6 month old sleep patterns

[Digii]

Hello

My 6 month old had started sleeping 8 pm to 6 am waking just once at about 3. Now he's started to awake every 3 hours!

I'd been bringing him into my bed when he awoke at 3 and now when he awakens the first time he simply refuses to settle back in his crib!

Also in general (even through the day) I find it almost impossible to get him to sleep even if he's very sleepy unless I offer him the breast. Once I do he nods off in moments. Is this a healthy habit?

I've just started him in nursery for a couple of hours so dont want too many changes for him, and am not in favour of the cry-it-out methods.

Any advice please?

I thought we were turning a corner, having gone 2, 5, 6 and then 3, 5, 6 and then 4, 6, but last night went back to 2, 5, 6.

I'm so tired, I can't sit up and feed him which means he comes in our bed, which means he gets warm and toasty and his bed get cold then he doesn't want to go back.

I'm beginning to think there's something wrong with me, I shouldn't feel this tired from just 2 or 3 night wakings...

Ok overtired and thereisapotato here is a moan he woke at 4.30 happy as larry pulling at my duvet and grabbing my cheek with a big grin. After having tried to rock him to sleep several times and giving him the boob just to make him sleep. [angry} I then decided to ignore him until dh got up and rocked him back to sleep.
wickedwitchsouthwest I no, I worry about how to break that habit but at risk of sounding boring and rational again I just try to go with the flow. At the moment every night after his formula feed (introduced for all of the above reasons; not sleeping through, exhausting by the 2hourly night feeds) if he does not fall asleep automatically (which on the boob he mostly did!!!) I put him in his cot for a little trial session of being in his cot. It lasts about 5 minutes. But I am hoping he will start liking it and miraculously fall asleep like an angel.
And this morning he is so cute I have forgiven him for everything

i'm shattered. ds is 6 months. last night he went to sleep at 10, then woke at 12 and took ages to resettle. then again at 2.30, 4.45 and awake for the day at 7. i fed him each time as it's quick and easy. tonight he will be back into routine of bed at 7.30 so hope that might help.

Hello, please can I come in for a moan?

Ds2 is 7 months and a complete Jekyll and Hyde with sleep. Started brilliantly, then had an epic '4 month' slepp regression, which seemed to go on for 10 weeks and was hellish. Then out of the blue he started sleeping through the night just after Christmas, often from 7 til 7, or with just 1 wake either at 12 or 5. I was delighted, as I was just about to go back to work. So kist as we were getting comfortable... The last week has been awful! He was literally awake most of last night between 1 and 5.30- if I went to him he giggled and clearly wanted to play, if I leftthe room he yelled. He's also taken to needing the boob to settle for a nap in the day, whereas he was putting himself to sleep. Sigh

my feeling is that it's developmental, as he's just started babbling lots of new sounds and seems like he might be on the verge orlf crawling. He's pemanently ravenous too. We've only just got over the last terrible sleep patch though

Anyway, thanks for the moan- sympathy to you all x

Many sleep- deprived typos- just not kist etc etc

I'm just amazed there's so many of us all up at the same time. Are they all in contact somehow?!

woofie this is definitely not a thread for a pedant we're allowed to make as many typos as we like I think!

overtired oh my word you must be exhausted today :( We used to have to stop dd rolling about by putting a rolled up towel on either side of her body in the cot. That worked but that's because she only went side to side.

Same again last night - bed at 8, awake at 12 for a long feed, awake at 2 for short feed and nappy change (it was at bursting point), into my bed and slept til half 7. I wonder if I could find some sort of miracle nappy to contain all the wee he might sleep better!

Ideally I want him to have a bottle at 12 so I can go to bed earlier and leave dh up to give the bottle :)

Forgot...ds has also started making some new babbly noises and is looking like he might even roll at some point (lazy boy!) so development spurt seems to cover it.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, me too

my clockwork babe - 6/11/3/7 went mental at around 4.5 months - feeding every 1.5-2 hours for 1 week now have very similar night pattern to other posters.

So, sounds like this is probably normal for many babies - what I want to know is how the 4 hour schedulers of old coped and how soem people get round it too - I think the only answer is crying-it-out, which I'm not happy to do, so just have to stick it out I suppose.

My main worry is I used to have a baby I could put into his cot drowzy and he would almost without exception put himself to sleep - now it takes feeding and/or rocking - deeply troubled I am MARFMOB but what else can you do if your bab needs you?

Coping now, but next month I go back to work and very worried

digii that's exactly what happened with mine, she used to sleep 11 hours a night, with one or no night feeds up until the dreaded chickenpox and since has been a nightmare.

helenlg Its perfectly reasonable to feel tired from 2 or 3 night wakings, especially if you're breastfeeding through the night, that in itself is incredibly tiring.

moomiemoo I don't know, I have mixed feelings. On one hand it was horrendous, on the other hand I feel it is helping things. She screamed for 15 minutes and then whimpered for another 15 until she fell asleep last night. Then she woke up at 11.30, 12 and 1ish and she whimpered for about 5 minutes each time before settling to sleep. At 3 she woke up again and I gave her a nice long feed, put her down awake and she fell asleep without crying. She then slept through until 7.
I can see results already so that's making me feel like I am doing the right thing, and also saw 2 friends today who did cc and it worked which reassured me. But its just difficult fighting against your instinct to go and get your baby, I will admit at the beginning I was in tears. But if it teaches her to self settle and improves both our sleep it can only be a good thing.

Sorry for the essay!

Catdoctor, I really hope it gets better for you before you go back to work.

Everyone else, lets hope for better nights!

WickedWitchSouthWest hadn't even thought about development spurt. DD is just starting to crawl so that could explain a few things.

theresapotatoundermysink I think it's really natural to feel torn about CC - it's not our instinct to let them cry but it sounds like your DD had a better night - she'll get better at settling herself and that makes such a difference.

