NEED ADVICE - Sleepless Baby

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We have a 6 month old baby girl who has been the perfect baby from the
beginning. She began sleeping through the night almost immediately. She
didn't take to breast feeding, but my wife did pump for 2 months then
we switched to formula. She took the changes in stride, and now is on
her fourth week of stage 1 solids and loves it.

With that said, she is beginning to wake up every night around 1:00 am,
and continues to wake every 1-2 hours thereafter. We can't figure it
out. It has been going on for a few weeks now. When she wakes, it's
as if she's still sleeping and all we do is put her pacifier in and she
goes right back to sleep. Sometimes we'll bring her into our bed, and
she seems to sleep better (but not all the time). Also worth noting,
she's not eating as well as before. After about 4 oz. of formula and 2
TBSP of solids, she begins to grunt, push it away and get
upset...almost as if she has a belly ache.

I understand there are a ton of possibilites, including teething, but I
wanted to check and see if anyone had any good advice. As first time
parents, we're still pretty clueless.

THANKS

[Lucy]

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> With that said, she is beginning to wake up every night around 1:00 am,
> and continues to wake every 1-2 hours thereafter. We can't figure it
> out. It has been going on for a few weeks now. When she wakes, it's
> as if she's still sleeping and all we do is put her pacifier in and she
> goes right back to sleep. Sometimes we'll bring her into our bed, and
> she seems to sleep better (but not all the time). Also worth noting,
> she's not eating as well as before. After about 4 oz. of formula and 2
> TBSP of solids, she begins to grunt, push it away and get
> upset...almost as if she has a belly ache.

When she wakes, what happens if you don't go to her and give her the
pacifier? It's normal (for all of us) to wake several times in the night.
Will she just go back to sleep on her own? If she won't go back to sleep
without the pacifier, then you could try encouraging her to find ways to
soothe herself back to sleep.

As for the not eating, she may have a belly ache. Maybe she doesn't react
well to something you are feeding her. At 6 months, I wouldn't expect her to
take much by the way of solids, and I wouldn't worry if she doesn't want it.
Is she still drinking her formula OK? It could be teething also. DD would
never want to eat when she was teething and would only nurse.

Lucy

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wrote:

> With that said, she is beginning to wake up every night around 1:00
am,
> and continues to wake every 1-2 hours thereafter. We can't figure it
> out.

Is she napping too much during the day? Maybe talk to your ped. about
dropping a nap (if she's taking 3 now, drop down to 2, or whatever), or
about waking her up if she naps longer than an hour.

She may just not need as much sleep as she used to.

Amy (who slept 45 minutes, no longer, at a time when she was a baby)

[Tori M.]

> Amy (who slept 45 minutes, no longer, at a time when she was a baby)
>

Yeah that sounds like something you would do;) Your poor mom :P

Tori

--
Bonnie 3/02
Xavier 10/04

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Tori M. wrote:
> > Amy (who slept 45 minutes, no longer, at a time when she was a
baby)
> >
>
> Yeah that sounds like something you would do;) Your poor mom :P

Ha! You know me pretty well already, huh? :) It turned out that it
was her own fault - Mom was drinking hot tea with caffeine all the time
while nursing me. I was constantly wired.

We had fun, though. We read a lot of books. She finally weaned me,
got about 10 minutes of sleep, and then got pregnant with my brother.
I don't think my poor mother slept at all from 1976 until 1983.

(Incidentally, this is why I'm limiting myself to one caffeinated
beverage every few days - I have an occasional glass of coke or an
occasional iced tea, but I'm off of coffee and I'm not drinking
caffeine daily anymore. I don't want to do that to myself!!)

