Need help and tips on getting 6 month old to fall to sleep please!

[drappel]

DS is just over 6 months old now and for the last few weeks has been battling bedtime. It can take anything from 5 minutes to an hour to get him to fall asleep. Once he's there, perfect, no problems. So we're asking for any advice to help us get him there please!

At 3 months old he moved out of his moses basket and into his cotbed, easily transitioned and when we put him down, he would sometimes mumble and mither for a few minutes, but normally settled quickly. From about 4 months, this has got gradually worse. He went down fine during the day still, but the evenings became more and more difficult until the last 2 weeks, he now has a minimum of 15 minute battle before dropping off for any of his sleeps. Our principles of dealing with him were based on the type of cry. Grumbly mither, leave him for no more than 5 minutes doing this. Cry, leave him for no more than 3 minutes. Tantrum, went straight in. Our current settling method is to leave him lying in the cot and soothe him there. Sometimes with the tantrum we have to pick him up and rock him quiet and then put him back. We have tried the pick up/put down method, but all that did was stop him crying as soon as we picked him up and start him crying as soon as we put him down, after the 3rd or 4th put down, the mumbling invariably had progressed to crying and sometimes tantrumming. We know he isn't hungry (is weaning well), have a good evening routine and get between 2 and 2 half hours in total from 3 sleeps during the day. We always get him to bed at the first signs of tiredness and have tried varying the evening bedtime from between 6 and 7:30, all producing the same results! And yes, we have given everything ample time to work. Finally (!!) we do know he is starting the early stages of teething and have been rubbing ambesol into his gums. Calpol didn't seem to make any difference on the 2 nights we have given him it.

We would really appreciate any advice or tips people have, tonight for the first time in a long time we have had to rock him to sleep in our arms after the 45 minute battle left him exhausted and overtired. If anyone can post their daily routine too then we could compare just to check we aren't doing something glaringly stupid!!

Thanks in advance from the 3 of us x

I wish I could give you some good advice but we are having the same problem. Our 6month old ds has just taken 2hrs to fall asleep and for the past month wakes regularly during the night. I have been bfing him to get him back to sleep but that doesn't seem to work either. Even hours of rocking doesn't seem to work. So totally exhausted! Don't know what to do, so am absolutely no help to you, sorry! I'll be watching this post too to see if their are any bright ideas. Good luck! (p.s they really should have a tired face on the smileys list)

Stick with it mamalula, one thing we live by is that everything is a phase and won't last forever! We are lucky that once he goes off, that is normally it for the night. At worst, he'll stir within half an hour and just need a quick pat and shush and then that will definitely be it.

We are still bfing mainly, we give a bottle of formula at 11pm (although this slips later depending on when he drops off) and he will wake for a feed at 5:30am. He will go straight back off after both feeds and normally wakes for the day around 8am.

So we do feel very lucky for what we have, we just would like him to go to sleep without too much crying. Think the reasons for that are quite obvious!

I find my dd goes better to sleep when she wants to, not when I want we to (within reason) so we bath her between 5 and 6 and feed after, then just snuggle until she starts sucking her thumb and dropping off then feed again. Usually between 6 and 7

Have you tried Johnson's bed time bath? We use the bubble bath, wash and talc every night!

feed him?? that worked for my first 2, but sadly not the third

DS only goes to bed when he is tired HD1. He gets baby rice at 530pm followed by bathtime (we use a relaxing bubblebath) around 6pm and then he has a final bf before being put to bed. He normally rubs his eyes as we put his pjs on and sometimes will fall asleep on the breast. He sometimes wakes when winded (a must for him) but will always wake within 10 minutes of being put in his cot if asleep. He has his own routine sorted out quite well, we know when he will feed/sleep each time within a 30 minute window generally. One thing we are missing is any soother - he half sucks his thumb but not often, has a little soothing blanket but he doesn't really bother much for it, and will chew on dummies for a short while, but never take one properly.

How long is he awake for from last nap to bedtime?

My DS (also 6 months) seems to have a sweet spot of about 2.5 hours. Much longer and he conks out on the boob and will then almost always wake up an hour later, much earlier and he'll struggle to nod off.

Worth keeping in mind that although he might seem quite set in his routine, a bit of tweaking (maybe trying to get him to go longer between 1 or 2 naps in the day) might make a difference. My DS is able to go longer between his 2nd and 3rd naps, compared to a month ago.

We're far from perfect here (second cold in as many weeks which resulted in multiple wake ups last night - grrr!), but I just wanted to throw some suggestions out there.

All suggestions very welcome, we are quite open minded that what works for one may not necessarily work for us, but hearing everyone else's routine or ways around solving similar problems can get us closer to what our "fix" could be.

He tends to go 2 hours between the last sleep and bedtime, in these 2 hours will be 15 to 30 minutes of playtime (mat time or giggly interaction) then babyrice (generally takes 20 minutes). After a little winding we have him sitting upright for 10 to 15 minutes with little interaction, mainly cuddling and then he goes up to his room and gets ready for bathtime. We play soothing music in his room as we undress him and when in the bath he doesn't really splash around, just lies there while we wash him. He goes straight back into his room after bathtime to be dried and put into his night stuff. Dad gives him a cuddle and kiss goodnight and mum sits in his feeding chair to give him a final top up. As dad leaves the main light is turned off and we have a motion light giving an ambient glow. He'll feed for anything from 5 minutes to 15 minutes, normally he rubs his eyes during this feed and occasionally will feed to sleep. If he does the latter, he goes down fine, but then will wake up within half an hour with wind so the putting down problems start then instead.

We've tried working really hard on getting him down to sleep at the right times during the day. We try as soon as we see the first sign of tiredness as in the past, we have left it 10 minutes and then we know he definitely got overtired. When he wakes from all his sleeps (except during the night) he is always really happy and smiles as soon as we come into his room and will remain that happy right up to the next sleep most of the time. As mentioned earlier, we know we are really lucky for everything else we have, he is a good feeder, always happy, and a good sleeper ONCE he gets there! We would like for him to not find going to sleep so stressful as he currently does.