Ask Jill & Jennifer - Modern Mom's Sleep Experts

At night he wakes up anywhere between 1am and 3am but without picking him up I am able to rub his back and he falls back to sleep within a minute. (Sometimes waking within 20 min but back to sleep with a back rub). Then he wakes up again three hours later roughly between 4am and 6am and this time he is wide awake and standing in his crib. So I usually cave in and feed him to get him back to sleep. Sometimes I breastfeed, sometimes I give him a fruit cup. He then falls asleep anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 hour later and then he is up for the day at 8am. I have tried feeding him some cereal after breastfeeding at the 8pm feeding but it didn’t help. He still follows this pattern even if we had a late night out and he gets to bed at 10pm. Is this now a routine for him? If so how should I attempt to change it?

He does have two naps during the day. They are not consistent either. Some days they are 15 min for one and three hours for the other one. Then some days he will nap for 20 min each nap and want another nap around dinner.

My first son was such an easy baby I am really lost with this son. I am sure I just have to adjust a few things but I don’t know what to adjust. (I know that sleep deprivation is normal but not getting more than 2 hours of sleep at one time after 10 months is really doing a number on my brain).

What is it that I am not doing properly? Should I be feeding him when he wakes at night?

Help!

- Cheryl 

So sorry you're having trouble with your little guy. It sounds as if he's plenty old not to need a feeding during the night for 12 hours. His issue is more a problem with habit. When he wakes and either gets a back rub, some milk or some fruit-- he's conditioned to have some type of reinforcement from you and this is why he is still waking so frequently.

At his age, he needs 11-12 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night and anywhere from 2-3 hours during the day, typically made up in 2 naps a day. It doesn't matter so much if those naps aren't equal in length, as long as he's getting enough total daytime sleep and he seems well rested enough.

It sounds as if your goal is bedtime at 9 pm and wake up time at 8 am. Therefore, once you put him down at night, it's important to tell him that if he wakes, you'll check on him, but you won't feed him until wake up time (8:00) in the morning. When he wakes, try to go to him but don't touch him or feed him...just go near his crib and tell him (very briefly) that you love him and that you'll see him in the morning, and leave the room. He'll probably protest pretty intensely for a couple of nights, but if you stay consistent, he should return to sleep when he isn't able to be fed/played with/etc. Although it's extremely tough on our mommy hearts to do this consistently, eliminating the reinforcement during night wakings will encourage a little one to go back to sleep and to wake up very happy in the morning!

Best of luck!