6 month old's sleep- at the end of my tether

[Nuttypops]

DS is 6.5 months (DC2, DD is 2 years old), and has been ebf although we have recently started weaning which he has taken to with gusto, and at the same time he has started taking a bottle finally. He doesn't have a dummy and refuses one despite repeated attempts.

We have got ourselves in a bit of a mess with his sleep from about 3 months. Without going into all of it, because I will go on forever if I do, he wakes 45 mins into night sleep most nights, we have had to co-sleep to get any sleep really and his naps are on the move or in bed with me, rarely in the cot because he won't settle there (similiar after night feeds hence why we ended up co-sleeping).

He is overtired and I have no patience left, so we need to try and do something about this. I have had enough of co-sleeping. I can deal with it sometimes but not all night. He can self settle but it is a rare occurrence.
I am not expecting him to sleep through at this age. Fully aware he isn't ready for that. But DH is about to go away with work for 3 months, we have no family nearby to help and I know I can't carry on with this routine.

So, with that, any recommendations on where to begin please? I don't want to try CC or CIO at this stage, but need to start somewhere. We struggle with a consistent routine during the day because DD is at nursery 9-12 2 mornings a week, and 9-3 another day so naps are often in the car.

I am waffling, sorry, enough of that. At this age DD was on 3 days a day, 9-10.30, 12.30-2.00 and 4.00-4.30, bed at 7. I am not too sure what on earth I have done with DS!

[40andFat]

Start from scratch 7am( wake if you have too) Bf or bottle with a rusk or porridge. Should have a nap when you do the nursery drop off.
11ish some solids and another feed naps can be anywhere between 2-3 hours from waking up from the last one. A BF or bottle between 2.30-3.30 and then solids at 5 with a drink and a big bottle before bed at 7pm. If you want can also do a dream feed about 10.30pm should then be able to sleep through till 7am.
My DD is 6.5 months she has this routine her naps are all over the place sometimes in the car sometimes in her bouncer but she always sleeps at night

[Cheesenacho123]

I agree with 40! We've been doing that same routine for a month (DS is 7months) except we don't allow any naps after 3/4pm as it disturbs our son's timing for bed unless 5/10 min in the car. Our son still wakes a little after going down for sleep but after an hour he's fast asleep. No dummy, not co slept since about 4 months old but that was usually down to his injections. My son sucks his thumb to self settle and has slept through the night since he went into his own room at 5 months because I found we disturbed him a lot. I hear of parents having trouble with babies sleep and a lot of them use a sleep specialist (may be worth looking into)

[kingfishergreen]

DD is 8 months old, her routine is absolutely NOT perfect, but it kinda works reasonably well:

7am wake up
7:15am weetabix and banana (made with formula)
8:00am the rest of the formula used to make weetabix (usually 240ml in total)
9am nap - 30 mins
11am - 240ml milk
Noon - solid meal (she doesn't usually eat much of it, but will munch a breadstick)
12:30 - nap between 30 minutes and 1.5 hours, there is no rhyme or reason to how long this nap lasts
3:30pm - 240ml milk
4pm - usually a nap (30 mins)
5pm - solid meal (again, rarely eats much, just a nibble here and there unless it includes bread or strawberries in which case she'll eat it all)
6:30pm - bath
7pm - 240ml milk
7:30pm bed

She isn't a massive eater (wolfs down weetabix, bread products and strawberries, squishes and plays with most other food) so if she hasn't eaten much during the day we sometimes go for a 11pm dream feed.

She's a monster to get to sleep, she really fights it (we stay with her, or close by, she isn't left to cry), which is fucking boring tiring, but once she's asleep at night she sleeps well.

Unless we're out, all naps and bedtime is in her cot, we have to be quite firm with it (she'd drop-off much quicker in our bed) so we just wait it out, patting and susssshing until she has no choice but to sleep. On a good night it takes five minutes, it has take over 1.5 hours on occasion.

