Sleeping FAQ: 4-6 months

My son will not sleep at lunch time. He goes off at 12.00 and wakes 30 minutes later and will not go back to sleep. I have been trying now for about 10 days doing the controlled crying method and it does not seem to be working. Sometimes he will go for one hour before waking and then will cry until it is time to get up. I have read all the case studies etc but I cannot seem to work out what the problem is. It is quiet in the house, we have blackout curtains and blinds, and he is feeding well and sleeps well at night time. If he does wake at night he will talk to himself for a while and will then go back to sleep. I follow all the rules and nothing seems to work. He has always had problems with this sleep but would go back to sleep after 20 minutes. Since he has starting sleep through the night the problem has got worse. I now dread lunchtimes and it is getting very depressing for us all.

My son feeds at 7am 7ozs, followed by 1.5 tablespoons of porridge cereal and 1 cube of fruit. 11.10am 5ozs followed by 3 cubes of sweet potatoes and 2 cubes of vegetables, 2.30pm 6ozs, 4pm a little water, 6pm 7ozs followed by 5 teaspoons of baby rice and 2 cubes of fruit puree.

He naps at 9-9.20am, 12-12.30pm and 4.30-5pm.
Team Response

My son has never slept well at the lunchtime nap and is now waking up after 20-25 mins and screaming. Nothing will get him back to sleep. It is driving me utterly insane. I have tried everything in the books and case studies. It is now affecting my whole day and I have come to dread lunchtimes. It is also affecting my older child who misses out on having any time at all with me on our own during the day. We used to at least sit down to lunch together but now don't even manage that.
What can I do?

My son feeds at 6.15am 5-6ozs, 7.30am baby cereal mixed with 1oz formula, 10.30am 4ozs, 11.15am 3 cubes of vegetables[ with a struggle] consisting of 2 sweet potato and one other vegetable. 12midday 2oz top up. 2.15pm 3-4ozs, 5pm 4ozs, 2 cubes of fruit mixed with 1oz formula and baby rice, 6.15pm 2-3ozs and 11pm 5ozs. He weighs 15.5lbs.

He naps at 9.15-9.45am, 12.15-12.45pm and 3-3.30pm. He settles at 6.30pm.
Team Response

For the last two weeks we have had great problems with lunchtime nap. My daughter wakes up after exactly 30 minutes and can stay awake for 1.5 hours before falling back to sleep. She has always had her lunchtime nap in the carrycot when we are out for walks. I have tried to be in quiet places after the first 25 minutes of sleep, but have also tried more noisy places, either way she wakes up after 30 minutes. She never cries, only opens her eyes and is fully awake. Before this began, she would open her eyes slightly, and be in light sleep for about half an hour then fall back to deep sleep. It is really frustrating, especially since it was working so well before. She is not hungry, she gets food last thing before we leave the house.

I have tried twice to make her sleep at home, but she wakes after half hour then too.

My daughter is fully breast fed, taking feeds of 10-15 minutes at 7am, 10.30am, 2.30pm, 5pm, 6.30pm, 10.30pm and 3am. At 11.15am she has 5minutes before we leave the house.

My daughter naps at 8.45-9.15am, 11.45-12.15pm, 1.45-2.30pm and 4-4.30pm. She settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My son sleeps well at all other times and manages 10.30pm until 7am. He does wake but settles himself back easily. He cries at lunchtime after 45mins. Some days he does resettle, some days he doesn't but will cry until he's due to get up. It doesn't affect the rest of our day or night if he only sleeps 45mins but I am keen to get him to sleep longer at lunchtime. In the other letters it talks about retraining and I have done controlled crying with him but he continues to cry until he has to get up (although I never pick him up when he's crying). He won't sleep being cuddled or held in order to retrain him, the only method is driving and that would involve driving for 2 hours every lunchtime - expensive and tiring! He's not hungry or seems to have any other problem, and I have cut his morning nap to 25mins. Should I persevere and is my only option to continue with the controlled cry, I have been doing it daily for 2 weeks to gain some consistency? My son is fully breast fed. He has full feed at 7am, 10.45am, 2.30pm, 6.15pm and 6ozs of expressed milk at 10.15pm. He weighs 16lbs 2ozs and I am thinking of starting to wean him next week. He naps at 9-9.25am, 12-12.45pm and 4.30-5pm. He settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My son who is almost 5 months, always wakes up after 30-45mins of his lunchtime nap. I find this really frustrating as I also have a 3.5yr old, and just as we sit down to lunch I have to go to attend to my baby. I have been giving him a top up feed before going down for at least 3 months. I have tried not picking him up but going in to reassure him every 10 minutes. I have tried patting him back to sleep which does work at times but sometimes only for another 20 minutes. I have tried taking him out in the buggy instead, although this is not easy to do on a regular basis with my older child in tow, and didn’t seem to work really. Could this all be due to poor feeding? I feel he doesn’t take enough milk or solids for his age and weight, which is presently about 14lbs. I have been reluctant to increase his one good feed of the day which is rice and fruit at 5pm because of his low intake. After a good start with vegetables he has lost interest in them at 11am. He also often wakes around 4am looking for a feed, though in the last few days has settled back after muttering and groaning for a while. He will then wake around 5.30-6.30am and get really cross until I feed him. He naps well in the morning and almost always settles well at 6.45pm. I am waking him at 11pm for a feed but he will only take about 4ozs. , with all his feeds when he has decided he has had enough, despite patience and trying hard, he refuses to take any more. He takes a 45 minute breast feed at 6am. 10.45am; 5ozs formula followed by 3-4 baby spoons vegetables: sweet potato, butternut squash, carrot, parsnip etc mixed with about 1oz formula.12 midday; 10 minute top up breast feed, 2.30pm 3-4ozs, 5pm 2 cubes apple or pear mixed with 1oz formula and 3 teaspoons baby rice, 6.30pm 6oz formula, 11m 4ozs formula. My son naps at 9.15-10am, 12.15-1pm, 1.20-1.45pm and 3.30-4pm.
Team Response

My son of 18 weeks can now roll over onto his tummy and wants to practice at every opportunity. He refuses to sleep on his back (which was, initially, very worrying until I spoke to the Health Visitor) and, if put into his cot bed on his back, he will roll onto his front, even when half asleep or completely asleep. He is also trying to crawl and has learnt how to manoeuvre himself around his cot; including moving up and down, swapping ends or lying transversely! The trouble is that he often gets stuck and/or becomes frustrated and cries out! I suspect that this is one of the reasons why he is waking at lunchtime. I have tried a sheet over his sleeping bag and tucking the end of the sleeping bag under the mattress but my son is a very strong and determined baby! Is there anything else we can do?
Team Response

My daughter is very active in the night. She rolls everywhere, so we have put her into a sleeping bag. She used to be swaddled. She still sleeps through the night but has begun to wake up at the lunchtime nap. For the last week she has refused to go back to sleep after 45 minutes. She doesn't have a dummy and is very good at getting herself to sleep. Before this she had rarely slept a full two hours but would resettle herself when she stirred. She also seems more unsettled at bedtime too.
I have tried cutting back the morning nap to 30 minutes, but this has not worked. I want to be consistent and not go into her. She is teething and has seemed more settled when I put something on her gums, although even that is not working so well now. She is not hungry as I have tried milk and water but I am wondering if it is because she is unswaddled (not rolling over in her sleep).
She is happy to go from 7am to lunch (11am) so I don't really want her to move lunch yet. She is definitely tired as she is having another short nap at 4pm. Should I re-swaddle her?
She feeds at 7am 8oz, 11am 7ozs and 2oz vegetable puree combined with potato, 2.30pm 6ozs, 6.30pm 8ozs and 2ozs fruit and rice, 10pm 3ozs.
She was on Aptamil 2 before weaning at 14/15 weeks (she weighed 17lb 6ozs 2 weeks ago) but during the day is now on Aptamil 1. I give her Aptamil 2 at 6 and 10pm. This seems to suit her better.
At present she sleeps from 9-9.45am, 12- ? and 4-4.30pm.
Team Response

My baby boy, age four and a half months and weighing fifteen and a half pounds, has never slept well at lunchtime. He settles at noon, but wakes after 45 minutes, when I have to re-settle him using his dummy. Recently, he has also started to wake two or three times a night between 1am and 6am. I have tried settling him with a dummy, but he rarely sleeps for long. I even resorted to controlled crying, checking him every ten to fifteen minutes, but he cried on and off until 6am.
He is taking 7/8oz at most feeds, and I am still doing a split feed at 5pm/6.45pm. He settles well at 7pm and sleeps until 10pm, when I wake him and give 5/6oz. I also offer one cube of vegetables at 11am, and two teaspoonfuls of baby rice with a cube of pear at 5.15pm. I can't believe with the amount of milk he is taking, together with his solids, that the waking is caused by hunger. How do I deal with this wakefulness? Should I just leave him to cry until he goes back to sleep?
Team Response

My son always wakes after 45 minutes of his lunchtime nap, and is very hard to settle again. The two hours prior to the nap are also difficult, with him screaming for food from 10am. I have tried giving him a lot of food, and sometimes he loves it, but at other times I wonder if I am giving him stomachache. My son was in hospital 3 weeks ago with pyloric stenosis (a narrowing of the lower outlet from the stomach) and I am wondering whether he is making up for lost time with his feeding. I don't know where I am with weaning or how much I should be giving him. He was weaned at 16 weeks.
My son weighs 11lbs 9ozs. He feeds at 7am 8oz, 10.45am 6-7oz, 2.30pm 6oz, 5-6pm 7-8oz and 10.30pm 5oz. He also takes about 2oz of diluted juice in the day. In addition, he has two cubes of carrot mixed with baby rice and one cube of pear puree at 10.45am, and at 5-6pm he takes two teaspoons of baby rice mixed with formula. He naps at 9-9.45am, 12-12.45pm, 4-4.45pm and is settled at 7pm.
Team Response

