Help! My 6 month baby is waking evey hour

[Coffeezzz]

My dd turns 6 months this week and since 5 months her sleep has got worse and worse.

She was sleeping well, waking for a feed at midnight and 4am only, and sometimes just 4am. We took her swaddle off at 5 months when she started rolling, so expected some disruption, but not this bad for this long.

I do the bedtime routine (bath, cuddles, feed) and she sleeps in her cot in our room. After an hour she wakes crying/whining and the only thing that gets her back is a feed, she'll go back in the cot for another hour, then after that we bring her into our bed as she refuses to sleep in cot so it's just easier to feed lying down. After that she wakes for a feed every hour all night (crying or whining each time).

In the day she is good humoured and naps really well, she hardly crys at all and is a dream to be around. Then at night she crys and whines it's like a different baby.

I'm so exhausted! What can I do to get her to sleep more? 😫I'm EBF, we've tried her on bottle but she refuses, i wondered if weaning her to bottle might help?

She's not hungry every hour so she's feeding for comfort.

You can either carry on feeding her for comfort and wait for the phase to pass, or you can comfort her whilst refusing to feed her, she will cry but you will know she's just angry not scared since you or your partner will literally be there comforting her. You can offer a cup of water in case she's thirsty. Does she know how to fall asleep without the breast?

Has she started eating any solid foods in the day yet? You can start to introduce solids at 6 months. Once she's eating and drinking well during the day and she no longer requires night feeds, you have the option of doing some sleep training. You could consider the controlled crying or gradual retreat method. At present she's being rewarded for waking in the night by being taken into bed with you. By doing this, you are actually reinforcing her behaviour.

Hi OP.
This was me 4 weeks ago. However my daughter is 7 months. We moved her to her own room. I BF then put her down, if she woke up before 2 hours my husband would go in to soothe her. Gradually increased the hours between feeds She did cry a bit. But she eventually started sleeping better. Now does 5 hours between night time feeds. I also make sure she is on a schedule and follow age appropriate wake windows. Hope things get better.

This is total nonsense, babies this young do not have the brain maturity to manipulate in this manner. It's a really dangerous and unhelpful narrative that can only lead to more anxiety.

OP have you seen a GP to rule out any underlying physiological issue such as tounge tie or reflux?

To be fair, the PP didn't say anything about manipulation?

What they said basic behaviourism which requires no conscious thought or intention: behaviour A = response B. If response B is wanted/liked then it makes behaviour A more likely to happen again. If response B is unwanted/disliked then it makes behaviour A less likely to happen again. It's very basic psychology and I'm afraid it does apply to babies. Of course we want to take into account lots of factors when considering how and why we respond to our babies. That's not under question. But the PP didn't say anything about manipulation.

Yes agreed it was not explicitly stated, but the underlying inference was that the OP was at fault here by 'reinforcing' this behaviour. It's not as simple as to say just stop offering the breast and let them cry it out. The reasons why this is happening could be something like reflux (baby uncomfortable being led in their back), an advancement in development interrupting the ability to sleep, indeed yes in need of comfort - and that need is not going to disappear once the breast is taken away, a new method of comfort will simply need to take its place.
It's so damaging to tell people they are at fault for their babies sleep.

I have no real advice, just solidarity. my LO is 6 months and has never slept well, but recently sleep is awful. We're back to sleeping like a newborn! He has just cut his first tooth yesterday though so I'm wondering if that's the culprit.

We've tried loads of things. We try and settle him in other ways when he shouldn't need a feed, which sometimes works, but nothing which changes anything long term, every night we're back to many wake ups.

We're also EBF and the next thing we're going to try is offering a bottle for the first feed. Once he's taking it (I expect a bit of protest) I'll try slowly reduce the amount he's having. This is how we night weaned my eldest , but he was completely bottle fed. He stopped waking for a feed completely once we got down to about 2oz. (he slept through from 7mo, it's so hard having a child that sleeps then one that doesn't sleep!! I was lulled into a false sense of security haha)

Hi OP how did you get on eventually? Did you sleep train? I am in the same boat with my 6.5 MO.