I am totally exhausted we can't undeerestimate the months and months of interrupted nights HelenLG !! I've got two other DCs so am on the go all the time esp as DD2 has decided that now's the time to start the terrible twos.

At least I don't have to think about functioning enough for work so feel for you catdoctor

Keep telling myself that it can't last forever.

DH managed to get DD to bed for the first time ever with a bottle - it was great until she threw up all over him just before he put her down! Hope that it was just too much milk and not being used to bottle rather than illness.

Good luck everyone!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a total ratbag for a DC!

My DS has always been a rubbish sleeper and it's not getting any better! He is OBSESSED with trying to crawl at the mo so wakes up for practice as well as feeds at least at 7, 9, 11, 2, 5.

He's not into feeding much in the day as he seems to think day time is for generally wiggling about and wearing out his mummy, and night time is for eating. I'm going to try tonight and not feed him between 11 and 6 (DH will offer water instead) in the hope it'll make him eat more during the day and therefore less at night. I figure it's worth a try!

spinaltap we had to do that with dd - set a time you consider night time so we did 11-6 like you and not feed during that time. It did work, took 3 nights, but she was 14 mo at that point, not sure I can go another 7 months really!

I'm going to get dh to give a bottle tonight and we'll check his nappy at the same time. I know he can go 6-7 hours between feeds at night! This silly 2am waking has to stop somehow . Saying that this week has been better than last week so maybe we are making slow progess?

Hello to all newcomers!

catdoctor, we are MARFMOBing like mad! We too have gone from a self-settling baby to one who needs music, rocking, and feeding.

Last night did something bonkers in our despair and set up the travel cot in her room at 10pm. Minus a couple of very short squeaking sessions that we didn't need to go in for, she slept from 10 til 5.30. Guess where she'll be sleeping tonight?

Can I join this one......
I'm experiencing all of what you are with my 5.5 month old boy...grrr. He used to sleep 8 hrs straight now it is at least 4 wake up calls and my very overworked boobs...

Anyone have any success?

Oh helen, forgot to say, I too think I feel more tired now than I did when DD was newborn. Perhaps it's something to do with novelty/adrenalin/honeymoon period? Even two or three wakings a night leaves me knackered!

Overtired I agree, DH did the night feeds last night, and I'm still knackered. It's like I've lost all my reserves and I just can't make it up. I did wonder ifmaybe I was slighty anaemic, as I was sent home with iron pills from the hospital but the doctor didnt bother rechecking iron levels at the six week check.

P.S (this is helen, just namechanged...)

Interesting about the iron pills. I don't think I'm anaemic, just 7 months of not sleeping has left me with no reserves either. Even DD's short wakes where she resettles herself really impact on my sleep quality. I'm also convinced that where you are in your sleep cycle when woken makes a difference, last night she woke me at 10 and I didn't know where I was, I was so disorientated.

Maybe it will end at some point. Maybe we'll die of exhaustion first.

I think we're going to try sleep in the living room tonight (1 bed flat) and see if that makes a difference.

moomiemoo - yes you're right, not a regression here either - well, actually maybe as right now his early months of waking only 4 times a night seem like the salad days ha ha

wickedwitchsouthwest funnily enough in last two days have tried to feed less often and last night he was really hungry at the feed before bed and it WORKED - at one point last night I got a two hour stretch of sleep! Hurrah hurrah! So am keeping going with this now too. He is only just on solids, so I will try the solids first plan and try and ramp them up too.

I wish you all lived round the corner - everyone round here just tells me I've brought this on myself for not doing some scary routine in the early weeks - but he's my precious b-a-a-a-b-y ha ha!

Am going to try the no cry sleep solution - it says in there that 92% of babies sleep a 5 hour stretch within 2 months (50% do it way way earlier, but I know we won't be in that cohort!)

If only we could sleep while awake

My DD sometimes does 5 hours stretches, so I shouldn't really complain about that, but I will!

Bless her, she did go through a phase that lasted about 4 days of sleeping 7 til 7. We'd thought we'd cracked it. (hollow laughter followed by weeping)

potato and moomiemoo, I have a CC question that I'm too scared to post anywhere else...

Did you find that when you went back in it just aggravated your LOs even more? PUPD didn't really work for us after the first few weeks because once she realised she was being left she just got furious! With CC do you pick them up, or just shush them, or stand by the cot?

I was wondering the same thing as PUPD pisses DS off.

Funnily enough my other two were older and could understand more. I could stay in the room and calm her by just being there. But when the are so little I definitely found that me coming back into the room made all three of mine cry more.

There's so much negative about CC and I guess there is that nagging feeling that I want them to know that they haven't been abandoned even if it made them cry more.

When we did proper CC with my first we left for increasingly long periods. 2 mins, then 5 then 10 etc. It only took a few nights and I don't think I really let her cry for much longer than five minutes in the middle of the night because we lived in a flat and I was v worried about the neighbours.

Sorry that's a bit of an essay but basically, yes it pisses them off when you come in and don't pick them up/feed them etc!

and overtired my rule has always been if they've done it before they can do it again. I KNOW DD can sleep 6 hours at a stretch without feeding so that's what I'm expecting of her.

How's the CC going so far?

Can I join?

My LO was a fantastic sleeper until about 4 months, slept from about 8 til 5am for a bf then back to sleep until about 8am. Then just out of nowhere she started waking up constantly.

She's now 7.5 months and waking up 2/3 times a night, and taking about 1.5-2 hours to settle back to sleep each time. Has two 20 minute naps during the day (no matter how much I try to settle her back to sleep she rarely ever sleeps longer).

I'm shattered! And I have no idea what to try next.