6 month old’s ‘virus’ keeping us all awake for 2 weeks?

[Latenightmumma]

Tired and emotional and hoping some other mums can share insight…

My LO (6 months) started getting fussy and irritable 2 weeks ago out of nowhere. That night he slept for 1 hour and woke up and cried relentlessly unless I held him and let him sleep latched on. Every night has been like this since. If I try to unlatch him to set him back in the bedside crib, he screams until I bring him back into the bed. I don’t like letting him sleep in my bed because of the risks involved, but I can’t sleep like this either! The only other way I’m able to get him to sleep is to take him for a drive.

He has been napping fine during the day, however is fussier at feeds. I can hear his tummy gurgling often when he seems uncomfortable, and he’s been producing some pretty foul smelling gas, has had a couple of looser than normal poops. I took him to the doctor a few days ago and she confirmed he is not teething but had a slight temperature and it’s probably just a ‘viral thing’. She suggested calpol which has made very little difference…

He is exclusively breastfed and nothing has changed diet wise - I’m holding off starting solids until this resolves itself.

I just feel this has been going on for a long time without improvement and am absolutely exhausted. I feel so sorry for him because he’s obviously having a tough time, and I’ll do whatever I need to in order to comfort him - but I’m going insane after 2 weeks with so little sleep! Has anyone been through this? If so, did you find anything that helped, and when did it pass? How I miss those 7/8 hour stretches!

Sleep regression?

Six months is pretty average for first teeth, I know your GP siad not teething but teething makes my baby do awful smelling poos - the NHS is adamant that teething doesn't cause either a temperature OR diarrhoea, but every nursery worker who looks after littlies will disagree! Any drooling, bright red cheeks, frantic gnawing on toys?!

Some others things you could try:

Neurofen rather than Calpol at bed time (or at first wake up) - this is what I do when I can't settle my nine month old.

Naps in the pram? I had a terrible time getting mine to nap between 5.5-6.5 months, many long walks to get a third nap in. Then LO just magically grew out of it and started doing a long morning nap and that took the pressure off. I don't think I did anything different, I think LO just grew into it.

At some point... their own room? I moved LO into their own room at 5.5 months (naps in there for two weeks before) because we were obviously waking LO up when we came to bed. I sat in a chair for breastfeeding or bought LO into our bed and then popped them back in their own room once milk-drunk. Unfortunately this stopped working (baby wouldn't go back to sleep) around 6-6.5m so my partner started to go in with a bottle of formula and a cuddle, and LO dropped the 2am wake. We kept up the early BF between 5-7am.

I wouldn't necessarily delay starting weaning, all you will give to start with is a tiny taste of something like vegetables once a day for a week or a fortnight, it's a drop in the ocean compared to the volume of breastmilk your LO will be getting. However there IS evidence that solids can help breastfed babies sleep. Your LO is old enough to start weaning so I would crack on.