Poll Discussion: Night Wakings

 

This topic was requested on Facebook. 

 

How did your baby stop night wakings?

  1. Did you wait until baby stopped on own? If so, what age did baby stop on own? Was it pretty gradual or pretty sudden?
  2. Did you do some CIO? If so, can you describe the process?
  3. Did you do weaning of feedings? If so, can you elaborate?
  4. Did you help baby get back to sleep? If so, how, and for how long did you do this before baby slept on own?
  5. Did you do wake to sleep as described by the Baby Whisperer? If so, please elaborate.
  6. OTHER. Please explain.

When answering, so I can compile data easily, it would be helpful if you started your comment with which number you did.

 

Here are my answers.

 

BRAYDEN

1.

 

He was 6 months old when he stopped waking at all in the night on his own. It was pretty sudden.

 

KAITLYN

1 and 3?

 

My mind is not working right now. I know I did some of 3 with Kaitlyn, but I can’t remember if that was for night wakings AND the dreamfeed, or just the dreamfeed? I think it was for those early morning feedings when baby wakes around 5-6 AM. She was about four months old when she stopped night wakings at all.

 

MCKENNA

1.

 

I believe McKenna was around 3 months old when no night wakings happened at all. She was sleeping 7-8 hours before that, but still had those early morning feedings. Hers was more gradual, with moving closer and closer to the morning waktime, and then some nights more in the night, then closer to morning waktime.

 

BRINLEY

1.

 

She was two months old when she started sleeping through the entire night. She had been moving her night feeding later into the night, but then really suddenly started sleeping through the night until morning waketime. I didn’t see it coming that early.

 

YOUR TURN!

Share your experiences! Thanks!

 

35 thoughts on “Poll Discussion: Night Wakings”

  1. Firstborn Z:1. Slept through the night suddently around 7 weeks and never looked back. Secondborn J:2. and 3. Weaned the middle of the night feeding with less and less time on each breast until he didn't need it. A little CIO then. Around 9 weeks old. Then weaned off Dreamfeed around 14 weeks old by moving the feeding closer and closer to the last feeding of the day.

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  2. #11. My first slept 8 hours at 6 weeks, and 12 hours at 9 weeks. She just did it all on her own!#2&31. At three months our twins are sleeping 10 hours, but I still wake up with them once at night because I don't do a dream feed. I just out them down at 7:30 and let them wake up whenever after that. Have done that since we brought them home. Did that with my daughter to. It worked better for her though 🙂

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  3. 1. My daughter started sleeping about 7 hours a night at 6 weeks old and by 9 weeks, she was sleeping 10 hours a night all on her own.

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  4. Both of my boys were some #2 and some #4. If it's helpful at all, I would describe both of their baby temperaments as textbook. When my older one was 11.5 weeks old, he slept through his 5 am feeding all on his own (that was his only nighttime feeding left – we didn't dream feed). So then I knew he could go without it. The next 3 nights I helped him back to sleep with a pacifier if he woke around that time and couldn't resettle. He never nursed in the night again. My second boy was a little more gradual. From about weeks 12-15 he would wake early and just be awake. Whether I fed him or not, he had a hard time resettling. Sometimes he would fuss about it, sometimes not. I often offered a feeding, and he would usually take it, but eventually I figured out he was waking more from habit. So I just let him fuss it out through weeks 14 and 15. He was a preemie, so these are adjusted ages. That's also probably why I continued to offer a feeding here for longer – I wanted to be sure he really didn't need it anymore.

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  5. DS1. I tried waiting until he stopped on his own. We had done AP with him up to this point, for the most part, and by 8mo, he was not "naturally going longer between feedings" as the AP advocates claimed he would – in fact, he was waking every 90-180 minutes every night!2. So, at 10mo, we did CIO. We put him to bed at 7pm and did not return until 7am. There was about 2.5 hours of crying total the first night, 3-3.5 the second night, 30 minutes the 3rd night, and none after that.Still, he woke about once a week for the next year.DD1 & 2.Up to 5mo, she had 2 night feedings between 7pm bedtime and 7pm DWT. Between 5mo and 9mo, she had 1 night feeding around 5am. We tried CIO for 8 nights, putting her to bed without returning. She cried for 45 minutes to 2 hours every night. After 8 nights, we stopped using CIO and returned to responding with a short nursing (or small bottle when we weaned at 10mo) once a night around 5am.At 11mo, she started sometimes sttn to DWT. At 13mo, while on vacation, she stopped waking MOTN. She is now 21mo and I have not gone into her room one single time since that vacation at 13mo.

