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 Ask Dr. Jana
Infant Waking Numerous Times in the Night | | | QUESTION | | | Dear Dr. Jana,
I am very worried for my 4-1/2-month-old son. He cries inconsolably coming out of a nap and has a few such nighttime awakenings on a daily basis. His naps are also not very long, mostly only about 30-40 minutes. This problem has been obvious only after he started stretching his feeds at around three months and when he no longer needed to feed at night. In the last few weeks, the crying has worsened, he cries more and is very often inconsolable. At night, when he cries he does not take any milk when offered. He does not have any problem dropping off to sleep, but he just cannot stay asleep. I have consulted the local pediatricians, but I have been assured that since he is growing well and is fine when awake, he is likely to outgrow this problem by six months. But that is a lot of crying till then. Just last night, he woke every hour from four to seven. Please help, all in the family need better sleep.— Desperate Mum in Malaysia | | | ANSWER |
April 26, 2001 | | | Dear Desperate Mum,
I am very glad to hear that you have consulted with your local pediatricians, and that they have found your son to be growing and developing well. This is reassuring when discussing any of the problems of infancy, including sleep and crying.
Whenever I hear of a baby your son's age who is otherwise healthy but wakes every half an hour to an hour crying, my first (and often most important) question for the parents is how are you putting your baby down to sleep? Quite often, babies become dependant on their parents to either rock, hold, or feed them to sleep. While this strategy may work well at the beginning of the night or at the start of a nap, it can create a problem when a baby goes through a normal sleep cycle and wakes briefly (as often as every 30-40 minutes) during sleep. Since it is entirely normal for adults and infants alike to have these frequent, brief periods of waking up, it is important that infants know how to go to sleep on their own or else they will not simply drift quietly back to sleep. I generally find that when infants wake up like your son has been, it's because they are dependant on a sleep aid that is no longer there. Most often, the crying stops quickly if the child is once again comforted to sleep.
In order to prevent this from happening (or continuing), I typically recommend that by the time infants are around four months of age, parents begin to get their babies accustomed to being put in their cribs before they are fully asleep. While some babies protest a bit at first, you are absolutely right in believing that everyone in the family--including your son--will be better off with more sleep!
If what I have described does not seem to fit your situation, you may also be interested in looking at our sections on sleep and sleep problems to find out more information.— by Laura Jana, M.D., F.A.A.P. |
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