My baby isn't sleeping

[onedayimightforget]

And she's miserable because of it.

She's 6 1/2 months and up until recently she was sleeping okay. Usually a stretch of 5 hours during the night and then awake every 2 or 3 hours for a feed. She'd have a feed and then go back to sleep. Generally she'd wake up around 7.30am. She also napped okayish. She would generally wake after 40-45 minutes in her cot but she'd go down fine.

Now, everything's changed. She will do about 4 hours at the beginning of the night but after that, each time she wakes up she's wide awake, kicking and squealing. She's not crying or unhappy, she just wants to play. I keep the lights off and don't speak to her, just try to soothe her back to sleep. She usually feeds to sleep (which I'm okay with) but recently in the night it doesn't settle her. DH can rock her back to sleep but the second he lays her down she wakes up. As for daytime naps, that's a complete mess. Yesterday she had less sleep than my toddler! She will settle with a feed but she wakes the second I put her in her cot, or even if I hold her the slightest thing wakes her up.

In the past 24 hours she's probably had around 8 hours sleep. She's clearly exhausted and miserable because of it. She has recently started rolling over, reaching for and holding things, she's almost sitting and she's not too far off crawling. There's also something else going on - her neck glands have been up for weeks, she's dribbling excessively and she's been fussy feeding. She's currently being treated fit oral thrush but I'm not convinced that's all that's going on and the doctor isn't sure that's what it is, she said it could be a viral throat infection - it was red but it's not now and she has no fever. Or she could be teething. It could be this that's unsettling her, whatever it is that's going on.

She's completely exhausted. She needs to sleep but it's just not happening and I don't know what to do to help her.

(Sorry this is long, thanks for reading if you got this far).