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  6. 1.My DD slept 8 hours at 8 weeks and 12 hours at just before 4 months. Around 7 weeks she started waking up at the same time every night and not really eating, so for a couple of nights I let her cry for a few minutes before I went in. Then another couple of nights that I just let her cry til she fell asleep. After that she's never looked back. She's never woken in the night since and she's 14 months.

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  7. First-born: 2 (at 4 months, after ped. recommendation…baby weighed 17 lbs, i was close to 90 lbs and nursing him every hour, any time he cried!! spend an awful week going to nursing at just 8am, 12pm, 4pm and 8pm and my husband listened to baby cry all night while i slept in the minivan. it only took 3 nights for him to learn our new routine. SO thankful that's behind us!!)2nd, 3rd and 4th babies: 6 (babywise'd them and they all slept 11-7 by 9 weeks, 8-8 by 14 weeks). i'm a firm believer that babies NEED a schedule!

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  8. My daughter who was born early at 35 weeks started sleeping 9pm-8am at 8 weeks old with a dreamfeed at midnight. From 8 weeks to 12 weeks I slowly backed that dream feed earlier and earlier until we dropped it altogether at 12 weeks. So at 12 weeks she got her last feeding at 8pm, to bed by 9pm, and slept until 8 am. At that 8 week mark she had slept from the midnight dreamfeed until 8am 2 nights in a row and then woke up the third morning at 6. I felt she was capable of making it until our start time at 8am at that point. So I let her CIO which she fussed on and off from 6-8am for 2 mornings & then never woke before 7:45/8am again. I really wanted our start time to be 8am, which is why I made the dreamfeed midnight at first. It was totally worth it to stay up late (or sometimes go to bed and wake myself to do it at midnight) for a few weeks in order to have her sleep until 8am, which she still does at 21 months now. So all that to say I used a combination of # 1, 2, & 3.

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  9. I've been reading this blog for a while now, and I want to participate in this survey however, my 7 month old is still not sleeping through the night and I've tried a lot of things suggested. It's frustrating to read these comments and posts because I'm at a loss for why my son is not sleeping through the night, we tried babywise, but have apparently failed miserably. It's hard to read about all these successes when my child is not fitting into the babywise mold. We are tired people and are not sure how to get our son to sleep through the night. info:*7 months on 11/4/12*goes to bed at 7:30 (falls asleep around 8-usually on his own with a couple pats and sh's)*just dropped dream feed by weaning a week ago, and has only woken once (last night) to eat)-however he cut his first tooth yesterday.*Wakes up usually 1 other time either 3am 4am or 5:45am.*I will feed him at the early morning wake up because its the only way to get him back down until 7 am wake up time (I work full time)*He eats about 5 oz BM every 3-3.5 hours*he takes about two 1.5 naps in the day for about 3 hours of naps*he started crawling at 5 months*he's pulling himself up on everything*He eats solids 2-3 times a day*He can sometimes sleep from 7:30-5 (often 2-3 days in a row) and then the rest of the week will wake up once a night*he will cry it out for 2 hours sometimes, with our 3-5 min check ins, but he becomes hysterical when we go in and leave the room)any suggestions are helpful but I must say it is really hard to keep coming back to only hear the success stories and not a story that sounds like mine.

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  10. 1.My DD started STTN around 4 months, but then we had MOTN feedings (1 per night) again around 6 months and again at 8 months (for a few weeks each time). It seemed like a roller coaster 🙂 She STTN consistently (almost every night) around 9 months. I would say it was a gradual process with ups and downs.

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  11. 1. We did a dream feed at 10 and did not wake him. He woke ~every 3 hours in the beginning, but slowly pushed it back on his own. He went to about a 5 hour stretch for the first feeding and then 3 for the second until he dropped a feeding on his own. The would keep sleeping a little later until eventually he was sleeping until his wake time. He first STTN at 8 weeks.

