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?!

Well, I am determined not to be joining the over 1's thread . . . not that I have the ultimate say, that goes to DS

Having talked myself into 'going with the flow' and feeding him whenever he wakes in the night just to get him back to sleep I have now had a change of heart. I have decided for my own sanity and also to try and give DS a happy and tolerant mummy I am going to have to take a harder line with his sleep.

I am thinking of introducing a 'no feeding before 2am' rule as he has slept through until that time for months up until recently. I feel confident that he is getting enough milk during the day and at bedtime to see him through now that I am topping him up with bottles. Also when he does feed in the night it is only half hearted, so I do not believe it is hunger now. His tummy is settled at the moment with the BLW going well, so no issues on that front. Finally I feel confident I can tell when he wakes with teething pain, so can respond appropriately on those occassions. So justifications out the way that is my plan.

The next step will be to not bring him into bed when he wakes at 5ish and try and re-settle him in his cot. And the final step will be to cut out the 4am feed and make him wait until 'get up time' 6am onwards.

Writing it out here helps make it clearer. Well that is my plan and I am sticking to it for today anyway As you may be able to tell, having a plan of action makes me feel more in control and therefore more positive about the whole thing

Anyone elses DC suddenly really fighting to go down for their morning nap? DS has not slept in the morning for the last 4 days now. He appears tired, almost goes to sleep but then starts fighting it and works himself into a state until I have to get him up. Surely he is not ready to cut out this nap already. His grumpiness would tell me he is not.

Oops, sorry for the marathon post

Nothing enlightening to add but didn't want to lurk and not 'come out' to add voice to this issue!

5m3weeks old DD2. Was a show-off sleep through the night baby from a very early age until about 4 1/2 months. Has gotten progressively worse and I am virtually sleepwalking through the day. Thank goodness 2 days a week, my lovely boisterous toddler goes to nursery.

Happy as a lark all day and napping very well. Gets totally grizzly by about 430/5 and it is downhill from there, right through til morning.

Last 5 days have been the worst since she was a newborn so I stopped the baby rice (she was EBF but I decided to start a couple of weeks prior to 6m in the vain hope it might help with the sleep haha I should have known better!). Can't see any sign of teeth but lord knows what else it could be. Has had majorly runny nappies for 4 weeks on and off (I started the baby rice when these seemed to have settled a bit but they've come back all powerful and frothy like - sorry for tmi!)........................................

Won't settle off on an evening now after had only JUST mastered this and was feeling very proud of reclaiming the evenings after months of trying! Was coping quite well with the night wakings before the evening unsettledness chipped in as I was previously getting either one or the other.

Now feeling extremely knackered after feeding on and off all evening, conking out then feeding around 10, 1130, 330 and awake at 630.

Weirdly (or not as she was probably STUFFED FULL!!!), was not bothered about a feed until gone 10am even though awake since 630. Has now been asleep for over 2 hours napping which is excellent.

Vicious cycle and I refuse to wake her from her naps although she is clearly catching up from disrupted sleep in night. I instinctively don't feel I need to try 'train' her out of this, rather weather the storm for another month or more and see what progress we make. Am fairly aware this will send me back to being completely loopy and over-emotional through fatigue but I don't believe in leaving to cry and I am too tired to try anything much out of the ordinary despite reading Pantley. I just wasn't all that inspired.

Man, that was depressing after plannin gjust to 'check in'!!

hi kiwilizzie - I was confused about the 2 hour nap thing at nearly 4 in the morning, until I read your name! Hopefully your DD2 will settle back to her pre-4 month sleep regression???

ellabella, genuinely curious as to why you think not feeding before 2am will work? ie. your baby does not know what time it is. So if he wakes at 1am one night and has to be settled, wail whatever for an hour before getting fed, compared to another night when he wakes at 2am and gets fed, won't this be confusing? Wouldn't it be better to just decide to stop the night feeds full stop if you are now confident he's getting enough during the day? If this does work then let me know as I would love my DS2 to miss out the feed around 11ish and go through til 3/4am which is when the second feed seems to be.

