6 month old false starts and wake up

[darlingsweetpea]

I'm on my knees and have run out of ideas. My 6 month old is a nightmare sleeper. At night when I put him down he wakes twice within the first hour then every 2-3 hours throughout the night. I have tried 3 naps and 2 naps and it's made no difference.

My current sleep routine is
6.30 - wake up
9.30 - nap 45-60mins
12.30/1.00 - nap 45-60 mins
3.00 - power nap 15 minutes (I wake him up)
6.30 - bed

He is mainly bf to sleep and I cannot get him to sleep any longer for naps.

I followed one idea of sleep breeds sleep and that made no difference and I'm currently doing sleep pressure. The problem with sleep pressure is I literally cannot get him to move his lunchtime nap later as he is so tired, but it's too long to go until bedtime.

I'm not doing CIO, but does anyone have any advice where I'm going wrong? This is my second child and my first was a great sleeper.

Thanks

Let him sleep as long as he needs at the third nap? I was only doing a third power nap when that nap was happening at about 5pm and he was more like 8 months. Just let him sleep so you can relax a bit.

Mine used to go through phases of false starts. Honestly it seemed to be caused by overtiredness/undertiredness/too much light/pain/separation anxiety etc...😂Basically the cause was not clear but he hasn't done it for absolutely ages and he's 21 months.

I would always try and settle just by putting my hand on him at that wake if I could. Sod knows if it made any difference though. It was just less tedious.

I think he's overtired. My DD did false starts when she didn't have enough sleep in the day. Agree with PP, let him sleep longer at third nap. Also, I'd put him down earlier than 9:30 for first nap. Three hours is too long a wake window in the morning. Check out the huckleberry website for wake windows by age. Aim for at least 3 hours of naps in total across the day even if you have to do 4 naps at first.

My DD did this for months and months she's also BF, I can't even remember how long it went on for, it's only just recently stopped (she's now 19mo) in the last 1-2 months.

It's rubbish, I used to be up and down the stairs multiple times and we never got to just chill and watch tv together. I used to feel really fed up. I started listening to audio books and watch tv on my phone and things. You could play around with nap times. But if the changes don't work, just know she will grow out of it. It's sooo common.

Lyndsey Hookway is great, I follow her on Instagram.

I think the main thing I've learnt, is to go with it and really lower my expectations and that's helped us manage. It's not for forever, it's just for now.

Thank you for your replies :) I'm not quite sure what changed today but we didn't have any false starts, which is a positive (for today as they'll probably be back tomorrow).