5.5 month old sleep problems, any advice welcome!

[imiss]

My 5.5 month old was previously getting better at sleeping after an awful start. Initially would only cosleep and happiest with my boob in his mouth, and I nearly lost my shit going weeks on end with so little sleep. After lots of tears (mine) we had made huge leaps of progress - he was in his cot, sleeping from 8ish to 6ish with an average of 3/4 wake ups. Might sound shit to others but honestly this was so much better than the first two months i didn't mind. Once or twice I got a stretch of 6 hours without him waking and I thought we were on our way to him sleeping through.

Then he got a cold, about 4 weeks ago. His blocked nose, a cough and a nighttime trip to hospital ruined the sleep pattern he was somewhat in. He has been recovered for about 3 weeks but the sleep has not. He is waking between every 20 minutes to 1.5 hours in the night, all night, every night. Sometimes waking up 20 minutes after being put down. My partner has been getting out of bed with him between 5 / 5:30 every morning as by this point there is no resettling him and his cries wake up my 2 year old. At my wits end, anyone had this and found anything that helps? What did you change? How do I stop this?

As it's probably relevant, he's mixed fed, 3 bottles (11am/4pm/bedtime) breastfeed in between and at night. I breastfeed him back to sleep 9/10 times, he is irate if I don't and wakes up fully.

5/5:30 wake up (not by choice!)
8ish nap (1/1.5 hours)
12ish nap (as long as he wants, between 45 mins and 2 hours)
4.30ish nap (as long as he wants, normally about an hour)
8ish bed

Hi! I can totally empathise. My son was the same as yours - up 3/4 times a night then it all went to shit around 4.5 months for us and he was up at least every 2 hours wanting boob to settle back to sleep. There’s so much developmentally going on between 4-7 months - one article I read described it as being like adults trying to get fluent in Russian, get a black belt in karate and perform a violin solo in a concert all at the same time. We’d be stressed and unsettled and our sleep would be affected too.

We co-slept to get by. Well he went to bed after his usual bedtime routine around 7.30 in his room (fed to sleep), I’d go to bed about 9, then if he woke up between then and 12 DH would give him expressed milk and settle him (he’d been doing a bottle of EBM since about 10 weeks). After 12 and DH would bring him to me and I’d Co sleep the rest of the night, flipping sides at least 3/4 times to feed him back off and he’d wake up at 6/7 with an enormous full nappy of wee. DH was on the futon downstairs.

Eventually, from around 7 months, he went longer and longer stretches and wasn’t waking til 1am for a first wake up. It got better and better from there for us. I think DH being able to settle him was really key. Would he take some milk from your H in a bottle for some of the initial wake ups? At least you can then get a first decent stint of sleep in the early part of the night.

My LO woke every 1 to 2 hours between 4 and 6 months but now at 6 months seems to be through the other side of it with much improved sleep. There are 2 developmental leaps during this period both linked with a sleep regression.

If your LO is like mine hopefully sleep will improve for you very soon. I also made some changes at 5.5 months which may have helped:

1. Moved LO to own bed and room so we dont disturb each other
2. Husband settles him to sleep rather than me bf to sleep
3. Introduced solids during the day

I am still feeding him a couple of times during the night when he wakes but it is a massive improvement from the 6 or so times last month.