Can't remember how old your DS is, but my DS1 started cutting out the morning nap at around 10 months.

Hi kiwilizzie yes, weather the storm, weather the storm! I wonder how much longer I will feel that the easy option is to feed back to sleep, or whether I will overcome my aversion to crying and sleeptraining .... I still have hope that with perseverance everything will come right. [crossing fingers emoticon] - rereading a post from sdotg towards the beginning of this thread always helps me feel a bit more positive.

I went to a weaning session for prem babies yesterday, thankfully most of the others were being difficult sleepers too - the nurses cheerfully told us how weaning would be certain to help, and I resisted the urge to quote from all the experiences on here which tell me that the solids can totally bugger things up confuse things!

They did suggest doing a 'dream feed' though, which is one thing I've not tried yet, so I guess this is as good a time as any. Last night she slept from 7.45 to 2am, then 5am, then 9am getting up. (early teenage tendencies again!). She's had plenty of time to get used to the new nap regime, so now the Plan includes a dream feed. I'm a bit nervous of the yelling that will be caused by me dragging her out of bed at 10.30pm but it's worth a try! Anyone else have any experience of doing this? CamperFan, did you mention dream feeds a while ago? How did it go?

I'm off now to try and ladle DD's first solids into her! Carrot covered carpet here we come!

Morning Friends

Since I have upped feeds in the day and given solids after breastfeeds rather than inbetween she has only been waking once a night BUT this morning she was up for the day at 5.30am!!! We have tried putting her to bed later but she is still up with the birds the next day. Queue me in bed at 8pm for the forseeable future as at the moment with going to bed at 10pm by the time I have drifted off to sleep she is up again for a feed at 11pm anyway! I never wanted to dream feed and would rather she woke when she was hungry.

I've finally got 5 mins to come on here!!
Last night after the 1st of the 3hr night wakings, I naughtily took the laptop to bed & was reading all your threads and decided I needed a plan too!
I wasn't going to bf when DD woke in the night as I know she doesn't need food. So she woke at 2.20 (which in fairness was 4hr after her last feed...so should have been chuffed with that) but no I was on a mission......lets just say 1hr30min later after lots of cuddles, pupd, crying, getting cross (me not her) I put her on the boob!!!! And decided I need a new plan!
So the plan today is to get her to go for her nap unaided. I've never fed to sleep at nap time but I used to be able to put her down & pat/shh her & she'd go off. For the last month I've had to nurse her, put her down, cries, pick her up and keep doing this till eventually she's asleep.....40mins later she's wide awake! I do find it all quite stressful, taking an hour to get her off when she only naps for 40mins so maybe if she'll settle herself she'll sleep longer. Plus her crib is still in the playroom so I'm going to move that up to her room (cot in my room).
What I need help with is getting her to sleep at night time. At the moment I BF her & she goes to sleep....how do you manage to bf them & them not fall asleep before putting them down? TBH, this is the one time I know that after 20min on the boob she should be fast asleep & stay asleep when put down!!!
And I did put her cot in her own room.....was up 6 times in 8 hr....thought bugger that & put the cot back in my room!
So it's a day of PUPD for me? What are your plans?? No doubt tomorrow my plan will be to just bf at wakings and ride it out!!!

Yup, things may be bad but I'm not yet at the point of referring to the small blocks of night sleep as 'naps' :)

I do not want to say too much but things have been heading in the right direction at night

CamperFan - in answer to your question about my 'no feeding before 2am' plan I got the idea from a sleep book that I read a while ago (cannot remember what it was called now). They suggested that once your baby sleeps through a stretch of time e.g. 7pm - 2am this is their 'core night' and they have shown you that they do not need to feed between these times. So you try and settle them without feeding between these times and gradually increase the length of time until they are (idealistically) sleeping through the whole night without feeding. My DS had been sleeping through until about 2.30am for months until this recent sleep blip so hence my plan to try getting him back to his original pattern at night. I know what you mean about them not knowing what the time is but I think their bodies/tummies can get into a habit of waking for a feed at certain times even if they are not truly hungry. I suppose I am trying to re-set DS's sleep rhythm and push his waking for a feed habit to later in the night (closer to 4am if possible).

