Sleep issues - 6 months

[Ossoduro]

Apologies that these questions have probably been done to death but I’m looking for some ideas as to how to help my baby sleep for longer stretches.

He currently goes down at 7pm in a crib next to my bed and wakes very briefly roughly every hour throughout the night and settles back to sleep fairly quickly if I pat his tummy or give him his dummy or something. I usually feed him at midnight. Then from around 4.30 am he will not settle so I basically feed him / co sleep with him until 6am when I have to get up.

The wakes ups were tiring but sustainable but I had to go back to work and I have school age children as well so I’m looking for some solutions to get myself some longer stretches of sleep. Any suggestions welcome. I don’t really want to do full on cry it out style sleep training but I’m not adverse to a bit of crying / whinging I just don’t want to let him get distressed.

Hi OP I’m no expert but have a baby that’s 5.5 months and he’s really struggling to link he sleep cycles at the moment aswell. If I’m honest I think that’s just a phase that they go through around this age. Have you got the wonder weeks app? It shows when they’re likely going through a leap.

We haven’t tried it yet but Im interested to see if moving DS into his own room helps, I don’t know if we’re disturbing him and that makes it harder for him to link the cycles.

Do you have a partner that you could do shifts with? That’s what we plan to do if things are still like this when I go back to work in a few months.

I know everyone also says making sure they get enough daytime sleep really helps, how are babies naps during the day.

Though it might not feel like it I think you’re doing really well for baby to fall back to sleep with just patting.

My husband is fully sharing since I sent back to work which is great. I just really want to solve it! He’s my 4th child and they have all been so different that I feel like a beginner with each one!!

Naps during the day are pretty bad at the moment. He’s just started nursery so hopefully the routine there will help. ‘The more they sleep the more they sleep’ is definitely true - I had wondered whether overtiredness could be contributing to the warring between cycles.

Just co sleep?

Good daytime routine will be really important.

I'd get rid of the dummy too.

Does he settle himself at bedtime?

I'd also bring the night feed forward to 10pm-11pm so you can do it before you go to bed rather than be disturbed in the night.