Detective Skills Needed. 10 Mo. Old Not Sleeping Through the Night Any More.

This is actually normal for his age! He is probably learning new skills (crawling and pulling up to get ready to walk) Between 8-10 mos babies really like to practice these new skills, even in the middle of the night. I went through this with my two older children and am currently going through this with my 8 month old. What I have passed on to you is what my pediatrician shared with me. If he is cranky when he wakes up you might have his ears checked for a ear infection. It is that time of year.

I had a simular problem with my daughter. This may sound but does he have any teeth yet? Do you Have a food processor? What I did was to set her at the table with me at all 3 meals and what ever I ate she ate. For example if we had spaghetti so did she I just put it in the food proessor!In the mournings I gave her a scrambled egg I also breast fed her so she got milk in between meals but it helped her sleep at night and be awake more during the day.I found baby food so expensive that it was cheaper to fix it myself and she is now 6 and my least picky!Try adding baby rice or mixed cereal to his last milk bottle or if you breast feed try giving him baby cerceal by spoon .Warm cereal by spoon,thicken 1 tabsp at a time untill you find the right amount.Give it to him warm it is soothing and for some odd reason makes them tired. If he is teething try dillpickle chips (you know the jar of hambger sliced pickles) they are great!!! they naw them to death because they are cold then throw away give him another one it is a fairly cheap theether. I hoped this helped you

At 10 months, he can't live on milk alone. He also needs solid foods, preferably rice cereal. He is most likely hungry and waking in the night. GIving milk at night isn't enough to keep him from waking. You should offer food first, then milk to give him a chance to fill up on food, not milk. You should be giving him Stage 2 and Stage 3 baby food during the day and nothing at night. If he gets enough during the day, he won't need to eat at night. My 16 month old has been sleeping 12 hours at night since 4 months and never wakes at night. I know you want to sleep. You should feed him at night within 2 hours of going to bed. I think you should push food more and offer milk after he has eaten.

Is your son working on crawling or walking? I have heard that it is common for a child to lose a skill when trying to acquire a new one and the skill that tends to be lost is sleep. If this is the case then just hang in there and as soon as he gets the new skills the sleeping should fall back into place? How long as he stopped sleeping through the night?

Hi J.,
By "milk", I'm assuming you mean formula? At 10 months of age, I'm afraid not taking in enough food and varieties there of, may mean that your son is a bit malnurished; especially if "milk" really means milk. To be on the safe side, I would suggest seeing the Pediatrician for blood work to check nutritional status as weight may not be a great indicater due to the potential high calorie intake currently (on a mostly milk diet. In some cases, a child may do fine on prodominately formula at 10 months of age, but being that your son has now begun to lose sleep/wake frequenty at night may be a indication that his diet is not working for him....It truely may be a situation where what he wants is going to need to be something different than what he gets. At 10 months of age, he is not the one preparing milk on a regular basis :) With every child, it always seems like there is that one thing that they struggle with. If its not sleep, it's eating, or potty training, etc. Fluids may need to be offered after a solid meal. I promise your son will not starve himself. It will be hard, not doubt, but it is so doable :) Good Luck, God Bless, K. R.N.

Hi J.,
What caught my attention about your post was that you metioned that he is craving milk all the time. Being gluten intollerant myself, and now my Baby has his own horrible senesitivites - I have been doing so much recent reading on the latest research in nutrition and one common theme is that we crave exactly what we're not supposted to have. Please check out 'special diets for special kids' and read about the cravings of dairy that some kids have and it's implications. Who knows, may shed some light.
Good luck

This sounds exactly like mine- although mine never really slept through the night very well. But at this age it got lots worse. My doc said that it sounded like a development milestone was coming up. I have heard several moms say this exact thing right before their baby started crawling/walking, whatever was coming next. Mine started walking right at 11 mos. A few weeks before was when he stopped sleeping.

His naps sound perfect to me, right what all the average nap charts say he should be at right now. Until about 15-18 mos, he should be sleeping about 11 hours at night and 2 naps in the day about 1-2 hours apiece. I would keep trying with the food because that will help him sleep, but mine always wanted to nurse more than eat when he was going through a growth spurt until he was about a year. So I really wouldn't worry. It just sounds like the normal development stuff going on.

When mine was around 9 or 10 months he stopped sleeping through the night too. My day care ladies told me he was going through a growth spurt and told me to put a little rice cereal in with his milk. (If you formula feed, I tried 1 scoop of cereal with 3 scoops of formula) This gave him a little extra in his belly to get him through the night. (You may need to adjust the equation... but once you find what works it helps alot!)

If he isnt eating much during the day you may want to try oat meal cereal mixed in with his baby food fruit. This was a big hit with my son. I mixed the cereal until it looked little runnier than mash. pot. then dumped an entire container of fruit puree. This will help fill him and it gives his baby food a different taste and feel.

If you're worried call your doctor or ask the day care of some other tricks that may help your little one start eating.

Mine now eats just about anything and he is growing like a weed. Good Luck!

We had the same experience. He was eating 4 meals a day at 9 months, then one day... nothing! Bottles/breastfeeding only. Turns out he was teething. I did notice that his solid food intake would go down during these times, but never had he fully rejected food. This went on for almost a month...as did the sleep interruption. You are fortunate that his naps are 1-2 hours each. Ours were 40 minutes. And, yes, if he/she gets too little sleep it can make this harder. They need a-lot of sleep so at the very least get him to relax as much as possible with whatever works for you. We used soft music and a fan for white noise. As soon as those two teeth came in he started eating again, but no baby food. He wanted what we had and it was so nice not having to prepare two different meals. The sleep normalized also. The more he got the better he slept. I will tell you, though, that as he continues to teethe these disruptions continue. They are just so uncomfortable at these times. We use the all natural teething tablets that you can find most anywhere and he loves them! They seem to have a calming effect. Sorry that I don't have some magical solution... just love and patience as always. Good luck!

It could be that he is hungry, or it could be that he was teething and started waking up and if you gave him his bottle then he just decided he liked that and got used to it. I've read a lot of places where around 9 or 10 months their sleep habit changes just due to different things. I don't know if you do the crying it out thing, but you could give him a few minutes when he wakes up to see if he'll go back to sleep. I'm trying to break my 10mo of a night feeding and usually if I leave him alone for about 10 min he will go right back to sleep and not wake up the rest of the night. I hope you figure it out soon! GL

Sammi