Joe was 9lb 4oz at birth and at 17 weeks weighs 18lb 4oz. He is formula fed. We have been following the routine with success from 4 weeks, but from 8 weeks the lunchtime nap has gone wrong (as you said it might in the CLB book). Joe will sleep for 40-45minutes and refuses to settle himself. I have tried leaving him for increasing periods of time but he continues to cry until 2pm. He is not hungry, goes down awake and initially settles within 5minutes. There is blackout lining at his window and he sleeps in a sleeping bag. He sleeps well from 7pm, we wake him for a quick feed at 10pm, then he re-settles and used to sleep well until 7am but now wakes at 5-5.30. He is not hungry at this time but again is impossible to settle, although will sometimes go back to sleep with the dummy. Am I confusing him by giving the dummy at 5.30-6am and not at lunchtime? I don't want him to be dependant on the dummy though. He can't cope with being awake any earlier than 7am and is beginning to show less and less interest in his 7am feed, but we are reluctant to drop the 10pm feed due to the early morning waking. His morning nap is only ever 30-35 minutes and I just get him up when he wakes – does this confuse him also? He still has an afternoon nap, and is grumpy most afternoons, largely because of a poor lunchtime sleep. We have introduced solids as the CLB of Weaning suggests, but with no change. We all need the lunchtime sleep back to save our sanity!!
Team Response

My 4 month old son is struggling to sleep through from the last feed at 10 - 10:30pm until 6 -7 am.
We started him on the routines at 4 - 7 weeks quite successfully - he really responded well.
But at 7 week we traveled to Australia from the UK, and for the next 6 weeks it was incredibly difficult to stick to the routines. For a start, it took him 10 days to swop day and night around, it was extremely hot, and nobody supported our decision to have a routine. We also traveled in Australia, long drives in the car leading to oversleeping and also jumping time zones. All the time I tried to get him on the routine. He also had some of his 8 week immunizations in Australia. He wasn't very difficult throughout the whole trip, as him 'own' routine is not far off yours. But since coming back to the UK almost a month ago, I have not been able to get him on a routine. He was quite content until a week ago and now he wakes twice during the night seemingly hungry, he seems to also want solids but I'm confused as to whether I should first get him to have a routine for his age, or to try to introduce a bottle or solids. He won't take water or formula or expressed milk in a bottle at all.
Overall he is bright eyed, laughs a lot & is interactive, wants to stand up and look around most of the time, and plays for short periods with toys on his mat.
I'm struggling to cope emotionally and physically with little sleep, and can't always wake at 10pm to wake him, when he only feed for about 5 - 10 minutes.

My son breast feeds at 7am Breast last fed from 10mins, second breast 10mins. 9am cries for food, sometimes can wait until 10am. 10-11am 10mins from breast last fed on, 20mins second breast. 2pm 10mins and 20mins, 5pm one side, 6.15pm second side, 10.30pm drinks for 5mins, 1-2am feeds for 10mins, 3-4am feeds for 10mins.

My son weighs 6.4kg [14.1.5lbs]

He naps at 8.15-9am, 12-1pm, 4-4.45pm and settles by 6.30pm
Team Response

My 4mth daughter has been the best advertisement for the Contented Baby book there is. She has been sleeping through from 11pm to 7pm since she was 6 weeks old. We have followed the plan religiously and she is a very happy baby who never ever cries.
However, 2 weeks ago she started waking up at 6am. Then around 4 days later she woke at 4am and then again at 6am. For the last 4 nights she has been waking up at 2am, 4am and then again at 6am.
When she wakes she makes a noise mid way between a loud whinge and a cry. She is in our bedroom so I suppose we react as if she is crying and feel that by dealing with it quite soon we can all return back to sleep.
We didn’t feed at first, when she woke, as we did not want to encourage her to feed in the night. Instead we tried to settle her instead. However, after a few nights we did feed her and she readily took it. She is a good feeder.
Unfortunately we were strongly advised by the Health visitor not to begin weaning until she is 6 months. However, we have bought the Contented weaning book and are on day 3 of the plan today. We also replaced her 10.30pm breast feed with an expressed feed of 7ozs to make sure she was having enough at this feed.
Sometimes she settles herself, but we are more inclined to help her by “shushing” and stroking her head. This helps us all get back to sleep faster. It takes about 30minutes to settle her back to sleep.
Can you advise how we are best suited to tackle this and return her to her regular routine?
My daughter is fully breast fed taking both breasts for 15 minutes on each side at 7.15am, 10.30am, and 2.15pm. At 5.00pm she receives one breast for 15mins and takes the second breast at 6.15pm. At 10.30pm she takes 7ozs of expressed milk. At 4pm she takes 4ozs of water.

Following the weaning plan we are day three giving her 1tsp of organic baby rice mixed with 2 tablespoons breast milk at 11am.

My daughter weighs 16lb 9ozs.

She naps at 9-9.45am, 11.45-2.00pm and 4-4.15pm. She settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My daughter of 4.5mths is waking constantly at night. Her daytime naps are also a bit weird (wakes at lunch, won't resettle), I guess the problem is one and the same, but it's the night we really can't cope with!
She goes down well at 7-7.30pm and I wake her at 10-10.30pm. She's hard to keep awake at first so I feed her a little sleepy then she wakes up afterwards, usually going down at 11.15/11.30pm quite well. She drinks an 8 oz at the 10pm feed, more than any other feed. Then it starts. Last night she woke at 1.30pm, always whiney at first but builds up until I get up and calm her. This involves giving her a dummy! I'd like to get out of that habit as soon as I am able to. She settled back then woke at 2.30-3am, I offered some herb tea, she didn't want it, turned her head and went back to sleep. Then woke at 4am, where I fed her both breasts, no top up. She went back to sleep, only to wake at 5.20am, 6am, 6.30, eventually going back to sleep at 7 until 7.25 when she woke happy. At 5.20am she was cooing and gurgling not only moaning. Each time I get up, probably too quickly, and stroke her, give a dummy and stand there for a minute until she sleeps again. These kinds of nights have been for the past 4-5 days. At 7am-ish, she's not that hungry. This morning at 6 and 6.30am, I left her 10 minutes before going, she didn't settle herself, just gets worked up. It is the same at lunchtime where I leave her a whole 20mins before going in. She's always waiting for the dummy I guess. Shall I just leave her completely? We sleep in the same room which doesn't help anyone. Her skin is good so I wouldn't say it is the irritation from eczema waking her. She has had wind lately and I feel that with the cot blanket pulled across, she can't wriggle her legs and get the air out. Not sure, I guess she'd kick around too much without but wouldn't she get used to that? How shall I deal with this, I'm going a little bit mad?
Also I feel like I do split feeds all day! Should I start giving her solids now even with her sensitivities?
My daughter has a mixture of breast and formula [goats’ milk] feeds.

She feeds at 7.30am, breast, 10.45am breast, 11.50am formula top up 60-90mls. 2.30pm breast and top up of 60-90mls, 5.30pm breast, 6.15pm formula 120mls, 10pm 240mls, 4am breast. She weighs 12-13lbs.

She naps from 9.15-10am, 12-2.15pm and 4.30-5pm.
Team Response

My son who is 5mths has just started to wake 3/4 times in the early hours. I am a single mum and am finding it difficult to cope without the sleep I have now become accustomed to! I know he is getting enough milk as a dummy seems to settle him and this is the first time since 12 weeks that he has decided to awaken. I seem to now be in a vicious circle as he awakens to find his dummy and although I am giving it to him I do not want him to associate sleep with the dummy. He has always settled straight away but recently he has only been down for 45 minutes and then he wakes.

Five days ago he came out of hospital whereby he got spoilt with cuddles and his dummy as he had bronchiolitis. He is still very wheezy and his lungs will still be full of mucous for some time to come - or so I have been told. So I am reluctant to give him his dummy as I want to maximize on his oxygen intake. But I am frightened that letting him cry will mean he will work himself up and this will be reduced anyway. His feeds are slightly out also as cuts back on one feed per day and each day brings a different feed time story. On any one day he will reduce his 11am, 2pm or 5pm feed. But I have reduced his 11am solid intake and that seems to have worked. Today he has taken 7 oz at each feed apart from his 7am feed where he always takes 8.5 oz. He is also teething so on the feeds he rejects he tends to chew his bottle instead but yet will take food from a spoon! He was born 4 weeks prematurely.

My son feeds at 7.30am 8ozs, 11am 5-7ozs followed by 1 cube cauliflower/ broccoli cube, 2 sweet potato cubes with a teaspoon of rice and ½ oz milk. If my son only drinks 5ozs before his solids I increase the milk content. 2pm 5-7ozs, 5/6pm 5-7ozs, 2 cubes of apple or pear puree mixed with 1teaspoon of rice and 1/2oz milk. Again if he takes a smaller feed of 5ozs I increase the milk content. My son weighs 15lbs.

He naps at 8.15-8.45am, 10-10.30am, 12-1pm 3-4pm. He settles at 7pm. He can wake at 10.30pm, 3am, 4.30am and 6.30am although goes back to sleep until 7am at this time.
Team Response

Shall I feed my daughter if she wakes before 4am or use water? Twice, my daughter has gone through from 11.30pm to 5am. Last night though she woke at 3am, I gave water & she settled until 4.40am. Then I gave one breast & she settled until 6.40am, when I gave her the other breast and we got up. She took a little feed with no top up at 6.40/7am & again no top up at 11am but drank 85ml at 1.55pm before her sleep. Before the 2 nights of waking at 5am, she was waking around 4am on a quite regular basis. How shall I deal with the nights as my daughter is small and still catching up with her weight? She also has formed stools now she is on formula and a little trouble with getting them out, she hardly ever pooed before the formula! Does she need more fluids?

My daughter feeds at 7.30am 10mins breast and 30-60mls top up of goats milk formula. 11am 10mins breast and 70-80mls top up, 2.30pm breast and 70-90mls top up,4.15pm boiled water offered, 5pm Breast 10mins, 6.20pm Breast 5mins, 70-100mls top up, 10.30pm 170-180mls formula. She weighs around 12lbs.

