Please Tell me it Gets Better - 6MO Sleep

[MintGreenLife]

We are five weeks into hourly wakeups and it’s killing me. He started waking every hour, after being an ok sleeper (waking 2-3 times a night). At first this felt hellish, but slowly over time he’s got increasingly difficult to get back to sleep, and put down. Sometimes it can take hours and 10+ goes at getting him in his cot, for him to wake again 40 minutes later.

He is EBF and will only fall asleep feeding or with rocking. He’s never fallen asleep by himself, and I’m starting to feel like this is the source of the problem. Things just seem to be getting worse and worse, no matter how much effort I put in to his daytime naps and bedtime routine. He also wakes up screaming, and picking him up doesn’t calm him at all. He will continue screaming until he finally drops back off from rocking (can take 10 mins with him crying the whole time) l, or I feed him.

Where are we going wrong?! Can someone please advise! I’m currently sat at 3.30am with him sleeping on me (which I haven’t done in months) but I just can’t carry on with this never ending battle to get him asleep, in his cot, and get him to stay there for more than half an hour 😭

It does get better but it because lo is used to using you as crutch to sleep. So expects that every time they wake. That's the habit and some people feel that you should carry on doing it until your lo chooses not to need you anymore. Personally I didn't. I was so sleep deprived I opted for sleep training. Some do cc, disappearing chair method, some do pay and shush in cot. Many methods you can use.

@ChittyBang1987 I just feel like this is starting to become so unhealthy for all of us. We are all so sleep deprived, and I feel like baby is struggling to get enough sleep too. What method did you use, if you don’t mind me asking?

No advice but just to say I'm in exactly the same position with our 6 mo. Hourly wakes up tonight. Due back at work in 5 weeks and no idea how I will survive.

Paid loads for a sleep consultant to just be told stuff I'd read on the internet anyway. No adjustments to our routine, wake times, bedtime etc have helped.

I'm considering some controlled crying but it feels like a big step. Most of what I've read seems to suggest it works though.

Of course and that's exactly the reason why we did it too. I couldn't cope with it all any longer. Some babies sleep. Mine never had good sleeping.

I went all out and did control crying. Though on here it's not popular. I did it when my little one was 6 months. It isn't popular as it's felt that lo won't cry for you if they need you. My lo still crys if she needs me, we all have covid ATM and I been awake past 2 hours as she's been very unsettled. She's woken me up when teething too. It actually improved our relationship as I was able to actually sleep without multiple wakeups.

Takes up to a week to work if I member right. I did find a dummy helps as that's my lo way of self soothing now.

Have a look at feber method aka control crying. It's hard work, i put my tough skin on. Pick a week your going to do it and commit.

Generally, I can pop her in her cot now awake with her dummy reassure in cot for a minute and walk away. Sometimes, I have to pop back in. But I don't stretch too far from the control crying routine. I always give her a couple of minutes before going in to settle in her cot. Tbh it tak3s me a couple of minutes to wake up or walk up the stairs. I don't pick her up unless I feel she needs it, like if she's ill, or nappy full, etc. Even then, it's a quick nappy change and pop in cot. Or if she's unwell, I do drowsy, but only if she's unwell, never any other time.

My dd was EBF and like this. I did a gentler sleep training than CIO starting from 6 months, because listening to her cry made me so stressed i couldn't handle anything more full-on, and my DH literally couldn't stand hearing her upset. So I followed a pattern of "eat, play, sleep". It helped because she needed to be winded properly and so "eat, sleep, play" made her tummy hurt. It was hard work and there was some crying at nap time, but she did learn to fall asleep by herself. Took a while though, and meantime the sleep deprivation is awful, I agree with you.

With my DS, I didn't sleep train, I just had him in bed with me (DH snores like a train so I took DS into the spare room). He was also EBF and not a good sleeper due to bad reflux. We co-slept for 2.5 years and I learned to sneak away when he dropped off. So he never cried at night or nap times.

I have no regrets about either approach, as I did what worked for me at the time.

No advice @MintGreenLife but solidarity - this is identical to my almost-7- month old baby. This has been going on since she was 4.5 months and we're on our knees now. I dread night time as it's just a continuous battle with hourly screaming and feeding. My little girl is so strong willed that she will scream the house down if we try and just shush her to sleep in her cot so it always ends the same way - boob!! I hate that we've made this sleep habit and association but we're so sleep deprived it's hard to see a way out. Hoping this phase ends for us all soon!! Xx

@ChittyBang1987 we tried this very briefly one night out of desperation, but couldn’t see how it would work, as going back into the room to ‘resettle’ him only seemed to make him scream more, and he would never calm down, so in a way it was almost like just leaving him to cry. Did you find just going back into the room helped to calm your LO? Not sure how we would do it if he’s just going to continuously cry. Mine won’t take a dummy unfortunately 😢

@LydiaFTM so sorry to hear things didn’t work out with the sleep consultant. It’s awful isn’t it. I hate the night time, and the day time to be honest, while I’m so sleep deprived. I started back at work part time at the start of January- just two afternoons a week working from home, but it’s been tricky if I’m honest. Have you read the book ‘the sleep solution’? We are considering trying the advice outlined here, but I’m on the fence at the moment!

