How to solve frequent night time waking in babies over 6 months.
If you’ve been following my multi-sensory approach to sleep and have implemented my bedtime sequence ;
last feed before bath, playtime in the cot, fun bath time and then in the cot with red glow light and soothing sleep sounds. This will have transformed your evenings. Fantastic result!
However, all babies wake 3 or 4 times a night. It is normal for them to wake and rouse in light dreaming sleep. If you watched a 12 hour video of your baby you’d see your baby move about, make noises , open their eyes several times during the night.
There are a myriad of reasons why babies wake up, teething, active dreams, hunger, lost the dummy or comforter, unwell. On average most babies wake in the light dreaming sleep one before midnight and one after 4am. Waking at 4am is most likely to be hunger related and is the best time to give a night feed.
In my experience the only babies that sleep to their full potential are ones that enjoy being in their cot and have made a strong sleep attachment to a comforter or teddy. They still wake up but because they feel very relaxed and content being in the cot they snuggle into their comforter and go back to sleep. Babies will do this repeatedly throughout the night, parents hear them on the monitor wake up, move about, murmur, sometimes play and move their teddies about and then go back to sleep.
How to achieve this.
The only way to encourage babies to stay asleep in their cot is, to make sure that they spend 10 minutes in the cot before every sleep time playing independently and happily before they go to sleep. Babies need to transition from play to sleep in a peaceful relaxed way.
- What sort of things does your baby like to play with?
- Does she like soft toys or prefer interactive press button type toys?
- Toys he can fiddle with? Boys in particular want to play until they drop!
- Noisy interactive ones? Babies are very inquisitive and need lots of stimulation and activities to occupy their mind.
- Toys will depend on personality. You know what your baby likes better than anyone. Recreate that play experience for her in the cot.
Before every nap time and bedtime.
- Create a cot experience that she loves and she enjoys going in her cot for that experience. It has to be better than another cuddle from mummy so it has to be good!
- Avoid stroking or being part of her soothing technique while she lies down. Giving too much attention will make her fussy and she will demand more attention. Stroke her face with a comforter or teddy so she makes an attachment to one.
- Give her objects she wouldn’t normally have. Keep her favourites just for the cot.
- I suggest play time, 10 minutes before sleep, is the area you work on for 3-4 days. It is at the core of self settling and once you have achieved that you will see positive results every night.
For more help or information about this or any other sleep problems, please contact me via my Facebook page Cheshire Baby Whisperer Group, or send me an email via my website.