Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Parenting

For free parenting resources please check out the Early Years Alliance's Family Corner.

Help!! 6 month old frequent night waking.

2 replies

Milo7 · 26/06/2023 23:40

My 6 month old son has been a pretty bad sleeper for about 2 months now and it seems to be getting progressively worse. Going to bed around 7:30 he will wake at 11 to have a feed and then sleep until around 2am. From then he will wake up continuously until about 5 where he will finally go back to sleep until 7-7:30. Lately he has been waking every 5-10 minutes after 2am and I have been giving up at about 3-3:30am and putting him in my bed where he sleeps just fine. Before now he has never slept in our bed as I have never felt the need to have him in there but he seems to actually sleep well with us and we are at the point now we just need sleep! Does anyone have any advice on why he might be waking like this? I have spent the last few months trying to resettle him. He falls asleep in his bed with his dummy and we are happy to keep replacing it until he can do it himself but sometimes it hasn’t fallen out he is crying around his dummy. He isn’t hungry as he has enough milk in the day alongside solids. I don’t think he is cold either as I control the room temp with a heater and he has a warm sleep suit. I just don’t know what’s causing this waking!
Im worried of creating bad habits of sleeping in our bed and not being able to sleep on his own. Im a first time mum and not really sure where to go from here… any advice would be greatly appreciated!

OP posts:
Tisfortired · 26/06/2023 23:43

OP no advice I’m afraid but my DS is 6 months also and his sleep has gone to absolute shit. He’s gone from sleeping 7:30-4 having a feed then straight back to sleep, to multiple night wakings all night, and also taking ages to get to sleep in the first place.

I have given myself a headache wondering what it could be and have decided to just give up and ride it out! Solidarity and good luck!

EMC2022 · 27/06/2023 11:34

I'm not one to probably give advice as I have an 8 month old whose sleep is still very inconsistent.

Just some things I would recommend

  • It might be worth trying a feed at 2am to see if it will satisfy him to settle into sleep properly til morning. I know you think he is getting enough in the day but he might be going through a growth spurt.
  • Is it possible baby is getting too much daytime sleep? My baby had to drop down to 2 naps around 6 months. It just meant he had a long stretch of awake time before sleep which helped.
  • Is baby teething? This completely messes up sleep.

My baby did go through the exact same pattern around 5 months old and did just stop eventually so if all else fails hopefully they grow out of it. I also used to pop him into my bed after 2 wake ups just to get some sleep and it never seemed to create any bad habit. Giving it two attempts made me feel like I gave him the opportunity to sleep in his cot first and formost. I wouldn't worry about creating a habit. At 8 months my DS hasn't linked crying and bad sleeping to getting to cosleep.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page