Waking at night?!

DD is 6 months and is not sleeping through the night really. She would go down between 7 and 8, wake up around 11 or 12 for a bottle.....then go back down until 2 or 3. Usually I would pull her in bed around that time (bad habit from when she was smaller and had gas and that would calm her down) but she would go right back to sleep in bed with me until about 7.

NOW when she wakes at 2 or 3 she does not go right back down. The past few nights it's been taking like an hour to get her back to sleep. She starts playing in her crib and the first couple of night I would get her, and last night I left her there for a bit then tried to nurse her back to sleep for 45 mins....put her down in the crib...and she woke right back up. So in the bed we went.


So my question is......when they are playing in the crib in the middle of the night do you just leave them there until they start actually crying? I am not sure whether to leave her or to get her.

I am not to the point of trying to CIO yet...but something has to give soon because I go back to work in a few weeks....and she is not a good sleeping mate in the bed.

Re: Waking at night?!

My DD is 4 months and anytime she decides its "playtime" at 4am, my husband and I ignore her, mind you this was right after we fed her a bottle. We will only go in her room if she is crying and doesn't have her pacifier in her mouth. I feel like when she is in that "play" mood and we go in her room, its only making her think she can "play". So maybe try leaving her until she cries. HTH

Re: Waking at night?!

This sounds just like my DD lately. We (by we, i mean I... my husband never gets up) leave her in her crib if she's playing. I don't go in there unless she's crying.

Waking at night?!

If she is just playign I would leave her. even if she cries a bit I would still leave her. Just because she is awake doesn't mean she nneds something.

Re: Waking at night?!

Re: Waking at night?!

DD had a similar issue...shes 5.5 months. she would wake around 3am for a good hour. she would cry then play then cry then play. i would attempt to nurse her too and thats not what she wanted. i think she just thought playtime was at 3am

so to answer you, i would definitely let her play in there without getting her. i would also let her cry a bit before getting her.

in the end, CIO is what worked for us. it took us 3 nights last week but she now sttn from around 7pm-5/6am. im not going to lie it was a rough 3 nights....she would cry from 3am until about 4:30 am and then of course she didnt want to get up at 7:30 when it was time to get ready. but i was at that point - i needed sleep to function at work and it was worth it imo.

good luck!

Message edited 8/1/2013 12:12:17 PM.

Re: Waking at night?!

I would leave her too. My DD did the same thing. If she was ok and not in distress I kept her. I started an issue for the mornings that when she wakes up (5am!)she wants to come in our bed for her bottle. Big mistake. But we will have to work on that someday.