6 MO waking every 3 hours

[TheresAHuppoInMyHouse]

My DD is 6 months (4 months adjusted age as she was premature and arrived at 30 weeks). She gradually started sleeping for longer and longer periods and I was feeling very pleased with myself! Then a month ago the night wakings began again, for no apparent reason. She would only have been 3 months (adjusted) so too early for a growth spurt I reckon? Anyway it's still going on and I'm starting to think there must be something I can do to get back to my nice long stretches of sleep!

She is awake for 1.5hr-2hrs at a time during the day, so she normally has 3 naps of an hour each at regular intervals. And a little catnap in the sling sometimes. Perhaps this is too much daytime sleep?

She is exclusively bf and has started to be more distracted suring daytime feeds (those maddeningly endearing pulls-off and smiles! are a killer!) but I'm spending more time feeding, so am trying to keep up the daytime calories.

She is generally happy to settle herself to sleep when drowsy - although always after a bf. For a nap, this only takes a few minutes so perhaps I've started an unhelpful sleep association? Sometimes she's obviously knackered so falls deeply asleep a-boobing, and stays asleep when she's transferred to her cot.

Every time she wakes at night, I feed her and she goes straight back to sleep. I'm a bit nervous of trying to settle her without a feed, and tbh I wouldn't know how to do so. Any tips?

She goes to bed at 7ish and wakes for the day at sometime between 6 and 7. Reading this, I feel like I've got nothing to complain about, but WHY won't the little bugger darling sleep for longer than two or three hours at a time, when she used to do so, apparently effortlessly?!

Sorry beela, a terrible night indeed, just get thought it, get sleep wherever you can, I was going to bed at 8pm back them, even now I'm still asleep by 11pm
To the coffee shop this morning?

Thanks sdotg - yes, out of the house definitely, and preferably to somewhere that does sell large cakes.

I love to read about everyone's night...but only because I need some moral support! We had a 10.30 feed, then a delightful addition of a midnight wakeup from DS1 (age 4) and DH wasn't here, then shock horror - I managed to settle DS2 with a dummy at 3am (he doesn't like dummies, just boobs), so no actual feed til almost 5am. He did then feed on and off til 5.45, which was a pain, but slept til 7am when DS1 woke us up. So not a horrific night, but not great either.

I am thinking of dream feeding him at 10pm so that I can control when he wakes and get to sleep earlier. I normally go to bed about 9-9.30 but most nights it is hardly worth it as he wakes before I have had a chance to really get to sleep. So at least if I feed him at 10pm then he can be back in his cot by 10.30pm. That's the theory anyway, seems crazy to be introducing a dream feed at 6 months though!

Another one joining!

We went to sleep at 9.30, awake again at 12.30, then 2, then 3.30, then DD woke 5 mins after DH's alarm at 6.

DD is six months, and the health visitor said last week it was most likely to be her teeth (after a truly horrible night of 10.30, 12.30, 1.30, 3.30, 5.30 and 6.30. We can feel both her top and bottom middle teeth under her gums - they are quite sharp.

I guess the $64,000 question is when will the buggers erupt so we can all get some sleep?

(she's also desperate to crawl and is nearly there by the looks of things - maybe this will make her so knackered the she'll sleep!)

Hello all It is a small consolation to know that others are in the same sleep deprived boat.

Well, last night was another disaster In part due to the fact that for the only lump of time he actually slept I had insomnia and lay there working out how many ounces of milk I could give him etc

Beela interesting what you HV had to say. DS also has his bottom two teeth through and it was just prior to their appearance about 5 weeks ago that this whole sleep deterioration started

I also spoke to my HV and she suggested it could be a)teething and constipation that initally disturbed his good sleep pattern and b) that he could actually be hungry.

DP had also queried whether it could be hunger as DS has been getting more and more distracted and disinterested in BF recently. To the point where he was getting dehydrated. So I have been expressing and giving him bottles, which he laps up.

The Plan = give him a bottle of EBM around 10pm to top him up for the night. Did this last night and although he then slept until 2pm (the longest stretch of sleep all night) he then woke having done a big poo and would not settle, despite cuddles and BF

I am finding myself doing all the things I wanted to avoid, like extra BF through the night, lots of cuddles and bringing him into our bed in the early hours and feeding him to sleep just to get another hour or so of rest It's funny what you will do in an attempt to get just a little bit more sleep!