TheresA - my HV also suggested that I try introducing a dream feed for DS. I did contemplate it for a few nights but for him it does not seem to work that well. He still wakes a few hours later anyway It's definitely one of those things that seems to work really well for some babies and not for others!

Well, I am sticking with my plan of not feeding until as late in the night as possible, even if it means a few hours of shushing, cuddling and crying (DS that is and me close to tears with exhaustion) as it seems to be improving his sleep pattern so far. Painful in the short term but SO worth it if I can get him back to only waking once a night.

Hope everyone else is surviving and getting a bit of kip here and there

My little terror treasure decided to wake up at 330, 5, 6 with huge grins and wanting to play. Fed back to sleep as if I wasn't actually at least pretending to play then he whinged. Of course I then found sleep eluded me so have been awake since 3.30

Hello ladies :)

It seems to be getting slightly better for us. Still a bit random but I am usually getting a 6 hour stretch of sleep in myself somewhere along the way, which makes all the difference :)

A top tooth made its appearance the other day and things have been better since then, but I think the second one must be due to come along soon too, so am bracing myself!

However, I am sticking with the 'go with the flow, ride it out' plan for now, as it seems to be working out (this week )

TheresA - how's the weaning going?

Beela, that is fab news. Long may it continue for you

We seem to be on one good night, one hellish night here Due for a hellish one tonight so feeling rather apprehensive . . .

My latest idea is playing with his nap times and frequencies. We will see

Hello everyone!

Well I am feeling totally shattered, she is back to 2.5/3hr wakings overnight and was up at 5.45 this morning. I MUST go to bed as soon as I've finished writing this!

Weaning is actually great fun for everyone, she's got the hang of opening her mouth for the spoon, and the faces she pulls are to die for! It is such a laugh to watch her grapple with the taste and the sensation. Loving it. However the only effect it has had so far on her sleep is to make her do some nocturnal poos. Let's hope this is a very brief, temporary side effect!

I don't think dream feeds are for us. I don't see the point of waking her after 2 hours when she will wake after 3 anyway. Not much point. If I can get her to the point of reliably sleeping for 6 hours or so at a time, then I may return to the idea of a dream feed. But not now.

So I am back to Square One. The nap regime hasnt worked. The dream feed wouldn't work. Tonight I am tired so I'm just going for the easy option which is an early night and feed her when she wakes. If it can work for you, beela and greeneone, then fingers crossed I will be lucky too!

I've been eyeing the Sleep Solution books on Amazon .... has the time come to get serious about this?

I have also done some reading about 'attachment parenting' (thanks greeneone) which I'd never heard of before. We're not cosleeping but much of it is the way I have instinctively been with DD. This article has been on my mind recently, but I haven't the energy to do anything about it!

bubbakin I love the idea of your under-the-sheets MNing! How has your unassisted nap plan been? I am feeding to sleep at 90% of naps and bedtimes. Oh how this easy life is coming back to bite me on the ass. ...

ellabella how is your core night plan? V interested as if it's working then I may adopt it as my next strategy!

Huppo

Sorry, Ella, think I crossed messages with you. Good luck for tonight!

Morning

Well after looking at this thread yesterday and thinking I could maybe bow out gracefully now we only were only have 1 night waking - wrong!!! Last night LO woke every 2 hours and I just feel like bursting into tears :( The first two wakings I fed her and she fell asleep very quickly. Refused to do it the 3rd waking (she wasn't crying, just moaning) I picked her up, cuddled her, put her down and she went to sleep! Then fed her at 5am and the bought her in with me at 6am when she went bak to sleep until 9am!

I have a feeling it has to do with solids. I really am in a right royal mess. I started with giving solids between breasts but DD cut back on milk to much so went back to basics, offered loads of milk feeds and tried giving solids an hour after feeds which DD refused and wouldn't even open her mouth.

