6 month sleep regression?

[sannax]

Hi all,

My nearly 6 month old who has recently started weaning, has gone from waking once a night to waking several times and only settling with milk. He initially sleeps for 4/5 hour stretch and then at around 1/2am is restless throughout the rest of the night, wants dummy reinserted and tries to roll with his eyes closed/lie on his side. He will then wake for the day properly at 5am.

I have tried increasing solids, making sure he consumes the same amount of milk in the day and changing bedtime from 7pm to 9pm but nothing has helped. He is currently having 3 small pureed meals a day plus snacks and milk but always seems hungry for more food rather than milk.

Recently I have implemented a gentler version of the ferber method during the day which has helped massively with daytime naps and he has no problem going down for bedtime itself.

I'm really really struggling with the lack of sleep and worried about how i'm going to cope because I go back to work in a month and a half. Can anyone help explain why/ others have the same experience at this age? Is there anything else i can try? Is it just a phase?

Weaning can disrupt their digestive system as it’s all new, should settle down relatively soon once his body gets used to it.

He probably doesn’t need 3 meals and snacks at 6 months though - they don’t need snacks at all until 12 months+. It’s probably too much for his tummy to handle so maybe cut down on the food and start slowly, with 1 meal a day.

Yeah, as PP said, additional night feeds at this age is almost certainly weaning related.

Absolutely don't replace milk feeds with solids. Maintain all milk feeds as they were pre-weaning and expect them to increase too. Always keep solids as "in addition to" milk, not in place of.

It is genuinely like going back to the new born stage where all baby is doing is feeding or sleeping. No time for anything else really at this age. It's literally a case of:

• Wake
• Full milk feed
• Bit of floor time
• Solids meal
• Top-up milk feed (or what's left on the bottle)
• Sleep
• Wake and repeat.

You will no doubt feel like all you are doing is either feeding baby (milk or meals) or getting them to sleep. All day every day at this stage.

If you don't keep up with calorific need (remembering the most effective way to get calories in is milk) then you see a reimergence of night feeds.

Thanks for the advice, I’ll cut back on the food and increase milk and see if it makes a difference. I thought I’d introduced solids slowly enough over the last month but clearly not! He is still drinking the exact same amount of milk though.

Definately increase milk intake.

Unlike PP, my own children (3 of the 4 of them) were having huge meals right from 6 months. No snacks, because milk feeds were given as better quality calories than snacks, but an average meal time conducted of:

• Full jar of savoury puree baby food, spoon fed
• Finger food of whatever I was having, baby self feeding
• Pot of yoghurt, spoon fed
• Pieces of fruit, baby self feeding

This was 3 times a day and took ages from start to finish. Loads of food, right from 26 weeks (but not before). And in addition I was doing 7 or 8 full milk feeds per day. The biggest difficulty was physically having the hours in the day to keep feeding baby within their (still short) awake windows.

6 month sleeping issues
My little one is 6 months old and he started sleeping through the night from around 2 months old. We moved him to his own room at 4.5 months old and for the first month or so he slept through the night. Recently past few weeks he has been waking up every hour and not settling for ages. Not sure if it is sleep regression and he is teething too