how do I elliminate night waking?

Luca is finally sleeping better and going pretty long between night feedings. He takes his last bottle around 6:30pm and goes until 3-4am before needing to eat again. The problem is he still gets up 2-3 times before then, needs 5-10 minutes of rocking and goes back to sleep. If you don't pick him up, he wails until you do- and people have said that he's still a little young for CIO (4 months.)

Re: how do I elliminate night waking?

At this point you keep doing what you are doing and hope he grows out of it. If he doesn't you can reevaluate when he is a bit older.

Re: how do I elliminate night waking?

I don't really have any great advice, but is there any way you can eliminate the rocking? Maybe he is getitng used to being rocked before he falls back to sleep. Maybe you can try and soothe him, rub his back and put him back in the crib right before he dozes off?

Re: how do I elliminate night waking?

I've actually been trying to rock less- especially in the middle of the night. I try to just pick him up and hold him close and then put him back down. But I find that if he's still awake when I put him down he will just cry again.

Re: how do I elliminate night waking?

I would go into their cribs and rub their backs but not pick them up. Then about a week later i let them CIO (around 3 1/2 months). I know that is a little young, but I needed to try it and it worked for me.

Good luck!

Re: how do I elliminate night waking?

I did CIO at around 3 months. I started by feeding him more throughout the day and eliminating the night feeding all together. Then when he would wake I would rub his back or hold him if he wouldn't calm. Also I didn't go into him everytime he woke up. Then after about a week or so I just stopped picking him up or rubbing his back, he woke up less and then started sleeping through the night. It was hard but it really worked for me. He sleeps from 7:30 pm to 7 am and he never wakes.

Good luck

Re: how do I elliminate night waking?

We did give CIO a shot for a week a couple of weeks ago, and I don't know if he's too young or too strong minded, but it DID NOT work. He never managed to cry himself back to sleep, he would just work himself up more and more. Ultimately, it would take a much longer time to settle him back down and get him back to sleep because he was just so upset. If things don't improve we will definitely revisit CIO, but it just didn't seem to work for him at this point.

Re: how do I elliminate night waking?

With DD, I only picked her up if she was really crying. I would go in, put the pacifier back in her mouth and just rub her tummy or the side of her head and she would drift back off to sleep. I think they get it if you're consistent.

My doctor told me today that I should actually let DD CIO. She's 4 months old as well. I know that in the past I've let her cry a few minutes if it's the middle of the night and she usually puts herself back to sleep. I don't let her go longer than a few minutes though.