Have you ever found yourself questioning why your baby is waking up every two hours overnight? Especially if you're a few months into your parenthood journey, perhaps around the 5 month mark? You're not alone! It's around this time that babies tend to start waking every few hours because they're unsure how to transition from one sleep cycle to the next. Don't worry, there are things you can do to help this situation.

The first thing I'll say is that at this stage, many parents assume their little one is waking because they're hungry.  This is where the habit begins of your baby needing assistance to be fed back to sleep, cuddled, or moved into your bed against the warmth of your body and the sounds of your heartbeat. 

Naturally, if your little one is falling asleep in your arms and then being placed in the cot asleep, they will wake a little confused when they transition between sleep cycles and realise they aren’t where they fell asleep. This is where helping your little one to self settle can help get longer stretches of sleep. 

If you find that your baby wakes up crying, it's because they're scared and confused because they don't remember leaving your arms and now they're alone and need reassurance. To avoid this happening try: 

• Some simple patting before instead of picking them up 
• Teaming the patting with some gentle shushing 
• Repeating this a few times giving them the chance to go back to sleep comfortably in the environment they are now in

• An inability for your little one to self-settle. They need to master this before we can expect them to re-settle and consolidate their sleep cycles. 
• Their awake windows are too long or too short. Click here for an example of awake windows by age. 
• Or they are yet to learn the technique of re-settling. This is a behavioural pattern that we need to help them learn.