Most 6-month-old's are sleeping about 9-10 hours at night and still taking naps during the day, usually in the morning and afternoon, although every baby's nap schedules are different and some combine the morning and afternoon nap into one long nap in the middle of the day. However your baby decides to do things is fine, as long as it works for you and your baby. But it sounds like what your baby is doing right now is not working for anyone because your baby's waking up frequently at night and also still eating through the night. Most babies wake up at night and cry because they want comfort from mom or dad. They learn-- they're conditioned by us so that when they cry, we run in and we respond. We either cuddle them or we feed them. So they learn very quickly that crying gets them what they want most, which is you. By sleep training your baby, you will teach your baby how to go back to sleep on his or her own. You mentioned that you start the whole bedtime routine at about 7:00 p.m. when you feed your baby boy and then you put him down around 8:00 p.m. and then he's waking up around midnight, 2:00, and all other times during the night. What you might want to try is putting him to bed a little bit later in the evening. At six months, most babies don't sleep long enough like 12-14 hours to sleep solid from 7 or 8:00 p.m. 'til in the morning when we'd like them to. You might want to bump his bedtime back a little bit and try putting him to bed around 9:00 and try giving him his last feeding around 8:30 or so. This might help him get through the better part of the night for you. When he wakes up at night, if he needs to eat during the night as recommended by your pediatrician, then by all means, do it. This would be necessary if he's been slow to grow or he's below the weight curve for his age. But if your pediatrician says he doesn't need extra feedings at night, it's okay to not feed him during the night and to try to teach him how to self-soothe. This can be done one of two ways. In essence, what you're doing is teaching him how to go back to sleep without help from you. The first method is crying it out. You mentioned that you tried this. You let him cry for 15 minutes or so and that was really hard for you. It is hard for us as parents to hear our babies cry. But it's not bad for them. Research has shown that crying it out is actually one of the most effective ways of teaching our babies how to go back to sleep without help from us. As long as he's not crying out urgently like he's sick or in immediate need or in danger or in pain, then it is okay to let him cry for as long as you feel like you can handle it. But if you feel like you need to respond to him, then by all means, do so. There is a more graduated approach and parents who like crying it out is a little harsh find success by using this more graduated approach. When he starts to cry, give it at least 5-10 minutes. When you do go into his room, resist any and all urge to turn on lights, talk to him, or pick him up. Instead, when you go in the room, just gently touch his tummy, turn around and walk right back out. You can even try to wean him from the pacifier by doing this. Resist the urge to put the pacifier in his mouth and pick him up and feed him unless he needs the extra night time feedings like we discussed. If you just turn around and walk back out of the room, that'll probably make him mad the first time. He'll probably continue to cry but what you're doing is reassuring him that you're there and you give it another 10-20 minutes and then you go in and you do the same thing. Just gently touch his tummy and turn around and walk right back out. If he's still crying, then go in 20-30 minutes later and just keep repeating this process until he's going back to sleep on his own. Now, thankfully, babies have about a four day reset point in their brain where if we consistently and persistently reinforce a certain behavior for that amount of time, a baby will pick it up as a new norm and adopt it. For 4-7 nights, it might be a little torturous for everyone as your baby cries and keeps you up but after that amount of time, the persistence will pay off and your baby boy should be going back to sleep without help from you and without extra feedings in the middle of the night. Hopefully in the end, it will make it all worth it. If you have concerns about your son before you sleep train, talk with your pediatrician and once you've gotten the green light from them, then you can start. If you have any other questions for me in the future feel free to ask them on your Facebook page at facebook.com/intermountainmoms.com and recommend us to your friends and family too.


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