She naps at 9-9.45am, 12-2.15pm and 4.45-5pm.
Team Response

My 4-month-old son has had reflux since birth. He has been taking Prevacid for the past 8 weeks and it has helped a lot. Although he has improved his sleeping at night, he has never slept through more than twice. He is up for the day around 7.30am or so. He can't have a bottle upon waking in the morning because that is when he gets his Prevacid and he needs to wait about a half hour for his first bottle. He cannot take more than 4-5 oz at a time because of the reflux so I try to split the feed. He will take 3oz around 8-8.30am and then another 2oz before his morning nap which is around 9.30am and is anywhere from 35 minutes or I wake him before the hour mark. Then he takes some more formula - another 3-4oz around 11.30am and has a few tsp. of pear. Before his lunchtime nap around 12.30, I will top him up with another 2oz of formula. This nap is a problem. He will sometimes sleep longer if I leave him to cry after he wakes around 30-45 minutes into it. Otherwise, he is up after a short time. I will then give him another formula feed around 3pm and he will take around 4 oz. If he didn't sleep well at lunch, I give him another nap at this time for 30mins. Then his next feed is around 5pm and he will take 2-3oz. He will usually nap again at 5 or 5.30 for 20-30 minutes. His bedtime feed is usually around 5oz at 7.15pm. He then goes to bed at 7.30pm and is really ready to go. At 9pm, in his sleep, I give him 2oz, otherwise he seems to have a worse night. At around 12.15am, my husband, who stays up late, feeds my son a 6oz bottle in his sleep. We have noticed that without the 9pm top-up, my son is awake at midnight and then again by 4.30am. With this 9pm top-up he seems to make it to midnight and then has made it to 5am or so. We would like to have him sleeping from this 12.15am feeding until 6 or 7am. I feel that because of his reflux, he can't take too many ounces at one time and therefore he needs to be fed earlier in the morning. But I would like to see a 6 hour stretch at least. If I try to feed him more at a time, he gags and then throws up. We have tried feeding him at 11pm but that just makes the whole waking-up thing earlier too. We were going to wean him slowly from the 2oz 9pm top-off after a few weeks and see if he can make it to midnight without needing that. His sleep pattern seems to be 4 hours and then 4 1/2 hours and then 3 hours for the night. When he does wake at night, I always give him 15 minutes to settle himself. Some days he naps okay and others are terrible. Please advise us as to what we should do. He does not use a pacifier - he would like one but we only use it to calm him during the day, and for in the car. There is no rocking or holding to sleep. He puts himself down with about 10 minutes of awful crying at every nap and bedtime but at least he is doing it himself! He sleeps on a reflux wedge and in a full swaddle or else he will hit himself in the head and wake up yelling.
In total he is averaging 28-30ozs in 24 hours. He weighs about 15.5lbs. He was recently weaned on the advice of the paediatrician having pears at present to be followed by barley in another week as my son easily becomes constipated.
Team Response

My daughter has recently had a cough and since having this has been waking through the night. She started sleeping straight through when she was 7 weeks old [this is her corrected age, as she was born 11 weeks premature] but now wakes and I don't know what is best to settle her. I tried giving her water and whilst this settled her initially, she then woke again about an hour later and utterly refused to take more water and had to be settled with formula. However if I give her formula then she's less keen on her morning feed. I don't know if she's just unsettled because of her cough and will settle back into her routine when she feels better, though she doesn't seem terribly perturbed by the cough just a bit off her food.
At present she weighs 12lbs and feeds at 7am 6ozs, 10.30am 4ozs, 2pm 5ozs, 5pm 3ozs, 6pm 3ozs, 10pm 4ozs.
She naps at 9.30-10am, 12-2pm and 4.30-4pm. She settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My son is 4.5 months old and he is still waking up twice in the night; how do I get him to start sleeping through? I have not used the CLB schedule, but would like to now. Where do I start? At the moment, our normal day is below; however, I need help on how to get him to sleep through. His nap times are not consistent; what should I do with my son of this age?
He feeds at 7.15am 5oz, 11.15am 7oz, 2.15pm 5oz, 6.30pm 7oz, 10.30pm 6oz, 2.30am 5oz, 6.30am 5oz. He will also take 2ozs of water at 11.15am, 6.30pm and 2.30am. He weighs 16lbs 2ozs.
My son sleeps at 9.45-11.15am and 2.30-3.30pm. He settles at 7.15pm.
Team Response

Since stopping breast feeding my son's weight gain has really slowed down (he has gone from between the 50th and 75th percentile to between the 25th and 50th, prompting the health visitor to recommend weaning onto solids) and his milk intake has dropped; we are lucky to get 5/6 oz into him at each feed, as opposed to the 7/8 he was drinking when we gave him a bottle a month or so ago, and it has become a real struggle - I have tried different teats and sizes, but it does not seem to make a difference, and he often gags and becomes upset if we try to feed him once he thinks he has had enough. He is slow to take to solids compared to my daughter (now 2) and feeding him those is also sometimes a struggle. Despite being a big baby he seems to have lost his appetite, yet he is very happy, alert, healthy looking and rarely cries.
His nights are very variable; he has slept 7 until 6 twice in the past 2 months, but the usual pattern is that he sometimes wakes up once, often twice a night and can wake anywhere between 11pm and 5am, making applying the core night method difficult. We stopped trying to do an 11pm feed as he would never take more than 2oz and it made little difference to how long he would go through the night. If he can get to 3am, that will usually be his only night wakening, but if he wakes before that he will usually wake a second time (it seems as though his 2nd night sleep cycle is a maximum of 4 hours).
His daytime sleep is not bad - he usually has 3 naps and sleeps a total of about 3 hours, but sometimes wakes up in the middle of his midday nap and also sometimes needs a long morning sleep (1.5 hours) rather than a long lunchtime nap, depending upon our toddler's day. I am trying to reduce his nightly milk intake and only feed him once, even if he wakes up more often. We use a pacifier to settle him but he never falls asleep with it. At night he often falls asleep when feeding and if he wakes a second time he falls asleep in my arms, as usually by then I am just desperate to settle him so I can go back to bed. This is the only time he falls asleep with my help and is capable of settling himself to sleep during the day. My instinct is that he is waking at night the first time because he is hungry and has not taken enough during the day, but why does he wake a second time? What can I do to get him to increase his milk intake during the day again so that he does not need it at night?
My first baby was sleeping through by 10 weeks on the CLB routines and eating well when weaned at 17 weeks.

At present he feeds: 6.30am 5ozs, 2 cubes of fruit puree, 1 tbsp organic baby porridge mixed with 1 oz milk, 11am 5ozs, 2 cubes vegetable puree, 1 cube fruit puree mixed with baby rice and 1oz formula, 2.30pm 5ozs, 5.30pm 2 cubes vegetable puree, 2 cubes fruit puree with baby cereal and 1 oz of formula to mix, 6.30pm 6ozs, somewhere between 11pm and 5am 4ozs formula. he weighs 17lbs.
He naps at 9-9.45am, 12-1.30pm and 4.00-4.45pm.
Team Response

My 20-week-old has never slept through the night, but was getting to between 6 and 6.45am. I was hoping that by weaning he would get nearer to 7am. At 18 weeks he had a tummy virus with bad diarrhoea. This happened just as I was abut to wean him. He returned to "normal" for a few days and was taking full feeds (sometimes 10-12 oz), waking earlier and earlier and showing all the signs of being ready to wean, so I stared the weaning plan from Gina's book. He has not slept through since and is waking several times a night. He often seems to have quite bad bottom wind despite having burped well and my use of gripe water. Sometimes he can be easily settled and sometimes we have to do controlled crying for up to two hours.
He is waking between 5.30 and 6am, but cooing or grizzling depending on his frame of mind until about 6.30am, but always with a dirty nappy that is of a relatively loose nature.
On top of this, having slept on his front since about 10 weeks, he has now learned to roll onto his back so often when I go in I am having to turn him back onto his front so he can return to sleep.
He is keen on the rice and pear I have tried so far and I am now worrying that he cannot tolerate them (or I have given him too much?)
When it says 1tsp of baby rice, does it mean you feed the amount of 1tsp dry rice mixed with milk to the right consistency, or does it mean just one tsp of this mixture. He was happily eating the whole amount once mixed as well as his milk feeds. Should I stop weaning and try again in a week? Could he intolerant to the foods? Is some unsettling normal? I am due to return to work in 5 weeks and am really hoping to crack the sleep thing.
During the day he will take 8oz feeds at 7am, 11am, 2.30pm, 4oz at 6pm and 8oz after his bath at 6.45pm, 10pm 6 ozs.
11am 1 cube pear puree, 6pm 1 tsp baby rice mixed with milk (I gave him this rather than the full amount). He weighs 17lbs.
He sleeps at 8.50-9.35am, 12-12.30pm, 1.05-2.20pm, 5-5.15pm.
Team Response

My baby boy, age four and a half months and weighing fifteen and a half pounds, has never slept well at lunchtime. He settles at noon, but wakes after 45 minutes, when I have to re-settle him using his dummy. Recently, he has also started to wake two or three times a night between 1am and 6am. I have tried settling him with a dummy, but he rarely sleeps for long. I even resorted to controlled crying, checking him every ten to fifteen minutes, but he cried on and off until 6am.
He is taking 7/8oz at most feeds, and I am still doing a split feed at 5pm/6.45pm. He settles well at 7pm and sleeps until 10pm, when I wake him and give 5/6oz. I also offer one cube of vegetables at 11am, and two teaspoonfuls of baby rice with a cube of pear at 5.15pm. I can't believe with the amount of milk he is taking, together with his solids, that the waking is caused by hunger. How do I deal with this wakefulness? Should I just leave him to cry until he goes back to sleep?
Team Response

Hello! My daughter is 4 and a half months. She weighs 16lb, naps well throughout the day and settles well at 7pm. She is eating three solid meals a day (rice, cereal) and is formula fed. She sleeps and naps in her own room with a sleeping bag.
My concern is that when I wake her at 10pm, she is not interested in having very much of a bottle (2oz at the most), but wakes at 3am every night. We have let her cry but she will cry for an hour or longer and we eventually either give her a soother or a bottle. Sometimes she will take 1-2oz of the bottle, and sometimes up to 6oz, so I can't tell if she is truly hungry. If I do give her a bottle at 3am she won't take another bottle until about 8am, putting her off her daytime feeding.
My question is: How do I know when the time has come to let her cry it out. She is a very "determined crier", but loves her soother and bottles. We are prepared to do whatever it takes to get her to sleep though the night since we feel she is ready, but do not want to be up listening to her cry, just to end up giving her a bottle.
Team Response

My daughter is 4 and a half months old. She is an only child. She weighed 5lb 11oz when born and now weighs 12lb 6oz. She feeds at 7.30am (or when she wakes), 11am and 2.30pm. She usually gets hungry around 5pm and 6.30pm. We have stopped the 10.30pm feed (see below). The time that she feeds for can vary but has increased from 20 minutes in the early days to 30 minutes or more. I have just started weaning her and she is on day 6. I have followed the guide in Gina’s book.
Emma is awake for about 1½ hours from when she wakes up. She sleeps for about 40 minutes. By 12ish she is tired and sleeps up to 1hour 30 mins (it can be less). Recently she has gone without a nap in the early evening. She is mainly very lively and happy at these times but has her off days. Emma is settled to sleep in a variety of ways. I will often put her to sleep to settle by herself. If this doesn't work I will try a dummy or pick her up. If she doesn’t want to be in bed at all I will bring her back out with me. When my husband returns at 6pm he changes Emma (or baths her on alternate nights) and then I will feed her before putting her to bed. She often settles quite well at this time. However, we have changed this slightly. My husband is finding it more and more difficult to wake and feed her at the 10pm feed (she is on Farley’s formula). He can get very stressed with her because she cries a lot now. So we decided to not wake her up and try to keep her up longer after 7pm. She manages until about 8pm.
The problem is that she wakes 2 or 3 times in the night. I am going back to work in 5 weeks and need to stop this waking. When she wakes I don't leave her to cry. As soon as I hear her I go in. I have tried to use a dummy. It sometimes works and gives me another hour. If it doesn’t work I pick her up and try and cuddle her to sleep. However she cries a lot during this and as I don't want to disturb my husband too much I tend to feed her. She often feeds for about 10 minutes and then goes back to sleep.
She went through a stage of waking up just once in the night between 2-4am and then we had to wake her at 7am. How can we get her back to this or even sleeping through the night? There seems to be no consistency with timings of waking up. Last night she woke at 11.40pm fed for 10 minutes then woke again at 1.40am and fed for 10 minutes. She then woke at 6.30am so I fed her and kept her awake from then. Other days we often have to wake her in the morning.

