Is the universe testing me?! What for?

[FTEngineerM]

DS is 6m old and become so so so difficult to get down for naps and to sleep at night it’s become anxiety inducing every night.

Today, after 3 hours of trying he finally went to sleep, then, an almighty poop! He stays asleep, obviously I had to change him otherwise, we’ll that’s just gross, but now he’s up and crying again.

Maybe another 3 hours? I hope not!

I don’t even know why I’m making this thread. It’s so difficult at the moment, everything is just against us when it comes to sleep

What is it you are doing to ‘get her to sleep’ and have you tried putting him down and walking out? I think at this age I fed mine to sleep but there are lots of options and at some point you want them to get themselves to sleep.

As he is 6months old you could give him baby rice or a Farley sugar free rusk with milk or weetabix. I used to find, if I gave my DD any of these at 7pm to eat and then I gave her milk at around 7.45 that's if she wanted it and I would leave her in her cot bed whilst she was awake. She would babble etc and fall asleep.
I used to then give her milk her between the hours of11pm-12am. She would be sleeping but I would still feed her. As it meant she wouldn't wake up middle of night and sleep through till around 5/6am

Could it be LO is teething.? As you said it's become difficult to put him to sleep and keep him sleeping

Thanks for replying

I usually start by boobing, then move onto other tactics if that doesn’t work e.g. rocking, shushing, pram rocking, car in extreme circumstances.

He hasn’t ever been able to go down alone without any help.

Good tip with making sure he’s full, he’s on solids now and barely wants milk. Maybe we’ll try some supper too.

Imo far too many props. Back to basics..
Start on solids if your dc is ready.
What is your current bedtime evening routine?

@FTEngineerM I understand your frustration. You just want LO to go to sleep, so you can get rest yourself. The first year is very hard. Baby constantly wanting you, fully dependant on you. Unfortunately, you will get him into a habit of wanting your aid in helping him go to sleep. The older he gets the more aware he is and starts to demand. Hence why it's getting harder for you and when he is waking up he doesn't know how to get himself back to sleep without you.

You need to teach him to sleep on his own.
It will be tough few nights nevertheless he will learn.
Another tip change his bedtime. Could he be overtired?, as you mentioned he is struggling with naps in the day. When babies are overtired they have difficulty falling asleep.
Take him to bed, an hour earlier tonight.

Have you tried the Huckleberry app? The free version gives you a sweet spot to have them down by so they're not over or under tired- it's pretty spot on for DD. That is key for us for getting her to nap. Also bedtime should always be a bit earlier than you think it should be!

At around this age dh started to settle them to break the association with bf. In my experience it was really hard for me to do that as the baby (and you) just want the easy option of feeding them. It was about a week and he did find it hard, but once they would self soothe with him it was much easier for them to settle with me. The Pantly Pull Off technique introduced a few weeks before also helped to get them to a point where he was able to take over initially. For many years if we were in a tent together I would see them dream sucking going to sleep.

Babies don't know how to go to sleep and you can't 'teach' them just like that - it's developmental like most other things they grow and become able to do.
I can highly recommend thebeyondsleeptrainingproject.com

I'd be loathe to give up feeding to sleep just yet, unless you're wanting to wean for your own sake soon.

What are you doing for naps? My five month old has become really hard to settle for naps in the living room recently. She's reached the stage where she needs a dark, quiet room (unless in buggy or car) so we're doing all naps up in our room now. I do miss feeding while watching TV! It does get her better sleep and feeds though.

Maybe try it if you haven't, better naps can help with nighttime sleep, and better milk feeds might help too.

@Santaisironingwrappingpaper I completely agree, I suppose I get myself in a desperate muddle when he’s ferociously rubbing his eyes and whining/crying because he’s tired. I just want to try everything to help him get some sleep.

Some good advice thank you, he has been eating a lot more this week, we’re doing traditional and baby led approach to weaning so some days he eats loads and others he doesn’t seem fussed.

Certainly going to try the app to get the nap sweet spot and it will only do us good DH doing nap time. especially whilst he’s off for Christmas.

Thanks for replying on Christmas Day too! I didn’t feel very festive, thankfully he had quite a good nights sleep. I can’t remember waking that often.

@MindyStClaire if I see his tired cues then I whip him upstairs in our bedroom lie on the bed and feed him lying down there are blackout blinds but it’s not quite totally dark.

Some times if I get the right moment that works great and I feel like a winner. Other times after a few mins he gets fussy and starts crying, that’s when I realise he’s prob overtired and then take to other methods like pram and so on.

I usually scroll through threads on here whilst feeding him to sleep keeps me occupied!!

