Hi Carolina,

you might already know that I also had similar stages with my son, when he was waking every 1-2 hours at night, during the first 4 months. The only thing that helped out of all the things we tried is 'sleep training' at 4 months (using the 'cry it out method', but with a very specific plan that did still allow for comfort/nursing, but making sure that the baby is still put back down to sleep fairly awake), eventhough still he didn't start sleeping right through the night then, but it at least doubled his sleep periods. 'Exhausting' is too mild of a word to describe how we felt then, but more importantly we were extremely concerned for how poor of a sleep he was getting, if he's waking up every hour or two, when instead they need longer consolidated sleeps. (Now he's almost 17 monts old and sleeping very well, both at night and during the nap in the day, and has been for many months now actually, showing continuous improvement since the sleep training).

I know you don't want to consider 'sleep training', but if you're wondering about the 'cause' of this frequent waking, then my opinion (and also shared by many doctors and pediatricians) is that at this age, the baby is waking out of 'habit' (i.e. she's become used to the breast and wants it repeatedly for comfort and help to fall back asleep, rather than doing it herself), and not necessarily nutrition (i.e. she's not really hungry, that frequently). My son is also not a great eater, picky too, some days he'll hardly eat anything substantial during the day, but still he will sleep for 9-10 hours straight, and then just one breast-feeding in early morning, and he will go back to sleep again for another 1-2 hours.

I've also talked to some other parents who experienced similar situations and didn't want to sleep train their babies; the 'lucky' ones said their babies eventually started sleeping through the night around 18 months to even 2 years... others still have 4-year-olds with waking problems in the night.

Good luck with whatever you decide. If you are curious about the plan I used, you can message/email me.

Tatiana

Hello!

I can imagine your frustration and desire for your baby to sleep through the night and therefore get the rest that you both need.

I don't have a personal experience with this as my son has been sleeping through the night from 6 months after a very modified sleep training to take away the 4am feeding.

However, I have a friend in a similar situation and she did not want to sleep train her 13 month old daughter. I would suggest speaking to your doctor.  My friend was also convinced that waking was the result of not eating enough during the day and when she talked to her doctor, her doctor said that it doesn't matter and the she should not be feeding her at night anymore.  That it was a bad habit that needs to be stopped.  So, she took her advice and that night when she woke up she rocked her a little, etc.  She has gone almost 2 weeks without milk at night, which is amazing because she was drinking between 8-12oz every night.  Now that her daughter has gotten used to no milk she is going to try and not pick her up when she wakes, just soothe her to sleep.  Oh, and the best part is that she is not even waking in the night most nights now!  Her daughter also seemed to take to the change, it was almost like she was ready for the habit to be broken and get a better nights sleep.  Maybe she was just drinking at night because it was being offered????

Sleep is very important for our little ones and I too have heard that babies often wake out of habit not necessity.  I hope that your doctor can provide some insight and ease your fear that your baby is hungry at night.

Good luck, keep us posted:) 

Darmeen wrote:I feel for you Carolina. My little girl was up every hour for a couple of weeks a month ago. I was so exhausted that I wasn't able to properly care for my toddler son and my husband. I was in tears every day and night. My baby girl was crying and screaming so much that 'cry it out' didn't work at all. And out of exhaustion I let her nurse to fall back to sleep. But she would wake up again screaming after an hour. I increased her solids intake during the day but no luck. She was starting to stand and pull herself up and teething as well. So I thought perhaps those were the reasons that she was waking up.

I was almost out of my mind because of the lack of sleep until I look at what has changed during her sleep routine. The only thing I did was to put her into Pajama tops and pants instead of her old 1 piece sleepers. So I decided to put her back into the sleepers because I was running out of ideas. Guess what? The first night I put her back into her old sleepers she slept through the night again. And she had been sleeping through the night since. I guess she hated having the feeling of the waistband while she was sleeping.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that even such a tiny change in a baby's sleep routine can have such a profound effect. If you have tried everything else already, perhaps you can have a look and see if there had been little changes that might not be a big deal to you but could have caused her to wake up frequently.

Good luck!