Slightly strange sleeping issue in 6 month old

[Holly66]

Hello, my son is 6 months old and has been been going all night without feeds since 18 weeks (his choice not mine). He has been sleeping through really well but for the last 6 weeks he has been waking after only 40 mins from going down and he screams the place down. We have the "10 minute" rule where we wait 10 mins and then go up to him and check his nappy and temp etc but he normally re-settles before we have to do this. He then will normally sleep through but will often wake after another 40 mins and then sleep through. He self settles at bedtime and at all of his naps and is able to nap for longer than one sleep cycle.

I know its not a major problem but he always sounds so distressed and it doesn't seem to be improving. The nights when we do go up to him he'll always wake again and be worse so we try not to now if we know he is ok and not ill.

Anyone got any ideas or suggestions or is anyone going through the same thing?

Thank you!

I was just about to post about the same thing!
DS is 6 months old and was a great sleeper til 4 months. Then he just wanted to feed all night.
Now he goes down but wakens after about an hour crying. I put the dummy in and he goes down straight away. This happens all night. I take him to bed with me when I go to bed as it's easier to settle him when he's beside me.
The thing is, his cries sound distressful and last night I was convinced he was sobbing in his sleep.
Could he be having nightmares?

I feel your pain there. I am very lucky that DS sleeps so well the rest of the night. We did go through a nightmare couple of months. There's a website called Baby Sleep Answers and they got my son going through the night in 10 days but this problem seems to have them stumped hence why I thought i'd post here to see if anyone else has been through it or is going through it.

I wondered about nightmares with my son too but I can't understand why he seems to only have them 40 mins after going to sleep. No one seems to have an answer as it is really unusual for a baby to wake after 40 mins if they've self settled. The funny thing is when we having the nightmare patch of no sleep he would sleep 7 to 12 fine but would then wake every hour but now he's sleeping fine the rest of the night but is waking at 8 and then 9, it's so strange.

I had to ditch the dummy very early on as it wouldn't stay in his mouth and he kept waking every 10 mins.

I sometimes feel so heartless when I ignore him but quite often he's worse if I go to him and he does normally settle after 5-10 mins.

Is your son going down awake too?

He used to. I was able to put him in his cot awake and within 10 or 15 minutes he'd be alseep. Now he cries. I think it's when he realises he's alone. As soon as I pick him up he stops and for the past few nights I've had to rock him to sleep or else he'e fallen asleep on DH whilst watching TV.
He has taken to screaming alot during the day when we leave the room but I put that down to him finding his voice. He doesn't cry but shouts as if to say 'I'm here, play with me!'
The sleep thing is really frustrating as he used to be a great sleeper.
Plus since he sleeps in our bed, DH has moved to the spare room as he can't sleep properly with DS in the bed too. Not good.

I have to say the people at Baby sleep answers are fantastic and it might be worth talking to them. The woman who runs it has read every sleep book on the planet and has condensed them down into a 40 page book with all the different techniques in it and you can also post on their website and they get back to you very quickly. You pay a one off payment of about £15 for the book and you then get un-limited access to the website. They also do private one to one consultations which is what I did and they got my son going through the night in 10 days. The book is well worth having as it advises you on what to do when they're older too and its easy and simple to follow.

Are you willing to try CC? if you leave him for a while will he re-settle? If not you could try PUPD, this worked for me on DS's naps.

I really hate the idea of CC so have no idea if he will self settle after 5 minutes or so.
I think I will have to try it first though.
How do I go about it?
When he starts to cry do I just leave him for 5 minutes or go to him straight away and then leave him be?
I just seems so mean when all it takes for him to stop crying is a little cuddle.
But then a quick fix does nothing to help anyone in the long run!!

I always leave my son for 10 mins and then go in but I try not to pick him up and soothe him in the cot. I check his nappy and that he's not ill and then leave him for another 10 mins and so on. I have to admit I always hated the ide of CC but tried it when I was desperate and got results quite quickly. He may only cry for a short time.

