Full extinction parents - what do your night wakings look like and what do you do for them?

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nanipardhu

New member
So close to doing full extinction w my 6 month old. I don’t want to, but it’s been a month since doing Ferber and he’s still all over the place w night wakings. He eats 2x a night and cannot go longer than 2.5-3 hour stretches between feedings. The first stretch of sleep is often barely even 3 hours!! Nursing used to give us a solid 2-3 hour chunk of sleep, but lately he isn’t even doing that. He will wake and cry for more than an hour sometimes, even after being fed.

I know this guy is not hungry when he eats. I know he doesn’t need to eat at night, but I don’t have the energy to intentionally night wean right now. I’m at the end of my rope.

Edited to add our schedule:

Wake up (DWT): 7-730

Bed time: 7-8pm (usually closer to 8pm)

Naps: 2/2.25-2.5/2.5/2.75-3

Total nap length: 2.5-3 hours/day

EBF every 2.5-3.5 hours

Bedtime routine: BF + sometimes top off bottle of breast milk 30 min before bedtime as much as possible ( I have a toddler so we are not always on time), PJs, diaper change, sleep sack, book, turn on sound machine, lay in crib awake
 
@nanipardhu https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeptrain/s/4j4Baf3exl

2.5-3.5 avg wws for 6 months.

12-14 avg sleep for 6-12 months. Which means schedule should call for 10-12 awake. Yours calls for 9.5-10.

Sooooo my reco would be to add a bit more awake time and pick a dwt and start the day at the same time each day so that the schedule falls into a rhythm. I get it with the toddler, it’s nice to just have 1 awake but honestly a more reliable bedtime made my life easier with 2u2.

Try 2.25/2.5/2.5-2.75/3.25

Have a time in mind that nap 2 and 3 need to end by so that nap 2 ends at XXXX so nap 3 fits in and nap 3 ends by XXXX so bedtime is approximately the same give or take 20 minutes. This helped me immensely because it made life with 2 predictable.

Also, once that settles in I think you still have room for for ww1 to get to 2.5 (age appropriate for 6 months) and ww 4 to get to 3.5 (also age appropriate for 6 months).

Lastly, I would do this for a few days and then l would ensure that you know your method and how to follow through and then commit to st (be it cio vs ferber). I would do schedule first to reduce potential crying because there is some opportunity to get wws/schedule optimized (read that without this change your baby might unnecessarily cry for 30-60 minutes at bedtime).
 
@despina It’s weird bc he will fall asleep within 10 min or less at initial bed time with. 2.75 wake window as the last one. I pushed his last ww to 3 hours tonight and he fell asleep in 3 min 😂😂. Maybe I should keep last ww same and push out all the other ones? It’s really the MOTN wakings that he cries for 30-60 min until we cave

Also THANK YOU for taking the time to help me!!!!
 
@nanipardhu Adding awake time to the day and sleep training are the 2 biggest things to help night wakes for most kids. Not all but many.

Do what you think suits your baby! After 3 days if no improvement, tweak more. You have significant space to add awake time. This was just a suggestion you know them best! I was on a 2.5/3/3.5 from 5 months with my second. So it’s about what works for you and your family (and gets desired results) not just about hitting a target schedule.
 
@despina Naps and schedule posted in original comment!(edited). I feel like day sleep is pretty average so I don’t feel like it’s a schedule thing but something is off so I am taking all possibilities
 
@nanipardhu Just choose a Friday night, put him to bed at 6pm. Make sure he’s had a big dinner, a bath, a bottle, the room is super cozy and warm and pitch black. And don’t feed him again before 6am. If he wakes up go in and give him a cuddle, you can give him a sip of water from a sippy cup if you’re desperate, and then leave the room. Take it in turns with your partner. The first night will be hard. The second night less hard and by night 3 or 4 he probably won’t wake up.
 
@ahappycamper Depends on the baby. My daughter is 2.5 and has done 12-13 hours overnight since she was 6 months. Especially once she started daycare she was so exhausted! Even now she does 12-13 hours overnight and 2-3 during the middle of the day.
 
@nanipardhu What are naps like? Your baby is waking where usually there’s a deeper sleep cycle, which says to me something other than hunger is jolting them up.
Can you post your full average schedule including morning wake time, naps, bedtime and what your wind down routine is?
 
@nanipardhu So my husband “attempted” to do check ins with our baby and she would just cry harder, never calmed down. We did it twice(?) for like 30m and didn’t stick to it.

I coslept with baby and was feeding her maybe 2x and comfort nursing 4-6x every night once regression hit at 3.5m. I couldn’t stand it so decided to commit to CIO at 6 months (I knew Ferber would be a fail for our baby). I stayed up the first night thinking baby would need to feed, but she STTN. Thought it was a fluke, but it happened again. So now I feed her “extra,” she nurses before naps, after naps, and eats solids. She still contact naps and will search for me in her sleep and nurse too.

We’re on our third week and it’s been pretty good, especially for my sanity.
 
@nanipardhu My 6mo is eating 2x a night still but he goes back down easily so I don’t mind too much. We’re starting to night wean though. He always did two 4oz bottles at those wakings and last night I gave him 3oz bottles both wakings and it didn’t seem to change anything so I’m gonna keep dropping them down every few days and see how it goes
 
@nanipardhu We kind of night weaned when we did ferber. It was also right around the time we added a second solids meal. So she eats breakfast/early lunch. And then dinner about an hour before bed. We feed her a full jar of food, then sometimes if she has a half jar left from breakfast she polishes that off. Then we top her off with the boob.

She wakes in the middle of the night half of the nights, but she'll talk then fall back asleep. Or cry for a little bit, then fall back asleep.

It's so tough fighting the instinct to go in, change her diaper and feed her.

Our biggest concern was the first couple nights we'd get her up in the morning and she had poo in her diaper. It always looked fresh, but we are always worried that's why she woke up. We just coat her butt with diaper rash cream at night and if she scream cries, or cries for longer than 20 or so minutes and it's after 4 we'll go in.

6.5 months
 
@nanipardhu What does his daytime intake look like? 6 month babe should be able to go much longer than that without feedings, unless they are really struggling to get in those daytime calories.
 
@vanjonti Yes I agree!! But he’s just not doing it. He’s EBF so hard to tell how much but I think normal intake??I mean this guy is in 90th for height and weight and has been for awhile. And on the days I am at work, my husband gives him at least 4oz bottles of breast milk (total 16oz) before I come home and BF him the rest of the night until before bed. We even give him a bottle before bed and he still wakes less than 3 hours for the first stretch a lot of the time. Like I KNOWWWW he is not hungry when he wakes up between 10-11pm.
 
@nanipardhu I started bottle feeding pretty early at 4 weeks-I know every babe is so different, and breastmilk/ formula are slightly different. But 16 oz of milk for a 16 month old during the day time is very little! It makes sense why he is up all night eating. I would try to push feedings a bit more if he will tolerate. Offer 5-6oz bottles and see if he will finish them. My LO is not the best eater. I try to get her to 28 oz by bedtime between her bottles and a few purées. Totally not trying to judge, sometimes babes will only eat so much at a time. Maybe he’s a snacker lol! But if he keeps snacking during the day he will likely be up all night eating xx
 
@nanipardhu I think we started doing this a little later- around 7/8 months after he started some solid foods/purees during the day- but one way we got our baby to back off wanting feedings at night was by offering him water, or water with milk for the first one, then for the second so that he gradually got used to not expecting calories at night. I realized I'm the same way: my body feels a need to eat when I have taught my body to expect food. It worked pretty well and his night wakes moved later and became easier to turn back into sleep
 
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