6mo naps

[MeadowHay]

DD is 6 months old, her nighttime sleep is ok - she usually sleeps roughly 7-9pm then she has another feed and sometimes nappy change etc then goes to bed for the night between 10 and 11pm, usually wakes around 6.30am but that's mainly because DH gets up for work then and the noise wakes her up - on days when he's not at work she gets up from anywhere between 6am and 8am.

She's never been a good daytime napper, but around the 4 month mark it was slowly improving and she was starting to have at least one nap of around 2hrs most days, although at random times. She then had two illnesses in quick succession and has never gone back to that, her sleep seems to be getting worse each day and I am absolutely at the end of my tether now. She cries almost constantly all day every day rubbing her eyes and yawning because she is permanently exhausted, but I cannot get her to sleep, I have tried absolutely everything I can think, it usually takes around 2 hours to get her to go to sleep from her first starting to show tired cues, or being awake for around 1.5hrs (whichever comes first), and then she won't sleep for more than 20 minutes, and then you can't get her to go back to sleep once shes woke up, even though within about 10 minutes she will be crying and rubbing her eyes again.

I have tried EVERYTHING I can think of:

• Pram - this used to be the only way I could get her to have decent naps but this doesn't even work anymore. I have to walk for around an hour now before she will drop off, and then she still only sleeps for 20 minutes, whether the pram stops or remains in motion makes no difference. It then takes another hour of walking for her to fall asleep again - again for 20 minutes. I know this as I've done it a couple of times but now the weather is freezing and raining all the time I just can't face walking for like 3 hours to get 40 minutes of broken sleep out of her.

• Rocking her in 3 million different ways/positions, again this eventually sometimes works after around 2hrs of trying different things. If I put her down somewhere, 50% of the time she will wake up straight away, if she doesn't, she wakes in 20 mins time. If I leave her to sleep on me, she wakes after 20 minutes anyway. I've tried patting, shushing, rocking etc again after the 20 minute time but again it will take hours and by that point she will be a due a feed so be tired and hungry.

Bouncing her on the exercise ball sometimes works after hours of attempting different things, and carrying her in the Baby Bjorn, but these were things DH did as I can't do them due to physical limitations, howevere temporarily he can't do them either as he's got a bad back as a side effect of medical treatment he's undergoing atm.

We have just started weaning too, which is not going very well, as ther is literally no time in the entire day that she's not grumpy due to tiredness, which obviously isn't conducive to introducing solids. She's not even happy first thing in the morning - she will be happy for about 45 minutse and then start rubbing her eyes and whinging to go back to bed, cue 2 hours of trying to get her to sleep, and the entire day goes like that with her alternating between whinging, crying, and screaming blue murder for hours on end, with me alternating tons of ways to get her to sleep with distracting her with giving up on both of those things and shutting myself away for 10 minutes crying whilst she screams the place down.

I have tried just putting her down somewhere btw too but that doesn't work, she cries as soon as I'm ever out of sight and is absolutely hysterical in a few minutes. She can easily scream for 2+hrs when she's in a state and I am not willing to leave her to do that alone.

I can't take her anywhere because there's no point, she cries and whinges the entire time due to tiredness, and I get stressed. I end up trapped at home all day in this endless cycle of trying to get her to sleep and then we are both crying for hours on end.

We don't drive so can't drive her around to see if that would work.

We have a rocking cradle which I've tried and again occasionally works after hours of trying different things, but then she's up again 20 minutes later. Same with bouncy chair.

Is there anything else left for me to try? I am really depressed about this, she's been a difficult baby from the start and I absolutely just hate my existence right now, I feel so bad saying it but I do, I've hated most of every day since I went into labour and I thought after 6 months she would be getting better, easier, happier, but she's not at all.

Hi MeadowHay
I can't really help since my DS isn't sleeping too grand either (short naps during the day and difficult to fall asleep at night) but I really hope that someone else has an idea or solution for you. Hugs

My post is so long I doubt anyone will read it, I didn't realise how badly I was ranting .

I have no real practical advice as DD mostly fed to sleep until about a year old, but when that didn't work NOTHING did, until I stopped trying. I remember trying absolutely everything one time when she was about 6 months, for hours, then doing a nappy change, I'd left the nappies in another room, so I made sure she was safe and got them, when I got back she was sound asleep under the baby gym!

If I were you I'd just crack on with my day and if she sleeps she sleeps (it sounds like you can't use a sling due to physical limitations? which would have been my first go-to), try naps at reasonable intervals but give up if it isn't working and try again later.

I don't know if it will work, but I remember trying and trying for hours and it just isn't worth it in my experience, if she wasn't down in 20mins she wasn't going down.

Also - could there be any reflux issues?

