Quick Overview
- 9-month baby boy (7 months corrected)
- Great napper, tricky night sleeper.
- Many night wakings (typically 3-4+) requiring feeding to settle.
- Restless sleep (lots of mini wakes + crying between feedings)
- Alternating between 2-3 naps.
Family Goals
- Longer stretches of night sleep.
- They didn’t want to actively wean.
- They didn’t want to leave their baby to cry at bedtime.
When I connected with Marie-Christine, she was struggling with her son Oli’s nighttime sleep.
Oli is a preemie who loves to nap, and he typically has no issue falling asleep. He can actually settle himself from awake for naps and bedtime, and does this without any formal sleep training. Impressive!
Where he struggled most was staying asleep…
His nights were quite fragmented; he frequently only gave her 2-3 hour stretches at a time, and nursing was often the only way to settle him. This was despite eating well during the day.
He also seemed to sleep quite fitfully, often having mini-waking and crying between these feedings.
She noted he’s had some better nights, so she knew it was possible. But these restless, fragmented nights would always return.
She wondered how she could get him to sleep in longer stretches more consistently. Since he was eating well during the day, she wasn’t sure whether these wakings were due to actual hunger, habit, teething, or something else.
Troubleshooting this baby’s frequent wakings
Marie-Christine had been diligently tracking her son’s sleep, so we already had a strong starting point for understanding his sleep/wake patterns.
She also gave me a snapshot of his typical day: wake-up, naps, and bedtime.
We could immediately see that the schedule being offered was not quite aligned with what Oli seemed to be sleeping for 24 hours.
If we looked at Oli’s sleep records, he was averaging around 13.5 hours of actual sleep.
But the schedule he was being offered was aiming for more sleep. His bedtime was early (7-7:30 pm), and he was getting up for the day between 6:30 and 7 am. So he was often offered the opportunity to sleep for 12 hours at night.
Even if this wasn’t every day, aiming for too much sleep overall was enough to disrupt his nighttime sleep.
We also learned Oli was receiving his last feed right before going down in his crib. Even though he wasn’t falling asleep during feeding, it was close to bedtime. So we advised moving the feeding earlier in the bedtime routine.
So we put a simple plan into action…
The Initial Sleep
Plan
We planned a schedule to offer a maximum of 13.5 hours of sleep; this would align with his needs.
Daytime sleep capped at 2.5 hours; time in bed overnight capped at 11 hours.
Marie Christine’s family wanted a wake-up time of 7 am, so we built the new schedule around that.
We advised starting the day at 7 am no matter how the night went. And try to maintain a consistent 8 pm bedtime.
Move Oli’s final feed at least 20 minutes before he is placed in the crib at bedtime.
The Results
Oli started having better nights very quickly; we almost immediately started seeing longer stretches of sleep.
As his night sleep consolidated, his true sleep needs became clearer, and we reassessed them and added more awake time than originally planned. Ultimately, his 24-hour sleep needs came out to around 13 hours.
We recommended keeping daytime sleep to 2.5 hours and aiming for a 10.5-hour night.
Within just under two weeks, Oli was waking only 1x per night for a large feed and then back to sleep.
His nights had consolidated into two longer stretches of sleep!
About a week later, Marie Christine reached back out to let us know he was consistently sleeping through his 10.5-hour night!
Ultimately, it took about 3 weeks of consistent schedule changes to see these results.
And most importantly, Marie Christine understood her son’s sleep needs. This gave her confidence in handling Oli’s daytime schedule and maximizing the odds of a good night’s sleep, even if any disruptions came their way.
The Takeaway
💛 Sometimes it’s not hunger or habit, it’s simply under-tiredness.
💛 7 pm-7 am schedules are often not realistic.
💛 Active nightweaning isn’t always necessary to drop feedings.
💛 Formal sleep training isn’t always necessary to improve nighttime sleep.
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