6 month old still wakes every hour to feed

[Jars11]

I’m just at the end of my tether, i’m so exhausted i feel sick. My 6 month old boy has for several months now been waking up every 1-1.5 hours in the night and nothing but breastfeeding will stop him crying.

We established a bedtime routine a couple months ago and he falls asleep within 20 minutes so that’s not a problem. He used to be able to sleep for 2-3 hours but that’s gradually halved as time has gone on. He goes back to sleep easily most of the time after eating but nothing i or his dad do helps calm him when he starts to wake in thr night.

I’ve tried giving him formula and feeding him solids just before bed to help keep him full but that hasn’t worked. He’s got a white noise toy in bed too. We co sleep because he could never sleep alone as a little baby, and i don’t mind at all if only he just slept longer. We’ve had progress on this front too because be used to only sleep in my arms and i’ve gradually taught him to sleep on his own with me just laying near him.

How am i supposed to encourage him not to feed at night and go back to sleep? I’m not asking for 8 hours sleep but if i could just have 3 or 4 at a time it would be life changing. Please advise me.

Soother? And make sure each bf is fairly substantial so that dad can respond with ssh and soother with confidence that the baby is not hungry. I used to hide under the quilt between bfs! Should easily manage 3 or 4 hours.

When you say that he will not stop crying unless you breast feed him, how long have these crying episodes lasted?

He has a dummy and we do always try that first. The crying episodes have gone on for around 45 minutes a time, i really couldn’t cope with any longer. The length of time he feeds has never been more than 10 mins from day dot, and actually during the day he can often go 4 hours between feeds... it’s just so confusing :s

My 6 month old does the same. It will improve, you just have to hang in there! My two eldest were the same. Just feed him as much as you can during the day and fingers crossed he will sleep longer over time.
Feeding back to sleep is the only thing that works for my son too (and many babies). Just accept it and stay calm.
Don’t leave him to cry.. he’s tiny

With ds1 we did the gradual withdrawal/ gradual retreat method. I decided the length of times between feeds (we started with 1 hour 30 mins as that was the average) and if he woke earlier I would rock him and sing with him until the time came. I was fairly soft so if it was close and he had been crying for long I would feed but I found i could usually stretch the time. After 3 days or so I increased the time by 15 minutes and kept doing that. As it took quite a while and we had illnesses and holidays that messed things up as well he was much older when we eventually got to sleeping all night. With the gradual retreat I again spent many months working from breastfeeding to sleep at bedtime to cuddling and rocking, to just cuddling, to sitting with etc etc. Ds1 was definitely a baby who needed to be taught how to go sleep but I never would have left him to cry.

My niece was like this with my sister and it lasted till she was about 10 months old. I guess some babies seek food as comfort, or so I have been told.

At 6 months there is a huge growth spurt that baby food doesn’t cover. They still need milk and their stomachs are very small, so digest quickly. Can you hang in there? My now 14 month old wakes once in the night and has done for a few months.

I just don’t understand how every other baby i know manages more sleep though? This has been going on since just after christmas, all of that a growth spurt? What am i doing wrong? He seems so happy and healthy otherwise. I really don’t know how much longer i can take before i feel completely broken :(

Do you cosleep? That’s a good way to maximise sleep and rest for you. I totally understand how exhausting it is but you’re not doing anything wrong.

I have the exact same issue with my 5 month old. I could have written your post myself! Waking every hour to breastfeed, would only sleep in our arms as a newborn so now we co sleep etc etc.

I actually went to the baby clinic about this because she has always woken every hour so this isn’t a ‘sleep regression’. I luckily managed an appointment with the head of infant care for my area! She said that she has silent reflux and that’s whats causing all of this. Has your son got any signs of reflux?
I’ve been told that reflux babies need to feed little and often to stop the burning feeling and that’s why she feeds every hour in the night. I was also told that they outgrow it between 6-12 months and to Just Co sleep/feed lying down in the night, try and get some rest and ride it out.

