6mo won't stay asleep in own cot

[PeregrineDive]

We are having some issues right now with DDs sleep and are hoping for some advice. For background she's slept through from 6 weeks (with stirring for dummy to be put back fairly regularly, but not fully waking).

She was in a next to me cot and started waking more regularly just before 6 months. We tried moving the cot further away from the bed in case we were disturbing her but this didn't really make much difference and she continued waking after every sleep cycle.

We decided to move her to a cot bed in her own room so we could take shifts and get a better night's sleep. She goes down ok, but from about 12.30am she wakes crying. She settles and falls back to sleep immediately on being picked up, and we can put her back down quite quickly (though we have tried holding her for longer). She seems ok but will then wake in under 15mins time (normally quicker) and this can then repeat for hours.

She doesn't want milk, and doesn't seem gassy or in discomfort but just won't stay asleep. We've resorted to one of us cosleeping with her in the spare bed and she then sleeps brilliantly the whole night with no wakings or settlings needed.

Neither my DH or I are keen on cosleeping as we don't sleep that well ourselves so are hoping that this is something DD grows out of as we are both struggling with the poor sleep.

Can anyone offer any advice on whether this is likely to be a phase (6 month regression?) or whether there's anything we can try to help keep her asleep in her cot? She does have Ollie the Owl.

She naps in the pram during the day happily with a teddy. She is a snuggler and I wonder whether she's not getting the same comfort feeling in the cot as of course she doesn't have her teddy at night.

Sorry it's so long, thanks for reading.

Frequent waking is often sue to being over tired and that your daytime sleep routine isn't working and needs to change. How long does she sleep for and when are naps? Is she stationary in the pram or still needing to keep moving?

When she wakes, could you try bending down in to the cot and doing your settling with her in there. Same at bedtime.

I would be inclined to bring the cot back into your room until she is sleeping through in the cot. It's easier and quicker to respond to her there. Plus cosleeping will end up being a much harder problem to solve than the one you have now.

Forgot to add...

Hunger is another factor. It a very usual for night feeds to make a reappearance when weaning starts. Make sure you maintain milk levels as they were before weaning (may be even increase milk). Solids should be in addition to milk, not in place of. If solids end up taking the place of milk, because early weaning solids are low calorie, you end up with a calorie deficit.

Thanks for your reply @FATEdestiny. She naps for on average 3hrs per day, one in the morning and a longer one early afternoon but this can sometimes be more. She's stationary in the pram once asleep and it normally only takes a few mins of gentle rocking of pram to get her to sleep. Overnight she would normally get a good 12 hrs so I think that's enough?

We've started settling her in the cot and she falls asleep quickly and easily if we put an arm round her. The problem is that she'll wake up once we leave the room, normally the second my head hits the pillow

We are doing BLW and currently she's not taking in much and milk feeds haven't been affected.

She's asleep in the cot at the moment and went down easily after bath/feed/story. I just hope she stays that way and doesn't wake at 12.30 again! It's frustrating as we know she can link sleep cycles and self settle to a point (with dummy etc) but she just won't in the middle of the night. I am loath to bring her back into our room as my husband has a job where he really needs a good nights sleep to perform safely and at least if she's awake in another room he can sleep.

Sorry, I realise my answers probably aren't that helpful.

When you said she has a long nap early afternoon... what time does she wake up from it and then when does she go to bed? At 6 months she should only be awake for about 3.5 hours at a time.

She normally sleeps for around 2 hrs and wakes around 3pm/3.30pm. She goes to bed at 7/7.30 so I wonder if part of the problem is that she has too long a gap between sleeps. She used to have a 4.30/5pm nap but this stopped her from falling asleep at bedtime. Her afternoon nap was a bit later yesterday due to a long morning nap so she was only awake around 3hrs before being asleep at 7pm. She still woke every hour or so. I'm going to try and bring bedtime forwards and see if that starts to make a difference?