I'm now flicking through my book to look at other methods you could try. There is PUPD with or without a cry down. There is also gradual withdrawal. But if you want quick results then CC is the best.

I think we're going to have to give it a go.
But not tonight. Tonight DS is with his grandparents and I'm on my work xmas do!!. DH picking me up so I am going to have a few glasses wine!
Tomorrow night we'll start sleep training.
Wait to you see though. He'll probably be a perfect little angel for my mum and dad tonight!

That's normally what happens. You're very good, i've still not left DS with anyone apart from Daddy 3 times. It's going to make going back to work really hard.

Have fun on your work do and enjoy the wine, it always helps

I think it might be worth getting tough with him now though as he may be more responsive now than later. I'd try to get him out of your bed purely so you can get DH back in!

Have a good night and keep me posted.

I will!
I've been back at work since he was 4 months and having him bed is easier, especially when I have to get up and get ready and sort DS out and then do a an hour commute to work!
Anything for that extra bit of sleep!
Plus it's easier to bf DS when we co sleep.
But you're right. Now is the time to get tough or it might never happen and we do plan to have another DC, which won't happen if me and DH are in separate rooms!
Right, time to close down computer, get ready, phone dad to see how DS is then go get that glass of wine!
Actually feel sad that I'm not going to see DS til tomorrow, but I'll get over that.
Thanks for all your help and I'll let you know how it goes.
:)

Hey PeanutButter99 I don't know if you're about but i'm here if your doing the sleep training and need someone to talk to

Might be teething?

DS had a tooth come through over a week ago and has been having a rough sleep patch since xmas, but last seemed much better and has been a steady improvement the last couple of nights...

Hi HelenLG,

I don't think it is teething as he is showing no signs of being distressed during the day. We started giving him Calpol before bed last week for a few nights but ti made no difference. It's really strange because the rest of the night is fine but between bedtime and 10pm can be rocky.

How old is your DS? My DS has still not got any teeth and isn't showing any signs of having any soon. I have a whole pile of teething rings, powders and calpol ready to go!

hi, we have had similar trouble with our now 8 month old, husband read an article which said 'white noise' can help babies sleep, not sure of the science behind it but last night we put her to bed as usual but put a fan on in the room, she slept straight through until 6 this morning without stiring at all!!!! I was very sceptical but glad we tried it. you can get cd's, apps for iphones etc with white noise but a fan is just as good!!! worth a try hey?

DS is 6 months, it started when he was about 5.5 months.

We used to use white noise to put DS down and it will pretyy much always make him go to sleep, we've stopped putting him down to it now as we're trying to teach him to self settle. But I do still use it once he's asleep to extend his naps from 30-45 minutes to 1hr 30 - 2hr 15 ones...(I go in and do wake to sleep about 30 minutes into the nap, have tried leaving him but he will always waking up with out fail at 45 mins latest)

Hi guys. Just a little update.
Got very drunk on Friday night so was very tired on Saturday night. Was up early on Saturday morning as usual and couldn't go back to sleep.
So as you can imagine the sleep training did not happen! And as I predicted he was great for mum and dad. Although, I have a feeling that even if he screamed the house down mum would still say he slept through the night! He went down for them at 8, woke and had a feed at 12, then slept til 3 and woke and mum brought him to bed with her.
Last night he slept from 7 to 8 then was awake til 11!! Cried through the night and bf constantly.
He had an hour nap this morning and then swamped his bottle in one go and cried when there was no more (he used to do this before he had a bit of flu and then it was very hard to feed him). Then ate his porridge and melon and tried to eat my arm in the process :)
Maybe he's just hungry now that he's back to normal. Getting his appetite back. I bf him before bed but he got formula for mum. But lately he has been very distracted on the boobie and maybe he just needs more milk?
What do you think?
Should I intorduce a dream feed at about 10 or 11 say? 4 or 5oz for formula?

