Unfortunately for new parents, sleeping through the night isn't an all or nothing concept. While babies may be consistently good sleepers, they will also move through periods of what seems to be random waking in the night.
There are a couple of common reasons that infants start waking in the night. The first thing to determine is whether or not infant is hungry or has a dirty diaper. Both of these can make feelings of discomfort for baby, resulting in a waking. Even though babies often develop an eating schedule - albeit looser for some than others! - small things can throw off this agenda. Anything from a long play date that leaves infants too tired to eat before a nap to becoming distracted while eating can cause them not to consume enough calories during the day, leaving them hungry at night.
Other usual reason - which is also regularly overlooked - is reaching a developmental milestone. Numerous parents report that waking in the night occurs when their infants have reached, or are about to reach an significant milestone like sitting up, crawling, walking, etc. Experts believe that milestones cause infants brains to work in overdrive, and numerous connections are made in the night time, when the brain can "focus" on it. An alternative hypothesis advises that babies are just so excited about their new skills that they can't help waking in the night to practice!
Eventually, babies are known for waking in the night due to pain. The most notable types of pain for waking babies are teething and tummy pain. Both are tricky to determine, as teething pain doesn't always involve swollen gums or teeth poking through. Most of the pain connected with teething occurs before the teeth come through. In addition, stomach pain can be hard to diagnose, but a few simple "bicycle exercises" or light bouncing should result in at least minimal relief for baby, giving you an idea of where the pain is located.
In the end, once we can determine the reason for our infants waking in the night, we can be much better prepared to treat them, and get back to bed!
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