How to Help 10 Month-Old Break Habit of Night Wakings

It never has to come down to making a baby cry it out! Bedtime should be a positive, comforting experience. And leaving a baby to cry it out to sleep does absolutely nothing to teach baby to sleep. Nothing.

Dr. Sears Baby Sleep Book, The Baby Whisperer and The No-Cry Sleep solution all have very valuable information on infant sleep, how to teach an infant to sleep (yes, they have to be taught to sleep).

I'm sorry but it can not be said that a breastfed baby should never be nursed in the night again! A breastfed baby should be fed on demand for the first year of life. And you little guy has been going thru a lot! The first year of life is incredibly taxing for these little guys and nursing is a source of nourishment during growth spurts that we can't see and they can't tell us are going on, a source of comfort during the sickness and rough spots and comfort during great physical changes that they don't yet understand. If he is that adamant about needing to nurse then that's what he needs right now. When I was teaching both of my exclusively breastfed babies to sleep I knew when they needed to nurse and when they didn't at night. You just know.

My oldest slept thru night (10-13 hours) from 7 months old, rarely woke to nurse unless he was sick but my daughter was never the sleeper that my son was. She is 28 months and still isn't the sleeper that he is. All children are different and we have to respond to their different needs. My daughter still woke to nurse some nights until I weaned her at 20 months. And that was ok. It was what she needed. Note, not what she *wanted* but what she needed as a breastfed baby.

***Riley J! Love it! It always amazes me too that we are supposed to dictate to an infant when they are hungry and blatantly ignore the cues and signals they are giving us just because the sun has gone down.

If he's swallowing... he's hungry. The only way to keep him from waking up when he's hungry is to either drug him or repeatedly not meet his needs so that he has no trust or expectation that his needs will be met.

This is NOT meant to be snarky towards you (not at all), but the concept ***in general*** that ADULTS get to eat when they're hungry, but babies (who are doubling their weight and height) don't is just the most *backwards* concept to me. Pregnant women are *notoriously* hungry, and they aren't even growing 1/10th the amount an infant is) but no one tells a pregnant woman she can't eat, because it's a bad habit. Extra food is medically necessary. The same is true for infants and young children. They need to eat a LOT more often than adults.

I mean... I get that in the 40's and 50's (and even into the 70s in some cases) too much formula could be *deadly* to infants, so they had to be on a schedule... but breatmilk isn't formula and modern formulas aren't the original dangerous ones. But for some reason people over the past few decades have gotten into a snit about babies eating and sleeping on adult schedules. It's just *backwards*.

It sounds like you've been doing and AWESOME job with your little one feeding on demand and comforting and meeting needs... I hope you're not too sleep dep'd to keep it up just a few months longer when the growth patterns slow down. Hugs!

First, I would never nurse him during the night again even if he cries. Maybe Dad should get up with him for a while so there is no temptation for him. This is just a phase and he will go back to sleeping through the night without having to let him cry it out. Just continue to comfort him and put him in his bed sleepy but awake and let him go to sleep. Eventually, he will sleep through the night again. It just takes time to change a routine once you've started them on it. Good luck!

Try the No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. It really helped me. I do not believe in letting any child cry-it-out.