I am sooooooooo tired of this... HELP!

[mrsnlw]

Literally!

DS has been waking for at least 6 weeks now, when he has slept through for 2 months before.

We have tried leaving him, settling him, putting him in our bed, giving him milk.... He does go back to sleep but I want him to sleep through!

Has anyone had similar and can explain why? HV suggested giving him water at night instead of milk. We tried this a few nights and he played holy hell. Tried upping his foods, all sorts... DS is 6.5months

Any suggestions?!

Babies go through loads of phases and change all the time. It is unreasonable to assume his sleep will remain unchanged through the baby months. So maybe re-setting your I want him to sleep through expectations would be the most useful thing to do.

6.5 months so I assume you are just at the beginning of the weaning journey? This will change sleep patterns, just like loads of other growth spurts and developmental jumps in the first year.

Feed more in the daytime if night time feeds are for hunger.

Is baby self settling at bedtime and for daytime naps?

Is he getting enough daytime sleep?

FATE I uderstand what you mean that his sleep patterns will change but it's just frustrating when we seem to be doing everything we can and he has suddenly decided to wake in the night at bang on 5am every morning.

He slept through happy from approx 16 weeks until about 5/6 weeks ago. He has been weaning since 17w and is on 3 meals a day plus 18oz ff.

We have tried upping his food, no luck. Tried upping his milk. No luck. Tried downing his food to give more milk. No luck. I still offer a feed at 1pm when we go to bed but 9/10 times he refuses it yet his previous feed will have been approx 6/7pm.

He self settles easily for naps and at bedtime. He naps anywhere between a total of 1-3 hours in the day.

I just dont know what, if anything, we can do. We seem to be doing it all "right"

You are doing everything "right"!

Don't worry about it in that case, baby just needs to learn that last bit of settling in the early morning.

If it helps you to know you are not alone, my DD (5 months) is currently in a phase that sounds identical to you DS. Much depends on how you frame it. To me, with the experience of four children, I consider my DD to be an excellent sleeper.

She too has had her time sleeping 8pm-8am with no feed. Then the 4 month developmental jump hit and she had a while on two night feeds, which went down to one. Mostly she's slept 11pm-8am.

But recently (last couple of weeks) she has taken next to nothing at 11pm (like 1oz) so I've stopped waking her for this feed. She is transitioning. Her daytime sleeps are significantly changing to a more 'bigger baby' pattern too.

At the moment she has a feed and goes to bed around 8pm. Then wakes once at some point around 4am and the dummy won't cut it so I feed her but she has only 1oz ish then sleeps to 7am. What is happening is she is ready for sleeping through but isn't there just yet. But she is nearly there, so I see light at the end of the tunnel.

Your last few paragraphs sound exactly like us lol. He goes to bed at 8pm, wont take anything at night at 10pm (though last night he took 7oz!) and then wakes at 4/5ish. We try giving him his dummy and when it inevitably fails, we give him a bottle. I dont want to jump straight in with the bottle but also just want to get him back to sleep.

Stop warming the night time bottle. Give it room temp if baby is used to it warmed or fridge cold if baby is used to it room temperature.

This makes the milk less comforting and 'nice'. The plan is to get baby taking less and less milk during the night until he/she is ready for a full 12 hours without a feed. It's just a case of waiting until baby is ready for this.

Your weaning is what will have disturbed your DSs feeds. His body just needs to get used to the change in his feeding. Also be sure he is getting plenty enough milk (specifically milk, rather then solids) through the daytime.

You may well see the reappearance of night feeds around the time your DS learns to crawl, learns to walk, starts speaking and so on. With each developmental jump, there is often a change in calorific need and night wakes are a sign of this.

In short - you are doing everything right. Worry not

Don't often get threads like this on the sleep board

He already has it at room temp FATE, always has!

I dont see how it may have disturbed his feeds? He was weaning for a good 4/5 weeks before this happened?

In what reagard - someone doing ok? lol. Its nice to know at least we are doing it correctly.

Crikey id love it if mine woke once at 5am, but then im up for the day then anyway. Maybe go to bed earlier to ride it out?

Putting to bed earlier has been known to work, my ds was in cot asleep by 6.15-30 at 5 months. This was put in place by a sleep consultant because of frequent night wakes. Worth a try. X

I don't want to sound unsympathetic as it must be frustrating to have taken a step backwards from glorious uninterrupted nights. But of 10 babies of this age in my NCT group only one is regularly sleeping straight through. Three or four are waking up every 2-3 hours and one is killing his poor parents by needing resettling every hour! Maybe we have an unrepresentative group, but 9 out of 10 of us would happily trade with you!

Sometimes thing do just get worse seemingly at random, then just as suddenly improve again. I'd probably do what a PP suggested and just try to catch earlier nights and lie-ins where you can and ride it out.

Plateofcrumbs I'm in agreement with you!

My DS didn't start sleeping through from bedtime to morning consistently until 8 months and compared to my friends I realise I am very lucky!

I wouldn't expect a 6.5 month old to fully sleep through - hang on in there.

Thanks for your suggestion cooper :-)

Plateofcrumbs... If you dont want to sound unsympathetic, then don't comment. I was asking for suggestions not an attack on me. :-) I may be lucky to get 10-5 but it's still tiring!

I'm not going to bed late. 10pm. However, interrupted nights sleep is agony when you are not well anyway.

Oh and I understand it can get worse/better with a blink of an eye - just hard when he slept through perfectly and now doesnt. Some nights its once an hour between 1-5 so I get 4 hours.

My little girl is almost 3 and has NEVER slept through the night.

It wasn't supposed to be an attack mrsnlw but having not seen anything like a full night's sleep for the past seven months I'm probably just a little bitter!

What I was trying to say was rather than tearing your hair out trying to fix it, (particularly as it doesn't sound like you're doing anything obvious 'wrong', and your DS seems to be sleeping comparatively OK) you might be better focusing on how you can be better rested yourself, especially if you are unwell.

If I'm dead on my feet I go to bed as soon as DS is asleep and let DH tackle any wake-ups until he goes to bed, as it's been the only way to get more than 2hrs consecutive sleep for the last couple of months.

My ds did the same thing, slept through at 12 weeks until around 6 months then started waking at least twice a night. It coincided with him learning to crawl, cruise etc. It got so that he was waking every 90 minutes-2 hours. At first we fed him back to sleep and this seemed to limit the wakings to twice a night but then that stopped waking too really. At 11 months we fully night weaned him then did cc at 11.5 months (when he was in a good nap routine and would self settle for naps).
Sorry op, I know it's not what you want to hear but at 6.5 months when you've tried very thing sometimes coping strategies are better than trying to "make" your baby sleep through. I'm not sure any sleep training would work at this age. 10-5 isn't too bad for a baby this age (ds does 7-5/6 and we consider it a triumph!)so I'd ride it out, sleep whilst you can and take turns to lie in at weekends.