Six month old - hardly naps and wakes hourly at night

[physicskate]

Help!!!

She has two, maybe three naps a day. Each is 20-45 mins. She will immediately wake if I stop rocking her. She's never been a good napper. She Will. Not. Nap in her cot. Only in her bouncer, the car or our bed.

Our night sleeping went to shit about three weeks ago. It was fantastic! She slept from about half 7-5. Then would wake for a feed and sleep again until 7ish. Naps were rubbish.

Now she goes down (sometimes self-settles, sometimes not) same time (730ish), occasionally fights it. Then she starts waking anywhere from 830-10. And then every hour (we got a two hour stretch last night from 430am!!).

As I breastfeed and it's the only thing that seems to settle her at night, so dh can't help.

I'm not really functioning... I'm irritable and starting to become tearful. I worry about driving.

We've started weaning in the last week, starting with baby rice and now veg.

If someone could guarantee that if I switched to formula, we'd get longer stretches, it would have happened long ago.

She's just woken from her 5 minute nap, despite consistent rocking!!!

Her eyes are red. She rubs her face and ears. She yawns a lot. If I'm tired, she must be absolutely knackered!!

I thought we had the four month sleep regression a bit before 4 months for 10 days, but maybe this is it and it's late??

Phew. She fell asleep again. Sorry for the long (desperate) post. Trying to avoid dripfeeding!!

I’ve found that if she doesn’t nap, she then doesn’t sleep well at night. If we’ve had a bad run, I’ll put her in the sling and take her for a two hour walk in the day as she always sleeps in the sling. It usually means we have a slightly better run and it helps break the cycle

Just my experience: my baby was like this during breastfeeding but once we began formula we finally got longer stretches of sleep. My unscientific theory is that the breast milk didn't fill him up as much because it was slow to come out ( as I found when tried expressing) but formula filled up his tummy and improved his sleep drastically

Look at the Lucy Wolfe baby sleep solution book. This really helped us. Good luck. Sleep deprivation is the worst!

So last night she had some puréed broccoli (I'd guess about 6/7 spoonfuls) and she took an ounce of formula before deciding she didn't like bottles (she's never taken to them and I haven't pushed it because I found it silly to express and then always dump it. Dh gives up super easily with it...).

But! She slept 830-1045, then only boob would calm her. But then she slept 1115 all the way til 545!! But then she didn't sleep again... but dh took her and I slept til 8. I feel new.

I've been sleeping with her in the nursery since she grew out of the Moses basket at about 9 weeks. I didn't last night. Dh took his first shift. I think her knowing boob wasn't on tap might have helped. And hopefully dh will develop a bit of empathy!!

I still consider this hugely improved.

And she's had a 45 minute nap and is showing tired signs for second nap. But I feel soooo much better!!

I think I will keep trying a bottle of formula before bed. And obviously purées.

Thanks for the suggestions!! I will definitely look up some of the books/sites you've all suggested!!!!!!!

She may be increasing your milk by waking and feeding regularly. I disagree with above comment of trying to get her to disassociate feeding and sleeping and would feed on demand as she still needs all her calories from your milk! Formula didn't work for us but it might work for you? Perhaps try to stop trying to get her to sleep and simply just lay next to her. In your bed is fine or sit next to her cot or bouncer, go for a walk in the pram? I always found the more I tried, the more stressed I got so I gave up rocking to sleep and just lay next to my LO or went for walk in pram. Does she have a dummy or comforter you can use? My almost 3 year old has been an awful sleeper and he's only just now sleeping through in his own bed. He was constantly waking as a baby and feeding back to sleep. It's totally normal for a baby to do that, I don't know any babies that haven't done that.
It's hard, you will get there I promise, it doesn't last long and then youre wondering where your baby went x

I have no advice but shamelessly placemarking. I have the exact same situation. DS was 7 months yesterday. He doesnt nap in the day apart from half hour maybe twice a day. He is always tired and ratty. Takes longer to get him to sleep than he actually sleeps for. He is also bf and wont go to sleep unless I feed to sleep and he wakes every hour in the night. The only way I can get him back to sleep is a feed, despite trying everything else humanly possible. I feel your pain. Im tired and irritable alot too

A new update: this evening, we discovered two teeth just below the surface - can see them through her gum. So her sudden change about 3 weeks ago could (at least in part) be due to that?