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  12. 1. Yes, 7w. Very sudden, although she had shifted her m.o.n feed from 2.11am (like clockwork!) to 3am a week before2. No CIO3. No weaning4. Never had to help get back to sleep in night5. Kind of. After feeding, I swaddled her and held her upright gently swaying for 5-10 mins (no noise), because I was paranoid about reflux

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  13. 1 for MOTN and 3 for DFDD dropped one MOTN feeding around 2-3 weeks by herself fairly suddenly. The second MOTN feeding she dropped gradually and finally for good at 13 weeks. Before that some night she woke and some nights she didn't.I tried skipping the DF at 4 months, but that mad her wake at midnight. At 5 months I tried skipping it again and she would wake around 4 or 5 am. A couple weeks later I tried tapering the amount she ate at the DF, but once I cut back to 6-8 minutes she would wake at midnight, so I kept it for a while longer. At 6 months I tried skipping again. A couple times she woke and I left her alone when she woke up. She really didn't cry, more like just cried out a couple times and resettled. After 2-3 nights she didn't rouse at all.

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  14. Combination of #1, 3, 4. We had some feeding issues so I wanted to be sure he still got enough to eat for his weight gain. When I thought he could drop a night feeding, I tried to soothe him to sleep (pick up or pat back or pacifier) the first time he woke up. If that didn't work, I'd feed him. After we were down to 1 night feeding, I just waited until he stopped on his own, about 4 months old I think.

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  15. Hey Carlee – I wanted to respond to your comment about night wakings, but I'm not that familiar with blog comments and wasn't sure how to link to your post. First of all, thanks for your comment. Often I find that people like to post their success stories on parenting blogs, but it sometimes paints an unrealistic picture. Not everyone has a textbook Babywise kid, and that's okay.I want to encourage you that your baby will sleep through the night, he just may take some time. I know that's hard to hear when you're tired, but it's true. I had a similar experience with my first baby. I thought I was doing everything according to the book, but she still wasn't sleeping at 6 months. All I wanted was for someone to tell me how to fix the situation, what rules or schedule I needed to follow, or what I was doing wrong. But of course, babies aren't robots, and some just don't respond like clockwork even with our best efforts. For my daughter, it turned out that even though I was nursing I wasn't getting enough calories into her for her to sleep. Once she started solids she slept through the night on the second night. After that we used the Ferber method of progressive wait times to let her cry it out. Now she is almost 2 and sleeps really well, but there are always situations that crop up that will disrupt sleep from time to time.We added a second baby to the family this year, and things are much easier. She has been sleeping through the night since she was 4 months old, but she didn't fit the Babywise mold either and she still has nights where she will wake.So, hang in there. You might check out the Ferber book if you haven't found a sleep book you like already. There's a lot of good information about the science of sleep, and maybe progressive waiting will shorten your son's overall crying at night.Praying for rest for you and your baby.

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  16. We still haven't done away with the night wakings and it is driving me crazy! At 3 months we did CIO for naps because she wouldn't take her naps well, and so it just kindof helped with the nights, and so she didn't cry very long for night wakings before going back to bed and then eventually just stopped after a couple nights, and it worked great, she would usually sleep the whole night once we did this. But then around 7 months we moved to an apt with people above us and with the move and everything she started night wakings, and I felt too bad making her cry it out since I didn't want to keep the people above us awake all night. So she is 11 months now and still wakes up at least twice a night, I think just because I have let her get away with it. I am not quite sure what to do. I have tried to CIO for like a night, but she will cry for a couple hours and I just get too stressed about the neighbors. But I am getting so tired of it and she is almost a year, I just might pick a weekend and make her CIO. What is the baby wise waking method? I am not quite sure what that is.

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  17. I had a reflux baby for my #1 and he was the worst sleeper, after 4 months of no sleep and living like a zombie I got in touch with an infant sleep specialist. She helped me get him sleeping 12-13 hrs no waking in less then a week. I used her "system" with my other 4 and they were all sleeping 12-13 hrs by 12 weeks woth no dream feed (my daughter was 9 weeks and my newest who is 3 months was 10). I love her program becuz it can be easily incorporated into babywise. And also makes the crying (if there is any) more bareable and easy to handle. One side effect though of early sttn babies is returned fertitlity (we have 5 kids and our oldest is 5)!

