Reassure me or advise me: Six mo with better things to do than sleep

[callamia]

I have a six month old who seems to think that everything is more fun than sleeping.

Right now, despite having been fed in a quiet dark room for the past two hours, he is in his cot crawling about the place. He's not upset at all - I'd pick him up if he was. I just don't know how to get him to actually go to sleep...

He's definitely tired. He keeps rubbing his eyes and making tired sounds, but the will to turn over and get up and move around seems stronger than the desire to sleep. I have fed him, cuddled him, put him in his cot, left him alone... all have failed, and I'm so hungry. The room is dark, quiet and familiar. He's in a grobag, we've been through our bedtime 'routine'.

Before morning, he will have woken up several times, mainly because he finds himself up on all fours and starts to move around while he's still really tired.

I hope this is some kind of new and exciting phase that will pass over soon - a week and a half ago, he went to sleep nicely and woke only once all night. He's very curious and alert during the day too - napping isn't something he really holds with. I'm just at a loss on how to get him to actually go to sleep. Tell me wise people.

Just wait it out.
Its totally knackering, but it will stop at some point.
6 months is early to be crawling, but mine has been into everything possible since he could move. He's now a lovely, and very inquisitive, and figity, 4 year old.

Sounds familiar - my daughter was standing in her cot at 6 months and was so pleased with herself would practice it throughout the night! I wish someone had given me this magic tip at at the 6 month stage -

Acupressure; It worked miracles on my DD who was a nightmare sleeper.

I've got my friends 3 year old staying tonight as his mum's in hospital having a baby. He was chatting to his soft toy for an hour in bed not looking the least bit tired - I've just gone up and given him acupressure and he was asleep in 2 minutes.

I've blogged about this technique - here's the post if you're interested.
Good luck!
mydaughterwontsleep.com/2013/12/27/the-sleep-inducing-power-of-acupressure/

It was about this stage Introduced the mummy swaddle which was basically a tight cuddle to keep him still and snuggling into me. We strangely started co sleeping at 7 months as after being a good sleeper he woke every few hours from 6 months for similar reasons.
The blogger above mentioning the nose massage (acupressure) thing is worth a try its basically the same thing as stroking the top of the nose. In my experience it worked for a newborn but active ds either starts laughing it it now or wriggling away. I think if your dc can get used to it its good but just is another prop.
We also use a musical seahorse which ds would sit back down to watch.

If it helps my dd has been doing that (not crawling but all fours etc) for a couple of weeks and has just the last couple of days started to come out of it, she has realised she can lay herself down again though which has helped - before I was having to go in and lay her back down each time.

Andcake We're co-sleeping from about 2am most nights at the moment - it's not so bad, but I'm still not entirely comfortable with it. How long did you do that for? I might just have to adjust my thinking about it.

I tried the acupressure last night, I don't know whether it helped calmed him, or whether he was just knackered after taking three hours to go to sleep OR because I was feeding him again, but he went to sleep in the end. We've had about a week and a half of this so far - so I figure there's a bit longer to go.