Baby waking 45 mins after being put down

[ohbuoy]

6 month old wakes 45 mins after being fed to sleep. So I go back and feed him and he drifts off to sleep then wakes after another 45 mins. And repeat. Until I decide to sack it off and just get into bed ( we co sleep).

I am really losing the plot here as it’s my only chance to have a bit of time to myself and spend with DH ( usually cleaning) each day.

What am I doing wrong? My first would just go to sleep for a chunk of time.

Thanks

One of my babies would do the same - it was almost funny to time it after a while. I heard that sleep cycles are 45 minutes so maybe that's why.. I'm guessing he wakes after a sleep cycle has finished and can't settle back off on his own without you or a feed. Maybe some of the mumsnet threads on self soothing could help? Hugs to you tho - it can be so frustrating when you don't get much time for yourself 😘 xoxo

They have 45min sleep cycles - baby is waking and not being able to self settle, hence needing you. (No judgement, mine is the same!!). The only thing that I have found helpful is going in there the second I see her stirring, and patting/ssshing her through into the next cycle. In the last few weeks, she has started sending herself back off, which is bliss!

When your baby falls asleep you are there... After 45 it wakes up and you aren't!! Harder to resettle without the same scenario.. Bf, sleep wake. Bf, sleep, wake.
Dr showed me sleep patterns and explained why putting down awake - even a bit - tells baby it's in the cot.. And when it stirs knows it's in the cot and go back to sleep without fully waking..

My 6 month old is exactly the same. We had a day last week where she woke every 5-10 minutes, so I'm feeling okay about the 45 minutes at the moment.
She wakes a lot during the night too, every hour on a bad night, every 3 hours if I'm lucky. Hearing about babies who sleep 10-12 hours is soul destroying
I have to rock or feed her to sleep, I've tried putting her down drowsy but she will just cry and it escalates quickly to hysterical then it takes ages to calm her down.

All mine did this! They grow out of it eventually although it's so frustrating isn't it??

Mins does this too. I think it’s because they haven’t learnt how to link the sleep cycles yet. It will come with time (I hope!)

Thanks for your advice everyone.

I figured it was to do with linking sleep cycles. But how do you teach them to do it??

You make sure your baby is always awake when you put her/him to bed. They need to learn how to self soothe.

If you feed to sleep you will always have this problem.

A bottle at bedtime is your friend here.

My dd always did this at bedtime if we'd let her get overtired or missed a nap. How is the nap routine?

Try reordering the sequence of the bedtime routine OP.

So if it’s currently bath, story then feed (to sleep), try feed, bath, story, into cot whilst awake but sleepy. Replace the feed-to-sleep association with a different routine (music, white noise, lullaby light can all help). You may have to do some gentle sleep training (not cry it out but sitting by the cot shushing and reassuring) and just gently work towards breaking that feed to sleep association. It may take a while. But once they can fall asleep on their own, they can then learn to resettle on their own when they come out of that initial 45 minute sleep cycle.

If they cannot self settle then they cannot resettle; it’s that simple.

I do sympathise as I made the same mistake with DS1 and fed to sleep for far too long. Learned the lesson with DS2 and 3 who were all self settling by 3 months. It is doable but you need patience and tenacity and the older the baby the longer it will take unfortunately.

@FlyingPandas I will try this tomorrow. Thank you. I'll let you know how I get on!

@GreenWillow yes we did this with DS1 and it did work a treat actually. I just cba to express with 2 of them now but maybe I just need to bite the bullet. Thank you

@Hohofortherobbers

He had between 3-4 per day as he's up so bloody early. He has about 2-2.5 hours between last nap wake up time and bed time as he can't manage much longer than that.

Ps DS1 is obsessed with cops and robbers at the mo so love the username.

You're doing nothing wrong. Totally normal.

Why not keep him downstairs with you and husband, he would be more likely to feel secure if he knows you are around and settle down with normal sounds in the living room. He's too little to be disturbing your evening if he's with you, but you are being disturbed if you have to go upstairs every time he wakes.

You can carry him up to bed, asleep, when you go.