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from Natural Life magazine, May/June
2009 My Baby Wakes Up Too Often Q: My baby is nine months old and she wakes to breastfeed every hour or so. She wakes up and cries, tosses or just latches on. Our baby sleeps with us in our family bed. She has one nap during the day. I put her to sleep around eight o’clock in the evening and by nine she wakes up crying. My husband and I get to bed around eleven o’clock. Then, she wakes up the second or third time and keeps waking up through the night. How can I reduce the amount of breastfeeding at night? A: Night-time parenting presents mothers with a great surprise. No one tells us that a well attached baby will wake up often to breastfeed. In addition, it is hard not to be influenced by the cultural expectation that a baby should sleep much of the night with very few interruptions. Yet, that expectation is what creates the stress. My guess is that if you knew that the baby will wake up a lot, you would feel more peaceful about it and find a way to get more sleep for yourself. It is common and healthy for babies to wake up often and breastfeed. The amount of feeding at night varies from baby to baby, but most babies who are fully responded to will wake up often; it is Nature’s way to ensure the baby’s health, safety and growth. The baby grows rapidly when asleep and is therefore frequently hungry. When finding that this lifeline is always at hand, she grows up to feel emotionally secure, content and trusting of herself and of others. She learns that gentle cues are sufficient to get her needs met. Interestingly, most aboriginal mothers don’t even think of “putting” a baby to sleep. A mother just goes on about her life with the baby on her body. The baby sleeps on and off, developing... To read the rest of this article, subscribe to Natural Life's digital edition, which includes access to this and other back issues. Naomi Aldort is the author of, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves. Her advice columns are published in progressive parenting magazines worldwide. She offers phone guidance and counseling by phone/Skype internationally regarding all ages, babies through teens: attachment parenting; natural learning; peaceful and powerful parent-child relationships. If you have a question you'd like Naomi to consider answering in this column, please email it to her at naomi [at] aldort.com. However, she regrets that, due to the large volume of mail received, she is unable to provide individual responses. For further information, about her work, including products, counseling and a free newsletter, visit www.authenticparent.com. Her column appears in each issue of Natural Life magazine, which is available by subscription via this website. |
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