@Shmerlock so sorry to hear you’re going through the same 😭 I’ve managed to reduce the night feeds to 2-3 a night now, when this first kicked off it was 7-8 feeds a night. This does involve DS screaming for a good ten mins every time he wakes though 😢 it’s horrible, but I really didn’t want to create an 8 feeds a night habit. I do think maybe I’m making things harder for myself though.

What I don’t get is the screaming. I’ve spoken to others going through the same and their babies seem to wake and grumble or chat until they are helped back to sleep again. Like yours ours is very strong willed too, so maybe that’s it. I’ve wondered if it’s possibly just frustration at being awake and not being able to get himself back to sleep x

I'm in the same situation. The NCT breastfeeding helpline said to try five minutes of Dad tending to baby every other wake up before automatically giving the boob. This has given me some relief, some nights. But ultimately, feeding back to sleep is biologically normal and not a problem for baby at all...we basically need dads to do as much settling and keeping baby asleep once off the boob so we can rest.

@Flittingaboutagain we do this and have done for a few weeks now, but DH is having trouble putting DS down at the mo - he seems to wake the moment he steps towards the cot, whereas with me he doesn’t do that!

DD2 is 6mo next week and has been doing this for two months. Sadly she can easily self settle for sleep and does so every night without fail - give her a bottle and a kiss, pop her in the crib wide awake with white noise and she goes down no problem. Sleeps for a few hours, wakes for milk, back in crib wide awake and settles back to sleep herself….then wakes every 30-90 mins all night long, sometimes for milk but mostly isn’t interested. Luckily she’s not screaming, just whinging.

So I can’t offer any advice I’m afraid, just solidarity and the warning that self settling doesn’t always stop the night wakings. DD1 was the same, and didn’t sleep through properly until she started dropping her nap at 18mo. Again could self settle no problem.

I hope this makes you feel better that at least it’s not necessarily your ‘fault’ for feeding to sleep.

@Timeturnerplease thanks, it’s hard not to think it’s something you’ve done isn’t it! At what age did you first start to improve a bit? Even a couple of hours at a time would feel amazing right now!

Initially no my lo wasn't happy when I went back in as I didn't pick her up. (That's another method you can do. Pick-up put down its just slower results) I used to comfort in cot. Hand on bum or chest and stroke face for couple mins and walk out. Making shhhhhh sounds. Have a Google of the ferber method. He also suggests that when to feed lo through night too. I can't member what he says for it. If it's been longer than a certain amount he says to feed them. That's not really been an issue for my lo.

You need to be consistent with it. Lo is used to you doing it this way, so lo will be frustrated and upset your not continuing to do it that way, so will be annoyed and telling you about it.

Did shhhing, patting etc help soothe her eventually? I swear my DS just gets angrier with this 😖

Yes, eventually, she got used to us popping her in her cot and us settling in the cot. Though we had a dummy, we used to tap the dummy to help self soothe. I can't do shhh or tapping bum, etc now. It's literally hand on bum and on her hand as rubbing or anything she finds too stimulating, but she's almost 11 months old now so bit different.

It's a change. A baby does not like change, so they get upset.

We used the method in this thread. I didn’t want to just leave them to try alone. Whatever method you choose though you need to be sure you’ll be able to stick to it. You need to be consistent and you both need to be on board with the plan.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/1394888-What-worked-for-us-Hope-this-helps

@MintGreenLife DD1 started doing longer stretches with each nap drop, interestingly enough. So around 7/8 months she dropped to two naps and started waking only a few times overnight, then around 10/11 months she dropped to one nap and only woke once or twice overnight. By 18 months she was dropping the nap totally and started sleeping 12 hours a night. She’s now 3 and wakes a few times a week with nightmares but that’s it.

I’d understand if she’d been having long day naps but they were only ever 28 minutes each so maybe my children just only need a certain amount of sleep per 24hours and it took no naps to consolidate it into a full night 🤷🏻‍♀️

Try the No Cry Sleep Solution (order and read the book!)

@Lancssss this is the method outlined in ‘the sleep solution’ book which I’ve literally just read. I can’t decide if I feel strong enough to do this, as I know he will get very upset and most likely scream with myself or DH sat next to him not picking him up. I suspect as mentioned by others it’s the change to what you usually do that causes upset/frustration, and maybe they get used to that change fairly quickly, but I’m really not sure if I could let him go on screaming for hours and sit there next to him 😭

We've had 10 weeks of this, and our baby can self settle to sleep (she does at the beginning of the night). The last 4 nights have been better after I tried exclusively bottle feeding in the day (some formula and some expressed milk). Could be coincidence, but we're back to two wake ups a night for feeding (BF). I do wonder if she was just hungry as their appetites increase a lot around 5 months and obviously it's hard to know how much they're getting when you're BF. Could be worth a try!

@Lancssss p.s what age was your LO when you did this? I’m worried 6 months is too little!