6 month old still waking every 45 minutes

[Cakeandslippers]

Hello! I'm no stranger to sleep deprivation as my first was a nightmare but I'm really struggling with this one - current lockdown definitely isn't helping.

He'll feed to sleep about 7/8pm, wake after 10 mins, feed to sleep again then he's awake every 20-45 minutes all night. From about 10pm he will absolutely not go back into his cot so I have to cosleep from then (I tolerate it but I hate it as he scratches and pinches me continuously and kicks himself away from me then cries out all the time).

Naps are a pain, used to settle himself but since the 4 mo regression at 3.5 months he has to be held, I continue to try and put him down but with very little success (usually wakes 5-10 mins after I put him down and won't resettle without boob).

I'm not looking for a miracle here but I'd love a 2 hour stint in the evening, or an afternoon nap in the cot, just something where I can have an hour or two without being scratched or pinched... my boobs are so sore from it! Husband tries constantly to settle him and he can get him to sleep sometimes but has to hold him stood up or he wakes.

Things have been like this since he was 3.5 months old - he got croup then the regression hit!

Any ideas?

This happened to me.

I caved and sleep trained at 7.5 months. It was done in 3 nights, I think she cried less in those 3 nights put together than on a single night of all of the gentle methods - and less than a bad car journey.

I was a better mother for the sleep.

Other options are “no cry sleep solution” etc. They didn’t work for me though.

We did CC at bedtime at this age, DD learnt to self settle and night wakes went from every 40 minutes to every 3 hours. I kept feeding her for night wakes because she had weight issues, but at 10m i was confident she was good to go without, so we did CC for the night wakes then and the next night she slept 7-7.

Thanks @incrediblytired (love your name 🤣) and @ohalrightthen I'm in a couple of breastfeeding fb groups and they talk about sleep training / cc as though it's abuse (they actually say that it is) and so I just really struggle with guilt of even thinking about it. They say it causes the children to have long term mental health issues 😔. I know it's not that simple and obviously I'm not silly enough to believe everything everyone writes but the guilt is real! I struggled on through very similar issues with my daughter to my detriment if I'm honest, but I only had her then. This time I have no chance to catch up on sleep and it's just that much harder. We tried the no cry sleep solution with her and it didn't work.... nothing did actually until we did what I guess was some form of controlled crying at 17 months as I was 9mo pregnant and she was still awful.

Sorry a lot of rambling there but how you do deal with the guilt of the crying?

How do you feel about giving a bottle once a day ?
I did this with my first, it was the last bottle before bed and it made her sleep that little bit longer.

I didn't feel any guilt. Good sleep is VITAL for baby development, and good sleep is also vital for a mother who doesn't accidentally put the car into a tree because she's so fucking tires. It was an absolute no-brainer - we teach them to eat, to talk, to walk, why wouldn't we teach them to sleep?

@dinosaurdiana I've no problem with a bottle but he won't go to sleep without boob so I'm not sure how we'd manage that. I'm keeping it in mind though!

I have three DCs and with each child I found it easier to sleep train, I think because I realised that crying for a couple of minutes before they go to sleep does absolutely no damage at all, doesn't affect your bond, and doesn't hurt them in any way whatsoever. If you were leaving them for hours that's different obviously.
I would stop feeding to sleep. Can you put a mobile on or a calming cot toy for them to watch? Feed them away from the cot, then put them in and put the toy on. If they cry, go in and pat them and talk to them but tell them it's time for bed. Don't pick them up, don't hold them to sleep, let them get to sleep themselves. My youngest cries more if we hold her because she just wants a break from the stimulation, the movement, she just wants darkness and quiet and her bed. As soon as we put her down and leave the room she goes straight to sleep. If I tried to rock her to sleep we'd be there all night.
Of course it is hard, you're trying to fix a way that they have been used to since day 1, they won't be fine with it straight away. But babies cry when they're waiting for food/milk, when they've done a poo, if you're out for a walk and they want to go home, all sorts of things and sometimes they have to learn to wait for comfort- you can't have what they want ready straight away.
The way it is right now for you doesn't sound good for either of you, I know a lot of people like co-sleeping but it sounds like you're only doing it to get some sleep, because you have no choice. Therefore you need to help them adjust to staying in their cot and staying asleep. And I think they will stay asleep when they know that they're not going to be taken out and put somewhere else mid-bedtime.

