up all night feeding at 6 months

[mollysmum82]

Please help I'm really struggling to cope! My 6 month old baby was sleeping through till about a month ago (I felt so lucky!) but then she started to wake up once in the night again. This was fine, I breastfed her and she settled down to sleep again quickly. Once in the night turned to twice, then three times and again I was happy to breastfeed her and she would settle quickly. I tried to increase her milk feeds in the day to every 2 hours to see if this would help and it did for one night. But then she was back to waking a few times a night. For the past week its been unbearable - she wakes every half hour to hour, I feed her, put her down and she wakes again only minutes later. I've tried not feeding her but then she wakes even sooner. She was teething (at least I think she was, she had a sore bum and was dribbling etc) but these symptoms appeared to have eased off so I don't think its that? No teeth have emerged as yet! I started her on solids a couple of days after she was up all night (this coincided with her turning 6 months) but this has not helped either. At the moment I'm resorting to holding her all night, just to ensure she gets some sleep but I'm absoultely shattered and I don't want to form bad sleep associations for her.

I really hope you can offer some advice!

x

You poor thing. My DS goes through similar phases when he has a growth spurt or a cold (or he just feels like it ).

Teething does sort of go on for ages without teeth actually appearing so you could try some tooth gel and see if that soothes her a bit. Does she have a cold of any sort because that can also screw up sleep?

CAn you co-sleep with her for a bit? You could keep on putting her down in her own bed but bring her in with you if she is waking a lot, at least that way you can get some rest.

It is horrible, but I guarantee it is only a phase and will stop soon. It will be replaced by something else, but this will stop.

Thanks for your advice and support tummytime, I really appreciate it. I did try and co-sleep with her the other night and it helped; I guess I'm just worried that whatever I do during this phase will form a permanent habit for her? If I hold her all night or co-sleep with her will she expect this, even when this cold/growth spurt/teething spell/whatever it is all over?

Thanks again