the ears, etc. The only symptom was the waking at night! After a few days on antibiotics, he was fine! The same thing happened again last week-- the second night my son kept waking, I had his ears checked-- another double ear infection. I know all kids are different-- but it may be worth having baby's ears checked if sleeping habits change. Good luck, KreitzInKansas!

Nikki @http://onbecomingmommy.wordpress.com

Comment by Bonnie on July 8, 2011 at 4:41pm: Yeah, don't allow your baby to just scream! I know it is hard, but tending to their needs, even at the butt crack of dawn or before is very hard, but it will get better.

Comment by Kristi D Golden on July 8, 2011 at 10:16am: I do not agree with "crying it out", especially in this case when the baby has never done it before. I believe babies communicate through crying. How do you know there isn't another issue here? Would you ignore someone you love, if they were trying to communicate to you in the middle of the night? If you are not able to meet the needs of your baby through the night hours, maybe think of getting help from a family member or friend.