And if I do introduce a dream feed how do I do it? Take him out of the cot and feed in my arms and then put him back or leave him in the cot when feeding? And will he really drink the milk in his sleep or will he wake up? And if he wakes up will it be hard to put him to sleep again? Can you tell I've never done this before

DS used to have a dreamfeed at 11 of 8oz. He always woke up when we got him from the cot and then he went back to sleep again quite easily. However we've stopped now as I'm trying to getting rid of the thought process that he needs milk every 4 hours and trust that if he's hungry he will wake up.

Before dropped the dreamfeed his routine was -

7pm - feed
7.30 - sleep
11 - dreamfeed
11.30 - sleep
2/3 - feed
3.30 - sleep
4 - cry
4.15 - sleep
5 - cry
5.15 - sleep
6 - cry
6.15 - sleep
7 - wake up

But without the dreamfeed he sleep straight through to 2/3 from 7pm and seems much more settled. Last night got up at 3 and then went back down again until 6.30. So I'm not convinced a dreamfeed is worth it anymore.

I used tobe a big advocate, because DS used to go for 11 - 5 so I don't know what happened really...

LOL!
The routine from 3.30 seems very familiar, except my wake up happens at 6am!!
Can I ask how you do the 7pm feed? Is is formula or bf?
I only bf DS now morning and evening (and through the night) and recently he's very distracted. Any little noise and he's looking round him to see what's going on. At least with a bottle you can move it along with his head but I'm afraid no can do with the boobies!! :)

It's all boob now...he only has formula when DH does the night feeds.

He used to have formula for the 7pm feed when he was 3 mnths or so as the constant feeding used to drive me nuts and then EBM at 11. But then I went back to boobing him at 7pm from about 4 months cos he calmed down with his feeding during the day (although thinking about it, it might just be that I got more used to it). Then my milk supply began to dry up for the 11pm feed, cos it's always been a pumped feed (used to be too sleepy to take it) so I started to wake him up a little more so I could boob him. Stopped that just over a week ago and he doesn't seem to miss it.

We offer solids about 4 times a day, but he's doing BLW so the floor gets more than his mouth does.

He does tend to end up in our bed from about 5, generally with some boob, but doesn't really feed, just pops on and off to keep him quiet

I hear the last sentence :)
How old is your DS? My DS has just turned 6 months and his routine is

morning boob
breakfast solid
mid morning 7oz
lunch solid
lunch 7oz
afternoon 7oz
evening boob
through the night boob

For a while there it was a fight to get him to take 7oz. He would have 4 then play with the other 3! We all look after him on different days, me, DH, mum and dad and all say the same thing.
Maybe he is just hungry.
Before xmas, before we both got a bit of flu he was an eating machine!

Just re read your posts. Your DS is same as my DS.
And you give 4 solids
What do you give?
What is your routine?

He's just gone 6 months. Our routine is rough and can change quite easily but tends to be:-

7am - boob
8am - breakfast (toast and banana, shreadwheat)
8.30 - wash
9 - sleep
10.30/11 - boob
11.30 - snack (pear or apple) maybe boob after
1 - lunch (cucumber, avacado, tomato, ham, chicken, etc) maybe boob after
1.30 - sleep
3 - boob
5 - try for sleep (often fail)
6 - dinner (whatever we have)
6.30/7 - bath
7/7.30 - boob

When he's with someone else, he tends to down 7/8oz of milk, so i guess he must be eating plenty. He is getting some solids down as the broccolopalyse was in his pants yesterday.

When you say solids are you giving puree or finger food?

In the morning he has baby porridge with a fruit puree. At lunch he has a puree of any combination of potato, carrot, spinach, pepper, peas, lentils. Trying to introduce each new food one at a time. At the moment he is quite happily trying to eat a chapati (round flat bread). And I've just looked at the time .

It might be that the puree is putting him off his milk.

The shop bought purees tend to have quite a lot of water in them, but you might make your own with milk...

I didn't bother introducing one food at a time with DS, he just has whatever whenever. For example, this evening he had strips of beef and slices of pear, and for lunch he had roast potatoes and carrots, with semolina and pear (most of which he threw on the floor/his face/the wall)