Is Baby Waking from Hunger or Habit? We’re all willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that our babies are properly nourished, obviously. But as anyone who’s been through this glorious journey of motherhood will tell you, kids are shrewd. They’re unimaginably clever. They will find ways to get what they want and they will repeat them relentlessly. Which is not their fault, obviously. They’re just working off instinct. They know what they like, and at a young age, they like mum. A lot. I’m talking all mum, all the time. You are to your baby what Pinterest is to middle-aged homeowners. Too much is never enough. And given the fact that they only have one method of communicating, if mum’s not around and they don’t think that’s cool, they fire up the lungs and they cry. However, they don’t only cry because they want mum. They cry because they’re uncomfortable, or because they’ve got a dirty nappy, or because they’re too hot or too cold, and they cry because they’re hungry. So when they wake up in the middle of the night and they start crying, it’s tough to determine whether it’s because they need to eat or because they just want to see mum back in the room. I’m not trying to tell you that you shouldn’t respond to your baby’s crying. You know your baby better than anyone and I imagine you can tell when something needs to be addressed based on decibel levels, intensity, pitch, and duration. But having said that, if your baby is waking up seven or eight times a night and insisting that you come in and rock her back to sleep, that can have a serious impact on everybody’s sleep, including hers.
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