Empathic Sleep Teaching - View topic - night awakenings - Infant sleep services for tired parents - Free Message Board Hosting by FreePowerBoards.com

Hullo there - I am a first time user of this Forum (a dear friend gave me this site to try) so please bear with me.
I am a very lucky mum with a very content wee son. He was just starting to sleep thru the night by 8 months or so. We went travelling to Europe for three weeks between 9 and 10 months. Mackenzie (son) did really well, but the end result was a boy (10mo) who was back to waking up at night, sometimes twice.
Mackenzie only has a soother for nighttime (well he does get one if he is in the car seat) and it seems that when he wakes if I go into his room put the soother "back", tuck him in again murmuring things like "not time to get up yet" etc GENERALLY he falls right back to sleep. After 6 weeks of being home he is now occasionally sleeping thru the night but usually is up at least once and is very inconsistent in regards to time (perhaps i shouldnt complain but i would love to get a full nights sleep!). He is in bed by 7pm, i breast feed ("dreamfeed?")at around 10pm and he starts his day between 7 and 7:30am.
I cant think of any more back ground info ....
i have thought of stopping the soother use...he is eating a really good dinner....i havent tried to just let him cry but experience so far (ie naps etc) is that when he wakes he wont sleep until i come into the room.
Thank you in advance
k

Hi Karolyn.
The one thing I was wondering about is do you wake him up at 10 to feed him or does he wake up on his own. If you wake him up I would try to discontinue this. Wait until he wakes on his own. I know it may interrupt your night at first but it should decrease. I'm wondering if he is "dreamfeeding" maybe it is disturbing his deep sleep so he wakes up easier during the night. The only other advice is to be CONSISTENT. That is the key. He will eventually "get it" but it will happen quicker if you are consistent. Some of the others may have more advice, especially concerning the dreamfeeding. I remember this topic from another post.
Keep us posted.
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Yup Karolyn, Shawna is right. If you are getting him up to nurse before you go to bed in could be doing two things - the first is that it could be interupting his sleep and the second is that when you feed in the late evening or night it can actually cause the digestive system to start working again after shutting down for the night. This can cause wake ups later on in the night. Start with cutting out the dream feed (don't offer any feedings before it is time to get up for the day) and be consistent in your response when he does wake. Things should settle down fairly quickly from there. Good luck and don't hesitate to ask for more advice!
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Hi Karolyn,

Before I found EST, I tried the "dreamfeed" before I would head to bed for the night - I thought it would eliminate the 1am feeding, but actually, it made nightwakings more frequent, as Sam would not take a lot at his dreamfeed, but would wake a few hours later wanting to eat .... so, I gave it up & at first, I found that he would wake up (out of habit) at around 10-11pm ...but would put himself back to sleep. I think he got used to being "up" at that time, but after a few nights, he was back to sleeping through that time ..

Hope that helps ...
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Kris

Ladies you are very helpful - THANK YOU.
I have to admit that I put Mackenzie on the breast in his very dimly lit room just before i go to bed in an effort to get him to sleep thru and it WAS working before we went to Europe - he has a good feed and I put him back in his crib and he hardly stirs - HOWEVER - it seems that some good things come to an end and golly gee children do change, surprise surprise!
I do try to be as consistent as i possibly can - always reacting in the same wayand doing the same things at bedtime (it was only the time that he was waking up that varied....)so i think that i can weather this - as i am now weaning him (last week cut his lunch time breast feed and this week we are cutting the dinner time one) and he is a good solids eater and seems to like cows milk, i will start cutting the 10pm feed. sigh - !. cheers
k

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