5.5 months old baby wakes up every hours at night... Help...

[tostaky]

This has been going on for too long now... I feel I have tried everything but maybe not?
He was sleeping fine until he was 3 months old (waking 3 times a night).
Now, he goes down at 8.30, wakes up around 11 and then it is almost every 55 minutes (I look check with my phone and it is freakish-ly regular). He cries and I feed him back to sleep.

This week I started him on solids and I give him 180ml of formula for his last feed. It hasn't changed anything...

What is wrong with him my routine?

Solids won't help him sleep better. And there is nothing wrong with him.

If he's waking up, then he needs you. Try to remember that he is still very little, and that as exahusting as this is, it won't last forever.

Have you tried co-sleeping?

He starts off in his cot and then when he wakes up at around 11am I take him with us in bed otherwise I'll just end up going from one bedroom to bother all night long...

What do you men by "he needs you"??? He has me and my boobs on demand!!!

I mean he might just need you :) Sometimes they go through phases of being more clingy and more demanding, and it often boils down to just wanting you.

Know its hard work, my DS was similar.

Oh it's awful itn't it? You must be so tired. I agree you're not doing anything wrong. DC4 (3 months) is a bit like this at the moment and even though I know it's normal and will pass it is getting to me a bit.

Eh... I know mine is the minority view in Mumsnet, with most people being quite attachment-parenty types, but just so you're aware... the more hardline sleep gurus like Weissbluth (the cry it out guy) and Ferber (the controlled crying guy) would say your little one is waking every 50 mins or so because he hasn't learned to settle himself between sleep cycles. Up to about 3 or 4 months, babies sleep very deeply and are mostly only woken by hunger. At about 4 months - the famous 4 month sleep regression - they start to sleep more like adults, usually having nighttime sleep cycles of 90 minutes, between which they have brief periods of being awake. The theory goes that if your baby goes to sleep on his own then when he comes up out of a sleep cycle he can just settle himself back again, but if you had to assist him to sleep, by rocking him or feeding to sleep or whatever, then he will wake fully out of each sleep cycle. (The other thing I noticed with my twins was that when their sleep was bad, they only made it to 45 minutes, not 90 - apparently a 45 minute sleep cycle is more like what they're supposed to have in their daytime naps. But nobody told my girls!)

We were in a similar situation to you and we got recommended the Millpond sleep clinic but they are way expensive so I just bought their book (Teach Your Child To Sleep). They have a few solutions about teaching babies to self-settle, some more gradual than others, but because we have twins and it's hard to sleep-train two babies at the same time they recommended controlled crying at 6 months. It worked. Our girls are 29 weeks and they sleep through the night most nights.

Lots of disclaimers - our girls aren't much older than your boy so we don't have all the answers, lots of people don't like controlled crying etc. It's worked for us, is all I can say, our girls are very happy now during the day as they sleep so well during the night, and so do we. Just wanted to make you aware...

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the dreaded 4month sleep regression yet. If she was fine until about 3 months I would say it sound like it to me and is almost exactly what we had with dd at the same age. It is horrid when the are waking every 45 mins and you do wonder what you are doing wrong but it will end. Trust me! I found things really started improving around 6 months and by 7 months she was back to waking 2-3 times for feeds in the night. The only thing we did was buy a huge bed an give up on the cot completly as it was easier for us but obviously that's a very personal choice.

Unfortunately she's now started teething so back to waking all hours, but that's babies for you I guess :)