If she wakes in the night we try to settle her in her cot. DH and I have a deal that if it's after 4am and she doesn't settle for more than 20 minutes we bring her into our bed. That last three hours of sleep is so crucial to Getting Shit Done that it's worth the inconvenience of cosleeping.

[Nuttypops]

Thanks all, useful to see timings of what works. They are similiar to what we had with DD so that is a good pointer to what we need to get to.

The one difficulty with bed at 7pm is that I also have DD, aged 2, to put to bed and if she goes to bed at 7, she is up at 5am which I have no desire to start, so 8pm is a necessity for us. If I could get DS down quickly before that, I would, but it usually takes between 30-90 mins to get him down so I can't leave DD that long. He does wake at 7, and naps are around 9, 1 and 4 but hit and miss.

I guess I am wondering how you transition a co-sleeping baby who is used to feeding quite a lot at night, to sleeping more solid chunks in a cot. Just perseverance probably.

[Nuttypops]

Sorry, that sounded rather defeatist and not actually taking account of your very useful replies. It was a long night with DS, (asleep at 8 after an hour of feeding and shh, pat, awake at 8.30, still awake at 10 and screaming for most of that because we were trying to resettle him in the cot, then up every hour or so in our bed.), no excuse but didn't start the day too happily.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I will come back and read them all through fully once it is a bit more peaceful here, but just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to share all of that info.

[notmyrealnameyo]

Oh Nuttypops your response was fine - I felt validated offering my shitty 'it kinda maybe works for us sometimes' advice 😊 the truth is that nothing REALLY works, for us it's just finding the 'routine' (a term that I use loosely) that means she doesn't get too upset and we get some semblance of rest.

I've found repeating (as soothingly as I can muster) "don't worry I'm not going to leave until you're fully asleep" out loud when I'm putting DD to bed helpful, partly because it's managing my own expectations that yes, I'm going to be sat here however long it takes. I realise with two kids you don't get that luxury. Is it a horrific idea to try them in the same room and doing bedtime together?

I know that you know that this will pass in a blink of an eye. But it doesn't make it much easier. And there is an uncommon fury in watching a baby that you know is tired, whose eyes are rolling and eyelids drooping fight the sleep that you all need so much for fucking hours.

Even 'good' sleepers have bad nights. DD went through a phase a while ago of waking every 45 minutes day and night, for literally no reason. And you know how whatever is going on right now feels like the 'new normal' we thought that was it, she'd never sleep again. It passed in about a week, it was at the same time as we first tried to migrate her into her own room, so we brought her back in with us for that week and tried again a week later which worked much better.

[notmyrealnameyo]

Well that was a name change fail. I'm usually Kingfishergreen.

[FATEdestiny]

I am wondering how you transition a co-sleeping baby who is used to feeding quite a lot at night

Baby is used to getting calories at night. So the first task needs to be changing this and moving baby's calorie intake so that it is all taken during the day.

You can't realistically work on making a hungry baby want to go to sleep. And if baby is used to having milk in the night, be that needed or not, baby's natural body rhythms will be telling her she is hungry.

So first tackle night weaning. Either gradually or cold Turkey, depending on your oatenting style. If she takes a bottle you could move night feeds to formula and start reducing the number of oz offered each feed. Or the length of time you breastfeed for. Or how frequently.

While doing this, start to introduce other ways to get baby to go to sleep. This is going to need you help, so expect it to be hand-on soothing.

But as I said, the aim at this stage is not sleep, the priority is not feeding / night weaning. You cannot expect to begin developing better sleep habits until baby is no longer wanting calories in the night. So set your expectations to still expect broken nights - more So than now in fact.

But.... but you can have an end-goal in sight. Once night weaned, then focus on developing in-cot and independant sleep associations.

