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I fed my daughter every time she woke up because that was the only thing that worked, until I found out the reason she kept waking had nothing to do with hunger. My daughter Ashley used to wake up every 90 minutes all night long For seven months I thought I was doing something wrong. That I had created some kind of bad habit. And if I could just break the feed-to-sleep association, she would finally sleep through the night. So I tried everything. I bought the Taking Cara Babies course. Followed it exactly. It didn't work. Ashley just screamed longer. I tried the Ferber method. Three nights in I was sitting outside her door crying harder than she was. I quit. I tried 8 Sheep Organics. The magnesium lotion everyone in the Facebook groups swore by. It smelled nice. She still woke up six times. I tried white noise didn’t do anything for Ashley and everyone swore by it as well So I moved on to trying earlier bedtimes and even later bedtimes but that didn’t work either she still woke up every 90 minutes wanting to feed So the next thing I did was I tracked wake windows on the Huckleberry app like it was my job it did help but it’s not like it magically stopped her wanting to wake up and feed So one night I tried rocking instead of feeding her but she literally cried so hard it sounded like she was screaming another fail and honestly I wasn’t surprised nothing had worked yet So I tried sitting next to the crib without picking her up because people swore buy this as well she just “needs your presence” guess what NOTHING WORKED! She would not calm down until I gave her my boob and here is the part that drove me crazy. She went down awake at bedtime with no problem. No crying. A little fussing and then out, on her own, every night. So she could clearly soothe herself to sleep. Which meant the feed to sleep association wasn't the problem. Or at least not the one I thought it was. But every article I read, every Reddit thread, every sleep consultant said the same thing. Feed-to-sleep association. That's your problem. Break the association and the night waking stops. But I had spent months trying to fix it and nothing changed. Which meant either I was doing it wrong. Or everyone was pointing me at the wrong problem. So what was actually waking her up every 90 minutes? If it wasn't hunger, and it wasn't habit, then what was it? I had no idea until one night, a mom named Jennifer replied to one of my posts in Newborn Baby & Mother Care. And what she said next completely changed how I understood what was happening to Ashley. "I know exactly what you're going through," she wrote. "I was in the same place six months ago. Can I ask you something, does your baby fall asleep fine at bedtime but can't stay asleep?" Yes, I typed back. That's the part I don't understand. She goes down awake, no crying, maybe some fussing. But she knows how to sleep. So why doesn't it work in the middle of the night? "Because it's not about knowing how to sleep by herself," Jennifer wrote. "I thought the same thing. I spent months trying to sleep train harder, thinking I was doing something wrong. But it's not behavioral. It's physical." Physical? What do you mean? "When babies first fall asleep at bedtime, they drop straight into deep sleep. Heavy, solid sleep. Nothing wakes them." "But after that first sleep cycle, about 90 minutes in, the rest of the night is lighter." "And during light sleep, if their breathing isn't perfectly smooth, their body tenses up. Tense body means awake baby." But she's not congested. I don't hear anything wrong with her breathing. "You wouldn't be able to. It's not the kind of congestion you can hear. It's just tiny airway resistance. Even the smallest amount is enough to make breathing feel like work." "And when breathing feels like work during light sleep, the nervous system goes on alert. Which means awake." I sat there reading this over and over. That's why she wakes up every 60 to 90 minutes? I typed. Not because she's hungry? "Not because she's hungry. Think about it. When you feed her, she falls back asleep, right? But not because she was full” “But because nursing calms her nervous system down enough to drop her back into deep sleep. For one more cycle. Then 90 minutes later, light sleep phase again, breathing feels off again, body tenses again, awake again." Oh my God. That's exactly what happens. Every single night. Over and over. "I know," Jennifer said. "I went through the same thing. I thought I was going crazy. But here's the thing. There are two parts to fixing it. Most people only fix one." What do you mean? "Everyone talks about calming the nervous system. That's why lavender works, why warm baths help, why white noise is recommended. You're lowering stress hormones so the baby's body can relax. That's the first half." "But the other half, the part no one talks about, is keeping the airways open so breathing stays smooth during those light sleep phases." How do you do that? "Fir needle," she said. "It helps open airways, clear mucus, makes breathing feel easier. Like eucalyptus for adults when you're stuffed up, but gentle enough for babies." "When you combine it with lavender, one to calm the nervous system so they can fall asleep, one to keep airways clear so they can stay asleep, you're addressing both parts of the problem." I had never heard of fir needle for sleep. "Most people haven't. I found this organic sleep cream called Slumberlee. It has both lavender and fir needle, with jojoba and olive oil as the base." "I started using it on my daughter's chest and feet before bed. Within three days she was sleeping six-hour stretches. After a week she was sleeping through the night." I want to be honest with you. I did not believe her at first. I had heard so many things that were supposed to fix this. I had tried so many things. I was not going to let myself get excited about something that probably wouldn't work. But I also couldn't stop thinking about what she said. The airway resistance. The light sleep phase. The nervous system going on alert. It was the first explanation I had ever read that actually matched exactly what I was watching happen to my daughter every night. Not a theory about sleep associations. Not advice to try harder with the sleep training. An actual physical reason for the pattern I had been living in for seven months. So I ordered it. And it arrived 2 days later I put it on her chest and the bottoms of her feet before her bath Night one, she woke up three times instead of six. Night three, she slept a four-hour stretch. By the end of the first week, she was sleeping from 7:30 to 5 AM. I remember lying in bed that first full night, not asleep, just lying there. Waiting for the cry that didn't come. And then at some point I realized I had been asleep. I didn't even know when it happened. I just woke up and it was morning. I don't know how to explain what that felt like. After seven months. And I'm telling you because I remember what it felt like to think I was the problem. To think I had broken my baby somehow. To think I just needed to try harder at something that was never going to work because I was solving the wrong problem. If your baby goes down fine at bedtime but wakes up every hour or two all night, and the only thing that settles her is feeding, I want you to know something. You didn't create a bad habit. You've been solving the right problem with the wrong tool. The nursing works because it calms her nervous system. But it doesn't fix the thing that keeps waking her up. And until that second piece is addressed, you will be the only one who can get her back to sleep. Every time. All night. For as long as this goes on. That's not a willpower problem. That's not a discipline problem. That's just how it works when half the equation is missing. Slumberlee is the thing that gave me back the other half. Thank you for reading my story if you’d like to try what worked for Ashley I’ll put the link to slumberlee here https://slumberlee.com/products/organic-sleep-cream