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So how do you get them back to sleep or preferably not to wake up at all?
First there may be a reason the child woke up, cold, hungry, hot, pain, nightmare, potty needs, etc. If you fix the reason
your child may often go back to sleep with little complaint.
Then your child may need some incentive to stop waking in the night. For sleep loving children, the chance to sleep outweighs
the desire for love in the night. So long as they are happy, fed, and comfortable, they don't tend to wake up in the night.
For others, (catnapping night owls) the first task is to get them to sleep at night, then move on to teaching them to put
themselves to sleep for bedtime, then put themselves to sleep in the middle of the night. Whatever method of teaching self-soothing
you chose for bedtime should be the one you follow in the middle of the night.
Hunger
Often people will tell you they couldn't be hungry "6 month olds don't need food in the night". Well if they arn't
getting enough in the day they can be hungry, regardless of age. You can try to up the daytime intake, but tummies are small
you may not have much success. You cannot go by weight, a hungry child comes in all sizes, shapes, and ages. Children are
born eating when hungry. So long as nothing is done to change that you needn't worry about over feeding.
This doesn't mean you will be stuck fixing midnight snacks forever! You can up the amount fed in the day, a bedtime snack
can help, or an extra snack earlier (find the longest stretch of not eating and stick a snack in the middle) and, reduce the
amount fed at night (a sometimes difficult process, substitute comfort for food). Or change the bedtime snack to a protein
one; protein takes longer to digest than carbohydrates thus sticking around longer. (Yogurt is a family favorite.)
Cold or hot
Changing the Pajamas can help, as can adding a blanket right before you go to sleep. If your child will not keep the blanket
on, then try warmer or even double layer pajamas (please do not overdress, make sure you know if your child is hot or cold)
If your child is hot, try reducing the amount or layers of pajamas, or switching to a sheet instead of a blanket. (a regular
sheet cut in half and hemmed would work well)
Pain
You can give medicine if you are sure the problem is pain, but if it is teething you wil be dosing quite a bit to make it
thru the whole teething proccess. With my children I generally found that medicine was helpful with a cold or illness, but
wore off much to quickly for the teething. I generally offered comfort and a teether or some water.
Nighmares or night terrors
Simple comfort and love is often enough. Always allow your child to talk if they are old enough, but do keep honest about
the dreamness as opposed to reality. And even though it is the middle of the night, try to remember your last nightmare and
how much you wanted to wake someone up to talk about it. If that isn't enough, and the terrors or nightmares are reocurring,
you may need to seek profeesional help. Night terrors tend to respond well to simple therapy.
Potty Needs
Yes a child as young as a day old may wake up while peeing, just to let you know something is happening. You can ignore it
or take them to the potty. (If I missed it I would ignore it, so long as I had a diaper).
Once you start potty training it is a bit counterproductive to ignore the potty as a possible need. But you may find
your child resists the event quite loudly. So far as I know no pregnant woman goes happily to the potty in the middle of
the night either, so I don't get to upset at my kids. Eventually they will stop peeing in the night, and/or be able to take
care of the whole process without you.
After solving all the possible problems, now what?
One easy method that usually works is take them to bed with you. But you then, later, have to train them out of sleeping
with you as well as out of waking in the night.
Another simple way is to do whatever you finished the bedtime with. So if you rocked them to sleep rock them at midnight.
If you follow the fade out, back up a step for midnight. If you let them cry then guess they cry.
Nothing works!
Then you unfortunatly have a cat-napping night-owl. But this too can be fixed, slowly and with a lot of patience and missed
sleep. Again follow the same proceedure as bedtime, take care of needs then choose your method and stick to it. I generally
found with mine that entertainment for me was crucial, something quiet, that could be done in very little light, and requiring
little brain power.
Sleep issues
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