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Our almost 10 month old boy (at night) wakes up roughly every 1.5 hours. At best continuous stretch is perhaps 2 hrs. It's always been the case since he was born. (Even his day naps are at best 2 to 2.5 hours long at a stretch, totaling about 4ish hrs during the day).
He's breast fed and formula fed. Solid food, not much has started consistently. It's been a challenge to get him to take more solids (even pureed foods, though he likes to eat plain cheerios forever!). He has 2 center lower teeth and more are on the way. Weight etc is all normal, he's active and developing fine otherwise. We do give him plain water and gas drops as needed if we think he's gassy. When he was yonger, we suspect he had some reflux but wasn't to the point of giving any medicine.
We never got him to sleep in crib. So, he co sleeps with mommy in a regular firm bed. We use a white noise machine, temperate is around 69/70. The bedroom is a large master. Evening routine is, bathe around 6.30 pm, then mommy feeds him (either nurses or formula). To put him to sleep, either of us rock him to sleep around 7.30 pm, he sleeps at best 2 hours at a stretch. Feeding is roughly every four hour intervals. (We do feel that if he ate more solids, he might be fuller and sleep better but solids intake is very slow.)
Our only mode of putting him to sleep is walking & rocking him. Even that often he wants to jump out, twists and turns till he falls asleep and we put him on the bed.
When he wakes up, he is usually just sitting up, then plops down a few times as through he is going to sleep, then sits up, starts crawling etc eventually playing, blabber talk etc. He rarely cry's when he wakes up. At this point, one of us pick him up, again start the rocking/walking till he sleeps. Sitting in the rocking chair, he knows and tries twist & turn lot more.
What avenues are there here for help? What kind of a professional / practice should be reach out to?
Location: Stuck on the East Coast, hoping to head West
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Exactly what is the issue? Babies go thru sleep cycles---they sleep deeply, stir, babble, sit up, sleep lightly, etc. If he's not crying, why are you picking him up. I think he should be in his own crib.
Also, your wife could be inadvertently waking the baby up if they are sleeping together.
Why is he not eating solid food?
Why are you giving him water? I did not give my baby water until he was on solid food and I think he was about 12 months old, per my pediatrician's instructions.
My children have all awakened in the middle of the night during their sleep cycles. If they cried, I always checked on them; but quite often, they'd stir, sit up, babble, and go back to sleep.
Babies are all different, but it's not normal for a 10-month old never to sleep more than two hours at a time; in fact, it's not even healthy. Babies that age need extended periods of sleep.
I don't think feeding/solids is the issue if your wife does not nurse him every time he wakes up. On the other hand, many babies who are co-sleeping with a breastfeeding mother wake up to nurse frequently, but magically start sleeping through the night when they are either weaned or no longer cosleeping. Still, weaning a 10-month-old isn't really recommended and you shouldn't have to wake up every two hours just because your son is breastfeeding.
I suspect that the major problem is that you have consistently rocked him to sleep for his entire life. It is normal for everyone, including babies and children, to wake up briefly several times during the night. The problem is that your son has no ability to go back to sleep without intervention. Some people will say he's too young for that, but I personally disagree. To break that cycle, you have to stop walking or rocking him until he is asleep. If you must hold/rock, do it only for a short time and put him down while he is sleepy but still awake. It is not going to be easy at this point, but there are some books that lay out a course of gently adjusting babies' sleeping habits. I suggest you pick one and stick to it (don't get three and try to mesh them together).
Rocking him to sleep makes him expect rocking when he needs to sleep so when he transitions through sleep cycles and he's not being rocked, he's going to wake up. What you need to do is to find a way to put him down awake so that he falls asleep by himself, and at this point it's likely going to have to be sleep training as he's too used to being rocked. Pick a method (there are many, with varying degrees of crying but all methods will involve crying because adjusting to a new way of falling asleep is upsetting) so pick a method and stick with it for at least a week before deciding whether or not it's working.
The recommended method in my country is patting - you put baby down and when they start crying you gently pat them until they stop crying and then stop. When they start crying again, you start patting again. Repeat until they fall asleep (they must not fall asleep while you are patting otherwise it becomes a new rocking). That didn't work for my youngest so I did CIO which worked really well and he loves sleep now and is a much better sleeper and chiller child than his big sister who was not sleep trained so don't be afraid if you need to do that.
Put him to bed in a crib in his own room. He will cry and eventually fall asleep. Be prepared for a bad week but by the end of it he will be re-trained.
Put him to bed in a crib in his own room. He will cry and eventually fall asleep. Be prepared for a bad week but by the end of it he will be re-trained.
Sounds like my son. He’s 5 and still sleeps in our bed. We are pretty much ok with it. I know a day will come where he will want to be in his own bed. He does have his own bed and room. Just wants to be with us.
Our doctor said to put the baby to sleep where you want her to end up sleeping by 4-6 months. We had no problem getting her to sleep in the crib at 4 months. I think you’ve waited so long you’re in for a real challenge, but is it really any worse than the status quo, which also sounds like a real challenge? You two (three) must be so exhausted at this point.
You got some good advice above, best of luck to you.
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