To expect a tired baby to sleep..

[northernsouljunket]

I’m hoping an experienced mother out there can help me with a sleep deprived baby.

He is 6months old.
He always slept relatively badly. At first it was ok, but by 3 months he started waking every 1/2 hrs. So we have ended up co-sleeping. He is EBF.

But I’m not trying to solve the whole of his sleep pattern. I’m just trying to remedy one thing.
We put him every night at 7pm to bed.
But every night he wakes loads over those first few hours. Between 7pm and 9pm he wakes every 15-40mins.
It doesn’t matter the number of naps during the day. I thought maybe if he was less or more tired it would affect it but it doesn’t. He has only gone down once in the last 3months and not woken repeatedly.
Our routine is always the same. Bath, sleep, cuddle and he falls asleep being cuddled.
We dont feed him when he wakes again over the next few hours. But he seems to just need a cuddle etc and then settles back.

I just don’t get what wakes him when he is tired. I thought once he understood that he won’t be fed it would stop happening but after two months it has made no difference.

Thank you for getting through this.
If anyone has any ideas or relates to this then i’d Be very grateful to hear from you. Thank you 👍🏽👍🏽🙌🏼😻

Oh and I know I am being unreasonable to expect a baby to sleep! I’m posting here for traffic. I hope that is ok. I’m just very desperate now and know this site is full of experienced parents.

No advice but I’m feeling the same! My 7 month old wakes as soon ass put down now and just screams. He used to sleep fine. Had a routine and in his own room no issues and suddenly he just won’t sleep even if he’s exhausted unless it’s up right on me

You need to start sleep training. To an extent let him cry it out don't always go running. He needs to learn to self soothe each time. It's tough but worth it long term.

Look up baby sleep debt. They can get so tired they can’t sleep. You have to put them down for naps a lot more than you think to help them catch up. Also move bed time way earlier. Xx

His sleep cycle is 40 mins. He falls asleep being cuddled so when he wakes up he is looking for that cuddle. You need to break that sleep association for him to be able to fall back to sleep on his own.

From what you've said it sounds like you need to try and break the cuddling to sleep, put him down very dozy but still awake (that old chestnut ) and see if he can learn to go over this way. Have you moved him into his own room/proper cot bed or still in yours? My son slept much better when he had more room to wiggle & without us disturbing him. Could also try introducing white noise in your routine in place of cuddling all the way to sleep and this may also help filter out some of the house noises as at this age they start to notice everything but can't switch off yet.

I am no expert mind! & There is every chance this is just one of those things that will eventually pass x

In my experience babies are fuckwits they don’t know what’s good for them.

DD2 screamed for hours today rather than just have a bloody nap 🙄

Ah, OP, it's really tough. Unfortunately you've got into the same habit I did and created a sleep association for your little boy i.e. he associates sleeping with being held. So when he wakes up he can't get himself back to sleep without being held. He needs to learn to self-settle. There are lots of ways to do that but I would really, really advise against cry it out or controlled crying. We got in a maternity nurse to help out with DD2 but that wasn't without crying either (DDs and mine!). Google 'gentle self-settling techniques' or have a look at Little Ones. It was the best programme I found and lots of useful advice to help baby to settle. Best of luck, OP.

Not for everyone but my LO slept better: once
in her own room, mixed feeding, and after six months I let her sleep on her belly. Like I say not for everyone but worked for us.

My son did that, didn’t properly sleep in the evening until about 10 months - no idea why. Second son slept fine in the evening from about 3 months - everything the same, breastfed on demand and co slept with them both, sorry that’s not helpful but it doesn’t last forever I promise

You don't need to sleep train if you don't want to, it just might take longer for babies sleep to be sorted. I couldn't do sleep training so just went with what my baby wanted. Took until about 9 months to get a bit of a routine.

Keeping him awake during the day won’t help.
Strangely when they are little sleep begets sleep. So the better naps he has the more likely he will be to sleep at night.

You can try not cuddling him to sleep, probably not a great habit to get into anyway as he gets older and bigger. Can you try shush pat? Somput him down awake and gently pat his back/tummy and shush at the same time. This worked for DD when she stopped feeding to sleep.

Also white noise helped DD, we used the sound sleep app on our iPad near her cot and that seemed to help her stay asleep for longer.

And I should add that the key is consistency. Once you've decided on a technique, stick with it. If you keep picking DS up again and again you'll undo your hard work. It is tough, but it's worth it.

Thank you so much for the immediate feedback.
We have tried and do use:

• white noise
• he is in his own room now.
• we have left him to cry for ten mins at a time. He just got incredibly distressed. I felt I had to go and comfort him. He then screamed every time he saw the cot for the next few days, he seemed quite distressed by it.
• I have tried putting him down awake but drowsy. It can take an hour of him staring into the darkness and then ten mins later he wails. We went though periods where we got better/quicker st drifting off but I saw no impact.
• I’ve played around with the temperature: I know babies like it slightly cooler than you would imagine:

It’s like he needs to wake 2-4 times in rapid succession before he can settle into deep sleep.

