Our 5-month-old wakes up four to six times a night. Sometimes he's not even hungry -- he just wants us to comfort him. How can we get him to sleep through the night?

It appears your child is using you to sooth himself to sleep. self soothing is encouraged through 1) Establish a consistent bedtime routine. Preparation for bedtime eg- bath, massage, stories helps to set the tone & mood for sleep. Avoid stimulating or exciting or noisy activities before child's bedtime 2) Avoid responding immediately to the baby's movement, sounds or even cries. Techniques include extinction i.e putting the child to bed and systematically ignoring the child till a set time the next morning; graduated extinction I.e waiting progressively longer periods of time, usually in 5min increments before checking on child & avoiding picking up the child; Fading of adult intervention i.e this is a proactive plan with gradual withdrawal of parental intervention in steps 3) Avoid night time feeds, after the baby turns 6 months. Night feeding can become a learned behaviour which can lead to night waking 4) Avoid rocking & patting baby till he fall asleep. They will propagate his dependence on parental intervention