6 month old waking very often in night

[Craggy426]

Hope I get some help on this as I'm very tired indeed!! My dd is 6, nearly 7 months and has starting waking every 2 or so hours in the night. We recently moved her into her own room and she settles really well in the evening (about 7 with a routine before) but when she wakes in the night she can't go back off on her own and increasingly the only way we can get her to sleep is by bringing her into bed with us. We're doing blw which is going really well and she's still b-feeding on demand. I expect to bf around 3 or 4am like normal but have been feeding much more often to try and settle her in her room and then get her off to sleep. This works for about 10 minutes but then she wakes again and cries for us. The question is are we making a rod for our own back by letting her sleep in bed with us? Should I just grit my teeth and expect some bad nights and just keep reassuring her to sleep in her own room with cuddles?

this is a horrible age and i reckon this is very common. it will settle down as she eats more. do whatever it takes is my view. but you might have consequences but hard to know what else to suggest.

Hi,
My DSis 6mth next week and we have exactly the same problem. He is on a bottle and we have started to wean him, hoping that this would settle him more. He goes off to sleep fine, then come 1-2 am, grizzles, cannot settle himself and so on until 6-7am ish. In fact this morning he was so upset I had to feed him at 4am, which I don't want him to get used to.
I was getting in the habit of taking him into the spare room, feeding hima nd seeping in there with him so as not to disturb DH who works long hours, but am now just trying to settle him in the cot and letting him get up at 6-7ish - apart from this monring!

We are moving him into his own room on Sunday, as I am sure that our noisy bed plays a part in this, every time in and out disturbs him.

Have felt at the end of my tether with this now for weeks and totally understand where you are coming from! x

We had this with our baby - he settled well (good routine, like you) and was not waking up more than once or twice in the night but at about 4-5 mths started waking more and more often till at 6.5 mths he was waking every 2 hrs (more often than he had been as a newborn). So we did CC and I stopped feeding him in the night. Controversial etc of course but we never left him for more than 10 mins to cry without going in to reassure him (built up to from 1 min) and he now sleeps 7 or 8pm to 7 or 8am without waking for a feed. Am sure he wakes up but self settles and is v happy.

Right there with you Craggy with 5 month old, try to avoid the dreaded cc at the moment.

So nice to hear others have same problem. Did a bit of the dreaded CC last night and it did seem to help eventually. We never let her really really cry but did allow crying which had an angry edge to it which would turn into quite happy noises. We achieved not bringing her into bed with us but I was awake from between about 3 and 6 so she persevered but so did I! I'm hoping tonight might be better. Obviously it's so horrible to let them cry at all and not something I've ever done before. My main dilemma was when to feed her as she does seem to want to bf a lot at night. When I did feed it still didn't seem to settle her so I'm not sure they're linked. Could she be having a growth spurt (she was 4 weeks early so I suppose kind of physically 6 months now)and I believe they have a growth spurt around this time. She's been having both loads of bm and lots of food in the daytime. Anyone got any suggestions?

I think it's very common at this age. My breastfed children both woke lots at night at 6 months and I just accepted it, fed them, grew tireder, and they eventually grew out of it. It's probably a growth spurt and your night time milk will increase and then she'll back off if she can get what she's looking for in one feed. My DS's didn't sleep through until 18 months but it didn't kill us.

I think it kind of depends on what you are prepared/able to do. Undoubtedly she will grow out of needing to feed in the night but it might take some time for her to naturally break the habit by herself. What partly decided me to do CC was speaking to friends, one of whom was v against it but whose 3 yr old still woke several times in the night, and another who lived in Oz and who had been to a sleep clinic where they showed him & his wife how to do CC to help their 8 mth baby sleep - & it worked really well.

I would have been able to hang in there till he was 12 mths or so but was not prepared to potentially be waking and feeding for another 2.5 years (!!), plus I thought, on balance, my baby would be happier if he could sleep by himself and not need me every time he woke up. Plus, I wanted to do it while he was still young enough for the habit to not be too deep and before he could stand in his cot and scream "mummy!!", which I thought I really wouldn't be able to cope with.

All of that said, I would just like to make it clear that I have huge respect for those parents who are willing and patient to keep on feeding their babies at night/bringing them into bed with them for as long as it takes. I think there is nothing at all wrong with that way of doing it, as long as the parents are happy to.

I have had this problem before with my now 3 year old and now again with my 8 month old. My 8 monthn old son now wakes up on average every 30 minutes and to say I am tired is an understatement. He still breastfeeds but I am pretty sure he is not hungry when he wakes up but that it is more of a habit thing. I don't let him cry for fear he will wake up our 3 year odl son and so it goes that i have not had a decent night's sleep in ages and I have become cranky and short tempered with the two of them.The 3 year old now sleeps through the night and has since he turned 2 but not before . I must be doing something wrong but I am way too tired to be able to do anything drastic! help if you have been through this or know what to do