Hope this helps

@Jars11 I have no advice but just to say I am in the exact same situation so you’re not alone! I know what it’s like, it seems like everyone else’s baby sleeps through the night. I have started Cosleeping to get more rest but I’m not sure if this is a good thing long term as baby now probably feeds even more often but at least I’m asleep a bit more. I’m just hoping it will eventually change

Thank you all so much for the messages of support. It helps not to feel alone. I never considered reflux, i’ll do some research on that. I think i might have to see someone about it, a sleep clinic or something. I don’t know why but he actually sleeps better and longer during the day and like i mentioned befote feeds less. I can’t figure out what changes over night, apart from the fact that maybe i have now created this association with waking crying and feeding

My 4 month old does the same when we try to wean him off his reflux meds. He went from waking once a night to 5-10 times a night!

I had a big problem with bf oversupply from 4d till 6 weeks when a clever old fashioned paediatrician put us on a 4 hourly schedule. Prior to that I had been feeding at every whimper and DS was a mess of intestinal gas and screaming . As soon as I started the schedule, he improved and I followed advice to use a dummy for sucking comfort in between. He started to sleep so much better. Now I know your situation is quite different but the point I'm making is that if a 6wo baby can go 4hrs between (substantial) feeds, then a 6mo certainly can. In our case we could see immediate results so it steeled us to be consistent. I did end up doing more night feeds when I went back to work and we had a bit of reverse cycling, but it didn't last long.

My almost 6 month old is the same OP. She's EBF and went from sleeping 6 hours in a row to up every hour and v unsettled at night. We do a mixture of co-sleeping and sleep in her sleepyhead in a cot. I've started doing a bedtime bottle which has made no difference. I think she's waking up out of habit as doesn't eat much in the night just sucks and goes back to sleep.

I'm going to do gradual retreat or a gentle CIO. I'm going back to work in May and it won't be fair on either of us that she can't self sooth. I'm just as concerned about daytime naps as I am with night sleep. DH will be SAHP to her and our 3.5 year old so she needs to learn to not be in our arms for naps etc as DH won't be able to do it all by himself.

If you're not happy OP don't be guilted into keeping things as they are as 'it's a tiny baby' etc- your sleep and well being is important too. I think my DD would be a lot happier in the day if she slept better at night for a start, and so would I!

Villian that's really interesting. I feed DD on demand and wondered if that's why she's so windy and uncomfortable (she often cries when she farts) and brings up milk often after feeds. Her wind often wakes her up in the night as I can hear it!

How do you know if you have oversupply?

I don’t feel he wakes to suck for comfort, i may be wrong, but he’s really going for it and getting a lot of milk down before he falls asleep again. I don’t feed at every whimper for sure, he just honestly seems hungry. Oh i don’t know

Cheeky, I had over supply early on but it’s fixed now. Basically my boobs were getting quite hard often, leaking, he was getting too much sugary foremilk and so his poo was green and he had tummy aches, and when he ate it would make a clicky noise and he’d be gulping it down. I think there can be more symptoms but those were mine.

Cheeky, exactly the same as Jars. Always seemed worse at night. All bf wisdom which is to feed at every murmur was exacerbating the situation badly... that's why I get irritated at the oft-heard pronouncement that one cannot bf too much.

At this age with all of mine I have decided to feed at say 11pm and 3am and slept in the spare room - any waking in between has been dealt with by DH.
My DD is 6.5 months and I'm now not feeding between 11pm and 6am.

Try a bottle with some cooled boiled water and see how much he takes the first time he wakes. The next time offer breast milk, then the next time water and so on. Try that for 3 nights and see what it does to his day time feeding and sleeping. At the same time push daytime feeds and don't let him sleep more than 2 hrs after lunch and max 1 hour nap morning and half an hour in the afternoon.

Please don’t stretch out to 4 hourly feeds, that is such outdated advice for a breastfed baby it gets better OP, I would look into safe cosleeping.

I would feed him more often during the day so if it's currently ever 4 hours start feeding him after 3. Go somewhere very boring - perhaps during the day he is too distracted to realise he's hungry?

How long and when does he nap during the day?

My 8.5 month old is still waking every 1.5 h to 2 hours at night. Always has done. He also needs feeding before he can get back to sleep.

Of course it's OK to feed a 6 month old baby 4 hourly at night We're not talking about a newborn here!
It's OK for the OP to want a bit of sleep, even while breastfeeding.