Baby's sleep patterns veering badly off course; how can we correct them?

And OMG "bad habits"! Bwahaha! Seriously, don't worry. Whatever bad or good habits he has now he'll unlearn at some point. And then maybe relearn. Or not. He'll change so much, have hard and easy phases and habits Don't let the "you'll spoil him for EVAH!" people scare you, do whatever works for you now.

Yeah, so welcome to the joy of babyhood, right around 6 months is when their sleeping goes all to heck, no matter how good they were at it. In fact, poor sleeping usually happens every time they get close to a big cognitive milestone. What I'm saying is that the food was probably not a bad idea, and is probably only peripherally related to this. If you are unhappy breastfeeding him to sleep, then go back to your previous routine, try to reinstitute a pattern, and it should go back to normal until the next sleep screw up time appears. There are lots of books that can help. My favorite was http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1593155581/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/, which I liked because she explained why your suddenly good sleeper isn't any more (though I never had that problem) and gives you a variety of techniques to get back on track after one of these sorts of sleep upsets. Hang in there, your kiddo will re-figure out how to sleep again soon!

I can summarize the Ferber book for you - essentially, he says that children form sleep associations and then those associations need to be recreated every time they fall asleep. Children, like adults, do not sleep through the entire night, we have several "arousals" in between the periods of deeper sleep. Adults often do not even remember waking up during these arousals, we know how to soothe ourselves back to sleep, and we also are not surprised when we wake up because the situation is the same as we expect it to be (dark room, in bed, quiet, etc.) Ferber's point is that if we heard a strange noise or our pillow was missing when we woke up, we would be surprised, get more awake, and want to know what was wrong before falling back asleep. We would try to restore the conditions we associated with falling asleep. Your baby was used to falling asleep on his own, but during the time while he was uncomfortable and constipated, made new sleep associations with breastfeeding. Now whenever he has an arousal during the night, he feels surprised to find that he is no longer being fed, because that was what was happening when he fell asleep. He feels more comfortable when that situation is restored and he can go back to sleep. So the bad habit, as you call it, has already been established. Baby sleep issues are controversial, but what Ferber would say is that he now needs to be trained to soothe himself and fall asleep on his own again. (or you could wait until he grows out of it, because obviously this will not last forever, but that will most likely take a lot longer) Ferber's method of sleep training involves progressively lengthening time periods of checking in on the baby until he or she falls asleep on his own. This generally involves some crying. My personal opinion is that it is easier to sleep train using a method like this than for you and the baby to be waking up every 3 hours for some indefinite period of time. But I have a high pressure job that I can't be off my A game for. Anyway, every baby is different, but my baby has been an every 3 hour waker for comfort nursing from the beginning, and we are working on sleep training right now. It seems to be effective for her but it takes time and patience. I know it is tough no matter what you do in this situation, so do what you think is right for you and your child. As others have said, it is not like you are "spoiling" or "messing up" your baby either way. There is no one size fits all solution.

http://kellymom.com/bf/normal/comfortnursing/

What are you doing wrong? Probably nothing. My kid is two and the one pattern I now recognize is: things that worked beautifully all of sudden stop working. Eventually, with lots of experimenting, You find something else that works. And then it stops working again. Keep looking for whatever solution lets you get the most sleep, and keeps the baby happy, don't worry about doing something wrong.

I could just be rationalizing but I simply don't see any biological reason why babies should be respectful of their parents' 9-to-5 work schedules, or why important adult traits like independence would be rooted in "habits" established during infancy. Just try things out and try to find something that works, I don't think there's a magic formula that you have to follow by the book.

Nthing treehorn + bunny. Our baby was much like hers, and when we did our version of ferberising, I think the timed intervals were more for us than her - as our inclination was to run in and settle her asap! She is a much better sleeper now. Also: Be wary of books that claim if you only follow their methods exactly, your baby will self-settle and sleep. Those books are bullshit, man. There is no magic cure for this, and every baby really is different. We tweaked various suggestions for what worked for us - pursuing recommendations to the letter merely led to frustration, guilt and despair when they didn't work.

Oh, also: Please don't ever feel guilty about doing the thing that maximises your sleep. People lay some pretty heavy guilt trips on parents that dare to either put their needs first, or even to voice that their needs are important compared to their babies. But they are. A well-rested, happy parent is a better parent. Months of sleep-deprivation can have absolutely brutal consequences - I speak from experience. The last thing any new parent needs is more guilt; we already apply enough. Do what feels right and okay to you.

Constpation might well be the cause. I believe more water in the diet helps.