Whats wrong with my baby?

[DazedDazzledandConfused]

My 6 month old wont sleep. He went down at 6.30pm he woke at 11.30pm took till 3am to get him back to sleep and then he woke up again at 4am.
He's gone off solids too.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, we have a good consistant night time routine, bath, moisturise and feed. He'll go down fine wake up have a feed then he woke setttle in his cot after.

Feel like I'm only one whose baby doesn't sleep well. I don't mind him not sleeping through the night I just want him to go back to sleep after.
At 2am this morning he was feeding and lookng at Daddy and wide awake.

Sympathies. Any teeth coming through?

I don't know. He doesn't have red cheeks and doesn't dribble much. His gums at the bottom front are raised but have been like this for a while.
He's been doing this since 4 months old.

I absolutely promise you that you are not the only person with a badly-sleeping baby. People have different interpretations of "sleeping through" and will often um, lie put a positive spin on their baby's sleeping habits because, idiotically, it is perceived to be a reflection on your parenting. Baby who sleeps 12 hours = good parent. Baby who is wakeful during the night = bad parent. There is nothing worse than the grinding exhaustion of spending a lot of the night up with a baby, followed by a day of baby care. Unless he's ill (and he might be brewing something), it sounds like sticking to what you are doing is fine. Do you get a break during the day (H, family?)

It does get better (a veteran of a bad-sleeper baby)

Normally I don't get a break till oh gets home and I can have a shower and feel like I recharge, oh will bath him too. With him going down at 6pm I feel like I have a break then too.
My oh is off this week and we're taking it in turns to get up early with lo, Yesterday I had a lie in till 10am.

Hi Dazed, believe me you are not the only one! My DD is 10mo and goes through phases of ok sleeping i.e. sleeping in 3 hour blocks (it's all relative...) and rubbish sleeping of 1 hour blocks with wide awake times in the middle of the night. I find the wide awake in the middle of the night moments normally come at a time of development - is your DC crawling yet? Perhaps this is about to come? You're lucky to have a DH who deals with the wakings, I deal with all of them : (

And re the routine, I've never found that made any difference with DD's sleep. Nor does putting her down awake rather than feeding or cuddling to sleep. I think some babies just defy all the "rules". As my mum says, the authors of the baby sleep books wouldn't sell any if they didn't promise the world and offer solutions, but sometimes there just are no magic solutions and you have to ride it out. It does get better (apparently) even if you do nothing. A lady in her 80s said to me the other day "they sleep better when they go to school because they're so tired" eeeeekkkk 3.5 more years of this!

He's commando crawling, sitting up, started pulling himself up from lying down to sitting and he's started babbling da da ect. all in the past couple of weeks.
People tell me it's gets better when they can move and when they eat solids but it doesn't seem to make much difference. Even 30 mins in his door bouncer doesn't tyre him out.

I think your Mum is right about sleep books.

I am lucky my oh helps. He'll do all the household stuff on his days off too.

I wish I had a pound for every time someone said "they'll sleep better when...". So far it has been: when she starts solids, when she starts crawling, when she starts cruising, when she starts walking...I now disregard all these things as they give false hope! I take my DD to gymboree, swimming, playcafes, playdates etc and nothing wears her out enough to make her sleep well. We had a slightly better period around 7 or 8 months when she started to eat a more serious amount of solids and would sleep 4 or 5 hours in a row at least once during the night but then teething and winter colds hit and we haven't got that back again. Colds make her just want milk and then of course she's hungry all the time!

You are not alone! 7 month old DS was like that last night, he just wouldn't sleep. DH can't understand why he isn't sleeping through the night, I should refer him to Mumsnet!

It's nice to know that I'm not alone.
I'm probably lucky that he's goes down fairly early. We've had days where he hasn't slept till midnight and I couldn't imagine that every night.

Dazed - does he have a daytime routine? With regular naps? At what times & for how long? Long periods of wakefulness at night is quite likely to be related to daytime routine eg too much daytime sleep or napping too late in the day. Of course there may be other factors at play eg illness/teething/overtiredness but these are more likely to lead to crying in the night. IME if baby is awake & happy in the middle of the night its bc they need their daytime routine tweaking. HTH.x

He doesn't really have a daytime routine. I was hoping to put one in place when he started solids but he's not got the hang of eating yet. Someone suggested that maybe he's not eating solids as he's having too many feeds at night.
He'll only have 3/4 hours total nap times in the day maybe even less.

I would suggest that your DC is having too much sleep during the day, when DS used to sleep well he was having about three to four 45 minute naps. Or perhaps his last nap is too close to bedtime?

That's all my lo will have is 45 min naps at a time but total is no more than 4 hours. It doesn't seem to matter how much sleep he has or doesn't have his sleep patterns are still the same.

At 6 months, I think 4 hours during the day is too much, even if it is in blocks of 45 minutes. I would say that's definitely why he's partying at night (it's why my LO was at this age!) - he's simply not tired enough to sleep through, as you wouldn't be if you were sleeping in the day.

Without a routine, it's a little hard to evaluate what he's doing etc - and to be honest, his night time sleeping will continue to be erratic for a while even after (or if) you address the daytime sleeping. Ideally at this age, he'd be having a shortish nap in the morning (say 30mins-45mins max) and then a good 2 hours at lunch between about 12 and 2 (ish).

