6mo old waking every 1-2 hours overnight

[Haveaniceday1986]

My daughter's sleep was good for her first 3.5 months but for the last 3 months it has been getting progressively worse. She is now 6.5mo and waking every 1-2 hours overnight and it has got to the stage where I can't cope with the sleep deprivation anymore. I've been reading these boards for ideas but I've run out, so just posting to see if anything has worked for others that I haven't thought of.

So far we've tried:

• improving her sleep environment (dark room, white noise)
• implementing a standard bath/bedtime routine
• implementing a nap routine - trying to have a morning nap around 9:30, a longer lunchtime nap (though she often wakes after one sleep cycle at lunch and won't resettle) and a short nap around 4:30 if needed
• sleep training (similar to Ferber) so she can self-settle for naps and initially at bed time. We haven't tried it for overnight wake ups because we have a 3 yo and don't want her woken up by the crying
• not feeding her every time she wakes up overnight (breastfeeding) though I think she still needs a couple of overnight feeds
• DH taking her overnight instead of me, but she sleeps even worse for him and they end up co-sleeping for the last few hours. I can't sleep if she's in bed with me so co-sleeping isn't something that would work normally

Any ideas welcome!

Is she weaned yet?

We've started solids but she's not taking much at the moment.

I totally hear your concern about not doing Ferber overnight; however, I suspect two things: 1) you’re probably confusing DC2 by having a different standard at bedtime vs overnight, especially if sometimes you go in, sometimes DH, sometimes there’s co-sleeping… 2) you’re probably disturbing DC1 anyway (whether that’s directly, every hour with little noises, or indirectly, by being an understandably exhausted parent at the end of your tether).

I found that using Ferber consistently through the night worked incredibly well with my 3 DCs, and ended up being better for everyone.

Before starting it with the baby, I’d always have a “family talk” about it, and the older kid(s) - aged two or three at the time - were hugely encouraging of their younger sibling learning to sleep. Proper cheerleaders! They weren’t massively disturbed overnight by crying, and anyway it only took 2-4 nights to get on track.

Oh also: my first two kids were tiny 10th percentile babies, so our GP encouraged a night feed through 7 months old. At 7 months they dropped them and their growth didn’t suffer at all. They just upped their intake during the day.

DC3 was a proper giant so our GP gave her blessing to drop his night feeds at 3 months (in reality I kept them up until 5 months).

All 3 DCs were EBF although they were taking solids pretty well when we night weaned, and I’d always give them something substantial for dinner (avocado, egg, etc.)

Does she have a dummy? And is she in her own room? My son was bad 6-9 months and taking dummy away helped a little at 6m, and moving to his room helped a bit too.

Thanks for sharing your experiences @UpToMyElbowsInDiapers. I'll definitely put overnight sleep training back in as an option and useful to know you were able to night wean at 7 months. With DC1 we let her take the lead on overnight weaning and she didn't stop waking up for milk overnight until 18 months, so we probably need a different approach this time to get DC2 sleeping through the night sooner.

@MeMeMeYou

Does she have a dummy? And is she in her own room? My son was bad 6-9 months and taking dummy away helped a little at 6m, and moving to his room helped a bit too.

She doesn't have a dummy and has just been moved into her own room/bigger cot, which has initially made her sleep worse (but she's never been a fan of change so the effect could be just temporary)

Feel your pain. My LO woke every 1-2 hrs from 4.5 to 10months. I co-slept to help get through it but it was so rough. Not much seemed to help her sleep. If at all possible try and catch up on sleep at nap times / weekends. Can DP get up with kids in morning and let you get an hour in?

Things only improved for us when LO was knackered from nursery, and just needed time to get there with sleep.

I thought I'd just update in case anyone in a similar position sees this thread. She's still not great at sleeping but we've had a few nights this week where she has only woken up once, which is a massive improvement on before. The difference seems to be that now she is in a bigger cot she can roll onto her front to sleep, and it seems that she has a strong preference for sleeping on her tummy. It wasn't something she was able to do before because she was always put to sleep on her back following safe sleep advice.

We had the same. As soon as she could get on her front she stopped waking every 1-2 hours. Within 2 weeks she had dropped her last night feed as well and then pulled her first 'all nighter' (7-6.30)! We've had a few more of them since. I think she was just desperate to get on her front!

I’m here as I have this issue and so really pleased to hear this!! My LO sort of half rolls in the night as just flips back so hoping he can work his way all the way over!