6 month old wide awake throughout night

[Zoemay123]

Since moving into his cot at 4 months old my little boy is waking through the night and is wide wide awake, he doesn’t want a bottle or comfort really he just wants to play, he can be awake for 4 hours at a time just shouting and rolling and hitting the bars in his cot and nothing so far seems to settle him I just have to ride it out!

Our routine through the day doesn’t really have any set pattern apart from waking at 9, having breakfast and then always a nap at 11 for around 30 minutes, then throughout the day we do different baby classes so he doesn’t stick to any routine of naps however they never seem to last longer than 30 minutes, he has his tea at 5 and then always wants to nap at 6 which I have to push through to make it to half 7 where he has a bath and bottle and is always fast asleep for 8, he seems to be in a very solid sleep until around 2ish and then will wake as though it’s morning time, any advice would be much much appreciated or some help on how to set a daytime routine to help the nighttime routine, this is my last resort before getting in a sleep specialist so fingers crossed somebody can help :)

Can I ask why you are pushing through to 7.30pm to start bedtime? Could you move this up to 6.30pm and have him in bed by 7pm?

I also think it might be worth sacrificing some of the baby classes to get him into a more consistent nap routine in the afternoon?

Is he generally napping in his cot or on the go? How are you getting him to sleep (feeding, rocking, is he self soothing)? And how long do his afternoon naps tend to be? x

Do you want to keep the 9am wake up or would it be better to move to 7 if you are going back to work soon?

I'd try to get a solid day routine - so wake up at the same time every day, nap after 1.5-2 hours awake.
Then another couple of hours awake and encourage a long nap in the middle of the day - you might need to walk with the pram to keep him asleep.
Another couple of hours awake and then a short 3rd nap, and 3 hours awake time before bed.
My DC routine around 6 months was roughly:
Awake at 7, milk
Breakfast around 8
Nap 8.30-9.30
Milk mid morning
Nap 11.30/12-1.30ish
Lunch either before or after that nap
Milk mid afternoon
Nap 4-4.30
Tea
Bath
Milk
Bed about 7/7.30
Milk about 10.30/11

A better daytime routine will help with night time sleep in my experience.
At this age, mine were napping from 9.00-9.30ish, having a long nap at lunchtime - 12.00-2.00 ish and sometimes a little snooze from 4.00-4.30. In bed by 7.00, dream feed at 10.30 and slept through til morning. This is a Gina Ford routine - I know she’s unpopular on here but it worked for us.

Cross-posted with *Abby there with an almost identical routine!

@NewMum293 I’ve tried to put him to sleep earlier which he happily does however he just wakes up even earlier through the night sometimes he wakes up before I’ve even managed to get any sleep myself, he is usually napping on the go like in the car or whilst walking in the pram which can be at completely different times and I feel a bit useless with controlling them, also he falls asleep having his last bottle as he’s always really sleepy after a bath, so most nights he falls asleep whilst just finishing his bottle in my arms x

@AbbyHammond @Chickoletta Thank you so much for the advice! It’s helped to see someone else’s routine written down to see what kind of times I should be sticking to, I will definitely start getting him into a proper daytime routine and by the sounds of it he might need the earlier bedtime and a dream feed to stop him waking earlier through the night, nobody told me how much of a minefield all this sleeping is! Xx

Maybe switch the bedtime routine around so it's milk first, then bath/brush teeth and into his cot sleepy but awake so he can self settle.
You can stay by the cot and shush/pat him.
If he can settle himself at bedtime he's more likely to settle himself in the night.

If you download the Huckleberry app (free) you can track his sleep and it'll suggest roughly when he should be going down for his next nap. You can also choose to fill in a questionnaire to send off within the app with the sleep data for personalised sleep guidance, but that costs money and I never bothered.