• Night wakes
• Habit wakes
• Waking up throughout the night without explanation
• Routine is fixed, but still experiencing night wakes
• Why does my baby still wake throughout the night
• Tips to remove night wakes
• Common causes that are encouraging your baby to wake up throughout the night

What does it all mean?

You have fixed the sleep related issues, you have a great routine downpat but still, you find that there are one or two night wakes still occurring.

These are known as habit wakes.

They occur because your baby’s body is stuck in the routine of waking up throughout the night. Babies are habitual by nature, which means habit wakes are hard to remove, but not impossible.

Here are some tips to try:

1. Stop feeding during the night wakes

Feeding every time your baby wakes up during the night is encouraging them to keep waking up. Their bodies start relying on the calories during the night. You need to ensure firstly that your baby is getting the recommended daily intake for their age. If they are genuinely waking up for hunger, you should increase the amount of food/milk they are having throughout the day and do cluster feeding. If they are having enough throughout the day, you can stop feeding them at night and replace it with something else, such as water or a small serving of watered down warm milk/formula. This will start teaching their body that their aren’t any calories being consumed during the night and to sleep for longer.

2. Self-Settling

If you have stopped feeding throughout the night, hunger isn’t an issue and you are confident your baby is having the right daytime routine, the next suggestion is self-settling. This is understandably hard to hear. But it is important and required if you want the night wakes to disappear. There are many methods to self-settling to try, I encourage a gentle method located in the Sleep Baby Yeah Baby book.

3. Check your routine

If you have tried the above tips and are still having habit wakes, check your routine. Do you have a relaxing and calming bed time routine – bath, massage, sleep inducing lullabies etc. Are you putting your little one to bed at the same time each night? This can have a huge impact. Are they getting the required amount of sleep for their age? For more information, check out the Sleep Baby Yeah Baby book on the 6 key sleep steps.

4. Other causes

If you have checked off the first three suggestions, it is time to consider other causes for the night wakes. Think about your baby’s day, what they have done, what they have eaten and so on. Firstly, it is common for babies when they start solids to experience night wakes, which are related to the food upsetting their stomach. There are certain foods suggested to introduce to your baby slowly, or at certain ages, so if you have given them a heap of oats (being hard to digest) at 6 months old, this might be too much for their digestive system. Or, your baby could be intolerant to a certain food or ingredient you are giving them, such as gluten or acidic foods such as tomatoes. It could be wind, or gas related issues, which require assistance to ease pain such as a probiotic – check with your doctor first. Think about other causes and start to see if you can identify any secondary issues causing the night wakes.

This list isn’t an exhaustive list by any means. But, starting with the above areas can help enormously for habit wakes.

Your baby could be waking simply because they are too hot, too cold, dirty nappy or so on. It is important to ensure that your baby is set up for sleep success. To do this, check out the 6 key steps to improving your sleep discussed in the Sleep Baby Yeah Baby book. Should you need any assistance with sleep issues, I offer a consultation service and more than happy to spend the time to help you achieve your baby’s sleep success.