Expressing all day long is becoming unmanageable (for my mental health) so today DS had his first ever bottle of FF. This was never part of my plan and has been an emotional event. However, if DS keeps refusing to BF I will have to resort to FF during the day. If it means he feeds properly and then sleeps better it is a price worth paying.

Fingers crossed for everyone for tonight xx

Sorry, missed the last few posts before adding mine.

Beela xx I know exactly what you mean about 'how much longer'. This morning after DS refused to go down for his morning nap I had a bit of a melt down and had to be rescued by my parents for the rest of the day.

IT CANNOT LAST FOREVER....please, please, please

There are just so many things going on for our LO's at the moment. Lots of people say things settle down a lot once they reach 1yr. Only about 5 months to go

Ellabella what a night. You've done so well to do so much expressing - I too gave DD her first FF over the past couple of weeks and in fact am finding it very liberating and worth it! My fridge/freezer broke so I lost loads of expressed milk, so I just thought fukkit no more expressing I have HAD ENOUGH! Now I give her just a little ff in the evening and she takes it fine and I am enjoying not being welded to the sofa, expressing.

And beela I feel for you. Those middleofthenight battles are killers. Enjoy your lovely happy daytime baby and yes, a Plan which just involves getting though it sounds sensible, we can't control everything and sanity is a priority!

I had another very reasonable night last night and have everything crossed for tonight. Last night she went down after a bit of a struggle at 8, woke from 3-4 and then was up for the day at 6.30. Luckily I conked out at 9pm so had a lovely long stretch of sleep myself. The dreaded insomnia hit though (why IS that?! SO annoying) so from 4-6.30 I was heaving big sighs and wondering whythehell I was awake.

The Plan I'm following which involves keeping her awake for 2 hr stretches seems to be having an effect. However, she's so used to having her naps after 1.5 hrs that entertaining a grouchy baby is quite testing, but definitely worth it, if indeed it is that which is helping.

If it's any help at all then it shows that the MN mantra 'this too shall pass' is in fact true, as these 2 reasonable nights have come after 6 weeks of hideous sleeplessness. The only problem is that I know this TOO will pass! Gah!

And hello everyone else, it's nice to see you here for cameraderie and consolation during the long lonely hours. Good luck for tonight and please do come back and tell us if anything has worked. :)

Best of luck tonight you guys

Guess what??? Last night, for only the second time in his short life, DS slept all night!! Not one wake up!

I have no idea what we did differently and am not going to get my hopes up and assume that this is it, but it was lovely to have the break :) (altho I too had the dreaded 4am insomnia, grrrr).

ellabella I've had that morning nap meltdown too, I feel your pain . Well done with sticking at the expressing for so long. I too came round to the idea of formula yesterday, I made his breakfast porridge with some and put the rest of the carton into a sippy cup for him. It was not as emotional as I thought, mainly because I tasted it and thought it was quite nice Now I have gotten over that mental hurdle I think it will make life a bit easier. Am already contemplating long shopping trips whilst he and DP enjoy some male bonding Seriously though, a happy and relaxed mummy counts for a lot, and if a bit of ff achieves that then it must be a good thing.

TheresA - so glad your Plan seems to be working, long may it continue :)

How did everyone else get on last night?

Well, better nights all round it seems

He went down well at 7, woke briefly at 9 with teething pain i think and i was able to settle him with shushing and some teething granules. He then slept through until 3.20 fed him 6oz EBM and a comfort BF. He grumbled for about an hour but i did not need to go back in until he woke at 6.30.

I had 5 HOURS UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP

He has just gone down like a dream for his morning nap, while i sit here expressing.

It is really reasuring to hear that you have also just introduced some FF. Obviously not as unusual at this stage of things as I thought.

Todays plan is to fill him up with as much milk (BF, EBM and FF) as possible.

Well, here is to happy babies and slightly more rested mummies

Oh it is so good to have some good news! Well done us!

DD woke at 11pm and 3.30, then up at 7.15. Very manageable. And she's just gone down for her morning nap without a little bf to see her off - thought I'd try a dummy just to see what happened. She was rather surprised but sucked happily away (this is a first, she's always refused to suck it before) and fell asleep easily (ie - quietly ) when I whipped it out and she is still asleep. Feeling quite chuffed that this could be another weapon in the armoury.

Enjoy today, everyone!

Can I join too? My twins slept really well from about 10 weeks to 16 weeks, then the sleep went crazy again

Have been feeding each of them to sleep 3 or 4 times each between 10pm and 8am for too long to still be sane.