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  18. I had a reflux baby for my #1 and he was the worst sleeper, after 4 months of no sleep and living like a zombie I got in touch with an infant sleep specialist. She helped me get him sleeping 12-13 hrs no waking in less then a week. I used her "system" with my other 4 and they were all sleeping 12-13 hrs by 12 weeks woth no dream feed (my daughter was 9 weeks and my newest who is 3 months was 10). I love her program becuz it can be easily incorporated into babywise. And also makes the crying (if there is any) more bareable and easy to handle. One side effect though of early sttn babies is returned fertitlity (we have 5 kids and our oldest is 5)!

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  19. We did "wake to sleep" from the Baby Whisperer for our son at 3 months and it worked like magic. He was starting to wake more and more in the night, so we used the Baby Whisperer suggestion of testing if it is hunger by giving him a pacifier. We learned it wasn't hunger for his second night waking so we did the wake to sleep for 3 nights. For the wake to sleep, we brushed him with a finger an hour before the time he would normally wake, just until he moved a little. Then he didn't wake at the habitual time.We then increased daily food intake (again by the Baby Whisperer suggestion of having the baby breastfeed on each side 5 additional minutes after the full feeding) and we added a dream feed. He immediately got bad diarrhea with all of the changes and it took 3 weeks to clear up. We were over-feeding him. We took away the dream feed at 4 months and he has slept for 10-12 hour nights ever since. (except teething, illness, etc.)

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  20. 1. When Nathan was 11 weeks old, one night he simply didn't wake up for his middle of the night feeding; he slept until 6 or 7am. After that night, I never fed him in the middle of the night again. 2. and 4. There were several random and sporadic nights the two weeks after that where he'd wake up crying in the middle of the night. But we'd let him cry for 20 minutes and if he wouldn't fall back to sleep on his own within 20 minutes, we'd re-swaddle him and give him his pacifier. This only happened a handful of times before he started putting himself back to sleep inside the 20 min CIO time frame… and then eventually he stopped waking up (or at least if he did wake up, he wouldn't cry and would just go back to sleep).

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  21. 1. Evelyn slept 12 hours at night at 12 weeks exactly, and has ever since. She was doing 8 hours at 8 weeks, and 10 hours at 10 weeks. (She did it all on her own) Hunter is still waking at night at 12 weeks. We will do some CIO here this week at night…I think his internal clock is stuck at 3am. I know he is capable of longer because he was sleeping 9 hours at 8 weeks but has struggled since the 8 week growth spurt.

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  22. Firstborn:1. Yes, Tobias stopped waking at night at 8 weeks. It was pretty sudden, he was a 3 hour eater right up until then and within 4 days went to a 10.5 hour night.2. no3. no4. no5. noSecondborn:1. I encouraged but generally Peter STTN on his own. He did 7 hours at 8 weeks (12am-7am) and 11 hours at 12 weeks. It was very gradual, he had a witching hour from 6-12am for awhile and between 8 and 12 weeks it gradually ended earlier and earlier until he was going to bed at 8pm and sleeping until morning.2. no3. yes, because he was over 13lbs at 7 weeks and started to be uninterested in the 7am feeding I deliberately shortened his nighttime feeding which happened around 4-5am most mornings. I would feed on one side for 5-10 minutes and then put him right back to bed. After a week of this he just dropped that feeding naturally and was sleeping 12-7am straight through.4. no5. no

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  23. 1. still waiting (almost 7 month old)2. not more than 10 min as husband doesn't like it4. Just nursed because nothing else was effective until 6 months. Now I do shhh/pat while rocking5. Kind of did it around 3-4 months during naps–he woke at 30 mins regularly so I'd rush in as soon as I heard a peep and shhh/pat without picking up. If I caught it quickly enough he would go back to sleep quickly and barely even start crying.

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  24. 1. My baby Emma started sleeping through the night on her own at 6 weeks. Well, technically 5 weeks 6 days. I was planning on trying to just skip over her 3am feeding on her 6th week mark, but the night before I accidentally forgot to set my alarm! I woke up at 7am and she was still sound asleep! I was actually really surprised at how she did this on her own. I was expecting to CIO or just keep the middle of the night feeding for awhile. She is now 8 weeks and has been sleeping through the night ever since.