I get what you mean - I do periodically give up and just distract her, or do something else etc but it doesn't really help or maybe only for a short while, because she's still tired, and unhappy, and even if I can distract her for like half an hour even (more like 10 mins usually), she remembers that is tired and feels shit so goes straight back to crying and whinging, rubbing her eyes etc, and then I feel like it takes even longer because she's even more over-tired and even more grumpy and then so am I and so on.

Yes, I have a dodgey back and dodgey knees and coordination difficulties so can't really do babywearing, which is a shame because it does help her, she usually likes being in the Baby Bjorn and even if she's not asleep she is usually calm in it, especially outside.

I don't feel like I can crack on my with day because she cries all the time, and I mean really cries, often getting hysterical and screaming for ages etc...I take her to places and often I will have to just leave very quickly as she will just start crying and screaming. I can't do anything at home because she just cries all the time, she cries if she can't see me, and now she cries 50% of the time even if she can see me but isn't being held, and she's not happy to just sit and watch me do chores or get ready like 75% of the time, because she's overtired and will cry. The constant crying and whinging is so difficult and the screaming fits go through me. I often just feel like leaving her and walking out and going to have a coffee and I know if I did and I came back 1hr later, she'd still be screaming. Obviously I wouldn't do that but that's how I feel.

The HV mentioned reflux but I don't think it's that, she doesn't really vomit, and I don't think it's silent reflux because she doesn't have any other symptoms other than the constant crying, e.g. she feeds well, sleeps on her back fine all night, happy laying flat in the pram (til recently...). She does struggle to pass bowel movements just since the last few weeks in particular so I'm wondering if that partly why she's got worse again with the crying and lack of naps, but she does pass regular bowel movements, and her poo isn't hard, but it's just become more of a solid/thick paste in the last few weeks and she is straining and crying to pass them. Wouldn't want to try her on Gaviscon in case it made that worse. I'm thinking about trying her on comfort milk? I thought digestion problems in babies would improve with age but hers is getting worse, in terms of struggling to poo . It's not weaning related either as we've literally only just started weaning her a few days ago and she's barely ate anything yet and the difficulties pooing has been the last few weeks.

OK, here is what my routine is at 6.5mo.

Awake and feed 7am
Breakfast 8am
Nap 9/9.15am
She'll either do 45 minutes or 1h30. If it's 45 mins I keep her up for another 2h-2h 15 mins, then put her to bed. If it's longer, I'll keep her up for 2h30. So assuming she was only asleep for 45 mins:
Awake 10am
Feed 10.30am
Lunch 11.15am
Nap 12-12.15pm
Repeat for the last nap with awake times. I won't let her sleep past 4.30pm for a 7.30pm bedtime, so we are in the process of dropping the last nap (or it's very short - 15 mins or so).
Dinner 5.15
Small feed 6pm
Bath 6.15pm
Feed 7pm
Bed 7.30pm

Mine will STILL get sleepy around 8am sometimes, but I find she'll perk up with breakfast. If I try to put her to bed early, like you I'd be trying for HOURS and then she'd only have a short nap, because although she might appear to be tired there's no way she wants to be sleeping.

Also (whispers), have you considered a gentle sleep training method?

Poor you, this sounds very hard. Can I ask a couple of queations - if you wake up for a nappy change and a feed at 9pm, and she's not going back to sleep between 10pm and 11pm, what are you doing in that time? My 6 month old goes to bed between 7pm and 7.30pm (depending on last nap) and then I dream feed at 10pm (don't bother changing the nappy). She sometimes wakes a couple of times in the night, but I shush her back to sleep often.

I wonder whether the waking up in the night means she over tired for naps in the day potentially? What happens if you leave her to sleep through? Does she wake to feed? X

My routine at 6months is:

7am - awake and feed
9am - nap for 45 mins
10.30am - feed
Midday - nap for between 2 and 2.5 hours
2.30pm - half a feed, some puree, second half of feed
4pm - nap (15 mins, if tired)
6pm - start bedtime routine inc. feed
7pm - bed
10.30pm - dreamfeed

Obviously this doesn't always happen and quite often it isn't easy and I'll feed to sleep occasionally but it's what I aim for. It makes me feel better to have windows where I can plan things, even if they get shoved back a bit or bought forward

Xx

How does she get to sleep at night? Can you recreate that during the day for naps? I did a mini version of the bedtime routine for naps - so nappy change, story, into sleeping bag, "it's nap time, sleep tight, mummy loves you" and into cot.