I have tried moving bedtime forward from 7pm to 6pm.
Maybe I should try 5.30pm and see what happens?!

Thank you again for the feedback. If anyone else has any ideas please let me know!!

Try pick up put down

As PP have said, he does need to go to sleep on his own so that when he stirs after a sleep cycle everything is the same as when he went to sleep. Which is easier said than done. DS was 11 months when he stopped feeding to sleep on his own accord and now waits for me to leave the room before he will go to sleep at night. 6 months is still quite little. White noise really helped us, you can buy a machine that will play all night on amazon for £15.

I made it sound very easy, we had a night with a lot of crying, a night with two wake ups and then he slept the whole night through as he found a way to settle himself. He has a comforter toy which definitely helps, at nursery he snuggles a muslin.

You are doing brilliantly to remain sane on such little sleep. It is so hard when babies wake up so frequently. My 1st was a terrible sleeper as a baby and the tireder she for the harder she wss to get to sleep. It didn't seem to matter what we did which was frustrating. Bringing bedtime earlier helped. Even 5.30pm might be worth a try as I found my DD had a window which you could get her to sleep painlesslessly. If you missed that window there would be hours of staring and waking. Hope you find an answer

I am an experienced mum and I tried this at 7 months. Make sure he's got a full tummy from tea-time. Bath, bedroom, cuddles, story, milk. Try not to let fall asleep on breast. Put into bed. Leave room. If or when he starts to cry try this:

After 10 seconds of crying: go in. Stroke him. Say shh shh it's time for sleeping now. Lie down. Shh shh. Night night. Leave.

If he starts to cry again, go in after 20 seconds. Stroke gently, Shh shh, shh shh, night night. Leave

Next, go in at 30 seconds and then keep doubling the time you wait until you go in, and lessen the noises and touches, until you're just whispering shh shh by the door or not even making a sound.

I never let my babies cry out, so leaving mine for two minutes seemed like a lifetime, but after doing this routine for just two nights my beautiful little babster slept through in her own bed til midnight feed time, and went back in own bed til morning feed with no fuss at all.

I think it's called controlled crying. It's most definitely not 'leaving them to cry themselves to sleep'

Good luck OP. It's really worth the effort xx

Sounds like he cannot link sleep cycles maybe? Babies over 4months will wake up at the end of each sleep cycle (same as adults), if they have not learnt to self settle then they will wake up and need settling back.
The theory behind tired babies not sleeping is related to elevated cortisol levels, which builds up in their awake time. Hence why even though they are knackered and should be sleepy they are actually kicking off screaming!

To teach baby to self settle you have to gently remove the association with being held / rocked / fed to sleep - as pp said, google how to teach baby to self settle.
I did two weeks of only allowing naps in his cot and not on me / sofa etc. Now he goes down in his bed like a dream and sleeps solid blocks at a time - we have a problem with 4am wake ups, which is a whole other issue

You need to look at this holistically, what is your entire day like? What time do you wake for the day? What times are naps? When do you feed (do you feed to sleep or on waking?)
I found with both of mine that a fairly strict routine was the only way to go. Something along the lines of 2,3,4

I find that if mine were sleeping for a good chunk then waking in short intervals like you have described it would be a wet nappy keeping them from sleeping soundly.

I would do a nappy change and then cuddle/ shush/ pat back to sleep.

Is he possibly going to bed too early? If my LO falls asleep before 8.30- 9pm there isnt the slightest chance of him sleeping through? He wakes up between 7.30 and 9am depending how much we have done lately. Good Luck x

Break it down into smaller chunks and accept that each chunk will take a few days up to a week to sort. And stick with whatever you try for a fortnight.
So once he’s had a bath/milk etc (and 5:30 is far too early...at his age he should be going to sleep roughly 4 hours from his last nap), you try and put him down in the cot. He might need something to soothe himself with- a muslin or a toy or something. Sit next to him, rub his back, say the same thing ‘it’s night night’ or whatever and teach him to fall asleep as much as possible without your interference. The ideal is that over 2 weeks he’ll fall asleep after a few pats while you are still in the room.
Then hopefully that will have an impact on waking and self settling anyway. If it doesn’t, attempt the same for wakenings etc.
It doesn’t matter how LONG it takes for him to fall asleep. He’s learning a new skill. Give it time. If he’s calm and trying to fall asleep without cuddling then just persevere with teaching him that and then the night waking will improve.

I wouldn’t leave to cry personally. I would reassure but minimally. A hand on the back, a pat, so the baby knows you are there and isn’t alone but that you won’t interfere. You don’t need to keep checking for a wet nappy through the night. That would be hugely disruptive for everyone.
For naps I have always worked on the philosophy o f ‘do whatever it takes to get them to nap.’ Because naps are time limited and they give them up. Once night sleep is sorted (and better naps= better night sleep) you can tackle naps.