Please help me put a plan together for my nearly 6 mth old DS

[lamby79]

Sorry, i'm really too tired to do this myself but here's the story so far... He's 5.5 mths and has rarely (if ever) slept for longer than two hours at night. I feed him to sleep and put in cot about 7pm - which is normally fine. He then wakes after 30 mins, may need a cuddle and then back in cot. Up after another 20 mins, feed back to sleep and back in cot... and it then goes on and on like this except i take him into my bed from around 9pm as it's the only way i can cope with the feeding / wakings etc. He does suffer really badly from wind (or at least he is just being a man and making a fuss about it!).
I'm hoping to put in his own room but don't fancy getting up every 45 mins/ hour, what would you do? CC?
Naps, i try to put him down as much as possible as I also have a toddler but he wakes shortly after too so either on me or in pram / car seat.
I really appreciate any tips or advice. DH works in the evening so it's always just me on the sleep front, am totally clueless! Thank you!

I will be watching this thread with interest as have 6.5 month ds who likes to wake a lot from eleven onwards. I am very tired! Had a day feeling sorry for myself today and grumpy as hell with everyone because I am so tired. Hopefully some helpful person will come along soon and make a plan for you that I can also steal.... My brain has walked off in a strop so I can't do it myself.

Hi ktef, well, I'm already on no.1 wake up grrr. I know he misses me but this is crazy! Let's hope someone wise comes along... Can't afford one of the specialists :)

No advice I'm afraid. Ds1 was like this. Ds2 and 3 slightly better and ds4 is a dream and I have done nothing different with any of them.

With ds1 dh spent weeks sleeping on his floor holding his hand through the cot bars. I wouldn't recommend that really though!

We had exactly the same situation with DD (now 9 months) - did the gradual retreat method, I found out about it on here on the 'what worked for us' thread, and by the fourth 4 night she was sleeping through! I was amazed, as my aim had been to minimise feeds to every 4 hours - was not expecting such a transformation.

The first night it took 30 minutes of crying and I needed a huge glass of wine and a cuddle afterwards, but from then it got easier as I could see it working. DD quite quickly learnt to soothe herself, she'd roll onto her tummy and suck her thumb- both things she had never done before and it was helped me to see I was 'giving her a chance to learn new skills'.

Since then she has slept through, bar three nights when she had a cold- but still only woke once. Touching wood everywhere!! Good luck, sleep deprivation is so horrible.

HTH

And here goes second wake up... Has anyone had any luck with dummies? I can't really afford to go out and buy lots of different ones to try but I will if it'll help. He's bf but recently started weaning on baby rice/porridge as very hungry.

Thanks teaparties. I'll try and find that thread. I have tried a few shh pat, pupd but he just screams and screams... Wish my Dh was around for moral support. The glass of wine does sound a very good incentive however :)

sorry to go on but does anyone think it would it be worth me trying him on his front? Is it ok at this age... Might help with the wind issues?

You're welcome, hope it helps.
We also tried pupd a few weeks earlier (maybe around 5 months?) but it took aaaaaages and I'm sure DD only eventually fell asleep through exhaustion from crying- had to stop because I couldn't see it going anywhere and felt I was sending mixed signals.
FWIW we did use a dummy from 1-5 months but stopped because I was being woken up every 20 minutes to replace it, and as she fell asleep it kept falling out her mouth so I spent nights with one arm in the cot holding dummy in...

I could have written this post heck I think I actually did a few months ago!! DD2 up every hour wanted boob ALL NIGHT windy etc etc! Thibgs massively improved when at 6 mo she accepted a dummy! Hoo ray!! She had also up to then totally refused bottles but over night decided they weren't the devil either! The constant sucking was certainly about comfort for my DD and this led to the constant wind!

I started by getting her to sleep fir the first part if the night with the dummy instead of on me so would feed before bath then after bath shhhh rock dummy in.

After a few weeks she would accept the dummy on weakening as well and now at 8 mo she usually wakes twice in a night if she wakes for her dummy often she puts it in herself!

I used the tommee tippee orthodontic ones

Goodness lots of typos blooming phone!

With my second baby (aft spending the best part of 3 years rocking my daughter for every sleep) I decided he was going to be one of those babies that 'settles himself to sleep'. I was assured by Gina Ford and other 'gurus' that a baby who is put down to sleep awake for naps and bedtimes will also do this during the night. Mummy and daddy can rejoice in their blissful uninterrupted sleep. HAH!