Please help. How can I get some decent sleep before I go back to work?
Team Response

I have a 5-month-old little boy who has pretty much been a joy from the
minute he came home, even through teething and catching tonsillitis (?) !! I have been following Gina’s weaning guide and we are today starting on the 5-6 month routine. My question relates to both feeding and sleeping. He was 8lbs at birth, formula fed and following all Gina’s routines, although he still needs his afternoon nap. He is often settled with a dummy. Since being on solids he no longer needs the 5pm feed to be split and takes solids for tea and milk (about 9oz) before bed at 6.45pm.
The problem is night-time waking. He goes down fine at 7pm but wakes at about 3.45am when he seems to want to have a chat and play. It takes me about 5 visits in 45min - 1hr to get him back down. I never take him out of his cot, always check his nappy, try not to turn the lights on, give him his dummy (but he just spits it out and keeps chatting !) He does eventually go back down between 4.45 - 5.00am and then he is up at 7.15-7.30am as usual. He seems to be having so much to eat during the day that I find it hard to believe he is hungry.
Team Response

My son was born nine weeks prematurely and suffered with breathing, gastric and digestive problems. I began the routines from his EDD, which was eight weeks ago; he is now almost four months old. The routines were going well until he suffered from a stomach bug two weeks ago and he has since had trouble settling.
He has problems with wind when he is sleeping, despite a long period of winding before putting him down. He was going through to 5-6am, but is now waking around 3am. I have reduced this feed to 3oz, then 2oz, but he is waking earlier very hungry. Due to his sensitive stomach and digestive system, it is difficult to give him any wind remedies. His sleep is often very broken, particularly at lunchtime, which results in a grumpy baby by 4.30/5pm. He is even becoming increasingly difficult to settle after his 7pm feed. He cat naps around 8am, then gets overtired and is difficult to settle at 9am. He wakes at 10am and is hungry, unable to wait until11am for his next feed.
He feeds at 7am - 6oz; 10.30am - 6oz; 2.30pm - 5oz; 6.15pm - 6oz; 10.30pm - 5oz; 3.30am - 2oz. He weighs 10lb 5oz and naps at 8.45-10am, 11.30am-2.00pm and 4.30-5pm.
Team Response

At four months my son started to go down after a last feed at 11.00pm until 6.30am, but then he started waking again during the night looking for a feed. The Health Visitor advised against solids until six months old. I did, however, buy your book and introduced baby rice at the 11am feed. Once I knew it was tolerated, I gave it at the 6pm feed, and now he has baby rice at both feeds. I also feed on demand.
I have tried putting him down in the morning, but he constantly cries. He will not sleep at lunchtime, but will usually have a couple of 20-minute naps during the day and perhaps an hour at 5-6pm. He has never gone to bed before 9pm and is now waking at midnight, 2am, 5am and 8am. These times vary but he is up at least three times in the night. When I feed him he usually settles, but it can take time.
I am not sure how to implement your routines as I am starting later than you recommend, but I hope that you can devise a suitable plan to help.
My son feeds at 8am - 6oz, 11pm - 2tsp baby rice, 12noon - 5/6oz, 3.30pm – 4/5oz, 6pm - 2/3 tsp baby rice, 7pm – 6/7oz, 10.30pm - 4oz, 12midnight - 4oz, 3am - 10min breast feed, 5.30am - 10min breast feed. He weighs 14lb 3oz and naps at 10.30-11.30am, 1.30-2pm, and 4.30-6pm. He settles around 8.30pm.
Team Response

I have twin girls who were born two months prematurely. They are now doing well on the routines, presently following the one for three months, but they continue to wake in the night around 3/4am. During the day they feed at 7am, 11am, 2.15pm, 6.30pm and 10.30pm, taking between 130-150mls at each feed. They each weigh 6.5-7 kilos. The girls nap at 9-9.45am, 12-2pm and sometimes they need 15-30 minutes in the afternoon. They settle by 7pm. We wake them at 10pm, feed them at 10.30pm and put them to bed around 11.15pm, trying to keep them awake for at least an hour.
The problem is that their daily milk intake has always been less than it should be for their weight. Their total daily intake is around 700-750mls between 7am and 11pm, yet their weight gain is normal. For the last three weeks I have started to use the "core night" method, giving them only water when they wake up. This seemed to work at the beginning, pushing their waking time to 4.30-5.30am for a couple of nights, but there is no pattern to it, and sometimes they sleep until 7am but at other times they wake around 6am. I wonder if the problem could be due to their daily milk intake being low? Maybe this is an issue for premature babies, or perhaps drinking water in the night becomes a habit?
Team Response

Having started my 4 mth daughter on solids last week everything seemed to be going really well, she has caught on quickly and is very eager to eat, however the last two nights she has awakened at 4.30am and 3.00am when previously sleeping through to between 6.30 and 7.00am. Both times she has appeared to be awake and wanting to play with her cot spiral, she does not appear to be hungry or in pain as on awakening is just talking to herself. Last night I removed the cot spiral, gave her a cuddle and put her back to bed, she proceeded to cry for 1 hour and eventually would only be soothed by feeding (something I really don't want to do!) The two night awakenings appear to coincide with increasing the baby rice in the evening to 2 teaspoons and giving pear in the day, not sure if this would be responsible though?
She is totally breast fed. At 7am takes one breast for 5-10 mins, 10.45am 1 breast 5-10 mins, followed by solids, 2 tsps pear puree, 2.30pm usually both breasts 10-15 mins, but since starting solids can sometimes refuse one breast, 5.30pm if second breast refused at 2.30pm then very hungry so given 1 breast, 5.45pm 2tsp baby rice mixed with formula, given second breast after the bath, 10.00pm both breasts about 25 mins in total.
My daughter does not always sleep well at lunchtime so her daily total is 2-3 hrs at approx the following times:
9-9.45am 12-1pm, 2.45-3.20pm, 4.30-5pm, settled by 6.30pm.
Team Response

Please could you give me some advice on how to help my little one sleep longer at night and cut out middle of the night feeding.
My little boy (only child) was 9lb 13oz when born 16 days late. From 4 weeks he slept from 9pm to 7am in his own room (I breastfed on demand but expressed to give him a bottle at last feed at 8.30pm). This continued until he was 13 weeks and was full of cold and went off feeding a bit, and he so began waking in the night every 2 hours for a feed. He is now 18 weeks and weighs 17lb 5oz, gaining 6-8 oz a week. He now has a good routine during the day, feeding every 4 hours starting at 7am. He has a nap 8.30-9.15 am, at 11am has an 8oz bottle plus 2tsp baby rice. He sleeps 12-1.30pm. At 2.30pm he has a 5oz bottle and 2tbsp rice and vegetables. At about 4pm he has a half hour nap, depending how long he had at lunchtime. Then at 6.30pm he has (formula) 8oz bottle and 3 teaspoons of rice pudding, followed by bed at 7pm.
Jake settles by himself to go sleep at night, tucked up in his grobag (however sometimes during day has a dummy to help calm down and give in to sleep). He then wakes for his last bottle between 10 and 11pm (8oz of formula), then settles himself back to sleep. Now comes the crunch because I'm becoming sleep deprived (grumpy and short-tempered with a poor memory). He continues waking in the night starting between 2.30-3am, then every hour wingeing and fussing as if he can’t get himself back to sleep. When this first started, initially I managed to soothe him back to sleep by humming or giving the dummy (although trying not to use dummy as I don’t want him to become dependent on it to sleep). He now tends to start to cry properly and tries to latch on so I give him a brief feed (2 minutes) on the breast until he calms down. Then he goes back to sleep. However, come 7am he's not interested in food but awakes a very happy boy. During the day he is a very happy bunny, always on the go and loves his food.
Team Response

For the past month my son who is almost 5mths wakes up between 5 and 5.30am.Most of the time he cries for a few minutes and goes back to sleep. Sometimes he will scream for about 30minutes. He will then wake up again around 6.15-6.40pm and yells on and off until we go in at 7am.

I am pretty sure that it is not hunger as he stops crying the minute I go in at 7am to turn the light on. Also I sometimes have a struggle to get him to finish his 7am bottle.

He sleeps in a sleeping bag, it is still dark during these hours at the moment and I don’t know what to do. I go in every 15minutes to pat him but this sometimes makes him cry even louder.

My son feeds at 7.10am 7ozs, 10.45am 7ozs, 2.30pm 7ozs, 6.15pm 8ozs, and 10pm 6ozs. He drinks 1oz of water at 4.15pm.

He naps at 8.55-9.15am, 12-2pm and 4.30-4.45pm. He settles at 6,45pm.
Team Response

My son used to wake at 7-7.30am. He now wakes 5.30am since the clock change and poos then so I have to change him and offer five minutes on the breast. He is changed in the dark, no eye contact or talking. He then goes back down. I wake him at 7.30am for other breast and to start the day. He also wakes at 1.30pm at lunchtime nap after going down at 12pm. Sometimes he wakes after an hour. He has only had full 2 hours once. When he wakes after one hour, I offer his NUK dummy and he goes back off until 1.50pm. My other son is 2 years 9 months and goes to kindergarten twice a week from 9-12pm. My youngest son sleeps in the car from when I leave the house at 8.40am until 9.45pm when I wake him up. He is in a lie down matrix Jane car seat. I have to pick my son up at 12pm so leave the house at 11.40am. We are back in the house by 12.10pm.

