I need some help I have 4 children ages 6, 4, 3 , and 8 months the past few weeks my 8 month old has been up every 1-2 hours a night looking for his bottle. I think it is his comfort item but its driving me nuts and I'm not getting a lot of sleep. He will not take a pacifier I have tried. any suggestions?
E. S
I want to thank everyone for all the great advice. I have tried to keep my son up a little later and feed him the cereal right before bed. That has worked wonders. I have to say after asking for help my son came down with his first cold. My feeling is he was waking up maybe with a sore throat and wanted something to drink to soothe him. The cold is finally breaking up and he is only getting up 1-2 times a night. yeah!!!!!!!! Huge improvement. Thank you all so much for all the great advice. Its nice to know there is a network out there if you need it. E. S.
Yes, it's hard to do but if you know his belly is full and his diaper is dry. Let him cry. It will take a night or two for him to sleep all night through when he knows you aren't coming to rescue him. Works wonders
Does he have a stuffed animal or blanket you can give him that could be his comfort item if you think that is the problem. At this age, he is old enough to give him a small stuffed animal to lay by him or for him to hold.
Is it possible to let him cry it out a little longer? I know some people can't do this, but if you are getting up as soon as you hear him, or after only 2 minutes, then your not giving him the opportunity to comfort himself. Give him 5 to 10 minutes through the night to cry himself back to sleep before you go in with a bottle.
What does he eat before he goes to bed? Maybe he is going through a growth spurt in which so he would require more food. If you give him a bottle and some sort of food either fruit or rice or oatmeal before bed then he might be able to make it longer through the night. If your already doing this, increase the amount some. If he's willing to eat more, give it to him. He may just be a little bit more hungery.
Other reasons my son would wake through the night included ear infection, sinus infection (yes even that young) and teething.
Best wishes!
At 8 months he's crying for a reason. My instinct tells me he's hungry. At around 9 months (and the weeks leading up to that mark), babies have a growth spurt. This is as predictable as the sun rising every morning. Give him his bottle and let him eat. He needs this extra little bit to get him through.
Good luck!
Hello E.. You have received lots of advice so far. I agree that your little one might be teething or having a growth spirt, or if he is eating table foods he might not be getting enough to eat. My only suggestion is to put him to bed with a bottle. If he wants the bottle solely to sooth himself back to sleep, he might be content with a bottle of water and this is assuming he can hold his bottle and water won't hurt his teeth. If he isn't getting enough to eat during the day I would suggest putting cereal in his bottle, when I would make a 6 oz bottle I would add one scoop (the same scoop that comes with the formula) of cereal. If he is teething sleeping in a swing might help, same thing if he has a cold, I do that with my little one. Best of Luck and this too will pass :)
My son who is almost 11 now. But when he was a baby he ate every 2 hours through out the day and night. At 3 months his doctor told me to give him rice cereal in his bottle before bedtime . That worked till he was 7 months. Then he ate 3 jars of baby food and a bottle with cereal 10 oz at bedtime and that held him over. It just sounds like your baby is hungary. If your little one is like mine that hunger thing never goes away. My son still eats like a hog but his metabolism is good enough that its not a problem with his doctor. He is now 11 in july he is 5'5" and weighs 170 pounds . He is atheletic and very stocky and strong. You may just have yourself a little linebacker like me. goodluck. I hope this helps.
Hi E.,
My 8 month old just went th=rough these recently too. IT lasted about two months and not matter what i did he was not content until he nursed. I figured he was teething but then I got really frustrated because was not seeing any teeth break through. One morning when I was changing his diaper and he was giggling I saw that FOUR top teeth had broken through. Needless to say this is he was waking so much, I beleive he was in some unbarable pain. About a week and a half before the teeth broke through I started giving him tylenol at night before bed because I knew he was teething. Once I saw that he was working on four teeth at once I was so happy that I had decided to give the pain reliever at night. So.........my advice is keep your eyes open for signs of teething. (sorry if this is incoherent, we had a rough night and i am very tired)
It sounds like he is hungry. Try feeding him more during the day, and giving him some cereal at night. If he is eating enough throughout the day (he should be able to eat 3 jars of stage 2 baby food, with snacks and about 24 ounces of formula a day) then it could be teething.
Babies that young are waking for legitimate reasons, especially if they've been sleeping through the night up until now. It could be hunger, teething, illness or allergy (esp if you've just added a new solid food) -- all of which are important to respond to, even though I know it is hard for us as moms to have sleep interruped. But this is the job we signed up for, and looking at this in the greater scheme of things, when your child is 20 years old, a few weeks or a month of night waking won't even register in your memory. For me, I think letting an 8 month old "cry it out" (I'm talking more than just a brief fussing for a minute - full on crying and screaming is what I'm referring to) is not teaching them to self-soothe, it's teaching them that their needs won't be tended to by mom or anyone else in the middle of the night when they're alone and helpless. Our babies are only this little for such a brief period of time, and they *need* us. So please go to him, love on him, and comfort him in the way he needs to be comforted, whether that's with just your compassionate presence, with food if hungry, with help for pain if teething or ill. And for these few weeks of night waking (because this, too, will pass), just go to bed a little earlier yourself to make sure you're getting enough rest until the night waking stops. I know a lot of the hard-core "cry it out" advocates will disagree with me, but I just think to myself that I'd be irritated *as an adult* if I woke up in the middle of the night upset and in need of comfort, but my husband just ignored me because he wanted more sleep or was trying to teach me to "self soothe" -- so why would I be ok with doing this same thing to my 8 month old? Ultimately, though, only you as the mom of 4 young kids can truly assess how desperately you need to sleep. If you're reaching such extreme levels of exhaustion that you're putting yourself and/or your children in danger, of course your sleep would be overall the most important. But if you're just a little tired in the day but functioning quite well, then your 8-month old's nighttime needs would be higher on the priority list. Follow your heart, do what's best for your family overall, and whatever you choose, I hope the nightwaking disappears just as quickly as it showed up. :)
Hi E.,
Is he hungry? That's what it sounds like to me. Do you give him cereal before bed? How much baby food is he eating during the day? First things first. I would go with cereal before bed and see what happens (if you're not already doing that).
