6 month old awake for hours in the middle of the night - help!

[SuseB]

Hi there. My six-month old daughter goes to sleep well at around 6.45-7pm and sleeps fairly soundly until around 2am. Thereafter she's constantly up and down, won't settle at all (you settle her, she sleeps for 10 or 20 mins then is awake again and crying). Often she's up and unsettled for the best part of two hours before going back to sleep. I've tried everything I can think of - feeding, or not, seems to make no difference, rocking and singing doesn't settle her, nor does coming in bed with me. She's not happy to be awake either - can't leave her gurgling to herself - she's crying and flailing her arms around. Just wondered if anyone had any advice about this. Sometimes I wonder if she's properly awake when she's doing this - or at least, she's not properly awake at the start but wakes herself up fully eventually. Anyone dealt with a similar problem? As I said, she goes to sleep well in the early part of the night, and her daytime naps are good-ish - 1.5hrs in the morning and another good nap in the afternoon - but being awake at that time in the morning to see to her is turning me into a zombie! Any help much appreciated.

[AlbertaWildRose]

No sleep is the worst, isn't it? My 7.5 month old DS was doing this a little while ago and it turned out to be teething- he got 5 teeth in about 6 weeks and was not at all happy at night during this period. Now that they have come through he's back to his old self, thank goodness! We found that Calpol helped a little bit. Don't know if that's what's happening for your DD, but it's a possibility. Good luck.

[annmarieandlily]

Just thought I'd add a message to bump you up. Can't offer any advice I'm afraid as my 6 month old dd has just started doing exactly the same thing - WIDE awake in the middle of the night.

Can't see any sign of teeth, am pinning my hopes on the famous 'growth spurt' and hope she will stop it in a few days.

How are things since you posted the original message?