What will I do when I have to start feeding the baby at 11.30am? I won't have time. My son could stay at kindergarten longer now that he has been going nearly 5 months and have lunch at school and be picked up at 1pm but then the baby will be disturbed from his lunchtime nap, so what do I do then? My elder son naps from 1-2.30pm on school days.

My son is fully breast fed. He was weaned at 19 weeks. He weighs 15lbs 15ozs. He feeds at 5.30am, 5 minutes one side, 7.30am 5 minutes second side; 11am 7 minutes on each side followed by 3 cubes of vegetables; 2.15pm 5 minutes on each side; 6.15pm 8 minutes on each side followed by 3 tablespoons baby rice mixed with 3ozs formula and 1 cube of apple, peach or pear; 10pm 5 minutes on each side or 3ozs of formula. He naps at 9-10am, 12-1.30pm and 4-4.30pm.
Team Response

For the past few weeks my daughter has woken between 4.30 and 6am whatever I try to do. She eats well, sleeps well during day and at night, has both blackout blinds and curtains so it is very dark, but still she wakes.
I am leaving her from the time she wakes until 6.45. This can mean up to 2 hours of grumbling then crying but is this just teaching her that if she cries long enough I will go to her?
She has a breast feed at 6.45am, followed by ½ weetabix with 1 cube pear at 8am. 11am 2ozs formula,11.30am 4 cubes of chicken casserole and 4 cubes of fruit. 2.30pm 7ozs formula, 5pm rice cake,5 cubes of veg, fromage frais, 6.15pm 8ozs. She weighs about 21lbs.
She naps from 9-9.45am, 12.15-2.00pm and is settled by 7pm.
Team Response

My son of 4 months has been following the CLB routines now since he was 6-weeks-old; we had a few problems initially but now he is a real contented little baby. He has always woken up at around 3.30-4am, but always gets himself back to sleep again as we have sleep trained him to do so. However, when we visit family and friends, the room we have is never as dark as his room at home, which has black-out blinds. So when he wakes during the early hours, he cannot get himself back to sleep. My son is such a good little baby and loves his bed, but is there any way that I can also train him to go to sleep in a lighter room environment, other than the pitch black room that he is used to, so he can get himself back off to sleep when he is in lighter rooms?
Team Response

My son of five months has been following the routines from day one. We follow the advice to the letter and it had been working extremely well until recently. He now wakes up between 5 and 5.30am. He isn't distressed, he just chats to himself. Occasionally he'll drift off to sleep again but by about 6am he starts getting cross, so I go to him.
Having scoured the website and CLB books I know that early morning waking is a common problem but I have tried all of the solutions suggested to no avail. I was hoping you might have some more suggestions I can try as it is starting to get me down! His room is pitch black, (I have always had a black-out sheet Velcro’d to the window frame, a blackout blind and blackout lined curtains); he always goes into his cot awake so I know he can settle himself; he sleeps during the day when the schedule advises it - to the minute! Sometimes he dozes at 4.30-4.45pm if we're out for a walk or in the car but otherwise he doesn't nap then. We go out for walks on most days and are very active practicing rolling and standing during the day. No heating boilers fire up at that time to disturb him. He always used to sleep until 6.45 sometimes 7.00. I can't understand the change!
I haven't dropped the last feed (10.30pm) yet because of the early waking but now he is on solids, the last three nights he has refused to have any milk at 10.30pm! I've even woken him up fully and offered it to him but he is just not hungry. Should I try to wake him even later? (I've tried leaving it until 10.45 but he still woke up early) Should I cut back on his dinner so he is hungrier at 10.30? Or should I forget this feed now and get an early night ready for the 5am chattering I hear through the monitor?
I have now started to split the dinner feed so he has his rice and fruit before the bath at around 5.30-5.45pm and his milk after the bath and massage as suggested on the website in the hope he would sleep longer, but he was still awake at 5.05 and I had to go to him at 6.00. I usually push his breakfast to 6.45-7am, despite him waking early, which he is fine with.
Is he getting enough food for his size and weight? I am following the weaning guide for his age but the book doesn't specify weight. He finishes off all the food I give him and he doesn’t cry for more.
At present he weighs around 19lbs. He has just started to have 2tsp baby cereal at breakfast, takes 4 cubes of sweet potato at 11am and 5 tsp baby rice with 2 cubes of apple or pear at 5.45pm. He is on the plan for 5-6 months in the weaning book. He takes 7-8 oz formula at 6.45/7am, 11am 8ozs, 2.45pm 7 ozs, 6.15pm 8ozs. He used to have 3-5ozs at 10.30pm but now is refusing this.
Team Response

I really hope you can help as I am really struggling to follow the routine that has worked so well until recently.
Over the last 4 weeks Jack has been waking too early. He used to settle back off if he woke between 5-6 am but in the last week or so, he has refused this. This morning he woke the earliest time ever at 4.50am and would not settle himself. He wasn’t crying but would not go back to sleep so I gave him a small drink of water and he finally settled back at 5.40am.
Two things have changed in the last week or so: firstly I dropped the 10.30pm feed just over a week ago because he had only been having 1.5-2 oz for a week, and it was really putting him off his morning feed. Secondly, in the last week he has refused to have an afternoon nap. I have always taken him a short walk for this nap and until last week he would have a 10min nap without any problem. Then suddenly he started screaming when I tried to lie him back in his stroller and would not sleep in the upright position. I tried walking for longer but he just cried all the time. When he hasn’t had a 10 min nap he wakes even earlier.
I have tried his milk then solids at 5.30/5.45pm and rest of milk after bath but he still woke early. In the last few days I have tried his solids at 5pm with water because he is only a week off being 6 months and was looking for his feed at 5pm. This has not put him off his last bottle.
I have also introduced a bit of chicken casserole to his veg at lunchtime as I wondered if he was needing protein given his weight and age, but have decided to stop this and re-introduce his milk feed. I have also tried mixing a bit of home made macaroni cheese with his baby rice at tea time to get him used to having something else for tea.
I have tried everything I can think of, but with no effect. He seems to be telling me he doesn’t need an afternoon nap, but his early waking suggests otherwise. Should I persist with trying to get him to nap, even if it means putting him in his room?
Jack was doing so well on the routine and was so settled but he isn’t lately.
I am also concerned about how he will sleep in the day when I go back to work in 9 weeks. The nursery I have chosen has a sectioned area with the cots, but it is nowhere near as dark as Jack’s room. Should I start having his room a bit lighter for his lunchtime nap to get him used to how it will be at nursery?
I really hope you can give me some guidance,m as I can’t see where I am going so wrong and I am at my wits end.
He feeds at 7.20am 6 oz formula, 2oz with 5.5 teaspoons cereal and 2 cubes of apple, 11.15am 6 ozs formula, 3-5 cubes of vegetables, small yoghurt, 2.20pm 6 oz formula, 5pm 2oz formula mixed with 4tsp baby rice and milk in cheese sauce/macaroni. 6.30pm 8ozs. He weighed 19lbs 2 weeks ago.
He naps at 9.20-9.55am and 12.15-1.55pm.
Team Response

At 4 months I have begun to bring my son's late feed forward to nearer 10pm. This seems to have the effect of him waking earlier in the morning having done a poo. It was 6.30am but now 5.50am. He is not hungry in the morning. It is a struggle to get him to take 5-6 ozs but the rest of the day he will take 8-9oz easily.
He has not yet cut back on the 10pm (now at 10.10pm) feed; still having 5-6 ozs, which is probably why he is not hungry at 7am, but it seems to be causing him to poo earlier.
I began to wean at 15.5 weeks when he weighed 16lbs. At 11am he is given 1tsp baby rice with 1 cube of sweet potato, at 6pm 3 tsp baby rice and 1 cube apple. At present he drinks 31-36 ozs formula daily.
The problem I have with the lunchtime nap, is that he will sleep well in his cot but not if I go out with him in the car or the stroller. This is the best time for me to go out as I have to fit in with school runs and feed time. I would like to be able to go out once or twice a week at this time knowing he will still have a good sleep. Are there any ways I could get him to settle better in his car seat or stroller?
Team Response

Finn wakes between 5 and 5.30am, cries and will not settle back to sleep. He has 8oz of formula milk but still remains grumpy from tiredness. He cries and will not settle on his own after this feed unless rocked back to sleep. But he is able to settle himself at night – he is put down awake and goes to sleep within minutes. Once he is back to sleep in the morning, he wakes between 6.20am and 7.30am in a good mood. We manage to keep him awak until 9am but he starts getting grumpy at about 8.30am. It is becoming increasingly difficult to settle him for this sleep, although he acts very tired, and he only sleeps for 20-30 minutes. He wakes in a good mood, usually jumps around in a bouncer or has a kick around on a mat until 10-10.30am, then has 6-7oz of milk and vegetables for lunch. He settles to sleep at 11.30-11.50am for his lunchtime nap which usually starts in his pushchair due to the trip to nursery to pick up his older brother, but he wakes after 40-50 minutes screaming and will not settle. He stays awake and needs constant carrying to prevent him from screaming until the 2-2.30pm feed, when he takes 6-7oz. He then settles for a nap at 3pm-ish for 40-90 minutes – I wake him up if he sleeps past 4.30pm. Between 4.30 and 5pm he has a few teaspoons of fruit/veg which he has now because he is shattered by 6pm and could not be interested at this time. He has his milk feed of 7-8oz at 6.30pm and then settles reasonably easily. We wake him at 10.30pm for a final feed of 4-7oz. Finn is five months old, 21lb and is fed SMA lactose-free milk. When he slept well at the appropriate times as advised in your book, he was very contented and we would love to have our happy baby back.
Team Response

