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My pediatrician couldn't tell me why Lucy kept waking up every hour even though she didn't need night feeds, until a mom on Facebook explained what my doctor missed. Every night at 7:30 I would lay my daughter Lucy down awake and walk out and ten minutes later she was out. No rocking. No feeding. No crying. She just did it. But every 90 minutes after that she was up crying. And the only thing that got her back down was feeding her. So I fed her. Every time. Because what else was I supposed to do She woke up. I fed her. She slept. I fed her again. She slept again. She had to be hungry. Except the feeds were two minutes long sometimes three. And then she was out cold I knew a hungry baby doesn't eat for two minutes and pass out. I knew that. But I didn't have another explanation So i started looking for one because I couldn't keep doing this every single night it was exhausting I started with tracking her wake windows first I tracked everything on Huckleberry. And then I started trying to space out her naps two hours between then 2 hours and a half then 3. I even tried an earlier bedtime because maybe I was putting her down to late And then I tried a later bedtime because maybe she just wasn’t tired but none of that worked So then I tried a heating pad in the crib so it wasn't cold when I transferred her because if it wasn’t hunger than she must’ve been cold but that didn’t work either so I tried something else A lavender sleep balm because I'd read lavender helped babies stay calm at night but that didn’t work either and I was so confused like how come nothing was working? So after ALL THAT I tried letting her cry it out one night to see if she would settle herself back down the way she did at 7:30. But that was the worst one yet she literally screamed until i came in and nursed her. And after that I was starting to get concerned because if nothing I tried ever worked apart from nursing maybe there was something medical going on that I had no idea about So I took her to the pediatrician and told her the whole story How Lucy goes down awake every night no problem But wakes every 90 minutes and only feeds for two or three minutes and passes back out. And how wake windows didn't stop it. nothing I've tried has fixed it and I don't understand why. She told me some babies are just lighter sleepers. Said it was developmentally normal and to keep doing what I was doing. I walked out with nothing not a direction. Not a next step. Just keep doing what you're doing. The weeks after that were the hardest. Because I had officially run out of things to try. And the exhaustion at this point was just too much And there was one night she woke up for the fourth time and I went in and I was so far past tired that I didn't even feel like myself anymore. I picked her up and I looked at her and before I even knew I was thinking it I whispered it. I hate you. The guilt hit so fast after the words left my mouth Because she was only four months old and it’s not like she was doing anything wrong. She had no idea what she was putting me through. And I was standing there in the dark telling her I hated her. I didn't tell anyone. Not my husband. Not my mom. Nobody because how could I? How could I tell anyone that I was starting to resent my baby So I just kept going feeding her constantly back to sleep every 90 minutes every single night I was honestly reaching my breaking point because I had tried everything and nothing worked for Lucy and the exhaustion was really catching up to me So as my last option I decided to post in a Facebook group hoping someone could relate to me just so I felt less alone . And I was so exhausted I don’t even remember what I wrote Something about how Lucy goes down awake at bedtime but wakes up every hour and a half all night. And how I was feeding her every time because nothing else worked but the feeds were so short I knew she wasn't actually hungry. How I had tried everything I could think of and nothing made sense and I was so exhausted I was starting to have dark thoughts about my own baby. I'd bought enough things that stopped working after two weeks that I almost didn't post at all. But I did. I hit post and closed the app. I didn't expect anyone to respond. A few minutes later I got a DM from someone named Jennifer. That's when everything changed. "I know exactly what you're going through. 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. 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. 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 cycle about 90 minutes 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. 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. 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 again. Breathing feels off again. Body tenses again. Awake again." Oh my God. That's exactly what happens. Every single time. "I know. I went through the same thing. But here's the thing. There are two parts to fixing it and most people only ever 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 nobody talks about. Is keeping the airways open so breathing stays smooth during those light sleep phases." That's why the lavender balm didn't work. "Exactly. Lavender calms them down enough to fall asleep. But it doesn't touch the airway resistance that wakes them up 90 minutes later. You were only solving half the problem." How do you fix the other half. "Fir needle. It helps open airways. Clears mucus. Makes breathing feel easier. Like eucalyptus for adults when you're stuffed up but gentle enough for babies.” “And when you combine it with lavender you're addressing both parts. One calms the nervous system so they fall asleep. One keeps the airways clear so they stay asleep." I had never heard of fir needle for sleep. "Most people haven't. And I want to say something about the massage because I thought the same thing at first. I'd been doing a little massage with a regular lotion every night for weeks before I tried this. Same routine. Same hands. Nothing changed. It wasn't the massage. It was what was in the cream." "I found this organic cream called Slumberlee. It has both lavender and fir needle with jojoba and olive oil as the base. I researched every single ingredient before I put it on my daughter. No synthetics. No fillers. Safely diluted for babies from three months. I rubbed it on her chest and feet before bed and within three days she was sleeping six hour stretches. After a week she was sleeping through the night." I didn't want to get my hopes up. I had tried so many things that stopped working. I had a drawer full of products that did nothing. But I couldn't stop thinking about what she said. Because it was the first explanation that actually made sense of everything. Why the lavender didn't work. Why the feeds were short. Why she could fall asleep at bedtime but couldn't stay asleep. Why nothing I tried touched it. It wasn't behavioral. Her body already knew how to sleep. It was something physical. Something nobody had told me to look for. I asked Jennifer for the link and ordered it that night. It arrived two days later. That first night I rubbed a little on Lucy’s chest and feet before bed. Same routine as always. She went down at 7:30 like normal. 9pm came and went. Still asleep. 11pm. Still asleep. I woke up at midnight in a panic because I hadn't heard her. Grabbed my phone to check the monitor. Still asleep. 1:30am. Still asleep. She didn't wake up until 4:30am. Seven hours. Seven hours in a row. I didn't want to get my hopes up. One good night didn't mean anything. Could've been a fluke. Could've been a growth spurt ending. Could've been anything. The second night she slept from 7:30 to 3am. Five and a half hours. The third night she woke up once around midnight but I didn't even have to go in. I heard her fuss for maybe two minutes on the monitor then silence. She put herself back to sleep. By the end of the first week she was consistently sleeping six to eight hour stretches. By the end of the second week she slept through the night four times. I kept waiting for it to stop working. For her to go back to waking every hour. For this to turn out to be another thing that worked for two weeks and then didn't. But it wasn't. And the thing that got me. The thing that made me want to cry every time I thought about it. Was that she was still going down the exact same way at bedtime. Awake in the crib. No feeding. No rocking. Falling asleep on her own in ten minutes. That part never changed. What changed was that she was staying asleep. She was making it through those light sleep phases without waking up. Transitioning from one cycle to the next like her body finally figured out how to do it smoothly. Or maybe her body always knew how. Maybe I'd just been missing the one thing that was keeping her stuck. And the whole time it wasn't about hunger. It wasn't about sleep training or independence or breaking habits. It was about making it physically easier for her body to stay asleep through the night. I'm not saying this will work for every baby. I don't know if every baby wakes up for the same reason Lucy did. But if your baby can fall asleep on her own but won't stay asleep. If you're feeding her every time she wakes up because that's the only thing that works and you don't know why. If you've tried the wake windows and the schedules and the sleep aids and nothing has touched it and nobody has given you a real answer. Maybe it's the same thing I was missing. Maybe it's not about the feeding at all. Maybe it's about breathing. Thank you for reading. If you want to try what worked for me and Lucy I'll put the link to Slumberlee here. https://slumberlee.com/products/organic-sleep-cream-single