Waking at night - WIDE awake (7 mo)

I haven't been blessed with babies that STTN yet (they are 7 months) so I haven't gotten used to that luxury - HOWEVER - last night was ridiculous! My LO's have never had the day/night confusion but they don't eat much at a time so they are not getting enough formula during the day. I'm still trying to figure out how one earth to get them to do that. Therefore, they still wake up in the night to eat usually once or twice. On bad nights/growth spurts 3 times. I can deal with waking up to feed them. I know they still need to eat just by looking at their food intake during the day. DD is doing pretty good and is starting to take more in during the day so she is waking up once a night pretty regularly. DS on the other hand was going through a growth spurt and was eating like crazy day and night. Two nights ago it got a little better. Now last night (this morning) he was up at 1am and was wide awake ready to play. I didn't talk to him, tried everything to get him back to sleep. Normally if the Paci doesn't do it a bottle will (I always try Paci first). Nope - still wide awake. Changed his diaper even though he wasn't super wet. Apparently that wasn't the problem either. Tried the bottle again. Tried just putting him in his bed again to play/try to sleep on his own. Turned on the mobile and went back to bed. He was fine for a bit but then started screaming because he was bored I think. He started waking DD so I went and brought him in our room to try and get him to take a bottle again. He drank a bit but then just wanted to be up. We did this back and forth for 2.5 hours!!! I kept just trying to leave him in his crib but poor DD was sleeping so good and I felt bad for her. I am praying this isn't going to happen frequently. I can't handle it. I haven't had more than 3 hours of sleep in a row since I was maybe 3 months pregnant (MAYBE!). Do you think it's a milestone? Does this happen? He is sitting up great now. Talking more (contributed these things to his eating/crying fits during the night last week). DD is crawling but he is not. Could he be gearing up to do this and that is what is waking him up? I'm going to go nuts if this keeps up. Any tips/suggestions on what to do to get through this? I really don't want to wake DD up. If he was a singleton I'd just leave him in his crib to figure himself out since I know he is not hungry but it's so hard with two. What did/do you do? Sorry if this was rambling - I'm very tired.

 

If he keeps it up I would suggest doing CIO. That's what we did and mine share a room. They slept through each other's cries. If he's not hungry and just wants to play then I'd leave him alone, night time is for sleeping not time for entertainment by mom.

 

I agree with Aimee, I never gave in to the playing at night. I kept it dark, with just a bit of light if I had to change a diaper, and tried to make sure they knew if it was dark they were supposed to be sleeping. CIO is an option but, like you said, it's hard with two because he will likely wake up his sister. Although, maybe not, Lila would always sleep right through Luke screaming right next to her. ardon: I'm a bad one to be giving advice because I usually gave in & took him to bed with me! :blush:

 

Mine have just had to learn to sleep through each other's cries or put themselves back to bed. My two have been STTN since about 4 months, but there was a time where my son would wake up and just want his paci every few hours. Finally, I just had to let him CIO and it worked for us. Even if they wake up now crying for a minute or two we leave them be.

 

I want to let you know you aren't alone. I am having the same problem with my daughter. In fact, I posted very early this morning about this exact problem. Annika hasn't slept through the night, but up until now, she simply needed a bottle and would go back to sleep. Not anymore. It's been a nightmarish three nights now, and I can't take it one more time. She wants to play in the middle of the night and will go back to sleep.nI don't know what I am going to do tonight but I may try CIO, perhaps by taking my son into my bed with me so she won't wake him up. I'm sorry that you are experiencing this too, but I am glad that we are able to come here and get some reassurrance and support.

 

is there any way you can move him to a pnp for a few nights while he gets over his night waking? we did this with DD when she would consistently wake up at 4 am and want to play, i too was worried that she would wake DS so moving her out of the room temporarily solved the problem.

you must be exhausted, not more than 3 hours sleep in a row for over a year!! :hug:

 

We had a few nights like that in our house. We were in a similar situation in that they were waking to eat at least once at that age if not twice. They needed to bottle at night for calories. I was not ready to do CIO since I knew they needed to eat. It usually was only a night or two of chaos and then they settled back into their waking pattern. I hear ya on the sleep :hug: Mine were 9 months old before they STTN and I too never got more than a few consecutive hours of sleep for over a year. Hang in there. :grouphug:

 

Thanks! Walker slept 7 hours before waking last night. I about fell over. Of course then they both woke and thought it was playtime. I fed them and then left them in their beds and they eventually fell asleep with one Paci re-insert from me later. We'll get there. Thanks everyone!

 

I'm a bad one to be giving advice because I usually gave in & took him to bed with me! "

I do that with dd because she is calm and just goes back to sleep. With ds I have to let him CIO
and he goes back to sleep because he does not stay still in bed and thinks is palying time....

so---I generally wait about 15 min or so to see what happens...but unfortuantely they do wake each other up.
this is when I don't like them sharing the same room....

 

:yahoo: I'm glad they had a good night!