@ohalrightthen thanks, I never hear this side of things as the groups I'm on are so extremely of the opposite opinion. I think I'm probably somewhere in the middle of things, no strong views either way, but my worry is we end up with excessive crying but no success.... but I suppose we can't predict what could happen. Thank you for your perspective.

Mine would fall asleep on the bottle !
But then I also used dummies in the end as I wanted my body and my evenings back !

I was exactly the same op, convinced that sleep training was abuse, child would be silenced but still distressed etc. First child was like yours and didn’t sleep til about 2. Second child was going same way and I was so ratty and exhausted with both, I just could not continue that way, felt I was really not meeting their needs. Read a thread on here that I still have bookmarked - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/1394888-What-worked-for-us-Hope-this-helps

Basically led to us doing gradual retreat method with DD2 at 9/10mo, night weaned at same time. There were tears but we were in room with her. With it being a second child I was more comfortable with idea that setting boundaries makes them cry, and felt that she was more angry and confused by the change in approach, than traumatised, as I feared. I used a book called Lucy Wolfe baby sleep solution and found her to be very gentle and respectful. She has videos on Instagram that are helpful. It took 4-6 weeks if I remember, we just did it at pace that felt right for us. She’s 2 now and has slept well ever since. I still worry from time to time that I’ve damaged her, these messages are strong, but she is loved and loving, let’s me know when she’s not happy, and on balance I think has had a better parenting experience through me getting more sleep. It was hard for me to climb down from my ideals but I am glad I did it, it was for them.

I've been there op! I also decided to sleep train, i cried the first few nights.

I soon stopped when i was getting a full night's sleep and greeted by smiling (and well rested!) baby in the morning!

Dd is now 12 and has been a great sleeper ever since (we've never co slept, it wasn't for me)

Leave the Facebook groups.
That crap about sleep training being "abuse" is utter bollocks.
If he's 6 months old you can do sleep training, I would if I were you.

I guess you already know that it’s the feeding to sleep association that you need to break. I see that you tried the no cry sleep solution with your DD but I would still try it with your DS. I sleep trained my DD with a shush pat method that didn’t involve leaving her to cry and it worked well; with my DS it didn’t work and we had to do controlled crying but I felt less bad about it knowing that I’d tried everything else and was on my knees with sleep deprivation.

Personally I think people who say sleep training is abuse are dimwits. Sorry. Ignoring the parent for a min. Sleep is incredibly important for a baby. For their development. For their happiness. Why do we expect them to magically just learn to do it?! Sleep is a skill. As parents, we are happy to teach them all other skills. But this one is magic and they'll just pick it up, as 6m,12m,18m? 2yrs? 6yrs?! Coming back to the parent, you have to be able to function! No-one relishes sleep training. But sleep training is a very catch all term. Read up. Find something that 1. Fits with your ethos 2. Fits with your child's personality. Personally I do think there is a place for controlled crying, because in my own experience supposedly more gentle techniques just wound my kids up more and they were more stimulated by me trying to 'help' sooth them. Controlled crying is quick, effective, and they are not left alone crying for long periods of time. That's cry it out, which is different. Personally I think you need to do it. The current situation isn't working for anyone including your child. Good luck op!

Thank you @merryhollybright is good to hear your perspective. You're right I don't really want to cosleep but it's my only way of coping right now.

I have left him a few times when he cries to see what happens but he just seems to get more and more worked up. And if I lie him down at bedtime / naptime / when he wakes in the evening in the cot and try and get him to sleep by patting / shhhing etc he goes absolutely crazy screaming. I can't calm him down at all. How do get past that? I feel like everything I read assumes you can lie them down without them automatically crying. Thank you for your advice....I definitely need it!

