Whether Baby never quite stopped waking up in the middle of the night and crying for your attention, or they were a solid sleeper through the night until recently, it’s still not surprising if Baby has been making a dent in your sleeping hours. While most babies do settle into a pattern of sleeping through the night at a certain point, all babies develop along different timelines, and even when they do sleep through the night, that pattern is often disrupted by growth spurts or developmental changes.
What to do
Unfortunately, if Baby is going through a growth spurt, there may not be too much you can do. They really might just need the extra nourishment they are asking for when they wake up crying, and feeding them more before bed may not help, since being over-full before bed can actually lead to a more restless sleep.
One thing that could really help Baby, especially during a growth-spurt, but also at any other time, is an adjustment to their naptime. If there is one nap that has been getting shorter and shorter, it might be time to cut that nap out. If, on the other hand, Baby seems to have grown grouchier in general, they may be overtired, which can hurt the quality of their sleep. It could be that what they are really looking for is an earlier bedtime.
However, if Baby has developed a sense of object permanence, and a case of separation anxiety with it, they may be calling out for you at night because they missing you. To help with this, you can start building their confidence in your presence during the day by talking to them from the other room when you walk away to grab something, and by assuring them you’ll be right back before going on short trips, walks, or errands, and then following through by coming straight back to them. As Baby’s confidence grows, they should begin to feel calmer about not having you there beside them when they wake up during the night.
