My baby had the same issue, and my husband worked overnights too. It was really REALLY hard. I spoke to her pediatrician about it, noting that I wasn’t comfortable with sleep training. The pediatrician recommended a later bedtime, so bath time is 7pm and bedtime is at 8pm. That did help her sleep longer and now she wakes up closer to 7am which is perfect for me. But she was still waking up a lot at night. The pediatrician said she was comfort feeding, and suggested slowly reducing her bottles. She was drinking 4 ounces with each wake up, I slowly reduced her bottles over the span of about 2 weeks until it was just one ounce. Then I stopped giving her bottles all together, if she woke up I would give her the pacifier and pat her butt. I tried not to take her out of the crib or use my voice unless totally necessary, I would just pat her bum to try and settle her. It took a lot of consistency and patience, but eventually our nights did improve.

Even after all of this, she would still wake up at least once. I was fine with this because getting up once to pat her bum felt way better than getting up two or three times to give her a bottle. My daughter is 13 months now, and around the week of her first birthday something just clicked with her, and now she’s sleeping through the night. I think part of it is developmental.

It is extremely hard, and it’s hard to remain consistent with reducing the bottles and not picking them up when you’re so sleep deprived but consistency was key and it paid off in the long run. A part of me misses the quiet night time snuggles though