Pick up put down

[Fifi5000]

Looking for some words of wisdom regarding my 6 month old DD. She has never been a great sleeper, but we have got around it by feeding to sleep, co-sleeping sometimes etc.

About a month ago things got even worse and she was waking every 1-2 hours overnight.

So I started a proper routine and stopped all feeding to sleep and co-sleeping. She now has 2-4 hours of naps during the day (in the pushchair) and has a bedtime routine of bath-feed-story-song-bed. She still feeds twice at night but I try to put her down awake(ish).

I did some pick up put down with her, and it worked brilliantly in that she no longer needs to feed to sleep and goes from wide awake to asleep in her cot. Sleep has improved but.... she still wakes every two hours after midnight! So she'll do a 6-7 hour stretch but then it all goes to hell.

So my question to any helpful people is - why is she still waking so much? Is it because I still help her get to sleep (by shushing and stroking, sometimes picking up once or twice)? Is it something else? Wind? I don't think she's cold or teething and she doesn't have a dummy.

Does she sleep better the days she only has two hours of naps during the day?

I'd say 4 hours is quite long napping, but then I had a colossal nap dodger and only managed to get an hour out of him unless he was in the car at that age. When is her last nap over?

It's round this age the nap/sleep dynamic shifts a little bit after the regression and she might not need as much day sleep. It could be that if she's napping later than around 5pm that'll also impact her night sleep (but does depend on when she goes to bed).

Hello! I find there isn't really any difference. The 4-hour nap days happen when she's woken at 4.30 or 5 and refused to go back down. But suppose that might be feeding a cycle of more sleep in the day and less at night. I thought 2 hours was the bare minimum at this age.

She usually has a catnap at around 4, though sometimes refuses. She goes to bed at 6.30/7

Catnaps at 4 around that age would be okay providing it's not for ages. I think generally around 6 months the 2 hours awake thing before a nap is usually a good barometer - and you've done brilliant to get her to a stage where she can go down awake - my son didn't until he was about 8 months and took a while to transition.

We had something similar with my son in that he'd do a good stretch 6 hours till around 1am and then it was hourly/2 hourly wake ups. Is your little girl in your room still? I found when we moved him over to his own room at 8 months things started to come together a bit more.

You're doing all the right things. Unfortunately the first year is a bit like pissing in the wind in that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I started making a diary of milk/food/naps/sleep to see if I found a correlation. I also found when I weaned my son the first month of so he would wake up trumping because the new foods were changing the way he processed food. 6 months is such a pivotal milestone

Oh and 2 hours is absolutely spot on napping wise - nothing less really at 6 months, I just wondered if 4 may have been impacting her sleep (it would have done for my son, but all babies are eternally different)

Thanks for the words of reassurance! We've just moved her to her own room and I think that's helped to eliminate the pre-midnight wake-up. But you're right, im sure weaning is complicating things. Sigh.

I guess I'm going to persevere with getting her to learn how to sleep with no intervention at all from me and see if that helps.

Just keep doing what you've done. I don't think anything is set in stone at this age unfortunately. Weaning definitely complicates things and I wish there was more emphasis on how it affects sleep and digestion rather than just OOOOH YAY A FEEDING BABY I remember the first month after weaning was awful, as was the smell

The first year was shoot for the moon mentality round here - nothing ever felt super natural and I questioned myself loads. Still do - he's nearly 13 months. Gradually the wake ups should lessen slightly but some babies just don't like sleep much - my son is awful during the day as he's so enthralled with everything but at night he's reasonably good.

I know weaning totally throws a spanner in the works. This is all a shock to me as my first DD slept through at 12 weeks!

I guess I'm going to persevere with getting her to learn how to sleep with no intervention at all from me

I think that is key. Are you developing ways she can comfort herself? For example a comforter, special toy, thumb suck or maybe a rhythmic movement baby does to herself. Worth remembering that self-soothing doesn't mean no soothing, it means having the me and to comfort and sooth oneself.

6 months is early to expect the motor skills to do the movements that need fine muscle control, so self-soothing can be more difficult. The fine motor skills develop up to about 9 or 10 months old. My DD has the skills to do her own dummy from about 7-8 months but comforter snuggling was closer to 12 months.

"me and" = method

I have been encouraging thumb-sucking with no success! I’ve also tried a toy but as you say she doesn’t really have the motor skills to get anything from it.
But I suppose she will only really find something to comfort herself when I’ve withdrawn a bit.