I need some advice

[Rbriggs]

My daughter has not slept throught the night since she turned 7 months old prior to this she slept through the night for about 12 hours.  Now every 3-4 hours shes waking up because she is hungry or her diaper is wet etc. her doctor said that she should not be doing this because she will be a year old at the end of the month. I am at my wits end i need some suggestions, i cant just let her cry at 3 in the morning she can cry for 2 hours and not give up. Any ideas on how i can get to sleep throught the night?

 

Thank you in advance

Renee

[Mamma_Jessy]

How much does she sleep during the day?

[JulieeeC]

Well, if she's waking up because she's hungry--this is going to be counterintuitive--but DON'T feed her.  If you can't let her cry, comfort her -- or have hubby comfort her. But do not feed her. It's amazing but they learn to make up the calories the next day--my DD is proof of that. After I implemented below, she started nursing on both sides for the first time ever. She would cry after draining one breast, so I gave her the other side, and she ate happily.  Eventually, my breasts seemed to start making more milk for the greater demand, because I rarely feed her on both sides now.

I just went through this after my 6 month ckup. It took 3 nights (started over the weekend so DH didn't complain too much about his interupted sleep! Ugh, please, what have I been doing for 6 months) to resolve the wakings, but here's how we did it:

 DD goes to bed at 7:00 and is nursed right before bed.  Sometime between 10:00-11:00pm before I go to bed, I go in and feed her with minimal stimulation, no talking (called a dream feed). I put her back in bed (she's never fought falling asleep again after this dream feed). This eliminated the 1:00am feed. So she woke up at 3:00 or 4:00 and DH went in to comfort her. At the sight of him and not me, yes, she got angry. But he calmed her down and put her back to bed. She cried. He went in 10 minutes later and comforted her again.She cried for another 10 or 15 minutes and he went in one last time to comfort her and she fell asleep easily. She was not fed. Total awake time about an hour. Next night, same dream feed, DD awoke at 3:30, he went in to comfort her. She cried a total of 20 minutes. Next night, DH was traveling, so i went in and comforted her and made it clear she wasn't going to be fed. she cried a total of 5 minutes.  Next night: she didn't bother to wake up.  And she still doesn't. She just turned 7 months, so we have about 4 weeks of this new feeding and sleeping pattern and i think it's stuck. She's fine with it.

Yes, the crying sucks and if you can figure out a way to get her to sleep without giving into her demands, then maybe you can avoid it. 

My decision to really cut out the night feedings was driven by the stern talkin' to i got from the pediatrician on multiple ways the night feedings were NOT helping my DD. Not being able to get herself back to sleep interferes with her development--I really didn't want to feel like I was holding her back.