To think its not normal for my 6 month old to wake up 8 times at night

[IndigoTea]

Hi,

My 6 month old DS has been waking up 8-10 times at night and I am knackered! Is this normal?

A bit if background, he is in medication for silent reflux, has suspected CMPA, and had been a very fussy baby since birth. Bedtime varies between 7pm and 10pm, and it's difficult to put him down to sleep unless he wants to! He is up between 7am and 9am depending on what time he went to sleep. Most of the time he wants a feed and occasionally patting. What am I doing wrong or what can I do to put a stop to it? We co-sleep btw. Thanks!

Oh dear, you have my sympathy. I have a 6 month old with reflux here. Do you co-sleep for bf? Is there any chance you're waking each other up?

Btw, I read a sleep thread yesterday where someone said expecting your child to sleep through before they are six years old is a pipe dream, so the responses you get may vary.

do you go to him straight away , or give him 10 minutes or so to try to self settle.
Also he does not need 8 or 10 feeds a night.If you are rewarding him like this every time he wakes, or course he will wake up!

DS was like this. Bascially from 4 months til 12 months he was up several times a night, the worst being from 6 months til 10 months, when he woke 6-8 times every single night.

The reasons? (with hindsight) :

1. Reflux - finally found meds which worked aged 12 months, instant improvement (well, took a couple of weeks to reduce the wakeups to once or twice but I wasn't complaining)

2. at 6 months he could barely roll and at 10 months he walked. So in that time he learnt to roll, sit up, commando crawl, crawl, stand up and walk. I think his brain was on overload so he couldn't relax at night.

I started co-sleeping at 8 months when I couldn't cope anymore and I'd just watch him roll around the mattress/sit up/try to crawl all in his sleep. He slept better in our king sized bed (without DH) and he had more space to move in his sleep so didn't wake up hitting bars/us.

He is now 2 and wakes once or twice a night at most and sometimes sleeps through. Still co-sleeping though.

Good luck, I know how exhausting it is.

Ok just read that you co sleep.I co-slept with mine and had this problem with my youngest , except it dragged on until 2.5 years old!
In the end I had to move out to my DPs for a couple of nights and go completely cold turkey with the BF. DH and DD had 2 very hard distressing nights with her desperate for me and breastfeeding.t.But it worked.
AS your child is younger it will probably not be necessary to move out, but as long as you and he are in the same bed and you are BF I don't think the situation is going to get any better.

He doesn't need feeding, but he does need sleep! I do sympathise, my DS has reflux and cmpi, which got him into some very bad sleep habits. Is your dc on solids? If he is feeding well during the day and you have got the right treatment for his reflux etc he should sleep well at night. Fwiw gaviscon and Neocate worked for us.
I would also suggest putting him in his own room as at 6mo, my DS saw co sleeping as party time and refused to settle! No need to go in for every squeak, give him a minute or 2 to settle himself. I am not a fan of CC or CIO but you do need to let babies learn to sleep through from one sleep cycle to another. Good luck!

All humans come to a light sleep several times a night. with babies, if there us a "pay off" eg a feed they will wake properly each time. Probably you need to cut down on feeding at night- at this age he probably doesn't need to.
Reflux is tough though- been there- but they do grow out of it.
ds didn't sleep until 8 months, when he realised he could roll.onto his tum!(front sleeping is, unfortunately, more comfy for reflux babies).

I'd start deciding on a wake up time e.g. 7am. I'd stay up longer at night if I had a long lie that day. It might break the cycle. Is he feeding lots during the day? He may be comfort sucking? My 6monther had a week of looking for the dummy 8 times + a night & couldn't self settle. Does he go back to sleep after? He's maybe needing the boob to settle again?

as this an aibu, sadly and i say this to be reassuring yabu as at this age and with potential medical problems there are so many types of 'normal'
i think your first step needs to be to rule out any medical reasons for his waking, go back to gp and find one who understands bf, and make sure that the reflux is under control. i would probably also contact la leche league, or similar and disuss with bf counsellor, as they will probably have good ideas on improving feeding in baby with reflux,
then i would read no cry sleep solution as the author is keen co sleeper and has great advice which you can use the bits which apply to you, i think the key for us on improving night time sleep was getting day time naps sorted.
lastly i think you can keep in mind that there is a lot going on in the world of a six month old, food is new, they are probably thinking about crawling, they know they want to be mobile but aren't yet physically up to it. think what i am trying to say is try to be patient, which i know from similar experience when you are exhausted is very difficult. my sanity was maintained by getting out to groups to entertain ds and having my wonderful mum come once a week to help look after ds whilst i caught up on housework, sleep etc.

Normal for him but doesn't mean you can't try to improve things. I sure would.

Hang in there, look after yourself too.

Thanks everyone! I'm going to take him to GP to make sure nothing is wrong and will try to get baby to use a dummy too. I think the problem may be a combination of things, like being disturbed and being hungry and windy too possibly. I need to try a few things and see if it helps

We co-slept to 13mths, when DS got his own single bed,nwhich he could get in and out of but has tended to stay in. He woke several times a night and at 23mths seems to have just started sleeping through. I know this seems forever away to you right now, but it really has flown in my sleep-deprived delusional opinion.

My ds woke 6-9 times through the night from 4.5 months until about 7 months. I think he was going through a developmental leap/growth spurt. He's 8 months now and generally wakes twice. We don't co sleep but his cot is in our room.

DS1's sleep went haywire from about 5m to 12m when milk, egg and soya were removed from his diet. It's common to wake for feeds with CMPA as the feeding soothes digestive upset temporaily. The immune system being stressed can cause disruption to sleep. When his diet was changed, there was an immdediate improvement in his sleep.

I have a bf baby the same age with no medical issues and he is doing this. Only thing that has improved the situation the last two night is by giving him a bottle of formula at bedtime at 7 which pushes him through until around 11am/12 then iv started giving him another bottle.

I had got into a horrible cycle with him of hourly waking and bf while we coslept which was destroying my back so little sleep for me. I nearly sobbed down the phone to my mum when he slept for 4 hours.

dd2 had reflux and cmpa -she was exactly the same. I have read that babies with both of these do tend to feed far more frequently to ease the reflux. DD2 fed every 2 hours round the clock til she was 6 -7 months, and frequently through the night for several more months. We did co sleep, it was the only way I could cope. Can't remember where I read about the more frequent feeding (Try googling about reflux and cmpa, it may have been theads on here), but it was reassuring to know I wasn't the only one.

I only discovered it was cmpa with silent reflux after introducing her to dairy with solids,and seeing the connection between eating dairy and being sick.

I had the same situation as intitgrand. The bf and co-sleeping kept both of us awake and we didn't get a decent nights sleep until DS2 was weaned at gunpoint at 27 months. He woke every 45 minutes. It was hell and I would advise against co sleeping as a result of that experience.

My dd slept 12 hours a night at 6 months. Her brother was up every night anything from 3-30 times. The only time he settled was sleeping on dh. He finally slept through at 3 and a half.

Every child is different and comparing them doesn't help. Sleep deprivation is hideous but not much you can do.

have you tried no co sleeping?

dd1 woke constantly co sleeping so we didnt do it, she was in her own room early on, we constantly disturbed each other

dd2 has no issues where she sleeps