Baby wide awake again 30 minutes after bedtime

[BirdIsland]

Almost every night my 6 month old wakes 30-45 minutes after bedtime. We generally put her to bed at around 7pm, and pretty much without fail she'll wake around 30 minutes later. I can count on one hand the number of times she hasn't done this.

I've tried different nap times, from uber-regimented scheduled naps, to just napping whenever she seems tired, which is what we're doing at the moment. Nothing seems to make a difference. I just want to be able to put her to bed and actually cook my dinner and eat it hot!

Any thoughts on how to stop this? Everything on the internet seems to suggest she's overtired, but she's woken up tonight after 30 minutes and she's absolutely wide awake, laughing and giggling.

How soon does she go down after that and how many times does she wake in the night? I ask because my baby will not go to sleep before 9pm but sleeps through perfectly to 7am or maybe sometimes even 9am. Same age as yours. 7pm she naps but wakes up for another feed before bed and that puts her out cold.

She was obviously not ready to go to sleep for the night at 7pm. Let her stay up longer if she's happy, you said she was laughing and giggling. I imagine she likes being with you and her dad in the evening, mine always did. We cuddled up on the sofa, played and it was pleasant and cosy.

Your daughter will flop out, dead to the world, when she is good and ready.

There are no hard and fast rules about bedtimes, they need to be tailored to the child's needs and each child is an individual.

Preach Lynda! My fellow group of mums are trying 7pm bedtimes and getting night wakes and bad daytime naps and I’m like well 9pm to 7am at the least she’s fine for like 95 percent of nights.

I would not stress about it, get her back up - keep things low key, and when she’s tired back to bed. It will pass.

Thanks everyone. She wakes every 1-2 hours, all night every night, so I suppose this first wake isn't that unusual for her, it would just be nice to get at least an hour so I can eat dinner.

@LouiseTrees would you mind giving me a rough idea of what your day looks like? I know it won't necessarily be right for us but it's good to know what's working for others.

I had a baby who didn't self sooth and it was tough, tried various methods but in the end had to accept that my baby wasn't going to be the one that slept all the way through

Started changing our behaviour, putting the baby to bed in own bed but cosleeping when they woke to make it more survivable for us, now at 7 still come into our bed in the middle of the night

If any consolation toilet training, walking and lots of other things were a breeze compared to other kids

I’ll track my day today for you (so its accurate) and post the days events tomorrow morning. She got up at 8.30 and is now having a bottle.

That's really kind @LouiseTrees, thank you

Can you not eat dinner while your daughter is awake? I used to have mine (I'm not setting 'mine' or 'my way' up as an example to follow btw, just telling you what worked for us), in the pram by the table when we ate and when he could sit in 'high chair', at the table. My child got used to being with us for food and as soon as was old enough, ate with us. There was no 'grown ups' area as opposed to 'child's area'.

We co-slept as well which meant no sleepless nights. It was lovely! Doesn't go on forever but it's perfectly natural while it lasts.

Life is easier if you don't set too many rules.

I'm fairly sure at that age my DS was having a late nap at around 6ish and then bed at around 9ish. Maybe 7pm is just a bit too early?

Maybe it is just too early a bedtime for her, she seems to get tired round then but maybe not tired enough so go down for the night.

We can eat dinner with her awake, but she always wants to be sat on us (and is very squirmy!) and will shout if we put her in her high chair for too long, so it means us eating in shifts while the other holds her. Which is of course doable, and maybe that's what we need to do for a bit longer.

Mine has been doing the same OP although she is a bit younger than yours, just about to turn 4 months.

Like you I've done a lot of Google searches on this and the advice tends to be that it's due to overtiredness but I'm not convinced as even when she has a good nap day it still happens! I've been experimenting with a longer wake time before bed and that has worked twice now and I'm really hoping it might be the answer.

@sunlightflower I've tried similar, but there seems to be no pattern or consistency. On the couple of occasions she's slept for longer, once it was less than 2 hours after her last nap, the other time it was almost 4 hours 🙈. Although to be honest I've got more issues at the moment, for the last few days she's been waking up 10+ times a night so that initial wake up is the least of my problems!

I just refound your thread. Will PM you my routine.

@LouiseTrees would you please also PM me the routine, I’m having the same issues :(

My baby was/is exactly like that. Multiple wakings at night despite a proper routine etc. It's a killer, I'm sixteen months in. On a good night she wakes three times, on a bad night it's 8.

I've tried everything, and I mean everything. It does get slightly better every so often.

Unfortunately some babies are like this. I wish I had a unicorn baby that can just be put down with a blanket and teddy, kiss goodnight and leave her and she d be asleep in a few mins.

Keep going, look after yourself, you're not doing anything wrong.

My LO was exactly the same - without fail woke 30 mins after being put down and often woke multiple times in the night. It didn't help that he was the king of 30 min naps so I think he just wasn't good at joining up his sleep cycles, but he's almost 9 months now and it's much better than a few months ago. Weaning, crawling, increasing formula feeds (EBF for 6 months) and generally being a lot more active has helped. I also attempted to increase the amount he napped in the day, by getting him back to sleep after he woke up from his 30 min nap. He actually then often went back to sleep much longer than 30 mins. So I think the better naps may've helped him sleep longer at night too. We always put him down to sleep around 6.30pm, because he was often so exhausted and so cranky that we thought an earlier bedtime was better for him. But it's interesting that some people suggest a late nap and a later bedtime. Hang in there - I hope the 8 month mark will be the changer for you!

@Pippinsqueak it means a lot to hear someone say I'm not doing anything wrong - the cumulative sleep deprivation is brutal and it's so easy think it's all my fault that she doesn't sleep, that I'm doing something wrong and I should be able to 'fix' this if I just do something or other better.

@serenfach1 we also have the 30 minute nap issue, she just can't seem to link her sleep cycles unless I lay her next to me and she literally sleeps with my boob in her mouth! We've just started weaning and she's desperate to crawl so I really hope all of this helps.

I loved those side by side feeds and sleep sessions! Just the best. Another thing with my quest to get my LO to nap better, was if I couldn't get him back to sleep after 30 mins, I'd still keep him in the cot for the amount of time I wanted him to nap and keep the room dimly lit, but just put clothes away and chatted to him. I read this was one tactic that might help them sleep longer, as they get used to being in their bed for a longer period of time. No idea if this actually helped but it did give me a good chance to put laundry away