Oh OP I feel your pain. My daughter was like this too, great nighttime sleeper but rubbish at naps. To be honest my life became about getting her her naps - the only way I could do it was to bounce up and down on a yoga ball and then hold her through the whole nap, bouncing her more if she started to wake up. She did get the hang of it and started sleeping for longer, but still only on me and after being bounced. It got easier as she got older and needed less naps and for a shorter time. She's 10 months now and I'm still bouncing her! At night she self settles no bother but she just can't nap!

Maybe she is in need of a more solid routine. Will study your routines. DH has a couple of weeks off over Xmas so a good time to try and sort stuff like that, but then also not because we will be visiting people etc. But then if I can't get her to sleep, how am I supposed to make a routine?? She is in a vague routine with her bottles - she has one in the morning, around 7am, as she usually wakes around 6.30am, then the next bottle is around 11am or 12pm, next bottle around 2 or 3pm and the next one around 5 or 6pm followed be solids now we are weaning, then another bottle around 9 or 10pm, (although it's usually only about 3 or 4 oz whereas she usually takes around 6-8oz at other feeds) depending on when we get her up as she's usually asleep for a bit before then, although tbh recently she wakes up herself most of the time.

Yeah, the only thing that I can really think of is putting her to bed at like 7pm and trying that and seeing if she just sleeps through and is happier. I worry about her milk intake tho? The formula packet says the guideline for her age is 5 7oz bottles and she drinks less than that as it is, so I'm worried about even if she did sleep through, that her growth/weight gain would be affected by dropping the extra few ounces on a night? Also usually she only has 3-4oz then assuming she's had a full bottle at the feed before, but there are days when she only has like 4 or 5oz on the bottle before, and then like 7oz on a night to make up for it, so I'd be especially worried about putting her to bed if she only had a small bottle around tea-time. If your babies are similar age and sleep through from about 7pm, how much milk do they have in the day and when?

And no, on a night she normally just either doesn't wake herself up fully when we get her up, so it's a proper dream feed and she's easily put to bed not long after, or even if she is up properly and we may change her nappy or whatever, she sits on DH's lap watching the telly with us with her dummy in and just eventually falls asleep, without needing any intervention, but she doesn't do that at any other time of the day. Tbh the last few nights she won't do that either though it's been awful. She seems to be getting worse every day, I'm not exaggerating. She is just crying almost all the time she is awake too. It's my birthday today and every time I get a message from someone telling me to 'have a lovely day' I am crying even more.

Exercise ball eventually works for DD too, DH does it when he is around, but I can't do it due to physical limitations, and atm he can't either as he's having treatment and a side-effect is his back is sore and should be resting it as much as possible.

People who do a dream feed, do you pick baby out of cot or what do you do to get the bottle in to them to disrupt them as less as possible?

I am going to buy a Sleepytot bunny from Amazon so she can eventually learn to put her dummy in herself not that that will sort out problems but it will help a little eventually and also maybe it will work as a comfort item because we need to move her out of her Bednest and into the big cot very soon as she's almost the full length of the Bednest now.

Also re: gentle sleep training, what do you mean? Stuff like PUPD, CC, what? Because I'm not necessarily averse to that kind of thing (though would not do CIO), but only if she would stop crying in-between, iyswim. DD will just scream and scream, so in effect any kind of 'gentle' sleep training would not be so 'gentle' on her, it would still mean her screaming for hours on end, just with us popping in and out, or picking her up and down, or whatever, and I just don't feel that's fair on her. It would be totally different if we would be talking about leaving her to cry for 5 mins at a time or something, but that's not what she'd do (we have sorta tried stuff like that briefly). I mean, I leave her to cry for short amounts of time all the time, I have to, or I'd never be able to eat or shower or anything half the time when DH is at work, but I don't like to do it and I wouldn't be comfortable letting her cry for hours without making any effort to try and stop it.

I wouldn't wake for a feed or dream feed if she doesn't wake for one at her age. Just get plenty into her during the day. I didn't bottle feed so don't know oz but would aim for 4 milk feeds and 3 solid meals until a year old.

Don't panic so much about getting the right amount of milk in - she's on solids and it's natural it will be dropping. You could start giving her a multivitamin if you want to ensure she's getting all the nutrients she needs, but providing she's not had any issues with weight in the past I wouldn't worry. My daughter dropped bottles fairly quickly once she started solids - by 9 months she was on 2 bottles a day (breakfast and before bed), three meals and an afternoon snack. She probably only takes 10oz in total now. When she was 6 months she was having three bottles - dropped her 11am when very quickly - and that was maybe 16-20oz in total. She often only took 3 or 4oz at bedtime and slept from 6.30pm - 7.30am.

I'd try relaxing about the milk intake - just follow her cues - and definitely don't wake her to feed her, just let her sleep. At 6mo my daughter went to 2 naps - awake for 2 hours, nap, 3 hours, longer nap, 4 hours, bedtime.

Good luck!