When we tackled my daughter's EWing, it took 6 weeks to see a difference. I was determined to see it through and I was consistent with what I did, eventually it clicked and she's slept well ever since, barring illness of course.

hope that helps
x

BTW, you mention you are weaning and still feeding at night. How many night feeds are you giving? Be careful of him getting used to food at night (and consquently, not taking well to solids during the day) as this could continue on for many months of him needing a feed to sustain him.

I'd stick him in a routine and see if it helps. Need to try for at least a week though.

Schedule in three meals a day - he might not eat, that doesn't matter. Then milk and naps around that. It could look like:

7am, awake and milk
8am breakfast
9am nap
11am milk
12 am lunch
12.30/1pm long nap
3pm milk
4pm short nap
5pm tea
6pm bath
6.30 milk
7pm bed

I think he's too young to restrict his daytime sleep, or to try and get him into a routine with longer blocks of daytime sleep if he's not ready for it. My ds3 has been similar - 45min blocks during the day up until around 7/8 months when he finally started sleeping longer after lunch and then was able to make it through till bedtime without another sleep. Before then I couldn't get him to sleep longer. Then it suddenly seemed that he was still tired when he woke after 45 min and I was able to cuddle him back to sleep when he woke. After a couple of weeks he stopped needing the cuddle and slept longer himself. At night he was, and is, very inclined to be awake for long periods when going through development spurts - just can't seem to get back to sleep no matter when I do. He's 16 months but fortunaetly when he does this it tends to have a limit for around 2 hours. So no useful advice, just don't start stressing that it's your fault for not geting his routine 'right'. I think some children just find sleep harder than others. Ds 1, 9 was also like this (and still is - just doesn't need our intervention in the night) whereas dd slept consistently early on.

I think it's better to just follow his cues and make nighttimes as stressfree and relaxing as possible as you can - whether that involves some degree of co-sleeping or not. The worst thing is to be awake, and stressed that you're doing something wrong, AFTER your baby has finally dropped off.

How do you know he's 'not ready for it'? Baby led parenting is all very well if the parent is happy and relaxed with it, but this poster sounds like neither so advice such as 'follow his cues' when it's likely she can't read his cues, doesn't help a great deal.

I really struggled for the first year and was desperate for specific pointers but I also got a lot of 'just go with it and relax' when it was the last thing I was able to do.

I read so many posts on here about babies who don't sleep and 9 times out of 10, it transpires that there is no semblance of a routine in place and the baby sleeps whenever they like. Surely someone other than me can see the link??

I've been reading his cues for the past 6 months and I know exactly what he wants. i'm quite happy to carry on without a routine but I have to return to work in april when he's 9 months so feel I need a routine for then.
If I didn't have to go back to work then I'd not worry about solids till he was 12 months.

He has 3 feeds a night, two really short ones, (10 mins max) and one big one at 4am.
Before the heating went on he was only having 1 feed so I think maybe he's waking 'cause he's thirsty. I don't know how I could drop the night feeds, maybe when he gets the hang of using a sippy cup I could give him water but atm half of it ends down his chin and I know I woukdn't want to sleep with a wet top on.
Should I be giving him breaskfast when he wakes up at 4am instead of a bf? He'll go back to sleep after, with a cuddle but wont settle down in his cot again.

I read that he should be having 10 hours sleep at night and 4 hours in the daytime. Would it be best if he was having 12 hours sleep at night and 2 hours in the daytime?

Just wanted to say you're definitely not alone. I was just about to start an 'argh, I need sleep' thread when I saw yours. No solutions i'm afraid, just sympathy! I've been up most of the night with DS & no sign of him as tiny to sleep yet.

Do you think it'a s a 'boy' thing?

Ha! Could be! But I know lots of my friends' boys sleep through no problems

I've read your thread with interest as I'm also going back to work soon and, as you say, would happily ebf him & do all the night wakings for months & months if that's what he needs, but there's no way I could go to work on the amount of sleep I'm getting now.

It's so hard to know what to do isn't it?

Hello. I'm up with a sore throat so thought I'd keep you company. I think a lot of this sleeping business is down to luck frankly. My DD could have a nap for an hour at 5pm and still be down at 7pm and asleep for hours before waking for a feed at 6 mo. She didn't sleep through until about 18 mo and was weaned of her dummy and soothed back to sleep if she woke. 6 months later she started sucking her thumb! Honestly! I think you either decide to ride this phase out or you try out routine, less sleep during the day, up the solids and see if that makes a difference. Having said that I never woke DD during the day, I always let a sleeping baby lie

The thing I'm most worried about with regards to returning to work is how is he going to survive without mamas milk? He's never taken a bottle and I can't see him getting the hang of a sippy cup by then.

I know I should just relax and enjoy the time on maternity I have left.

Also I find if I feed him an hour before I try him on solids he's not hungry enough and wont have them.

I think it's luck too. I did all the 'wrong' things with dd1 & she sent sleep through till 20 months. I am doing all the same things with dd2 & she wakes once a night at 20 w.