Ok aldies help, Jade is 10 months old and in the last 2 months is getting up again 2-3x a night for 2-3oz of formula and I don't know what to do. Any suggestions would be great. Crying it out doesn't work because she can go for hours if we would let her. And it wakes up the whole house. What can I do. I get up now make a small bottle with 4oz and sometimes she drinks it all sometimes she only takes 2oz but if I give her water in her sippy she throws it out she only wants formula. I haven't slept for more than 4 hours at a time in forever and it shouldn't be this way with a 10 month old baby. HELP!!

She is eating 2 3rd stage jars of food at 7:30pm and taking 6-8oz of formula around 8pm then in bed by 9pm. She is up by 2:00am and again around 4:30-5am.

What can I do please help.

By Kaye on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 04:01 pm:

At this stage she probably isn't hungry. I would not let her cry it out per say. But I would pick her up, comfort her, distract her and cope for many hours. She has developed a habit that needs broken. Think of it this way, I wake up at 6:30 to get the kids up for school. On Saturdays and Sundays when I can sleep later I still typically wake up at 6:30. I may not get out of bed, but that is because I know I dont have to. Babies don't have that same sense yet. So even if you give in after an hour or so, then you are still increasing that time. The key here is to try to keep her calm and not let her get hysterical, like letting her just cry it out will do.

Another option is hold out on her evenign bottle for a little. Feed her solids, then play with her, bathe her, then give her the bottle right before bedtime. Really anything you can do to change her schedule will help.

By Mrsheidi on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 04:22 pm:

This worked for us...
There's something about banana seeds that puts babies to sleep. We put rice cereal with bananas in his formula bottle (i know...not supposed to put cereal in his bottle...but it works for us). Gerber makes this rice cereal with the banana stuff in it already. We make a tiny tiny bit of a bigger opening in his nipple and he's out. Although with her being 10 months, you can just smoosh a ton of bananas and have her eat that at 8pm along with formula.
Our son is 5 months old and sleeps from 8pm-7:15 am. It worked for us...maybe that will help?

Does she take a pacifier? Sometimes (once a week) our son will wake up screaming with his eyes closed and just wants a pacifier. The sooner it gets into his mouth, the better. If you let the crying go too long, they open their eyes and it's a lot more difficult to get them back to sleep.

By Emdee on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 08:46 pm:

We have started a bad habit with my 20 month old--she never sleeps through the night simply because we have trained her that we will come get her. This habit will be broken shortly (we have another on the way in Feb, so I am too tired to break the habit now, but will have to when the baby arrives). But back to the point: she started wanting milk in the middle of the night and we refuse it! We give her water (I figure that is something I can teach her is by her bed and she can eventually get on her own whereas milk can't stay out all night). Some nights she throws tantrums until she knows we aren't giving in and then will drink the water and off to sleep she goes. All this said, I would try to break the formula habit now--it will only get worse! I am sorry you aren't getting any sleep, and I hope this is just a stage and she starts sleeping better for you.

By Jelygu on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 - 09:11 pm:

I agree with Kaye- this is just a habit that needs to be broken. I would just comfort her and calm her down until she is ready to go back to sleep. It may be tiring, but eventually she will just stay asleep, if she knows she doesn't get to eat.

By Katie on Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - 12:20 am:

Hi. You are NOT alone. I've had this problem with all three of my kids. You'd think I'd learn the first time around but I had to re-learn it with all of them. Ferber says that you should give your baby her bottle outside of her bed so she doesn't associate falling asleep with having a bottle handy. Makes sense. And it works. But our last one, who is now 18 mos, had gotten "spoiled" again when he was sick so I was getting up two, three, four times a night to give him a "shorty" bottle. One night, my husband, usually the softie, said he would handle it. He closed the bedroom door and just stayed up. When the baby cried, he comforted him but gave him no bottles. It was violent for one night, noisy for another and then it's been peaceful for a month or more. Every now and then, I hear him (the baby, not my husband) cry at about 4:30 but he goes back to sleep before I can rouse myself to "spoil" him again. And you know what? He now sleeps until 7:30 in the morning, instead of getting up at 6:15. If you can get your husband to be the "bad" guy, it helps immensely. Otherwise, try Ferber's way of moving the bottle to a time when she's not in her crib. That works really well too.