Looking for some advice on my 6month old DS sleeping habits. He's always been a bad sleeper, and now wakes up 6-10 times a night. I wrote down the times he woke last night and he only had 6.5hours sleep over 11 hours. And last night was a typical night.
We are trying to nail down a better daytime and night time routine. During the day, I try to ensure he has 3 naps of a decent length. He usually manages 2-3hours over the course of the day. It takes ages to get to this point though as my HV has suggested putting him to sleep in his cot drowsy but awake so it takes several attempts for this to be successful.
He's EBF and after speaking to my HV about his lack of sleep she suggested I feed less overnight and try to get him to sleep rocking him instead to avoid the associations. So now I've gone down from feeding every time he woke up to 3 times a night and now twice a night. When I fed him to sleep he would fall asleep within 20 Mins, but now can take up to a couple of hours a time. The longest stretch of sleep he can manage is 2.5hours at the start of the night. After this, he struggles with staying asleep after each sleep cycle so will wake up after 45 mins.
I'm at the end of my tether, I'm knackered and I dread to think how tired my DS must feel. I'm worried about the lack of sleep he's getting after reading that babies should have around 14 hours a day at his age.
Any advice? Please tell me this gets easier.
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6 month old sleep issues
Coffeelover56 · 24/08/2016 09:33
Sorry to hear you're having a rough time.
I found at 6 months ds was ready to drop to 2 naps. He was fighting sleep and the simple reason was he wasn't tired.
He wakes at around 6.4am5 and he goes back to sleep at 9.30. He then has his second nap at 2.30pm.
Bedtime is at 7.30.
I was so obsessed with him being overtired and a shit sleeper, but actually what was happening was that he just wasn't tired! I would spend 40 mins getting him to nap only for him to wake 15 mins later.
I can honestly say that leaving a bigger gap between naps has changed everything for us.
He now will go to sleep at 9.30am (won't self settle but he has a feed and falls asleep straight after, can then put him down in cot). He naps for 1.5-2 hours.
Wakes at approx 11am (although today he is still asleep now at 11.20) and then goes back to bed at 2.30pm for 1 hour.
Bedtime is then at 7.30. So between all sleep there is 3/4 hours approx.
He is now sleeping for 11 hours straight at night
He is 7.5 months and I've had so many threads on here as he was the worst sleeper from 3 - 6.5 months. I was at the end of my tether and felt very depressed.
Cracking daytime sleep has helped massively with nighttime.
He doesn't self settle to go to sleep! He is fed and then held but only held for 1-2 mins as he is always asleep by then. He stirs throughout the night and naps (watching him on video monitor as we speak) but he is now able to get comfy and dose back off himself, something he could previously never do. I think self settling is a developmental thing like crawling and walking and they'll do it when they're ready
I'm aware things could revert back at any time for me but I wanted to share my experience.
Hope this helps 
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