How can I stop my baby waking every 2 hours in the night? - Lullababy SOS (2024)

• June 20, 2020
• 6 Comments

A question I get asked all the time is “How can I stop my baby waking every 2 hours in the night needing/wanting a feed or for me to help them get back to sleep.’

I honestly wish the answer was as simple as the question.

Although it is normal for babies to wake during the night, waking every 2 hours is excessive even for a young baby, and if your baby is waking every two hours or more, it is most likely that they have some external association with falling asleep in the first place. I am a firm believer that babies learn through experience, and so if you are cuddling, rocking, feeding, driving or bouncing your baby to go to sleep, then they are going to expect the same when they wake up or rouse through a sleep cycle.

Imagine falling asleep in your bed and waking up on the floor in your lounge room; how would that make you feel? I doubt that you’re just going to roll over, make yourself comfortable and go back to sleep, are you? The first time or even the first couple of times this happens you may just brush it off go back to bed and go back to sleep. Still, if this kept happening to you, you are going to start fighting sleep, waking and checking that you’re still in your bed and obviously be feeling anxious about why your keep waking up somewhere different to where you fell asleep.

Now, put this into perspective for your little one, when they drift off to sleep, they are in their mother’s arms, warm and snug; their mother is responding to their every movement, every behaviour, soothing them to bring on sleep. Once asleep, they are placed into their cot ‘drowsy’ (but let’s face it, too sleepy to wake up). Babies like us transition through different phase’s of sleep throughout the night. Typically they will do one longer block of deeper sleep, rouse/wake, then sleep in 2 hours blocks until about 3 am and then wake more frequently as morning draws near. This is normal for all babies. Each time that they wake, they check-in, but their environment has changed from when they fell asleep, so they call out to you and you pick them up and feed them back to sleep each time they wake. On and around the 4-month-old development leap, your baby starts to become aware of their sleep cue, environments where they fell asleep and where they are when they wake. If they fell asleep in your arms, that’s where they expect to be when they wake up the night. Gradually, over time you reinforce that their bed is your arms and that their cot is somewhere that they cry in, call out to you, and you take them out and put them back in their bed.(your arms). The longer you have external associations with sleep the more habitual these associations are, the more wake-ups occur and as they become more overtired the shorter periods of sleep become and the greater the dependence that your baby may have.

Nothing changes if nothing changes!

If you keep doing the same thing to put your baby to sleep, they will still expect the same to help them transition through sleep cycles.

If you want to stop your baby from waking every two hours overnight, you need to stop feeding them to sleep or any other crutch you are using to assist your baby to sleep. Nothing changes if nothing changes. if you want to fix your babies overnight sleep you need to change how you put them to sleep. I remember one client whose baby needed to smell her armpits to fall asleep and another whose baby liked to stroke her fingernail to fall asleep! Over the years, I have had babies who just needed mum to be within eye-sight, and others where their parent had to feed, while bouncing on a fitball, singing Alanis Morissette isn’t it Ironic. Neither one of these babies were easier to change habits than the other. They both had strong external associations with falling asleep and therefore needed the same every time they came into a REM sleep Cycle.

If whatever you are doing works for you keep doing it. But if you want to stop the two-hourly wakes, your baby needs to learn how to fall asleep where you intend for them to wake up as independently as possible.

You can’t go from feeding to sleep to tough love or leaving them to figure it out. You need to SHOW them that their cot is a positive place, you need to SUPPORT them through this learning phase with a new, consistent bedtime routine and you need to HELP them as they learn.

If you’re going at this alone, pick something that resonates with you, plan, and be consistent. Commit at least three weeks to help your baby learn how to be more comfortable in their bed and self-settle and follow it the whole way through.

If you would like support with finding the right one for you, then a paediatric sleep consultant can help you. I can help you. The goal and intention of a consultation with Lullababy SOS is to help you find a flexible routine and an individual settling plan that you are comfortable with to support you and your baby in learning how to self-settle.

For Lullababy SOS this does not mean following a specific strategy or a method. I believe that we need to help your baby feel safe and supported when they are learning how to go to sleep in their cots and learn how to self-settle based on their individuality, their personality and their journey so far. Although at no stage should you all you baby be distressed, initially there will be crying and lots of settling and resettling. Understand that if your baby has learnt one way to go to sleep, it is going to take time, patience practice and support while they learn something new. At the onset, there will be crying and fussing for periods of time. A baby’s cry doesn’t always mean that they are distressed; it can say that they are tired, frustrated and confused. When things change, they can cry because of this, this cry doesn’t necessarily indicate that they are feeling fearfully distressed or abandoned I believe in gently supporting your baby to learn a new way of settling. With a Lullababy SOS settling plan, your presence and support are to help reassure them that you are there for them as they learn a new way of settling.

My goal is to gradually reduce the amount of support that you are offering your baby as they become more confident and independent in their ability to do it unsupported.

As a parent, you must understand that this will not happen overnight.

For more information on the service provided from Lullababy SOS check out -> Get help from Lullababy SOS