0-6 months great, 6-9 months no sleep??!!

[missytequila]

this is my first baby so i am just looking for advice...or sympathy or someone else to tell me that I am not alone and that i am not doing something wrong..

my baby slept great, through the night from 8 weeks... no problem napping.

then hit the 6 month mark and it has all gone wrong. now wakes at least 3 times a night for feed. screams if does not get fed. barely eating solids...that has not helped, nor has mix feeding with 2 bottles per day. also tried co sleeping which has not helped either, still wakes..

am ok now, but going back to work when baby is 10 months and will not cope well with this type of exhaustion..

does anyone else have a good sleeper who turned into a bad sleeper? did it ever change?

MyDs was a great sleeper untill a few weeks ago. now wakes up every hour and a half. to begin with I could just feed him and put him back in his cot, now he is awake sometimes for hours, wanting to practice crawling in his cot of wanting to be held.He makes a lot of noise whatever I do. Today he went down to sleep at 7.00, woke up at 8.30 till 12.30 then woke again at 2.10 and has just gone back to sleep now! who knows for how long. I sorry you Dc is not sleeping well, you are not alone. i'm due to go back to work soon, have no idea how i would cope with working on a few hours sleep a night.At the moment it seems impossible. if you have a break throughs please let me know.

Have also tried co sleeping, letting him cry, dummy, comforter, sleeping in the same room nothing s far has worked

The only idea that may work, did help for one night which was to leave the radio on in ds room so he could hear voices, but only worked for one night with mine.

We are having the same problem with DS2 (8months), he was doing great sleeping at night and was no longer waking for a night feed then he got a sickness bug about 6weeks ago and has not slept well at night since!
I have had him checked out with GP twice to make sure he does not still have an infection but he is fine.
He is good during the day, has a morning and afternoon nap without a problem (aprox 2.5hrs total) has 3 meals a day plus about 20oz of milk.
Then at night he gets his bedtime bottle and goes to sleep in his cot without a problem. He will then wake every hr or 2 and sceaming and crying but settles himself within about 10-15mins, this goes on till about 2am where he wakes and doesnt settle himself so i give him a bottle then he falls back a sleep for an hr or 2 for it to all start again!
I really dont know what to do, we are doing the controlled crying for a month now and that has not worked, should i start going into his room so he can hear/see me, would that help him settle for longer?? or does anyone have any other suggestions?? my 4yr old is also getting a disturbed sleep now and that is affecting him and us during the day!!
all suggestions welcome x

This was over 11 years ago for me.

DD was a brilliant sleeper from just a few weeks old and then at about 6 months I thought I'd got the wrong child. Was breast-fed but it wasn't food she wanted - she was just miserable about something, day and night.

Back then we started weening at about 16 weeks (I believe that might be different now?) so she was getting plenty. Went to the docs but nothing wrong.

Most awful time - really felt desperate, guilty but didn't know why, hated myself for not solving it, got a bit depressed, I think.

Then suddenly one day it all stopped.

Looking back (over a decade) I think she was frustrated that she couldn't do things, communicate etc. The change back coincided with her being able to crawl and point to things and make herself understood.

This might sound a bit weird but knowing her character now, it would make sense. She is very impatient and very certain of her own mind and point of view. She is very independant and self-sufficient.

I think it was all to do with frustration.

It was hideous at the time but we recovered and she is very healthy and bright and happy. I say this to reassure you because I'm sure you feel like hell.

Teething? Developmental leap? Are they trying to crawl, pull up?

First teeth usually come through around 6 months so have a nosy in their mouth.

If CC isn't working after a month I'd give up. When it works, it works in a few nights.

My DS went through a phase around 6 months, after self settling, of needing more cuddles before he'd fall asleep at night. Also woke loads and feeding to sleep worked quickest.

Ooopsadaisy, i think you are right.

I have been looking at other posts and there seems to be a 8/9month regression babies go through. I must of missed that one with my first DS, he has always slept 12hrs a night.

And the bad thing is we will just have to wait it out as its not something we can fix.

on the good side he is crawling, healthy and coming on great, we are the ones that are the walking dead!

i will keep my fingers crossed that it will pass soon before i go back to work (easier said than done on only a few hrs sleep!) and i will have another strong coffee!!

My 6 month old DD has started doing this - she's not hungry (offer her more milk but she doesn't want it). She just wants to be cuddled and look at me...

Very cute but we are beyond knackered this week.

God I hope it improves soon, you have my sympathies!

Links on the 8/9 sleep regression here, here and here.

Developmental spurts often mess up sleep in advance - there is one at 26 weeks which affected my DS. You can read more about these here.

Agree with Iggly that if you don't see serious improvement in 3 or 4 days with CC, it's unlikely to work and you should give up.

Thanks for those links AngelDog, I think the same thing is happening to my DD as your DS. Can I ask how long it took to improve? Did you do anything to help or is it just a case of going with the flow?

Well, DS's sleep went to pot even after the developmental stuff finished, because naps were a mess, and he wasn't getting enough daytime sleep so he was overtired and hence waking lots at night. I fed him back to sleep each time and he started to wake at the end of every sleep cycle i.e. 6-7 times a night, as well as being up for an hour and a half most nights. It wasn't much fun.

I put him on a 9am / 1pm nap schedule (woke at 6.30-7am) which got him taking a longer nap at lunchtime. Then I worked on the nights using ideas from the No-Cry Sleep Solution (which I explained on this thread.

This was all at around 7 months, but I could have done it sooner.

In the run up to developmental spurts, though, I think it's a case of being as consistent as you can and doing whatever it takes to survive till it passes. The being awake for long periods in the night just suddenly stops again IME.

HTH

Thanks AD - that sounded like it must have been tough. Glad it's better now though.

missytequilla I could have written your OP about 2 months ago - exactly the same thing happened with dd. I was worried as going back to work at 11 months and thought I would not cope. Then at 10 months she just started sleeping through again! The 2 things we changed (on the same night she started sleeping through) we're giving her an extra blanket and not feeding her veg with dinner as it made her fart all night. Don't know which one helped, or whether it was just a coincidence but either way I'm not changing either!