Why can't my baby sleep through the night?
There are multiple reasons why babies don't sleep through the night. I think one's got to look at it in different categories, if you like. The first thing is they may wake up because of physical need. They may be hungry; it may be a young baby that's actually hungry. They may have physical discomfort. They may be unwell; they may have a cold, they may have a blocked nose. Remember that in young babies under six months of age, if their noses are blocked, they can't really breathe because they're what we call “obligatory nose breathers.” So, for many of them, the only way they can breathe in that situation is actually by crying. So: health issues, pain, discomfort, and hunger issues. That would be sort of the physical category. Then what's going on in the environment? Is the cat crawling all over their head? Is there noise? Is the TV blaring? Are the parents arguing? There may be some environmental issues that could be waking the baby up. The third category is really habit. If the baby has this sequence of associations and has been put to bed in a certain way with all the habitual things that they “need” to fall asleep, they wake up naturally (because we all wake up naturally at night) and they find that these associations are not present, they are going to make a noise. They are going to signal to Mum to come back, or that they want the bottle, or that they want to be nursed, or that they can't find their pacifier, or that they need the TV on. So, those are probably the three main reasons why children wake up and don't put themselves back to sleep at night.
