Help - deranged mother

[emmlepemmle]

So - my almost 6 month old has decided that he will no longer sleep at night and I am loosing my mind. He is fully formula fed and naps really well (in sleepyhead in cot in nursery) during the day - we follow Gina's nap schedule which seems to work - so 45mins to an hour in the morning and then 2-2.5 hours at lunchtime, asleep by 7pm and all is well. Over the last 6 weeks or so his night time sleep has got worse and worse and I'm at a total loss as to what the hell is his problem! He takes 5x 7-8oz bottles during the day (between 7am - 11pm) just started weaning him which he is delighted by, but he is waking at 2/3/4/5/6am and is NOT hungry.
He doesn't have a dummy and has a white noise toy which used to work a treat, during the day he can easily self soothe back to sleep but at nighttime it all goes out the window and I don't know what to do.
I've tried changing his nappy, feeding him, making sure he's warm enough, he doesn't appear to be teething (his brother didn't get a tooth til his first birthday so not expecting one for some time), I've even offered a dummy during the night which he happily accepts but then as soon as it falls out we are back to square one.
He slept through 10pm-7.30am from about 8 weeks until approx 18 weeks which was heaven and I was feeling all smug and now it's come to bite me.
He's a super happy easy baby during the day but my patience is wearing thin - and doesn't help I've had flu for the last 2 weeks and feeling horrific - just desperate for some sleep. We moved him out of our room when my coughing was keeping us all awake at night - but he's still waking up constantly from 2ish until morning time - never at the same time.
Thanks for reading this far! Notes on a postcard!

Baby sleep isn’t linear. It goes up and down. At 6 months there is a huge growth spurt - it won’t last but I would be feeding more milk if not already.

No solutions as we are having a very similar issue, but posting to offer sympathy and . Let me know if you find something that works!

What does he do when he wakes up? Is he screaming or babbling happily? If the latter is be tempted to just leave him to get back to sleep himself. If he's screaming could he be feeling a bit unwell? If you've been unwell chances are he is too? DD2's sleep always suffers if something isn't right with her. It's just a case of working out what it is and sorting it!

Are you me?! Exactly the same with my 5.5 month old. Don’t know if you’ve seen wonder weeks but there’s a massive developmental leap around 6 months and most of my friends with older babies seemed to suffer sleep wise.

Ah thank you for the solidarity! He has actually just got over his first nasty bug - sore throat, upset tummy and cough but I thought he was over it - perhaps not fully....he wakes crying and gets pretty cross and upset if left - I've tried leaving him for up to 5 mins to see if he'll re-settle as he does during day time naps (with the help of a myhummy sleep toy - which is wonderful - it replaced the Ewan sheep thing when I got fed up with switching the dam thing on every 20mjns!) but he just works himself up into a frenzy. My mum actually just suggested dropping the dream feed to see if he would go a bit longer and then would maybe wake at 1/2ish actually hungry and maybe would sort this waking up out...anyone tried it? I've tried offering him a bottle during the night (after dream feed) but he just spits it out and blows bubbles - plus he isn't particularly interested in his morning bottle - so I'm pretty certain I can rule out hunger. Last night I gave him the dummy at 3 and again at 5 and then he woke properly at 6.30 as he'd done a poo so am feeling fairly zombie like today. Helps to know he's not the only painful child around!!

I've even offered a dummy during the night which he happily accepts but then as soon as it falls out we are back to square one

Inconsistent use if the dummy will be a massive factor here. Either use it consistently. Or don't use at all, ever.

I'd suggest developing some proper consistency with the dummy. Use it every sleep time, every wake up and every nap time. Dummies are AMAZING.

It "falling out and being back to square one" is more about your Inconsistent use if the dummy than any fault of the dummy. You need you help baby use the dummy. They cannot physically do it for themselves yet.

The comfort sucking is nature's way of calming and soothing a baby to relax, then the muscles all relax as baby enters the light sleep phase, then baby enters deeper sleep and muscles are lamp and floppy.

That light sleep phase - after relaxing but before in a deep sleep - that is when dummy drop is a problem. You need you be there to help baby keep dummy in (or reinsert ingredients quickly) if it drops as muscles relax. As soon as in a deep sleep, dummy is then meant to drop - it's served it's purpose and now no longer is needed.