My daughter is 5 months old, was 6lb 12oz at birth and is now 6.5 kg. In the last month she only gained 300g, but grew 2.5cm and is certainly chubby enough!
I started weaning her 10 days ago (just before she reached 5 months) and I have just started weaning her onto formula at the 11am feed. She has 4 breast feeds per day (she dropped the 10pm at 4 months) and is following your weaning plan (1 cube of apple today for lunch, and will have 3 tsp of baby rice for tea).
I am currently feeding from one side plus 5 minutes on the second breast at 5:40pm, then her solids, then giving her the rest of her breast feed at 6:45pm, plus a top-up of expressed milk (normally around 50ml). She seems to sleep until about 6-6:15am, wake chatting, then cries. I finally go in at around 6:45am, try to settle her by rocking (which doesn't work as she is flailing her arms about) and then give her one side. She falls asleep on me after about 10 minutes of feeding, which I am happy about as it means her morning sleep is still at 9am. I stir her around 7:10am then give her the second side at 7:30am. Some mornings she only has about 5 minutes, hence I end up expressing the rest for her bedtime bottle.
She sleeps 40-45min in the morning, no more than 2 1/4 hours at lunch (often waking after 1 1/2 hours as she has done today) and has 15 minutes in the afternoon (or up to 25 minutes if lunchtime is less). She still needs the afternoon nap.
I really want her to sleep until 7am but am running out of ideas. Should I go in and try to settle her when she first stirs (sometimes I think going in there makes it worse as she often re-settles herself at other sleeps), or should I continue to let her cry (I go in before 7am as I know I need her to get back to sleep briefly so the rest of the routine doesn't change for the day)? Or is it likely this won't change? I have never let her up before 7am and always feed quietly in her room.
Any suggestions would be appreciated as for a few nights a few weeks ago it was 5:30am when she was waking and it took a fair bit of rocking to get her back to sleep (I couldn't let her cry as we weren't at home). She sleeps half swaddled, and generally isn't getting out of her covers.
Team Response

My son, Luke, is 6 months old and is my first baby. He weighed 7lbs 4oz at birth and now weighs 17lbs. At present, he gains approx 4/5 ozs per week.
I have been following your CLB routines from birth with varying success. My problem is that although Luke settles very well at 7/7.30pm, he wakes at between 6/6.30 every morning, which is too early!! I weaned him at 5 and a half months and so far he's followed your weaning routines although I started him on the 4 month weaning programme rather than straight in at 5 and a half months, so we're still yet to introduce protein. Consequently, he's still having a milk feed of 3/4 ounces at 1130, then lunch at approx 1200. He's had a bottle of SMA Gold formula at his 10pm feed since he was 3 months and now has a breast feed at 7am, and one at 6.30pm, formula at 1130, 6oz formula at 2.30pm and approx 3oz formula at 10pm.
He sleeps for 45 mins at approx 9am, then between 90 mins and, rarely, 120 mins at lunchtime, then, depending on the lunchtime nap sleeps for about 30 mins between 4 and 5pm. I always put him down for his sleeps while he is still awake and he settles himself down. Unless he is ill, he doesn't usually wake in the night after 10pm. If he does wake, I (or my husband) go in, check he's not in a tangle, wet/dirty, then if he's fine, just leave the room.
I am still feeding him 3ozs of SMA Gold at 10pm because I am too scared that if I drop this feed, he'll wake even earlier in the morning. However, sometimes it takes almost 10 mins to wake him for this 10pm feed.
In order to get him to sleep until 7/7.30am, I've tried putting him to bed later, not feeding him until 7am in the hope that he just "gives up" waking so early, keeping him up until 9am even if he's woken at 6am, letting him cry and then going in at 7, letting him cry himself back to sleep even if that means him going back to sleep at 7.20am, going in every 10 mins to check him, but none of these things seem to work. He wakes like clockwork at about 6.15 every morning! I seem to be surrounded by people whose babies sleep until 7.30/8.00. I only want him to sleep until 7 - doesn't seem like too much to ask! What else can I do, or do I just have to accept that he's one of life's early risers and adapt my own routine accordingly? Please advise!!
Team Response

I have just started following your routines with my baby girl, who is four months. I know in your books you say it is important that the baby is allowed to settle itself to sleep so they do not learn the wrong sleep associations. Can you explain this in more detail? At the moment I am cuddling my baby to sleep then putting her in a crib, which is slightly larger than a Moses basket, and smaller than a cot. Sometimes she will settle to sleep quickly and sleep the times you recommend. Other times she wakes up within five minutes, and I have to rock the crib to get her back to sleep. Other times she will stay asleep but wake after 30 to 40 minutes and not settle back to sleep unless the crib is rocked. Should I stop doing this and try reading her a story or play music to her instead, until she falls asleep, of just leave her to cry until she eventually falls asleep?
Team Response

At 4 months my son is still swaddled for all his naps and sleeps. He recently has been getting out of his swaddle during the night. His Moro reflex is still quite strong. Once awake he cries, unable to go back to sleep. What is the best way to wean him from being swaddled so he learns how to resettle himself without help?

For the last three nights he has woken around 4.30am, having got himself out of his swaddle. I allowed him 45 minutes to see if he was able to settle alone but then re-swaddled him and he settled back to sleep quickly.

Feeding details

7.30am: 6ozs formula
11.30am: 6ozs formula
3.00pm: 6ozs formula
6.30pm: 7ozs formula
10.00pm: 6ozs formula

Daily milk total: 32 ozs

My son naps at 8.50-9.50am, 12.00-2.00pm and 4.30-5.00pm.
Team Response

I have a very unusual problem with my four month old baby which is driving me crazy! My daughter is a great CLB except for one thing - she is terrible at settling at 7pm. She often cries and refuses to settle a few minutes after being put down or, if she does settle well at 7pm, she usually wakes up yelling 45 minutes later. This is really perplexing as, for all of her other sleeps, she settles herself off easily. Indeed, for her day time sleeps she is put down wide awake and babbles herself off to sleep within a couple of minutes and sleeps through until I wake her. After the late feed she is drowsy but certainly not asleep when I put her down and she settles off really well until I wake her at 7am the next day.
Since starting the CLB routines I have never had to walk the floor with my daughter or cuddle her to sleep.
She has been sleeping through the night for the past three weeks when I introduced a late feed. (I did not do the late feed until this time as prior to this time, she was waking only once between 7am and 7pm and I found it easier to go to bed early myself and feed her whenever she woke) . At present she is woken at 10.15pm and put back down by 10.45pm. She is given 7oz of formula however we are slowly knocking this back and winding back her waking time to 10/1030pm.
Despite being absolutely perfect for the rest of the time, my daughter is difficult at 7pm and has been for the past couple of months. We have tried everything - putting her down earlier (6.30pm), later (7.30pm), putting her down asleep, putting her down wide awake, rocking the crib, letting her scream (for 1hr and a half before we gave in) and just going straight to her for a cuddle. In the past few days we have thought that it must be hunger waking her as she is so good the rest of the time so we have topped her up after the breast feed with up to 4oz of formula. But nothing seems to work!
She usually settles after one or two attempts but some nights we have two goes to get her down at 7ish and then have to go back to her 45mins later.

We have not yet started solids yet as she sleeps well through the night and seems to be happy on milk.
We don't know what to do. We have been reluctant to let her cry as we can't help thinking that there is something wrong, given that she has no sleep association problems and is great for all other naps. When we did let her cry last week she went totally berserk for almost and hour and a half and made herself sick. We are concerned though that the current pattern at 7pm might cause bad habits that flow onto other sleep times.

My daughter is breast fed throughout the day taking 30 minutes at 7am, 11am and 6pm. She takes 20 minutes at 2.30pm. At 6.15pm she takes up to 4ozs of formula after her feed and 7ozs at 10pm. She weighs 15lbs 6ozs.

My daughter naps at 9-9.30am, 12-2pm and 4.45-5pm.
Team Response

My 4.5 month old daughter has always has problems settling at 6.30/ 7pm but in the last 2 weeks it has got increasingly worse. She goes off to sleep well but then always wakes after 45 minutes. I have tried leaving her to re-settle but her crying becomes more persistent and when I go in and pick her up she burps up wind and then cries persistently for up to 30 minutes when she will then take another 30 minutes to fall back to sleep- sometimes longer. I can't understand why this is happening as I will sometimes wind her for up to 20 minutes and she will burp and spit up several times. She has been sleeping through the night from 11pm since 6 weeks and continues to do so. She also settles well at every other nap time including lunchtime when she might sometimes wake after 45 minutes but will re-settle herself after a few minutes. I've tried to cut back on her afternoon nap but she gets really over-tired and is no-where near being able to drop this nap and can only really stay awake for and hour and three quarters maximum. She also suffers from mild eczema but this doesn't seem to keep her awake overnight or at any other nap time other than the evening when she will get over tired after waking and start scratching her head. Please help! I have thought that she might need weaning but my health visitor has said that due to her eczema to hold off until she starts waking in the night for food.

At present she takes 7ozs formula at 7.30am, 11am, 2.30pm and 5.45pm. She takes 6ozs at 10pm. She weighs approximately 16lbs.

My daughter naps at 9-9.45am, 11.45-2pm and 3.45-4.15pm. 6.30-7pm.
Team Response

My 18-week-old twins are good sleepers: they sleep in their cots in the morning, in their cots or buggy at lunchtime and their buggy in the afternoon. My problem is that we are going away for one or two nights over Christmas. I have bought travel cots for the twins and have put them down in them for their lunchtime nap (although it's only nights they’ll need to sleep in them when we’re away) to try and get them used to them before we go away next week. Yesterday, Twin 1 slept fine for 2.5 hours in the travel cot, but Twin 2 woke up after 45 minutes and couldn't re-settle herself. I tried some controlled crying, which often works, but she got hysterical and had to be got up after 30 minutes. She was then hysterical for another 30 minutes. She had a long sleep back in her proper cot in the afternoon to make up for her lost sleep at lunchtime but then woke up hysterical again and cried for an hour. This is not at all like her: she is normally an angel baby. Today, Twin 1 woke up after 45 minutes, wouldn't re-settle and got very upset, waking Twin 2 in the process. I had to take them both out in the buggy to get them to have some sleep to get through the afternoon. I don't know what to do: I haven't even attempted to see if they'll sleep a night in the travel cot yet and our first night away is next week. Should I carry on trying to get them used to the cot before we go away or should I just put them down in the travel cot cold the first night we're away? Or... should I just cancel the plans?