So last night back to giving tea between breasts which she happily took (the solids) after refusing them for a week but then woke every 2 hours. Surely that can't be to blame?

I have mucked up weaning, my child is no where near to sleeping through - I should write a book called 'The un-contented baby book'!!!! Wonder if I would sell any

Morning greeneone, sorry to hear you're having the weaning/sleep buggeration issue. That sounds exactly like the night I had last night as well - waking every 2 hours, fed back to sleep but dropped off after much more grumbling than normal. I blame the mashed banana that she wolfed down earlier .... too much , too soon for a tummy used to breastmilk only perhaps!

Anyway, I share your knackeredness. I will certainly buy your book to compare with mine - 'Unhealthy sleep habits, how can this child ever be happy'!

I just don't understand. So many of my friends LO's are on 3 meals a day and I am lucky if DD has one lot of solids a day! I just can't take many more nights of no sleep. It feels worse after we had a lovely week of only 1 very manageable night waking too!

Hi all, can i join?
DS is coming up for nearly 7 months now and his sleep is awful! He's never done longer than a 5 hour stretch apart from the first night we did the bath and bed routine and used johnsons bedtime bath (apparently it was just a fluke that it worked ) He has been in a good bedtime routine since about 7 weeks and is in his own room as he outgrew his moses basket very quickly.
His sleep has got progressively worse over the past month or so, with every 2 hour wakings which nothing seems to make any difference to e.g. more/less solid food, more bf's, more naps, less naps.
His bottom 2 teeth came through just before the 6 month mark, and he's been able to roll for a couple of months now. However he's now crawling and this morning managed to use his toybox to pull himself up to standing. I think his major problem is that he can't keep still, if i put him in his cot for a nap and try and get him to settle himself he just flips over and crawls around his cot, then gets really pissed off frustrated when i put him back on his back and does exactly the same thing again.
DP and i tried letting him cry the other night (i was sat in the room with him, but didn't get him out of the cot i just kept laying him down when he was pulling up on the cot and whispering the "each peach pear plum" rhyme to him) but he was still crying an hour later; so i dont even feel like we have CC as an option as i dont think DS is one of thoses babies that will wind down as they cry.
I really don't know what to do. Getting quite desperate, and all i keep thinking is that now he can pull himself up/ when he can walk i've got even less chance of him keeping still and going to sleep. Just feels like it's not going to get any better anytime soon.
Sorry for the long post / rant. Hope you all got some sleep last night

Well, no more sleep here a night as predicted.

[Rant alert]

I used to be able to count on getting at least 5 hours sleep each night and a couple of hours uninterupted adult time each evening after putting him to bed. I could plan my days around his 3 half hour naps and have a good idea of whether he was getting grumpy from hunger, tiredness or boredom.

Now I never know what each night will bring and the evenings are broken by re-settling him to sleep. During the day his naps are all over the place and often end up happening when out in the pushchair or on the boob. I feel like I am existing from one day to the next, can't make plans knowing how he will be and am constantly knackered.

What happened to my fairly predictable baby

I expend far too much energy on trying to fathom what on earth is going on for him and each day have a new theory

I hate feeling so out of control .....

Venting over!

It is obviously not that uncommon, judging by those of us on this thread but the big question is when will it pass and how to survive it in the mean time. Anwers on a post card

Hello all,
can I join? i am typing with DS (6 months) on my lap, so wil be brief. Most of what people say here is my experience- waking every hour and more recently waking up also at 2.30 and crying on and off till 5ish. Have tried cc, it helped, but he can sleep on his own, so probably teething or tummy problems? Don't know, but we are all grumpy in the house. And if one more person says that their baby was sleeping through the night by 5 minutes old, I swear I will £$^&@@@!!!!

Hello to sleepdeprivedgrumpybum (I know exactly how you feel!) and singingseahorse - and to everyone else - it is so reassuring to know we're not alone! Someone said to me today that if the babies haven't killed us by the time they're one year old, then we've won! I don't know if that means they will sleep through by then, or if we will all be trained to survive and thrive on a few 2-hour sleeps a night. We will be lean, mean mummy machines

I am Sans Plan. I feel quite bereft but I have been obsessing about this for some time and I've thought about it so much that I have lost the ability to come up with any ideas.