Amy (on hold with the IRS - woo hoo! We overpayed our 941 taxes - when
the customer service person asked me what she should do with the
overpayment, I said, "Put it all on black and let it ride!" She
thought that was funny... :) )

[carla]

On 24 Feb 2005 08:48:31 -0800, wrote:

>We have a 6 month old baby girl who has been the perfect baby from the
>beginning. She began sleeping through the night almost immediately. She
>didn't take to breast feeding, but my wife did pump for 2 months then
>we switched to formula. She took the changes in stride, and now is on
>her fourth week of stage 1 solids and loves it.
>
>With that said, she is beginning to wake up every night around 1:00 am,
>and continues to wake every 1-2 hours thereafter. We can't figure it
>out. It has been going on for a few weeks now. When she wakes, it's
>as if she's still sleeping and all we do is put her pacifier in and she
>goes right back to sleep. Sometimes we'll bring her into our bed, and
>she seems to sleep better (but not all the time). Also worth noting,
>she's not eating as well as before. After about 4 oz. of formula and 2
>TBSP of solids, she begins to grunt, push it away and get
>upset...almost as if she has a belly ache.
>
>I understand there are a ton of possibilites, including teething, but I
>wanted to check and see if anyone had any good advice. As first time
>parents, we're still pretty clueless.
>
Oh boy. (groan) Hearing this is giving me bad deja vu -- I feel for
you and your husband. :-(

I would say teething or ear infection. Or in our case, teething that
*caused* an ear infection. Our son's sleep (who was also a power
sleeper up until 4 mos) was totally wrecked and we went through the
same thing. Getting up over and over. we tried co-sleeping (he tossed
and turned).

As far as her eating, it may be that she's just eating less or
dropping a feeding (totally normal) at night (or when ever) I wouldn't
worry about that unless her weight started dropping or something.

I'm also going to guess that during the day she is a lot crankier than
she was when she was getting a full night's sleep? If that is the
case then she does not need to drop any naps during the day. Babies
her age still need lots of sleep.

After our guy was completely well and his 2 bottom teeth were thru (he
was 5-6 months), we did a wimpy version of Ferber-izing him and it
worked in 2 nights! I won't bore you with the details unless you want
them.

What I will tell you is that he takes a paci on and off all day
(especially while teething) but now *sleeps* without one. (from
7p-6:30-7a)

He takes three naps a day -- he knows what he needs...sometimes it's
30 min and sometimes it's 60 or 90.

He cut 6 teeth within 2 weeks back in Jan. and maybe got up twice (at
like 4 or 5am) when it was really bad and then I would cave and give
the paci and some tylenol which put him right back to sleep for a
couple more hours.

'Ferber-izing' has been a godsend for ALL of us, mainly Victor. He is
now cutting at least 2 molars on both sides and is generally pretty
happy all day except for the occasional tug at his ears (which have
been checked repeatedly for infection) and being a bit fussy -- if he
didn't get a full night's sleep while all of this was going on, I
don't know what we'd do.


Carla
Mom to Victor born 5.16.04
www.victorpictures.com <--See him here!

[Jamie Clark]

I think it's pretty normal for an otherwise well sleeping baby to go through
some night wakings when learning new skills or having changes to their daily
schedule. My guess is that perhaps the addition of solids is affecting her
sleeping schedule, but just be consistent and she should go back to her old
ways soon. As she learns to crawl and then later walk, she'll likely have
her sleep disrupted again.
--

Jamie
Earth Angels:
Taylor Marlys, 1/3/03 -- Little Miss Manners, who says, "No skank you" and
"Tank you very much, momma."
Addison Grace, 9/30/04 -- The Prodigy, who can now roll over, and pull
herself to standing while holding onto someone's fingers!

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[Ilse Witch]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:48:31 -0800, robinson624 wrote:

> I understand there are a ton of possibilites, including teething, but I
> wanted to check and see if anyone had any good advice. As first time
> parents, we're still pretty clueless.

What happens if you just let her be? Most babies will wake up during the
night at one time or another, and just go back to sleep after a while.
Have you tried that yet?

The only other thing I can think off is trying to move her evening feed to
a later time, she may simply be hungry. This may require an adjustment of
the entire schedule, I don't recall what we did when DS was that age. I do
remember he would nurse a lot before starting his longer nighttime nap.

--
-- I
mommy to DS (July '02)
mommy to four tiny angels (28 Oct'03, 17 Feb'04, 20 May'04 & 28 Oct'04)
preggers with twins EDD August'05
guardian of DH (33)

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Carla,
Thanks for the reply. Let me hear about Ferberizing.