Help!!! Major sleep issues for a month

[Marburae]

Hi, I could really do with some mum advice!!

Our 6.5 month old has randomly started sleep appallingly - I'm talking waking every couple of minutes most of the night. We are exhausted as it has been happening on and off for a month now and it's just getting worse.

It seems to be a never ending cycle of different things - pain from wind, light sleeping and waking weirdly sometimes just to drop back off, crying/twitching in his sleep which then wakes him. Last night he woke screaming and each time we tried to put him back down he would wake and scream in real pain - we tried calpol in the end and thank goodness we got a 3 hour sleep!

Prior to this he had just started sleeping through with just one feed at 3am so I am so confused as to how we have gone so far backwards, especially as we haven't changed anything.

I can't pinpoint what it is - I think it might be a full blown combination of developmental, teething (as suggested by last nights relief from calpol), wind/digestion from weaning (health visitor suggested wheat intolerance but don't really ask any questions and just pulled it out of the blue so I'm dubious) I have today stripped his food back to just fruit and veg though to see if it improves and we did have a cold part way through.

Please help - could this be teething?? What is a teething baby like at night? He is our first so we are learning!

Is it just the perfect storm of everything? I've let it go on so long because I always believe things will sort themselves out in the end and it's all just phases but we are now at our wits end and he needs sleep to thrive.

Just for info, i feed him 2/3 times a night at the moment if my husband can't settle by picking him up. He used to be able to settle himself if he woke in the night.

Help!!!!!!!!

Thank you

If this has coincided exactly with weaning, good food allergy is the most logical reason.

I have today stripped his food back to just fruit and veg though to see if it improves

It will take several weeks for his body to be cleansed of whatever caused the problem. So you cannot know anything for sure on the basis of 1 day, or even 1 week for that matter. Make sure you massively increase milk intake to ensure calorific need. And remember some fruits can cause allergies (bananas, strawberries, cirtus) so take care with food introduction.

If not food allergy, the most simple read on for all of your problem is a cycle of over tiredness. Poor sleep leads to worse sleep and it cycles. The answer in this case is "any sleep, any how". Don't worry about any bad habits, just get the the child sleeping as much as possible, as often as possible with short awake times between naps and laid-back last days. It will just be short term to get out of the cycle. So cosleep, cuddle, dummy, loads of milk feeds, naps on you - anything, literally anything, that works.

laid-back lazy* days.

Get him checked for an ear infection and check the poos.

Are you still in the same room? It could be that he's just a bit noisy