At present they nap at 9.15-10-15am, 12-2-15pm and 4-4.45pm. They are settled by 6.15pm.
Team Response

For the past 5-6 weeks we have been experiencing problems with our son's lunch time nap - he used to sleep for a good 2-21/2 hrs at lunch time and if he woke up we gave him a dummy. However, we have since decided to remove the dummy and for the past week and a half have been trying to do controlled crying with him - this seems to be working well at night time but still not in the day time. His morning nap is from 9-9.35am. I usually feed him at 11.00am if he woke at 7.00 and after 180mls of milk he then has 3 cubes of vegetables such as sweet potato and carrot mixed together, I then put him in his cot, in the dark and leave him to settle himself to sleep at about 12.15. He falls asleep and then after 45 minutes-1 hr he will wake. He settles sometimes after 15 minutes only to wake again half an hour later and even though I have let him cry for up to 25 minutes he will not settle back to sleep - I can't see that it is hunger as he eats well at 11.00 and doesn't seem ravenous if I delay his feed till 2.30. Today I have left him for 25 minutes the second time and he still doesn't settle - how long should controlled crying take in order to make progress? I have been putting him in his cot (not his pram) for this nap for a week and a half and we have made no progress. Could you suggest anything else? I really don't want to resort to using a dummy again.
Team Response

My son had been sleeping well at night, and going down reliably from birth. However, his daytime sleeps were more difficult, only taking place if he was rocked in the pram (outside), or cuddled in bed.
A month ago, night-time sleeps started to become a problem too, so at the weekend we (husband & I) decided to try sleep training. After only three nights, it's been a huge success. Last night, my son went down without a murmur, slept till 10:30, fed well, then had only one wakening at 4:30 (considering last week we had at least 3 a night; this is fabulous!), before waking at 6:45, quite content!
The daytime sleeps, however, are a disaster! Before 9am, I bring him to his room, darken it, sing him a quiet song & lay him down, relaxed, in his big cot. I kiss him, and leave the room. There follows 5 minutes of silence, when I think "Aha!", followed by 45 minutes of screaming, me going in and out to him, as per controlled crying (which worked so well at night!). If anything, it's getting worse! The lunchtime nap isn't as big an issue, as it coincides with my older son being taken to nursery, but it will become more of a problem when the holidays start in 2 weeks, and after that when he'll have a morning place. I know it's early days, but it's following the same pattern as my older boy did when we did sleep training with him at 7 months. I stuck with that for 3 weeks, before finally giving up on the daytime sleeps, and going back to rocking him in the pram. We didn't resolve that one until our first son was about 15 months old! Obviously, I'm anxious to avoid that this time.
I'd really appreciate some feedback on this one. My older son is really missing out, as naptimes should be time for us to spend together. We have only just introduced our son to the big cot at night-time, before that he had a crib in our room, and slept in the pram in the day. Could it be he thinks he's being put down for another long sleep, and so resists it? If so, how can I resolve this? He's a big boy, and I don't believe the crib is comfy for him now, for that matter, the carrycot part of the pram's days are numbered too.
Team Response

Before we started the CLB routines, my son was often an over-tired and cranky baby, as, once past the involuntary ‘sleep when tired’ stage, he hardly ever slept during the day. As a small baby, when he was still sleeping in a Moses basket in our room, I used to pop him into his cot bed in the mornings and he would play happily with his soft toys or watch/listen to his mobile while I had a shower. Then, all of a sudden, about the time he outgrew his Moses basket and moved into his cot bed in the nursery, he started to hate going into his cot bed and would scream if put down while awake.
Is there anything I can do to help him enjoy being in his cot bed again: e.g. should I put back the toys which I removed, to help him sleep/on the grounds of safety?
Although he happily falls asleep in his car seat and, provided there is no exciting external stimulus, his pushchair, the only way I can get him to sleep (either at night or for his naps) is by darkening his room, playing a calming CD and shushing and rocking him in my arms while sitting on my exercise ball! I do realise that, by doing this, I have probably created a problem for myself in the future, but I was desperate to help my son sleep and it is the only method that seems to work.
How and when should I start teaching him to fall asleep by himself?
Daytime naps are a particular problem, especially the lunchtime nap, as he really fights against sleep (he is a very alert and active baby and I can’t help thinking that he does not want to miss anything by sleeping). He generally wakes up around 7.30am and has a 45 minute nap at 9am (I have to wake him up). At lunchtime, however, he often wakes after about 75 minutes and then is very difficult to get back to sleep (if I do succeed, it may only be for 10-15 minutes).
He has 5x 8ozs bottles in the day and one in the night. He receives solids at 2.30pm and 6pm feeds taking about 4-5 teaspoons of banana puree, baby rice or gluten free cereal.
Is the anything I can do to encourage my son to sleep for longer at lunchtime?
Team Response

Daniel is five months old and has slept through the core night from about the age of 8 weeks, although he had never really slept much longer than about 1 hour at a time during the day. When I started weaning at 18 weeks, he dropped his 10pm feed and started sleeping right through until about 6.30-7am. By 21 weeks he was having two good solid feeds a day and four bottles (about 28oz total). Around two weeks ago, he had gastroenteritus and lost his appetite completely. He woke up frequently with a dirty nappy in the middle of the night. When this happened I would change him and then offer a bottle, as I knew he hadn't had much during the day (only about 10oz total and no solids) - sometimes he would take about 2oz and would only go back to sleep with his dummy. When his appetite returned after about five days, he continued to wake in the night looking for a feed and would guzzle 7-8oz easily before going back to sleep. After a few nights of this, I realised he was now waking more from habit as he would not take much in the morning so I began to give him his dummy when he woke. I had always ensured he was well fed during the day. My problem now is that he wakes up at least three times a night screaming and is also difficult to settle at 7pm without his dummy. He used to go straight to sleep after chatting or moaning - now he screams until we go in!
Team Response

How can I get my baby who has been recently weaned from the dummy to
sleep more easily at nap times without creating another sleep association
problem? Every nap and bed time involves a lot of crying. He is missing naps because he is finding it hard to get to sleep and this in turn making it difficult to keep to the routine.
Harrison is almost 6 months. He wakes at 7am, then is sleepy. We have problems going to sleep for naps. He is often sleepy throughout the day but difficult to get to sleep. He seems to need all 3 naps - but I can't get him to go down for them.
He used to have a dummy and went off to sleep really well, but woke up to
10 times a night for the dummy! So I took the dummy away and after 3 days he
started sleeping through at night. However, it takes a long time to get to sleep. I have to rock him to sleep at night (which is not great either I know) now but this does not seem to work at nap time. I have tried leaving him to cry but he is capable of crying for hours - even though it is clear that the only thing wrong is that he is sleepy. As a result he is really tired, and can't stay up until a 7pm bedtime. It's also very distressing to hear him cry like this.
Team Response

My 4 month old daughter had been sleeping from 7pm to 7am but now has started to wake at 6.30am. She is then ready to sleep again at 8.30am which affects the whole day. She has also started to wake in her lunchtime nap despite being offered a top up feed before going down. She still naps for 40 minutes in the afternoon and I wonder if this is the cause of her waking at 3am, although she manages to re- settle herself but then wakes early

For the last week she has started to wake several times during her lunchtime nap. I have stayed in the house to try to crack the problem at this time but as yet have seen no improvement. She naps in her pram when I go out at 4pm.

She has been nasally congested for the last few days.

Feeding details

7.00am: 8ozs formula
10.30am: 7ozs formula
11.30am: 3ozs formula
2.30pm: 8ozs formula
6.00pm: 8ozs formula
10.00pm: 6ozs formula

Daily milk intake 40ozs
Team Response

My daughter has been on the CLB routines since her 7th week of life and taken quite well to them.
However, one area of concern has always been her sleep, she always seemed to need more sleep than the routines suggested. Even now at 4 months and 3 weeks old I do not seem to be able to keep her awake for more than 2 hrs at the time. She settles well at all nap times and after the 9:45pm feed provided she has her dummy, during the night she will occasionally even settle herself without the dummy. She does not cry, just moans and grunts a little. She will go to bed in the evening at 6:30pm and we still have to wake her at 7am, I am confident she would sleep near 8am if we left her. At bedtime at 6:30pm, settling is a bit harder even though she is nearly falling asleep on us or in her chair. She will cry on and off until 7:30/8pm. Once she has fallen asleep for good we have to wake her for her feed at 9:45pm after which she falls straight back asleep. Nap times are about half of the time taken in her pram since we are out, when we are at home she sleeps in her cot in a dark room and this mixture has never posed a problem.
Feeding has after initial problems gone very well in the past even though I feel that the amount of time she spends on the breast is rather short. Up to now she seemed to get enough though, putting on 5-6oz a week with exception of the past two weeks where she only put on 3oz each week, but still being a very happy and contented baby for the first week at least.

Over the past week, everything seems to be going pear shaped. She will not settle well at nap times, even the 9am nap which was never a problem, is a struggle. During the lunchtime nap she will wake up several times, wide awake and ready to play, most of the time I manage to settle her back to sleep but other times not. The afternoon nap I understand some babies cut out and she has done that twice but as a result feeds even less at 5:45pm (which should really be 6pm but I do not dare make her wait that long because she is too tired by then, I tried it before, even with a split feed at 5pm and 6pm she would not be any better). In an effort to make her have the afternoon nap I settle her and let her sleep in my arms for 10-20 mins which I do not really want her to get used to. The 11:00 am feed I had to bring forward to 10:45am most days this week because she was very restless. The 2:30pm feed is as usual provided she sleeps ok. The 5:45pm feed seems to be always the shortest feed of the day, I think due to tiredness (or maybe a low milk supply?). I leave her on the breast until she has finished. Once she is done, she will let go, look at me, then go back on it for just a quick suck, let go again, look at me again, go back on it, this goes on for a little while until she will be looking to the other side or at her dad when I then take her up to burp her. I have tried topping her up with expressed milk at this 5:45pm feed but this has made no difference to the fact that in the evenings, when we before always had to wake her for her late feed, she will now wake anytime between 8:30pm and 9:30pm. We have given her the late feed bottle as early as 8:30pm and she did go straight back to sleep at 8:50pm and did sleep through to 7am when again we had to wake her. Is she maybe ready to drop this feed but rather than having less and less milk at 9:45pm she demands it earlier and earlier to eventually coincide with the 6pm feed?
I have not started weaning her yet since I really want to make sure that she is ready. I had planned to maybe start when she is 5 months in order to avoid her becoming a fussy eater but not any earlier if she did not show any signs. She has been sucking and chewing her hands since she was 2.5 months old, and she does not show any interest in our food. Therefore I thought she might not be ready yet. However, if hunger is causing all those disruptions, maybe I should start weaning her? However, the top up of expressed milk at 5:45pm did not make any difference, in fact that day she woke up earlier than ever for the late night feed, so is it hunger or could it be something else? She has 9oz with the late night feed and is incredibly excited when she sees the bottle which she empties in 5 minutes flat. If you try and take it away to give her a little rest and a burp, she starts screaming hysterically and will try and reach for it to put it back in her mouth. I have a feeling that she would have more if we gave her more. Yesterday evening and this lunchtime I literally fed her to sleep, something I never had to do before, because she would scream the minute her back touched the mattress. I realize that this has only been going on for a week now but since last night the situation seems to escalate and I would be grateful if you could give me your opinion on how best to continue before the whole routine gets out of hand.