During the day he is positively angelic. At bedtime he is great. But during the night he calls out, wails, growls and anything to get our attention. He never cries, so canmot do controled crying / cry it out. My husband leaps from the bed at every slightest wimper. Very many times I have turned the baby monitor off and closed the door and slept briefly with the pillow over my head. I am so exhausted and am awake every night from 4am. I think this just shows that no matter how strict you are and how much you follow a plan, babies do what they want. He also has a dummy which falls out repeatedly during the night. He hasn"'t had a night feed for 4 months (5.5 months now), but drinks 40oz of milk a day. I am waiting, grey faced and hallucinating with tiredness, until one day he grows out of it. (oh and on the rare occasion when they do sleep, you wake several times, wondering why the baby hasn't woken, and go it and poke him to check he's breathing)

Haha yes, I do keep telling myself he's still small but am now letting him use me as a human dummy for the third time tonight and it's only 8.30! I'm more than happy to replace a dummy throughout the night (she says :)) and presumably that will mean less wind. He also eats little during the day, probably because he's snacking all night long! Thanks for your replies, it's great to know I'm not alone (it can really feel like it a 3am when he's screaming in pain from indigestion) :)

I read somewhere about A method to train baby to stop their own dummy falling out. During the day, give them the dummy. Then pull gently on it, and the baby will suck harder to stop you taking it from them. Do this a few times a day and then when they start to lose the dummy in the night they will instinctively pull harder on it. Don't know if it works though.....
(I painted the back of ds dummy with glow in the dark nail varnish so he could 'see' it in the night.....yeah, that doesn't work either! We'll try anything won't we? )
Re indigestion....i'm assuming you havetried things like gripe water etc? I used them a lot in the early weeks but kind of forgot how good they were as the weeks went on. Now he's on solid food I've been giving the odd spoonful and it seems to help a little.

Thanks Rebecca. I did wonder if gripe water/infacol would be any good. Sort of just thought they were for.newborns, but would be good if not! I'll have a check and maybe add to tomorrow's shopping list. I used infacol when he was very small but your supposed to give before every feed and as ebf he was feeding pretty much non stop, think I may have OD'd him a bit. May also get some formula to feed.him up during the day (not that he'll take a bottle either)... Going to be an expensive shop, but hopefully worth it. I'm on wake up 4 now :(

You poor thing! Maybe try some gripe water, it can't do any harm, says suitable up to one year. Good luck!

DS used to do the waking up every 20 minutes after he'd first gone down and it was when he fed to sleep. In fact he was so tired at bedtime tonight he dropped off whilst I was feeding him and then woke up exactly 20 minutes later crying! I know it's written everywhere on here-the mythical holy grail of self settling, but it does (IMHO) make a huge difference. I've mentioned this before but I read the tizzie hall 'save our sleep' book which is quite unpopular on MN, but I was so desperate to sleep that I'd have read ANYTHING! It had two useful pieces of advice-1) feed your baby, put them in the cot awake and leave the room. Leave them and see what happens. ONLY go in if they are properly crying. If they are chatting/whinging/burbling, leave them alone! The first night we tried this, DS was asleep in 10 minutes. We did however have a good routine already in place (bath, boob, cuddle, bed) so it wasn't a shock that it was bedtime iykwim. 2) babies often wake up in the small hours because they are cold. I used to change DS's sleeping bag to a higher tog one after his first night feed. Both those things made a difference.

DS is still an incredibly variable sleeper. We have really good nights where he sleeps for 13 hours straight without a noise. And nights like last night where he shouted for 2 hours in the middle of the night for no reason... However, at least now when he makes a noise on the monitor in know that he CAN settle himself back down without getting upset so unless he's crying, I leave him for at least 5 minutes. Good luck!

Still watching this thread. Still tired and grumpy.Still so little brain function left all I can do is read this and yawn. No practical advice. Hope your night is better lamby.

With regards to losing the dummy, get something like a 'paci-pal' - basically a dummy attached to a teddy. I made my own by sewing a dummy onto a little bunny toy, and since the age of 5.5 months, my LO has been able to find his dummy by himself.

The most effective thing to do is to stop feeding baby to sleep at bedtime. I think all sleep experts recommend this as the first change to make when trying to get a baby to sleep better. You still feed before bed but ensure they don't fall asleep at boob/bottle. They will be awake ( and probably annoyed to start with) when youout them in cot. No need to leave them to cry, stay with them, pat back, hold hand, what ever calms them. It will probably take 40mins first night and less each night after that until they drift off without need for feed. Theory is that they will not need feeds to sleep on subsequent wakes in night, just some patting/stroking.