The only good news I can offer is that DD settled herself beautifully to sleep this evening (having made bedtime an hour later than usual after she perked up following a huge newbie-to-weaning poo). I hope this bodes well for tonight (the self-settling, not the poo!).

I am tempted to ladle down some calpol at her first waking and see if that makes any difference. Does that count as a plan? [bad mother emoticon]

Sleep tight for as long as you can .... :)

Morning Ladies

Hmmmm calpol....I was told by my friend yesterday that I should embrace it having steered clear for 6 months. I wimped out last night and used teething powder instead.

Well last night we had our usual midnight waking for food and then another waking at 2am. But, similar to the night before, I picked her up, cuddled and then laid her back down and she went back to sleep! I read that seperation anxiety can start kicking in now so that might be at play.

My OH and I just stared at each other this morning with yet another 5.30am waking! I managed to push her feed to 6.30am when she had another cat-nap. Please please tell me when she starts crawling she will be so exhausted she will sleep until 9am!! I can dream.......

Where do we all live! I would love to set up a '6MO waking every 3 hours coffee (and cake) morning'!

greeneone definitely count me in for the coffee and cake! I am in Warwickshire.

I am continuing with the 'go with the flow' plan, some nights it works and some nights it doesn't, but it takes less energy than all of the other plans that I have devised, and seems just as (in)effective.

Daytime naps are fine when taken in the pushchair, cot naps have become such a battle (unless he happens to feed to sleep) that I have all but given up for the time being. And whilst he was starting to get the hang of self settling at bedtime, this too is currently preceeded by half an hour of screaming (mostly from DS, hahaha).

I was also hoping for a bit more sleep once the crawling started, until sleepdeprived pointed out that I will have even less chance of settling him once he can move around the cot.... aghghghghghhh!!

To top it all, his new top tooth seems to have settled the night wakings a bit but he has decided to test it out at every opportunity, including during bfs. Ow ow ow ow.

Sorry, I seem to have ranted! I feel better now, obviously needed to get all that off my chest, thanks for listening

To be fair, I am usually getting a 5 hour stretch of sleep somewhere in the night, and on the plus side, weaning is great fun. Watching him feed himself a strawberry almost makes up for the sleep deprivation :)

Yep, they sure are gorgeous in the morning, all cooing and then smeared in food etc. But really, come on babies! We need sleep! We have a system here: it is 'mummy sleeps in another room first part of the night (8-2), then swap with daddy for rest of night'. Nothing to do with baby, does wonders for the demise of one's relationship, but hey, survival is the most important thing at the moment!

Hello greeneone I'm up for a cake sesh, I'm in central London so we could have some logistical issues on our hands ..... v happy to travel though :)

Last night I didn't go for Calpol, I was feeling quite full of energy so I thought I'd start to implement a 'core night' - and not feed her between midnight and 6am. So she went down and self-settled beautifully at 8pm, then woke at midnight, so I fed her till 12.30 and thought 'here we go'. When she woke at 2.30, I settled her quickly with the dummy and a rock in the cradle, then again at 2.45, 3.45, 4, 4,10 ... she then slept till 6.10 and I fed her, she went back to sleep till 9am (when I had to wake her!). That all sounds horrendous, but I feel chuffed that she didn't feed from 12.30-6.10am, and it was all v painless (ie no crying) thanks to the dummy. Yes she kept waking up again (I take the dummy away from her when she's asleep) but the idea is that she'll get used to not being fed, so she won't bother waking .... come on DD! Embrace the zeds!

She's self-settled again with no problems at all this evening. And I'm off to bed in preparation for what's to come ....

I wish we could use your sensible swapping system, singingseahorse - sadly DH has a truly vicious case on at the moment so he's working every waking hour, and I can't ask him to lose yet more sleep. Survival it is indeed!

zzzz