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  25. 1 & 2 – My little boy started sleeping through the night at 11 weeks. It was some what gradual in that we slowly increased the number of hours between feedings at night but then all of a sudden at 11 weeks he slept a 11 hours. About a month to a month & a half after that, we started to have some night waking again. If he woke up before 3am, I knew it wasn't a hunger issue so I let him CIO. Never lasted more than 15-20 minutes. If he woke up after 4-5am, he was hungry and there was no way I was getting him back to sleep without nursing him. This lasted about a month or so and then he started sleeping through the night with no waking unless he was sick.

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  26. 1. My firstborn was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. She was bottle fed. At 12 weeks she was sleeping 12 hours at night. I didn't have to do anything, she just stopped on her own and it was pretty sudden. My second, is 8 weeks old today and has had trouble with napping and night sleeping. He still wakes every 3 hours at night.2. I used some CIO for the firstborn. She started waking again at night at 8 months when she started teething. But not for long and it was never a problem. with the second, I haven't done CIO at night, because I'm worried that he still needs to eat. Plus, with him still not on bw schedule during the day, I don't expect nights to work out till he can figure out how to sleep during the day.3. no4. I have to help my 8 week old back to sleep at night. I rock, i pat, give pacifier. whatever it takes. He seems to have issues after he wakes at 4. That is the worst to get him back to sleep.

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  27. 1. My daughter started sleeping through the night at 3 months on her own, post a 9:30ish feed. She had periods of night wakings-mostly related to developmental milestones (4mo, 9mo), but those were short lived. We would comfort a little, put on Sleep Sheep and let her fall back asleep on her own. 2. At 4 mo this involved some CIO-We would comfort every few minutes and lengthen the time we would go back in for. My husband was actually the one who did most of the CIO "training". It took maybe 4 days before she would put herself back to sleep. 6. She is a finger sucker, so offering the pacifier at 4 mo didn't work. She did have a taggie blankie that she began to show a preference for around 4 mo too. She still likes her taggies, fingers, and Sleep Sheep at almost 2 y/o.

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  28. I did both 1 & 3 He gradually reduce his twice night feedings to once a middle of the night feed by Week 6. Between 6 – 9, there will be a twice middle of the night feeds like every 3-4 days. As i am concerned his internal body clock might get stuck, i tried to reduce the amount of food for the middle of the night feed. That help and slowly by week 9 he was stopped asking for milk and will sleep till 5 to 6 am

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  29. #1, at nine weeks he stopped on his own. He kept moving his night waking times around and then just stopped. We might have done a little CIO but it was at more like 10 or 11pm, not really middle of the night.

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  30. For my older son: #1.He slept from 9:30-6:30 at exactly 13 weeks, and never looked back.for my younger son: a combination of 2, 3 and 4.At 4 months, he was still waking, more out of habit than anything, so we intervened. First, we weaned the feedings back in both time and duration. Once he was only taking a small feeding around 4am, we just reiniserted the paci. After about a week of that, and constantly spitting the paci out, we did CIO.We went to CIO because he is truly one of those kids who doesn't calm down well with intervetion. So, constantly trying to help him get back to sleep failed us all. After about 2-3 nights of CIO, he learned how to go back down on his own.

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  31. @ Carlee…I feel the same way you do! I was so discouraged the first time I read all of the comments on this post as I too have read Babywise and Baby Whisperer and have tried all of the techniques. My DD is almost 6 months old and still wakes 2x a night to BF. We did delay solids till just a couple of days ago as she has pretty bad reflux so we chose to keep her exclusively on breast milk for a little longer than most. The only thing we have not done much of is CIO. After about 10-15 minutes I actually get physically sick to my stomach hearing our DD get so worked up that she starts choking and losing her little voice she cries so hard. So, since I cannot seem to do the CIO, and I work very hard every day at keeping a Babywise schedule, I have just conceded to the fact that my little one will take longer than some to sleep and some day I won't feel so exhausted. Luckily I have a husband that reminds me that she will only be little for awhile and to also appreciate how sweet and happy she is when she is awake..otherwise I might just break down in tears from sheer exhaustion!@ Erin L….thanks for also recognizing that people are more likely to post their successes and not their failures so moms like Carlee and myself don't feel like we are doing something horribly wrong as our LOs don't sleep through the night!

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