We sleep trained our daughter 2 weeks ago and she now goes down to bed easily and falls asleep by herself. I thought she would magically drop some of her night wakings hahaha nope! Any tips in getting her to stretch her sleep? She goes down around 7, then is up around 10:30 and 2:30 then sometimes 4:30 
i feed her when she wakes up. I tried reducing the number of minutes she was feeding at her first wake up but that just resulted in her waking up earlier for her next feed! That made me think maybe she's really hungry? But last night she popped off and looked up at me and smiled and I thought man she's playing me! She just wants to cuddle! I would really like to drop the first feeding so we (I) could get a good stretch of sleep! Any advise? Should I send dad in with a bottle so it's not as much fun for her? Make her wait x amount of hours? I know she can go longer then 3-4 hours without eating.
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We didn't do any formal sleep training with our son (almost 5 mos), but at around 3 mos or so I started waiting in the middle of the night to see if he would self-soothe. Most of the time he would if I waited 5-10 minutes. At the 10-min mark, if his sounds weren't escalating, then I would wait another 5 mins or so. A majority of the time he would settle himself back down to sleep. We still do this in the MOTN and I pretty much never get up and feed him any more. He usually STTN but the other night he woke up at 2 and at 4 but I stayed in bed the whole time.
Sometimes he sounds upset but he's really just making noises, so I try pretty hard to distinguish between them. The video monitor helps sometimes.
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@gotkimchi: How old is she?
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Have you tried cluster feeding her before putting her down for the night?
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@meredithNYC: 6 mo in 1 week exactly
@Freckles: yes, last night I fed her at 4,5:30, and 6:15 and she usually gets some solids before bed also -
Check out the blog weebeedreaming.com. I read every single blog entry when my daughter was going through a difficult time. With just changing her environment ( blacking out the room, turning a fan on, taking everything out of her crib except her ducky and her glow worm ) and feeding her before her bath, I noticed a huge huge difference the very first night. She went from waking up 3-4 times to either STTN or waking up once. She has lots of good information on her site as well as her facebook page. Good luck! You'll get through this!
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@ElbieKay: I've wondered if I'm going in too fast. I usually wait 5 minutes but then she seems to be escalating. Maybe I should give her 10. Last night though she was lifting her head up and trying to get on all fours so idk what she was up to
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We used Ferber's method (CIO with checks) to get down to 1 night waking at 6.5 months. Basically if he woke before a certain time, we would go in and check on him in increasing intervals, just long enough to give him a pat and tell him we loved him, and then walk back out. It took 2 bad nights, but that's it!
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@gotkimchi: Okay, so it seems she's old enough to probably be down to just one wake up at night, or none (though every baby is different, of course). I think sending your husband in with a bottle is a good idea, if possible. That should give you a good indication of whether she's really hungry or wants comfort/company from you.
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@gotkimchi: Several times my husband has told me to wait longer before going in, and he's almost always right because it results in self-soothed sleep.
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@meredithNYC: this is sort of what I've been leaning towards, then we'll know she's fed and if it's not as rewarding to her maybe she'll stop getting up for the first feed. I'm fine feeding her once per night but 2-3 is killing me!
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@ElbieKay: ok I will try this too! I actually might just give my husband the monitor for awhile because I'm so tired I usually can't even remember how long I've been waiting
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@hilsy85: I was hoping it wouldn't come to that, but it might! I was sort of hoping for her to magically drop that one but I think we might have to force the issue. What time did u set to feed him?
@MrsB2012: thank you!! I'm checking it right now!
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@gotkimchi: I think at that age he was going to bed at 7ish, so I wanted him to make it at least til 2.
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My son was the exact same way. Wakeups at 10:30, 2:30 and sometimes 5. He added that 10:30 feeding during the 4 month sleep regression so we knew he could go longer because he used to go until 1-2 for the first feeding. We ended up doing CIO for the first feeding at exactly 6 months. He cried for 2 nights and completely dropped that feeding. He now wakes up around 3 for the first feeding. and most nights only has one feeding.
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@sailgrl18: this is exactly what happened! She used to go until 2 or 3 but after the 4 month regression this is what were stuck with. Give me details! What did u do?
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@gotkimchi: We did extinction CIO. We had done checks in the past and the checks just pissed him off more. I can't say it was easy those two nights because he cried for about an hour and a half each night. But after the second night we haven't had issues.
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Offer a paci instead? Or push back the feeding 15 minutes for a few nights, then another 15 minutes until she drops it. Or try daddy and bottle.
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@catomd00: we got rid of her paci at 5 months so I'd like to not go back down that road. So if she's getting up at. 10 then make it 10:15 then 10:30?
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@gotkimchi: I just saw this thread! Thank you for replying to
my questions! -
Have you tried dream feeds? We used Sleep Easy Solution to sleep train and they have a lot of good advice about doing dream feeds and dropping breast feeding sessions in the MOTN to encourage longer stretches of sleep and less wake ups.