I also use the Huckleberry app and it’s been life changing! My DD (now 7.5 months) would barely have any daytime sleep because I was getting her cues all wrong but the app really helped me. Now she naps without a fight and self settles. I use the free version but find the ‘sweet spots’ pretty spot on!

Sympathies OP.

I would say, if it is taking 3 hours to get him to sleep he either isn't tired enough or something is preventing it (eg pain). If he is regularly taking 3 hours it is a routine issue - he is getting the night sleep somewhere else in the day.

Look up the average sleep for a baby your age but treat it as a rough guide. Your baby may need less sleep than average. My DS always has. He dropped all naps by 2 for example and now sleeps through mostly but only does 10 hours (he is 3).

So, it may be you need to cut down a nap, try an earlier bedtime or wake earlier in the morning.

Can you post his sleep routine?

Keep an eye on wake times as well. I know DD can't really handle over two hours yet, so sometimes I bring her up even if she doesn't seem sleepy and she surprises me at how quickly she goes down. She is a good sleeper in general though, her big sister was anything but at this age and it was Hard. We got there though.

@upthewolves yes course, it isn’t set as you can probably tell, we’re a bit of a mess but usually it looks something like this

7am wake up and boob
7:30 downstairs and breakfast.
8:15 ish he starts looking tired so back up to bed and boob to sleep. Not much swallowing going on just soothing himself. This nap is great, my favourite, it’s like clockwork.
9:00 wakes up, never usually sleeps for more than 45 mins. So general play and walk the dog maybe.
10:30-11:00 starts looking tired so bed and boob. This is pretty regular too.
11:15-11:45 another 45 minute nap.
Then the afternoon is where it starts going pear shaped. Some lunch.
Whether we go out or stay in from this point the wake windows get huge and napping him becomes super hard to judge.
Sometimes it could be 14:00-15:00 he goes for a nap. It’s impossible for me to say a routine time because it is different everyday.

It’ll be another 45 minute nap unless I lie with him and put him back on the boob when he wakes up 50% of the time he’ll go back for a bit longer. Last week he had a 2:10 nap in the afternoon!! This day he actually went down at 19:00 and stayed down until 08:30 only waking for boob. But that’s unusual so say it’s an hour usually.

Takes us to 15:00-16:00 waking up. Have tea and play some more then bath and some chill time.
Goes to sleep at 18:00-19:00 we’re hoping down for the night but he wakes after 45 minute again and is wiiiiiiddde awake for about 20 minutes.

Then the fun starts, he’s visibly knackered so we just try everything possible to get him to sleep from that point onwards. 23rd December was the worst day yet, he didn’t go to sleep until midnight, very upset and whining for >4 hours. Admittedly we’re obviously doing something wrong because we’re all suffering at the moment and not quite sure how to fix it. It is heart breaking seeing him so tired, it can’t be doing him any good.

At 6 months my DD was doing about 2 hours wake time between naps - she was also a 30-45 minute napper (sometimes longer) so I was doing 3 naps a day with a slightly longer wake window before bed.

She would sometimes show tired cues at 60-90 minutes but I was mistaking them for boredom/over stimulation so I’d try putting her down but she’d fight the nap and it would take me forever to get her to sleep and then she’d wake up after one sleep cycle because she wasn’t tired enough.

Maybe try extending the wake windows a little, by like 15 minutes each day and see how he does?

Hi OP! I think I would also try extending windows between naps. If you look up the 2,3,4 schedule I found it worked well for both my babies around that age.

I would say that "looking knackered" in my experience isn't always a sign that they need all the sleep you are trying to give them because often babies and toddlers really struggle with the transition to less sleep or fewer naps because their body clock is adjusting. For example I remember my son dropping to one nap at about 11 months and it took a couple to first transition the nap towards the middle of the day and second get him through to bedtime after it but after that he was going down for nap and bedtime much more happily and sleeping better at night. I think it's a bit like when we adjust to a new timezone.

I can recommend a FB group called 'desperately sleeping sleep' She had a couple of good videos about baby sleep you might find interesting.

Hi @FTEngineerM I have a 5 month old son and your day looks very familiar to me!

I had a lightbulb moment last week - my boy goes to sleep at 6ish and like yours, wakes after 45 mins and then we had 2-3 hours of fighting him back to sleep. I finally realised that 6pm is his last nap. His bedtime is 8.30-9! I stopped trying to get him to sleep between 6-8.30, but just kept things calm, lights dimmed etc and now he goes to sleep like a dream!

Currently working on reducing night waking and then we’ll start moving bedtime to be earlier as he drops his next day nap

Then it will all go to shit again when we move house in March 😭