There may be hope on the horizon though - DTS only woke once between 10pm and 7am the night before last, and DTD only woke once last night .... fingers crossed that at 6.5 months, things are improving

I am able to feed them to sleep lying down though ..... don't know how you cope with babies who are actually awake and screaming ^in the night. That would finish me off!

I don't know how you cope with two! You deserve a gold medal!

My LO went down well at 7pm with no grumbling at all! Then she woke at 11pm for a feed. Then she woke at 3am but last night I decided not to feed her when she wakes at night anymore. Cue 1.5 hours of her crying and me stroking her head and patting her tummy. She went off eventually but by then it was 5am and she was up again at 7.30am. DP went to work at 6am grumpy so not great.

She might have woken due to teething pain so I gave her powder and gel. I am too scared to use calpol in case it knocks her out and I want to use it all the time!

I think we have a long week ahead as now I have refrained from feeding her last night I won't go back to feeding her. HV said that she is a good weight and as she is eating twice a day she can go from 12-7 without a feed but there is still a tiny voice in the back of my head that says 'mean Mum' for denying her the comfort. Why oh why did we not give her a dummy!!

Over and out for now!

Dummies don't help much .... mine both use them, but are still having 3 or 4 feeds! I try the dummy every time; sometimes it works, but most times it doesn't. I take that to mean they're actually hungry.

My two are on two smallish feeds a day. On the one hand, I want to feed them more food so they're full, but they take less milk ^in the day if I feed them lots of solids. So then I wonder if they're reeding at night to make up the milk?

Oh I don't know! Too tired to keep guessing!

Hooray for last night's sleep!

Hope tonight is a good one.

HappyAs I thought that too re. food / milk but then I got so confused about what I was trying to achieve that I had to stop thinking! I have started giving him his 'main' meal at lunchtime rather than in the evening to give him chance to digest etc and hopefully make sure he takes in enough milk in the evening. Who knows if that has made any difference

That's an idea...I currently give one breast and then solids and then second side in the evenings. Maybe I should give a full feed and then solids an hour later to make sure she has a full feed?! Worth a try I guess. She went down at 7pm so let's see how tonight goes.

The whole solids/milk balance is such a minefield

I am going mainly down the BLW path so solids take a back seat and DS increases his intake very gradually, as this seems to be the best way for his big eyes but sensitive little tummy!

Today I have filled him to bursting point with milk (which he has mroe than happily guzzled down out the bottle) so we will see ..... He has already woken once but we have just had a huge thunder storm and he did re-settle easily.

He napped for an hour in the morning and at lunch time today, which is very rare (he is a strict 30 min boy) and has been incredibly happy. Like a different baby I will feel awful if it does turn out that he has just been hungry for the last month But when you keep offering the breast and he doesn't feed much, you just assume it can't be hunger I was not counting on my little monky being quite so lazy sure that he won't feed from the breast even if hungry...I don't know. DP says I should not be surprised as he is my son

Hi everyone, I feel very reassured to read your messages. I went to the physio today and was made to feel terribly guilty that I am BF 7 month old bub to sleep and whenever she wakes in the night - 4 times at the moment. I was told I should be doing CC but I just cannot do it. My DH tries to get her to sleep and this minute has DD in the babybjorn to soothe her to sleep.

I am worried as we are booked to go to a concert in a couple of weeks time (first night out togetehr) and I don't know how the babysitter will get her to sleep. Should I try not BF her to sleep at all? Do you just have to go cold turkey? I have been delirious the past week and just dont have the energy to nurse whilst she is crying. help.

Count me in. My DS slept through (7.30-6.30ish) from 16-18 weeks then, I'm assuming, hit the 4 month regression with a cold and has got progressively worse since then. He's now 23 weeks and back to two feeds in the night as well as one or two cuddles. Most nights ending up with him sleeping on me in the early hours of the morning so that we can all get some sleep (although I can only doze as he wriggles quite a lot and sometimes headbutts my jaw). He's definitely teething as I can feel the bottom teeth so I'm just praying they cut through soon. Every time we have a slightly better night I pray that we've turned a corner but then the following night is awful again.

His daytime sleeping has massively deteriorated as well. He's always needed a bit of a moan when put down but used to then quieten down and go to sleep. Now he goes bananas and I seem to spend large chunks of the day with him yelling and me in two minds as to whether to pick him up again or hope he goes to sleep eventually. I usually give up at some point which then ends up with him nodding off on my lap after a bf and me just leaving him there so that he gets some sleep at least!

