To still be finding my nearly 6 month old incredibly hard work?

[OctopusLimbs]

After my daughter was born everyone was saying "the first 6 weeks are so hard but it gets easier", then it became "oh it all slots into place around 3 months", now it's " it becomes so much better at 6 months". But Unless we have a very quick change, I can't see 6 months being the turning point.

She cried a lot as a newborn, this seemed to improve a lot a couple of months back but recently she seems to be really cranky and grizzles a lot or cries for no obvious reason. She is particularly grumpy after 4pm. We do get smiles and times she seems happy, but it never seems to last. I introduced another nap in case it was tiredness but since doing that she just seems to be awake half the night (and she wasn't sleeping great at night before anyway). She will wake up around 1am and just not go back to sleep for hours. And then if she is in a bad mood the next day it is so much harder to deal with it if I am exhausted. She is asleep on me now and I don't have the heart to wake her up as she is obviously tired and full of cold but I know I will regret this late nap tonight. I just feel like I am really getting it all wrong but I don't know how to make it better. She has also had 3 colds back to back which doesn't help.

She hates slings (I have tried 4) so often I just end up carrying her around on my hip which is really hurting my back, and even this doesn't always improve her mood.

My husband is really supportive and I only have one baby so I feel ridiculous to be coping so badly. I love her, but I feel like I am struggling to bond and like I'm letting her down somehow. I really felt like things were improving before, but now they seem harder than ever.

Yanbu.

Everyone says it gets easier 2weeks/ 6weeks/ 6 months 2 years etc. And those milestones go and you feel shit and like a failure when it isn't better.

Truth be told, it got easier when I went back to work but I still find it really hard when I'm with him.

Thank you everyone for being so kind. It is reassuring to know other people have been there. The other babies I meet always seem so chilled out, but as my husband always points out people with easy going babies are more likely to be out and about. There's probably plenty of people with difficult babies sat on the sofa in their PJs crying.

Those of you with poor sleepers did you do anything to"fix" it, or did it just improve gradually? I go through stages of thinking she naps too little, stages of thinking she naps top much - I just feel so confused. I don't know if I should be continuing to muddle along and hope it gets better, or if by not trying to sort it out I'm setting myself up for it getting worse and worse.

I do have the Wander Weeks app and apparently she is just finishing her 5th leap, but I'm trying not to think things might improve after that - I think I would be just setting myself up for disappointment.

There is a thread over on the Sleep topic at the moment discussing 6 month old sleep problems, OP. Might help.

As a nanny of 30+ years, sleep consulatant to over 150 babies and children, mostly multiples, in a firm believer of sleep breeds sleep, the more they have the more they need.

In my experience routine is key, the baby learns sleep cues from regular routine. My routine is 7am-7pm however you can shift the time to suit your needs but until routine is established you need to be pretty strict. My 18 week old niece is doing 7:30-7:30 sleeping 12 hours at night and around 4 hours in the day. She'd have been sleeping through at 12 weeks had my stubborn brother not thought he knew better!!

Ironically my DS never cried or fussed when we were out - I don't think my nct group believed what a horror he was at home because he was the only one who never cried when we met up!

This is now 5 years old but if I could write a post to describe how I was feeling.. this would be it
@OctopusLimbs did it get better? Hope you're well.

@BrokenElectrics me too! This is second dd and such a different baby fron first.
I have to carry her constantly, can't even sit still as she gets cranky quickly, she hates the sling. Seems frustrated a lot. She's almost 6 months and has been rolling for a month so I put her down and she rolls then gets frustrated/stuck within 30 seconds. Can't get anything done. My mum said I was like this and it got better when I could crawl so am really hoping uts the same. I'm so exhausted. Naps are around 30 mins only unless in pram.
My now 4 year old was a much easier baby but has been a demanding toddler so hoping this time it'll be other way around and getting the had bit done first.

@BrokenElectrics This is a blast from the past! This was such a difficult time, and I'm so sorry you are going through it to.

I can't give a particular time it got easier, but it definitely did! When she was about 9 months I accepted I did have PND and got some support with that, which helped my general wellbeing. And when I went back to work 3 days a week at 11 months and she started nursery it was incredibly difficult at first, but once we settled into a routine having that time to myself (even if it was working!) made a huge difference. We did some sleep training at about 14 months which was life changing! And I remember a point when she was about 14 months and my husband had gone away for the weekend, so we'd had a couple of days just us and thinking wow, we've actually had a really nice time together. So it must have been much better by then, although I think she was still prone to being tearful at times.

Even as a five year old I would say she still feels her emotions very strongly. When she is happy she is so, so, so happy but if something upsets her she can get very emotional and overwhelmed. But she is generally a delight - very caring, bright and inquisitive.

I have a nearly two year old as well and despite being born in the middle of the first lockdown everything was so much easier when he was a baby. He was much more chilled and I didn't get PND. He is a toddler now though and gorgeous but so defiant, so toddler years for him have been more of a challenge.

Reading this thread back it looks like a lot of people said to me at the time "oh parenting is always hard" which is true to an extent, but nothing has ever compared to the toughness of that first year with my first.

Good luck, I hope things start to improve for you soon. I promise one day this will be a distant memory, but I realise this probably doesn't help now. If you think you might have PND though, please do have a chat with your GP.