6 month old sleeping a little bit less during the night

[rachndan]

Our 6 month old daughter has started to sleep an hour or so less at night than she has done in a while.

From about 3 or 4 months her routine has been bedtime about 6/6.30 and woke up at about 6.30/7am. However recently she has started to wake up anywhere between 5.15 and 6am. Now this is not a MAJOR problem, but it is very knackering (although nothing like 4 or 5 months ago but still).

She is fed the same, if not more as she is being weaned and she still has an 8oz bottle of milk before bed. But is now doing 11 hours rather than 12. We even tried giving her a bit of porridge last night with the bottle to see if it would see her through but no luck.

We are going to attempt to get her to sleep a bit later tonight, around 7pm, but its difficult because she knows 6ish is her bedtime and she gets very tired and very grumpy at that time.

She doesnt sleep for more than an hour during the day. She is one of these babies that are very tired but for some reason would rather cry about it during the day than actually sleep and cure it. So she eventually wears herself out and then falls asleep but only for 30 mins at a time, so obviously by the evening she is cream crackered.

Any suggestions? Or is this just a case of like it and lump it?

Thanks people.

I must add that when she does wake up around half 5, she is fed and put back down for another couple of hours. This morning we fed her at 5.45, she went back down at 6am and then woke up just gone 8am.

Do you have my baby??? My DD was exactly the same as yours, she also started waking at 5ish for a bottle and then going back to sleep at around 6months, not sure why but she is now 8.5months and is sleeping through till 730 again. Maybe they have a growth spurt at 6 months and need more food.

Hopefully in a few weeks your LO will be waking back up at 7ish.

Thank you :-)

Many 6 month old babies need a bit of help to nap during the day! I'd try and encourage a couple of naps. One a couple of hours after waking and another after lunch is a good target. I used to rock ds to sleep or take him out in pushchair/sling. Then once we'd got him used to napping at set times, we got him used to napping in the cot. Then got him used to falling asleep himself without rocking. Naps are harder to get babies to self soothe than bedtime, I don't know why

The risk of not napping is that they get more overtired and can cause night wakings and early starts.

Also there is a big growth spurt at 6 months - I remember ds seemed to put on a lot of weight almost overnight! So she's likely to be hungry. So feed, go with it and it should get better soon.