6 month old struggling with sleep

[Whatev3r]

Good evening,

I'm currently dealing with a constantly crying 6 month old which has been really tough. Last week she was teething so it's normal of course, but this week her 2 teeth have pierced through, but she's being a nightmare to put to sleep. Before I was able to nurse her to sleep, swap in a dummy then leave and we would cosleep for the night as it's hard to breastfeed otherwise. Now recently I've been giving her a bottle here and there.

These past 2 days she just will not fall asleep easily nor stay asleep, keeps waking at night and moving etc so I decided to put her in a next to me cot. I feel like I did this to myself by nursing her to sleep from day 1 because now she sees it as a sleep association and won't accept to sleep any other way, and even if she does sleep with the bottle she will wake up 10 mins later, it's a nightmare 🙄.

If anyone please has any tips on how to break the nursing to sleep association I would really appreciate that.
(Please don't tell me it's natural and to continue doing it I'm exhausted and need her to change her habits).

Heyy, I’m sorry I don’t have any advise as I am in the same boat with my almost one year old. I’m going back to work soon and won’t be getting home until 11:30pm so would like to see if anyone has any advice also.

I don't have advice I'm really sorry just empathy. I have a soon to be 1 yr old who is an awful sleeper, up constantly at night, frequently up for hours at a time screaming the house down and waking up everyone else etc. Totally feel you on that and me and DH both work, it's hard. He is breastfed but not always fed to sleep, I really don't think feeding to sleep causes sleep issues. I know people say that but my older two also were fed to sleep as babies often and they both slept much better. I think it's more just babies personality tbh. I think it's mostly separation anxiety with our youngest, seems to have it worst out of our three and often upset tummy, again has the most sensitive tummy of our three and had reflux as a young baby.

All I can tell you is you're not the only one and they won't be like this for ever, but I know that doesn't help in the moment, sorry! I haven't had more than 5hrs broken sleep in a night for weeks, it's grim.

You're not the only one, and people will tell you to keep doing it and keep going because this is just the reality of babies. It's what they do. They are programmed to feed to sleep and be close, but they still wake up. The only way to not have that is to damage the bond between you and leave her to cry herself to sleep. Which is horrible.

It's really really rough, but it will get better. Feeding to sleep is still the fastest way to get her back to sleep, even if she does wake up.

@BabyToothbrush yes I think mine also has really bad separation anxiety, her sister wasn't like this, but I guess baby's personalities are all different.
@Wherethewildthings Thing is her sister wasn't like this, but then again she was bottle fed at 6 months, was no longer breastfeeding. I can't help but think the issue is with breastfeeding and nursing to sleep. I hear a lot about the fact that babies associate things with sleep, so if I'm always nursing her then she will always need that to sleep...

The short answer is, she won't. Both of mine were breastfed and never had a bottle, and both are now brilliant sleepers. My boy was settling himself independently and sleeping through the night by 15 months. My little girl took longer but reached the same point. They just get older and more independent, we didn't do anything to get to that point other than I night weaned at about 13 months for both of them. She'll get there. You've done nothing wrong - you've supported her and met her needs, you're doing brilliantly.

@Wherethewildthings that's really nice of you to say that, thank you. May I ask how did you manage to night wean?

It doesn’t have to be this way. You can, if you want, do some gentle sleep training. Put her down in the cot awake, stay with her shushing and patting her until she falls asleep. It will probably take a while and she will cry, but if you’re exhausted and want this to end then it’s an option. Sending lots of strength whatever you decide to do!!

Id like to know about the night weaning too please! I would like to night mean my LO once he's settled fully into nursery (just started). But I don't know how to do it? He will settle in the night with DH although sometimes quickly other times will be screaming for hours on and off. But if he sees me at all he just wants to be breastfed and he's still in our bedroom.

I wouldn't call a method that means a baby is crying themselves to sleep 'gentle'! Being a bystander to a baby's distress doesn't make the method 'gentle'.

So once they were a year old and I was confident they weren't actually hungry overnight I would do their last feed just before bath time downstairs, and then take their water bottle up at bedtime. I still bedshared with them, and initially when I said no boob they got very cross and stropped around the bed and flopped about. I just stayed in the bed (well, mattress on the floor with a gate on the door) and offered cuddles when they were ready. We had a couple of rough bedtimes but they were never alone. And then it got easier and they could accept cuddles and strokes for comfort instead. They both really liked back tickles (like drawing on their back). So I'd lie then down and give them a massage 😂 and when they woke in the night I checked if they needed changing and then did back strokes and offered water, but no milk in any form. If they still didn't settle I offered an emergency nighttime banana in case they were hungry after all, but usually I ended up with a banana with one bite out of it. Took about a week of faffing and longer bedtimes before they would wake in the night and I would just quickly stroke them and they'd go back over. X

@Wherethewildthings that's quite a positive experience you had with the night weaning compared to the usual stories which include a lot of crying. I'm not planning to night wean yet, she is only 6 months so too little in my opinion but thank you for telling me how it went for you, it will help me down the road!

Yeah I deliberately waited until they had some understanding and weren't just confused and upset, I think that helped a lot x

I still breastfeed my toddler to sleep and he sleeps through the night UNLESS he's teething or ill, which is quite often in toddlerhood. You haven't done anything wrong and nursing is not the problem, it's biologically normal. It's just her temperament.

I have a close friend who stopped BF for similar reasons to you around 7 months and she regretted it as there was no way to convince baby to go back to sleep. The baby was just awake from 4am to 6am for months. Her baby is 15 months and she still regrets it!

Your baby sounds like could still be teething.

@CoffeeIsLife5678 thank you so much for your message, and for letting me know of someone else's similar experience as I am worried if I stop breastfeeding I will struggle too!