10 month old waking every 2 hours..."normal?"

[kaharris83]

DS turns 10 months on Tuesday. His first 6 months he slept like a dream. Sometime around 6 months his sleeping went downhill. About a month ago I poked around here looking for advice and realized I needed to get him on a schedule. He wasn't napping and his bedtime was 9:30-10. I read Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I've got DS on a schedule now. And he's still waking every 2-3 hours. He goes down at night between 6:30-7 and the wakings begin at 9:30 and go on until 6-7am. He naps for an hour or two between 9-11am and again 1-3pm. I've asked the pediatrician twice and he basically tells me it's "normal". DS drinks breastmilk from a bottle and he'll have about 4-5oz each time he wakes up. He was in the 9th percentile for weight at his 9 month appointment so I'm hesitant to not feed him since he seems hungry, but I'm not sure if we're just reinforcing the waking by feeding him. Anyone else have any experience with this?

[SnuggleBuggles]

We had a super, duper rough patch with both boys at that age. I really think you just need to find the best strategy for your family to get through this phase. I personally nursed to sleep at that age. Like your little one, my ds2 was a peanut and Ididn't feel ok not feeding him. But, dh and I did try other things than nursing if it had only been 1-2 hours or so between feedings. Usually dh would go in to his room and rock him or something else. It helped that mom didn't always = sleep! eta- we tried CIO but it really wasn't successful We never had that magical breakthrough after a few nights that people say is normal and I feel like we did it "right". Just wasn't going to work for my boys.

All baby sleep is a phase,ime. Good or bad. Hang in there! You aren't going to screw things up long term.

Beth

[Indianamom2]

Personally, I don't think he needs to eat overnight anymore.

We went through this with my Ds (who is also a tiny, tiny little guy....in the
3rd percentile). He was waking up every 2-3 hours and I was feeding him even at 7 months old....but he didn't need it. At that point, he was capable of sleeping all night and not waking to eat, but I was reinforcing the habit by continuing to feed him all night long.

For us, we fed him a bottle at bedtime (by that time, I was no longer nursing due to supply issues) and then let him cry it out when he woke up the first time. For the first day or two, it was a little rough, but then (and every night since then) he's slept through the night. His weight didn't drop off at all and we are all happier.

The other thing that came to mind is that he might be ready to have only one nap. It's fairly early, age-wise for him to drop to one nap, but my Ds did around that time and only takes one 2-3 hour nap a day with a fairly early bedtime (7 pm). It's something else to consider.

Good luck. Sleep issues are NO fun.

[LadyPeter]

Helpful link on sleep regressions.

http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/02/qa_what_are_sle.html