I would start by making sure he is getting enough sleep overall. What's your nap time routine look like? Babies tend to do well with a 12hr day /night. 7-8 is fairly late to be going to bed, what do you think about an earlier bedtime? You probably have thought of this already. If he's overtired then his body might be releasing stress hormones meaning he wakes frequently through the night. I would try putting him to bed in his cot 20 mins before he's been up for 12hrs, so if he's up at 6:30am, up to bed at 6pm. You might find he settles in his cot easier at this earlier time. I would do either shh pat technique or controlled crying with interval checks to settle him at bedtime. Good luck!

Thank you everyone! I'm really grateful for these messages because the impression I've got from the breastfeeding support groups is that it's really selfish to want to have a break / sleep myself and I should just suck it up. I can't help thinking the people saying this haven't been where I am right now! I think some of it is what people really believe (fair enough) and some is rooted in some form of smugness about how great they think they are for breastfeeding / bedsharing / being some kind of perfect mum!

I will go and read up on all the things suggested here and find something that might work for us because I'd love to actually see my husband again (he's in the spare room and evenings are taken up trying to resettle this baby!).

Thanks @indecisivelurcher. He wakes at about 7am most days. I do try and get him to sleep earlier but it just takes about 45-60 mins to get him down. I'll see if I can speed it up though as you never know, I do sometimes think he's a bit too tired by then actually, it's just the practical challenges of husband finishing working and then having our tea that makes it a bit hard... I'll give it a try, thank you.

@Cakeandslippers maybe he's like my DD and the patting is overstimulating him. I use white noise for DD- this one www.tommeetippee.com/en-gb/product/bennie-the-bear-rechargeable-grofriend-2 (it is FAB and stays on all night) plus I put soothing music on the Ipad. She has a cuddly toy that she's very attached to which I slept with for a night before I first gave it to her so it smelled of me. She also has a sleeping bag. And a dummy, but am assuming because he's BF'ed he may not have one?
You just need to find things that he likes that work for you both, and transfer his reliance on you to these things as his sleep aids. I know it sounds easy, and I know it will be gradual, but try a few different things until one works for him. A mobile might be a good distraction also, or a night light projector on a timer that he might enjoy watching? To distract him when you leave the room.

I've read a lot of books and blogs about sleep (DC1 was a terrible sleeper) and I rate the Huckleberry app and this website/blog:
www.babysleepscience.com/resource-blog

They both advise that if you are doing any kind of sleep training you need to start at bedtime, so that's what I suggest you do, try and move the feed earlier in the bedtime routine, then rock/hold to sleep - and if baby's getting upset because they can smell the milk, maybe your partner could do it to begin with, no boobs! Baby might scream but you just have to hold them and ride it out, when we stopped night feeds with DS, we found it helped to go into a different room, play music, or do a low hum... he will be tired enough that eventually he will calm down and sleep.

Once you have stopped feeding to sleep and baby is settling better in his/your arms, then you can start trying to get baby to settle in the cot - you could start with PUPD, next option is gradual retreat, if no luck with those it would be controlled crying.

With DS we tried gentle methods which didn't work and only controlled crying worked, I had resisted it for ages which is why I wanted to try the other things first... but if the same happens with DC2 I think we'd move on sooner.

Yeah you probably need to head to bed at 6:30 then. It is hard. I had a stage of having to put my ds to bed at 5:30! Sympathy.

also if you have them in the cot and distracted or used to lying there quietly it doesn't matter if they're awake for a while before they fall asleep. When DD wakes from naps I sometimes leave her in her cot if she's happy/I'm busy with other DC so she's got used to just being in there awake. Can you try that? Put him in with some toys and pop out the room to do some chores? He needs to see his cot as a safe space that he can feel comfortable in, knowing you will always come back.

My DS couldn't handle gentle methods. I think he figured if I was in the room, then I should be picking him up and feeding him. I tried cosleeping, and all that did was cause problems in my marriage. The only thing that worked for me was the Ferber Method (controlled crying). The first 3 nights sucked, but DS has gone from waking every 45 minutes all night to going to bed at 7, waking for a bottle at 11, 4, and waking for the day at 8.

If you can read the Ferber book, it explains why you're doing what you're doing, and it really helped me understand DS's sleep.