My daughter feeds at 7am form both sides taking 15minutes in total, 11am both breasts, feeding time 10minutes, 2.30pm feeding time 8-10minutes, 4pm occasionally 1.5ozs water, 5.45pm both breasts feeding time 8minutes, 9.45pm 9ozs emptied in 5minutes.

My daughter weighs 14lbs.

She naps at 8.50-9.45am, 11.50-2.15pm and 4.30-5pm. She settles at 6.30pm
Team Response

Now that my twins are five and a half months old, their different personalities are really starting to show. My little girl is pretty sanguine about most things and cries very little. She can amuse herself for up to half an hour on her mat or in her chair alone and sleeps well. My boy, though, is getting more and more demanding. He has started waking up from his nap after an hour (despite my gradually almost completely dropping the morning nap) which leaves him grumpy and overtired. Two of the three days that this has happened I have put him back to bed after his 2.30 feed for an hour, but he has still then ended up zonking out for an hour in the afternoon when he only usually took 30 minutes when his lunchtime nap was working. So he is plainly still tired when he wakes up after his extra hour at 2.30. In addition (and most importantly), he is becoming more demanding. He used to be almost as good as his sister at amusing himself. Now, though, he cries as soon as he’s put down and is constantly a little bit whingey. He was always more spirited than his sister and although I'm more than happy to embrace that I don't want to end up with a difficult and insecure toddler. As he has changed I feel it must be something I'm doing, but I can't work out what I'm doing differently. What can I do with a baby this young to help him feel more secure? I don't want to be negative, but he just seems a bit moody! Help! The food and sleep details below are for my little boy: my girl eats a little less and sleeps 16 hours a day and seems ok on it.

My son feeds at 7.45am 7ozs, 8am, 3 tsp porridge and 2tbsp fruit puree, 11am 5ozs formula , I have tried to reduce this to 3-4ozs but he isn’t happy without the extra oz. 11.30am, 5tbsp vegetables as per weaning guide 5-6mths. I have tried to move him on but cannot get him to wait beyond 11am for his milk so give solids at this time. 2.30pm 6ozs, 5.30pm 7ozs formula, 5tsp baby rice and 2tbsp of fruit puree. My son weighs 18lbs.

He naps at 9.40-10am, 12-1pm, 2.30-3.30pm, 4.30-5pm. He is settled by 6.30pm and sleeps through to 7.30am.
Team Response

I have 17 week old twins (11 weeks adjusted). I use the routines with their adjusted date of 11 weeks. The biggest problem is the morning nap is too early and also taken twice. This makes the lunch time nap at completely the wrong time.

The only part of the routine that I seem to have got right is the bedtime side of things. I cannot keep the babies awake in the morning past 8:30am latest - I have tried everything. They are so tired that I can be in the middle of playing with them and they will just nod off regardless. If they don’t have a quick nap before the 11:00am feed, then they have the 11:00am feed and are ready for the "big" lunch time nap. This means they sleep from 11:30am - 12:30pm.

Maybe this is a lost cause and I am beside myself as my son especially seems so miserable all day and never plays for more than 1-20 minutes on his own before crying again.

As there is a difference in their weights, their feeding reflects this:
Twin 1 16lbs
7.30am 6ozs with 3tsp rice cereal
11.00am 5.5-6ozs with 3tsp rice
3.00pm 5.5ozs with 3 tsp rice
6.45pm 6-7ozs with 3.5tsp rice
10.45pm 3-4ozs with 3tsp rice

Twin 2 13lbs
7.30am 5ozs with 4.4tsp rice
11.00am 4.5-5ozs with 4tsp rice
3.00pm 4.5ozs with 4 tsp rice
6.45pm 5ozs with 4.5tsp rice
10.45pm 4.5ozs with 4tsp rice
Rice cereal is added to their bottles due to reflux problems

They nap at 8.30-9.10am, 10.30-11am, 12.50-1.50pm, 3.45-4.00pm and settle by 7pm.
Team Response

My five-month-old son sleeps really well between 9.00-9.30am and between 12.15-2.15pm, but gets really cross and tired every afternoon around 3.30-4.00pm. It is very difficult to do anything with him. Do you have any advice?
Team Response

I have been trying to follow CLB since Luke was born. He still finds it hard to stay awake as long as he should. As a newborn I wasn’t concerned by his excessive sleepiness, but as he is now almost 5 months I thought things would be better by now.
For the last few months he has slept through the night. We feed him at 10pm but try not too wake him too much for this, as he can be impossible to settle again. He is lifted from his cot and takes 5-7ozs without waking fully. He sleeps until about 6am, but is happy to chat and kick until I get him at 7am. He doesn’t cry so we don't go into him.
Usually he stays awake until 7am but very occasionally he has settled back to sleep at 6.45am. I have woken him again at 7am although it pains me to do so. He accepts 6-7ozs although this can be a struggle as he wants to play and laugh. Whether he has gone back to sleep or been awake since 6am, he is very tired by 8/8.15am. I try to keep him going until 8.45am but he then falls asleep on his play mat, in my arms, wherever.
Trying to wake him at 9.30am can be difficult. I try to let it be natural so I open the curtains, unzip his bag and even prod him gently but he can only open his eyes for a few seconds before falling back to sleep again. By 9.45am, I resort to lifting him out and jiggling him which seems to work.
He takes 7-8ozs at 10.45am, then plays for a short while, but by 11.30am he is tired and grumpy. I can usually get him to 11.45am but again he will fall asleep whilst playing or cry until I put him in his cot. He sleeps well until I wake him at 2pm having had 2hrs 15mins. He wakes reasonably easily at this time.
He takes 6-7ozs at 2.15 and will play until 3.45pm when again he is grumpy and tired. I can keep him going with protest until 4pm, when he naps for 15-20 minutes in his chair or out in his pram.
Bath time is fine and he takes 8-9ozs at 6.15pm. At 6.45pm I take him to his nursery to wind down. He starts to cry and kick if I put him in his cot, and will often continue even if I pick him up to cuddle him. Eventually after 15-20 minutes of crying he falls asleep. Occasionally it has been an hour before he settles. He then sleeps well until he is given his 10pm feed.
I don’t know what I am doing wrong and how to get him better on schedule? Why is he difficult at 7pm when he is so ready to sleep at other naps and sleeps through the night?
I have not weaned him as the HV advised waiting until 6 months, although I am thinking of beginning when he is 5 months in a weeks time. He has never accepted boiled water or juice.
Team Response

My son feeds well and sleeps at night time, but during the day he has great difficulty sleeping. Some days he won’t sleep at all, other days he will, but not at the times recommended. He gets very irritable from 5.30pm until bedtime, but then settles fine and will usually sleep until 7am. He also seems to want a lot of attention during the day and won’t play for long on his own. I would be grateful for advice on how to improve his daytime sleep and how to stop him being unsettled before bed. At present he may sleep at 9.30-10.30am and 12.30-2.30pm and settles at 7pm.
Team Response

My son Joe is 17 weeks old and has problems sleeping. I could not get him to sleep from day one. He would be awake for hours then eventually drop off from sheer exhaustion then be impossible to wake up for a feed. He fed little and often and I was informed he had colic as he cried all the time. I later discovered he had a lactose intolerance which is now resolving itself.
I bought your book when Joe was about 4 weeks old but it took weeks before I managed any sort of routine. From about 7 weeks he went to sleep at about 7pm and would not wake at 10.30pm for a feed. He was totally exhausted as he was having no sleep in the day. I felt this was an improvement though. He slept through to 5am then he would have a feed and go straight back to sleep until 7.45am, when he would need a top-up. By having the room blacked out I eventually got him to sleep with the aid of his dummy during the day but he would wake after 45 minutes.
For the last 4 weeks I have woke him at 10pm for a feed where he takes about 3oz and now sleeps through to about 6.30am, sometimes waking at 5am and cooing for about an hour before he will go back to sleep. The main problem his is daytime sleep: he will have about 2 or 3 daytime naps of 45 minutes at about 8.45am, 11.30am and 1.45pm, sometimes at 3.15pm, though the last week he is only having 2 naps. I am feeding exactly to the routine in your book for a 4 -5 month old although some mornings he will only have about 5oz. I am currently weaning, feeding solids at the 11am feed and at 5.40pm.
No matter what I do he cannot seem to settle himself after coming into light sleep after 45 minutes. I find it very difficult to keep him awake in the mornings as he is still exhausted because he is often awake for an hour at 5am. When I put him down at midday he wakes after 45 minutes. I have tried controlled crying for about a week and had no change. I then decided not to go in at all - he would go back to sleep after about 45 minutes of screaming, then do the same again but I would have to get him up for his feed at 2.30pm. I tried this for about 5 days with no change.
I have now ended up putting him down when I can for 45 minutes at a time but I have got to constantly entertain him the rest of his wakeful day and he is very restless and tired. The poor boy looks so exhausted and has bigger bags under his eyes than me. I am desperate to get him to sleep longer than 45 minutes at a time.
Joe had a traumatic birth, born by emergency Caesarian after 80 hours labour. He weighed 6lb10 oz, gained weight quickly in the early days and now weighs approximately 14lb 10oz. I formula feed him with Farleys second. I settle him to sleep with a dummy but am currently trying to get rid of this as he cries for it when he drops it. For the last 10 days he has not gone to sleep on his dummy.
I really hope you can help with this not just for me but for my beautiful, grumpy, tired boy.
Team Response

My four-month-old baby is following the routines really well, and sleeping through to nearer 7am from his 10pm feed. We are soon to spend our first long weekend away from home with him since he was born, and I am getting very anxious that we will not be able to keep him in such a good routine when staying with friends. Is there anything I can do to ensure that his routine doesn't go totally wrong?

Team Response

I simply want advice on how to alter the routines gradually to take into account the time change when daylight savings are introduced. In Australia at the end of October, we lose an hour. Should we simply wake my daughter up an hour earlier or do it gradually over several days.
Team Response

My baby is such a light sleeper, it is driving us all mad. Your previous advice (when I was visiting relatives who live on a noisy road) was to have a little background music on which did help. When I have background noise (music or a fan or white noise) Anna will sleep well most of the time, following the correct nap times and sleeps through the night, although some noise will still wake her (cars going past, people talking outside the house, the doorbell etc). But if we try to have her sleep without background noise, it is just impossible, everything wakes her up. It means we are constantly creeping round (even with the background noise on); we can't have the washing machine or dishwasher on when she is sleeping; we are always shushing guests and neighbours.
Also we are due to move house soon and will have to live in a hotel for a week while our stuff is transported. This will cause huge problems because I know noise will stop Anna sleeping.
We are fed up with the situation and are desperate to resolve