[40andFat]

I have a 4 yr old with an 8pm bedtime too but my partner is around so we take turns however when he was away once I took DS I with me at 7 and did their bedtime routine together.
So DD in cot awake and I use one of those dream boxes which project lights and music and a dummy, we then did teeth book etc with DS 4 while she was settling. Had to go back in a couple of times for a head stroke, dummy back in but about 7.20 she was asleep. I then stayed in DS bedroom we chatted sang played until his 8pm bedtime then he was happy for me to leave. If it takes even 90 minutes to settle that's still only 8.30pm and your daughter may have drifted off anyway but 30 minutes won't hurt.
It isn't easy please do t think I'm saying it is I have a 15yr old who is a terrible sleeper always has been I coslept with him, let him fall to sleep on the settee then carried him to bed everything really you shouldn't and I feel it really has caused him some difficulties as he doesn't sleep properly even now.
It will be about the food and self settling but if you try the routines suggested and he has enough milk/solids in the day you could just then offer water if he wakes and he may think it's not worth the bother

[Nuttypops]

FATE, I think you are very right there. I think much of this has got to the stage we are at because he feeds so much at night, so despite no longer feeding to sleep and trying to settle the first wake of the night without a feed, he then feeds every hour or so after that, whether it be 10pm on a bad night, or 3am on a good night.

I think attempting to move to formula at certain points for night feeds is the way to go for us. Partially because DH has another 2 weeks at home and he can help with that. He is far more patient than me and when I stopped feeding DD at night at 8 months, she was sleeping through within 3 days once she decided formula and Daddy wasn't worth waking for. Not expecting the same here as DS is much more focused on Breastfeeding and rarely settles in his cot after a night feed unlike DD. Thanks, I will chat to DH and work on a plan for this and get started.

Notmyrealname, thanks, you made me feel a whole lot better this morning! I am rubbish at this no sleep thing and get far too over emotional. I appreciate your reply.

40, that's a really helpful suggestion about bedtime with 2. At this stage, DH and I can divide and manage them but once he goes away in a few weeks, if we can hopefully make a difference to the night feeds in the interim, then I think that can be made to work for us.

Thank you all!

[Missushb]

Thanks for the thread op, I'm in a similar sleep deprived boat myself. I thought my 5 month old was feeding too much in the night (bottle fed) but she's not as interested in her bottle at the moment, wind is a problem though. For those with the starting at 7 routine which worked; did you swaddle at night? I've still been swaddling dd but the swaddle sheet is a bit small now. Bigger sheet or is there another way to swaddle?

[FATEdestiny]

Missushb a tightly tucked in sheet might work to transition out of a swaddle.

We used a cot sheet across ways in the cot, to it wraps all the way under the cot mattress both sides. We tucked the sheet in really tightly over the top of baby in the sleeping bag initially. Then made it looser over time.

[40andFat]

I started loosening the swaddle at 3 months whilst she was still in the Moses basket bit by bit till she didn't need it anymore. Then had her in a sleeping bag inside the Moses basket with the basket inside her big cot then into the cot with just the bag.

[Nuttypops]

Misushb, I hope it helps and you all start to get more sleep.

We stopped swaddling both DD and DS at about 10 weeks. DS was happily sleeping 10 hours straight by then so I naively hoped we had lucked out with a naturally easy sleeper. It was lovely whilst it lasted though . Hopefully weaning off the swaddle will help.


The last 2 nights I have fed DS twice, still sticking with bed at 8 in his cot, then fed around 12 and 4, up for the day around 7. He has been happy enough with the feeds, and settled inbetween relatively easily but only in our bed or he wakes every 45 mins or so. The need to be physically touching one of us seems to be a bjg part of this.

[Nuttypops]

Just as an update to say thanks-

Huge improvement over the last week. Last night, DS went to sleep in his cot at 8, very little tears, with me sitting beside him. He then woke at 12.30, and 3.30 to be fed, and was up at 6.30 for the day. No other wake ups, and he easily settled back in his cot after his feeds.

We are getting there with naps in his cot, although they do need to be longer to avoid overtiredness. But it feels like a huge improvement.

Thanks for all of your input!