Also, if you swaddled before, have you stopped with sleep training? Once we sleep trained my LO reeeally wanted to sleep in his tummy and he could roll both ways so we just let him.
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I keep typing a response & never finishing! Busy LO
At 6 months (I think) we had to retrain after traveling & I tried to drop to one night feeding. She was just not ready. I have low milk supply & so she was basically snacking every 2 hours. I started supplementing at night & she would do 2-3 wake-ups instead of 12 million. If she woke up more than twice I would pat her in her crib until she fell asleep (this took forever!) instead of feeding her.
At about 7.5 months though she stopped needing bottles on top of nursing at night & I realized she was mostly comfort nursing. So we bit the bullet & did full-on extinction CIO for the whole night. It was a lot easier than I expected. We recently had to retrain some because she learned to pull up in her crib but she's back to sleeping 7:30-5:30 & then right back to sleep for a couple hours.
So while CIO has been so hard, I am definitely in favor of it when your LO is ready to night wean... But if they are not, unfortunately there's not a lot you can do, I think.
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@daniellemybelle: thanks for the response! Last night she didn't wake up until 11:45 for her first feeding which is better then it has been! Do you think I shouldn't feed her until 1145 now? Some nights she wake up earlier - like 9 or 10 and I think of that happens now I will ignore them
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I'd maybe try dream feeding her sometime between 10 or 11 since it does sound like she might be hungry. But I would definitely have your husband do one of the two night wakings. I think a 5 min wait time is good :).
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@gotkimchi: Since we had similar issues, I thought I'd also add that initially I was worried he really needed the early night feed because he wasn't eating enough during the day but it actually was the other way around, he wasn't eating as much during the day because he knew he was getting the night feed. So after sleep training to drop that feed, he upped his during the day eating and now wakes at 2am at the earliest to eat.
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@sailgrl18: thanks this is helpful! I saw your post on the other thread and I leave 12oz when I work also so I'd like her to up her day time amounts and drop the night feeding! I think we mighty have to cio because I kind of don't know what else to do
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@gotkimchi: I'm also in your boat! my LO went on a food strike for a few weeks and it has wreaked havoc on her sleep since she now takes in the bulk of her milk at night. she's actually still sleeping really well aside from the feedings (going right back down, sleeping 7-7, doesn't try to play or anything), so we're first working on trying to get her more calories during the day, and then if things don't improve on their own, we'll have to start trying to stretch her longer to make her more hungry during the day. She's gone 12 hour stretches before, so i know she's capable of it, but she's also tiny, so I have reservations about starving her.
I actually think it's partially our fault - during her milk strike she went from going 7-4 to going 7-1, and then we started feeding her proactively before we went to sleep (not necessarily a dream feed, but just running to her the second she flinched while we were awake in an attempt to "fill her up" to get rid of the 1am wakeup). well that backfired because now she's waking some nights at 10, 1 and 5!
right now we're not letting her nurse until 4 or 5am, because she's basically refusing the bottle during the day, so we're trying to make it less fun for her (she has to take that same bottle she refuses during the day, is it worth waking for?)
so, no real advice here, but you're not alone
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@Pirouette: I've been considering doing a bottle at night hoping it would be less fun! Is that working? Were the same way 10,1 and 5
I know it's my fault too for going in there right away but like you said she goes right back to sleep after nursing! And she's a peanut too so that always makes me feel like I should feed her too!
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@gotkimchi: I am going to try this too. At the very least it'll give my husband a chance to get in on the night WAKINGS.
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@gotkimchi: haha i know, nursing is SO much easier - it's the fastest way to get her down to sleep. and it's so hard when they are tiny - i don't even really mind feeding her during the night because i want her to grow so badly, but i also can't sustain this pattern indefinitely.
we're doing two things right now: way increasing solids (her ped asked us to do this to combat some tummy issues that caused the milk strike to begin with) and bottle before 5. We started the increase in solids last week and she slept much better, but over the weekend she barely got solids and that's when we started the no nursing before 5am, so it's tough to say so far.
Over the past 2 nights, she's gotten a bottle for any pre-5am wakeups and she looks at DH like "huh? where's mom?" for a few minutes, but then guzzles down her milk and passes out. I'm hoping after a few nights of that coupled with getting more solids, she'll at least drop 1 of the 2 pre-5 wakeups. we're hoping to avoid CIO, but i think some sleep training may be in order.
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@Pirouette: @Leah: let me know how it goes!!
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@gotkimchi: Last night was the worst! LO woke up at 8:40, about 2hrs after going to bed. After three attempts at feeding and putting down failed, I ended up falling asleep with him at the boob. I woke up at midnight and just decided to stay in his room. Not a good way to establish the kind of sleep habits we want, but it was totally unplanned.
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@Leah: yah it's so frustrating! Two nights ago she was up at 9,1,3,4 etc
but last night she got up at 1015 and 230! I don't know why it's so all over. She has a dr appt in a week so I'll see if they have any advice
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