This time last week I would have been over the moon if someone told me that in a few days my nearly 6 month old DS will self settle and take longer naps. Well it’s happened! Literally up until 5 days ago he would only nap for 20-35 mins at a time and would have to be cuddled/rocked/fed to sleep. It was getting draining but I didn’t mind because his night sleep was always good (around 10-11 hours with one quick feed in the night). And now, for naps he has suddenly self settled every time snuggling a piece of muslin and will now sleep 1.5 hours per nap. He has two in the day and a shorter nap at about 4pm. It came from nowhere and I didn’t do anything differently at all. Amazing!
So what’s the issue I hear you ask. Well he’s now waking twice in the night for a really long feed (he’s breastfed) which isn’t an issue in the slightest, except he will not go back to sleep afterwards for at least two hours. This happens twice a night. Sometimes I manage to get him to sleep lying on me but when I put him back in his crib attached to our bed he then wakes up and I want to cry from tiredness. Sometimes he does go back to sleep a bit quicker (usually the second waking) but I’ve worked myself up that much that I then can’t sleep. I’ve tried just leaving him and going back to sleep myself but he’s so loud, banging his legs against the mattress and babbling away. He isn’t upset when he wakes up, it’s just like he’s wide awake and happy and ready for the day. For the last 5 nights I’ve had about 3-4 hours of broken sleep each night and I am now beyond exhausted. Yesterday I tried to stop letting him nap so much in the hope he might sleep longer at night but it didn’t work, in fact I think it was worse. I don’t mind him waking up for feeds but I can’t deal with him not going back to sleep! These night wakings have coincided with the much better naps and magical self settling! I thought better naps were meant to improve night sleep!
Is this just a phase? Other things to mention, he is teething terribly at the moment so I think this has contributed to him waking up. He’s not wanting much milk at all in the daytime because of his gums so this is why he’s probably having long feeds at night from hunger. According to the Wonderweeks app he’s always halfway through a leap. He has also just started to learn how to roll from his back to his front. Do I just ride this out? Any advice? I’m so tired and didn’t feel this sleep deprived when he was a newborn.