Have I mentioned I'm trying to potty train my DD as well .

PS Have any of the health professionals who tell you not to BF to sleep ever tried to keep a BF baby awake whilst feeding in the middle of the night?

Reporting in. Not a great night again....woke at 11pm then 12pm then 3am then 5am then 7! Plan today - FEED FEED FEED to tank her up. Mine is also all over the place with daytime sleep and every day I wake anxious wondering what the day will bring. I think I am going to turn to attachment parenting and just make life easy for a while!

greeneone12 I so agree with the idea of making life easy! Sometimes I think I've been my own worst enemy with battling away, trying to get DD to do stuff she doesn't want to (ie drink water overnight, go to sleep when she'd rather not etc), and life is SO MUCH easier if I take the path of least resistance. Happy baby = happy mummy. Or even: non-shouty baby = happy mummy.

lill72 I share your anxiety about leaving DD with a babysitter for an evening. I've been out a few times but always after bedtime, and always during a good sleeping period, so the babysitter has just been able to watch telly and DD has stayed fast asleep. Now it's a different matter! I'm taking DP out for his birthday in a few weeks, we will have to leave at 7pm and I'm already worried about her not being asleep by then, and waking before we get back. I keep trying to reassure myself that we have the tools of dummy/bottle/pacing/rocking and that my friend who's babysitting won't dump me as a friend after one noisy evening with DD! I wish I didn't have to worry about it though. Don't get me started on back-to-work anxiety ....

Update from last night - woke at 11.30 and 4.40, then up for the day at 7.30. I can get used to this.

So much so that I've just made some white chocolate and pecan cookies while she naps.

Cookies....mmmmmmmmmm

I spent so long in the early days barking at DP not to rock to sleep or let her get too comfy on his chest etc

Now I realise feed to sleep all the way! Plenty of time to get them off that later on. I see my friends DC's falling asleep on their lap when out and I wish mine would do that instead of having to go for a walk in the pram.

I am out tonight for a concert and I bet she will sleep well tonight. Typical!

Oooh, cookies, mmmm mmmm. DS is napping now (having fed to sleep, hahaha use it while it lasts that's what I say), I am going to make a cherry cake from my new recipe book. Anyone fancy a slice? pretty sure that bf-ers should have both cake and cookies.

We did not have a repeat of the full night's sleep last night, but wakings at 10.30 and 4.00, then in with us from 6 until 7.15 - not too bad.

Ditto what others have said re going out for the evening. DS used to be VERY reliable pre midnight, so we had a couple of nights out but wouldn't feel so confident at the moment. We've got a dinner to go to in a couple of weeks which starts at 7pm so would need to leave the house 6.30-ish (dressed and everything!). I can't believe that we cannot achieve that once, but it seems like such a problem at the moment, esp as DS has always needed a bit of help to go to sleep.

However - even if the babysitter cannot get DS back to sleep if he wakes, the worst thing that will happen is that he will end up awake and downstairs for a couple of hours when he should be asleep in bed, which will probably make for a pretty rotten night and following day, but it's not the end of the world just the once.

lill72 - 'should be doing CC' - at physio, do what you are comfortable with. 7 months is still teeny tiny.

Hi everyone,

I'll have all the cakes and cookies going please

Feeding DS to the max has not seemed to make any difference to his sleep

Last two nights he has woken:

8 - re-settled quite easily
11ish - nothing but BF will settle him
2ish - cuddles and BF!
4/5ish - co-sleep and BF

Notice how as the night progresses so his demands increase
I am now doing all the things I worked so hard to avoid to get him sleeping independently; BF through the night, picking him up, co-sleeping and feeding to sleep in our bed All for just a little bit of sleep and not to have hours of crying.

On a brighter note he roled over from front to back for the first time this morning while in bed with DP and I four times...clever boy. I think all the top up feeding is making him happier during the day too. Yesterday he was definitely suffering with teething though poor mite (not in the night though, he just seemed to be awake)

Wishing us all more sleep for tonight

Morning Everyone :) Good news to report. Last night we have only one night waking! Yesterday I fed her at every opportunity to tank her up and it seems to have worked! ellabella2 I too am reverting back to doing all the things I didn't want to but I have decided they can always be moulded later on. Just now we need to cope and I want to be a happy Mum not a tired/nervous wreck all the time.

Here's to attachment parenting cuddles in bed from 6am and feeding to sleep in the afternoons.