6 month old night waking a driving me insane

[lilac3033]

DD has had a rough few months sleep wise, 4 month regression, jet lag and teething/growth spurt.
Finally it seemed to calm down and I have been gently removing negative sleep associations. She doesn't feed to sleep or get rocked to sleep anymore. In the cot with verbal soothing and normally that is enough. However all of her good new habits do not seem to apply to night wakings! She wakes up SCREAMING, no warning just goes ballistic. She will not settle in her cot, she HAS to be picked up and rocked. If you try and put her down before she is asleep she will start it all over again. She still sleeps right next to me in her cot, so I just don't get it. She is waking up doing this almost every 2.5 hours. I don't think she needs fed this often, so I have tried to stretch it out, but then she'll just go an hour. It is driving me insane. Any ideas why she might be doing this or ways to help her calm down on waking? I just don't understand why night wakings are so different!

2 of mine awoke every 2.5 to 3 hours until they were well-weaned, about 12 months or so. I don't think it's unusual im afraid especially with bf babies, but it's very tough.

Same here. My sympathies. I managed to get my DS to fall asleep without nursing and rocking (albeit there's still some crying, even on day 7 of gradual withdrawal) but he wakes up every 2 hours (longest stretch of sleep is 7 - 10 and then it's every 2 hours like clockwork). Sometimes all I have to do is pick him up and cuddle, and he'll be out in a second, other times he won't settle down until I feed him, and then sometimes nothing seems to settle him at all. It's absolutely exhausting. Hang in there. I'm going to try reducing night feeds by getting DP to take over the nigh re-settling and giving a bottle of formula for a dream feed.

Has she reduced the amount of milk she is having during the daytime?

In the early months of weaning, this may be the reason for night wakings. She needs to maintain the same intake of milk as before solids started, whilst having slid meals on top of milk feeds. If solids are replacing milk feeds, this could be your problem.

The solution would be to introduce more night feeds until weaning is more established (9 months ish) or find ways to increase daytime milk intake, while still maintaining first tastes.