6 month old bad sleeper - no idea what to do!

[teacupnic]

My 6 month old DS is all over the place with sleep and I'm just at the point where I think that there isn't anything at all I can do. I am particularly worried as I did read an article somewhere online which said that if by 6 months a baby isn't self settling, they will never be able to do it and cry it out is the only option. I couldn't let him cry it out, it would break my heart.

We have a consistent bedtime (7pm) and routine. Bath, breastfeed, in cot with dummy. We either pat his tummy or stroke his hair. He normally goes to sleep fairly quickly with minimal fussing.

This where the 'fun' starts. He wakes up multiple times in the night with no specific pattern. I try not to feed him every time as I know he's not hungry. Checked nappy, too hot, too cold usual etc. The worst bit is when he wakes sometimes there is no settling him. No amount of shusshing, patting, etc will do. It sometimes takes 2 hours for him to go back to sleep. I don't want to feed and cuddle him as I think that when we do this, he gets worse and wakes more often.

I have no idea what the problem is or what we can do. A few weeks ago we were in a consistent pattern of him waking at around 10/11pm to feed and then around 3am, then up at 7.30am. He has two naps a day, anywhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours (normally on the shorter side of this) and he'll go down for a nap no problem.

I'm exhausted. I was in tears last night as listening to his screaming physically hurts sometimes. I feel like I'm not the best mother to him during the day as I don't have the energy. Unfortunately I don't have parents to rely on and my DH is unable to do much as has an arm in plaster at the moment and on strong painkillers.

Sorry for the essay, but I'm desperate and hope someone has some idea. Or just to empathise even.

Firstly, your words: He goes to bed with minimal fussing. This therefore means he can settle himself to sleep without screaming and shouting. So don't beat yourself up, you are doing things right.

So when he wakes, I assume you do the dummy re-insertion? If baby still in your room? Because you want to be super-quick with this. If you can catch him at the very first signs of stirring in his sleep and settling him back (dummy, shushing, hair stroke etc). Waiting until he is crying or more awake makes it harder to settle him.

The next thing I'd say is that I don't think he's getting enough daytime sleep. More sleep in the daytime stops over tiredness and conversely results in better, more contented sleep at night.

It's not necessarily that the total amount of sleep is low (4 hours would be fine for daytime sleep) but to have only 2 naps a day at this age means long gaps of awake time. Shorter, more frequent naps is better to tackle tiredness. I would aim for around 4 or 5 naps of 30-60 minutes through the daytime.

IN terms of comparison, my DD is nearly 5 months and she sleeps for anywhere between 40-90 minutes at about 9am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, 6pm - then bed at 8pm ish

Thanks for your advice. Our nights are a little bit variable at present, one he'll be up at least a couple of times but easily settled, others there are hours of screaming. Tonight I think we're contending with teething too, or everything points to that. Great.

We try and pop the dummy in and settle him as soon as he wakes, however, this doesn't work as well as he's not in our room. His cot is far too big to fit in our room even with re-jigging the furniture. But I think I will be more vigilant in future and try and catch him straightaway.

Interesting to hear what you said about naps. I try to put him down before he looks particularly tired. At one point I was doing the 234 routine, but this didn't quite work for my son. He normally does 2.5 hours, then 3 after waking perhaps and after that it's variable. I'm trying to see how I could work more naps into the day. It's quite tricky when working around feeds and weaning - also would mean staying in all day which would drive me a little crazy.

I could potentially fit one more in, so it might be worth a go. Thank you.