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5 month old hourly waking , at my wits end!

3 replies

MamaW05 · 19/03/2025 08:55

Hi Mamas
I’m no stranger to rubbish/normal baby sleep. My eldest didn’t sleep through until 4.
However my 5 month old has been waking hourly for weeks…it seems excessive! It’s the same whether Dad puts her down or resettles, I feed her to sleep (this is def her preference), I resettle without a feed, in her cot, in bed with me…always an hour!
we have tried extending wake windows, she has usually 5 x 30-40min naps a day. I always hold her for at least 1 so there is the opp to extend, most are in the car or pram. Occasionally she will do a little longer on one so might have 4 naps.
tried later bedtime, earlier bedtime.
I’d love to even get to 2-3 hours.
I know many will say she needs to self settle. When my husband puts her down he only does soft shushing. Maybe a hand to her chest. This is the most she can do for now and I don’t want to use any of the methods that leave her. My daughter also always fed to sleep and we still got longer than 1 hour!
I want to support her and she is only a baby but surely we can do better than hourly!
she did longer stretches til 3 months, then I thought we’d got over the regression as we started getting slightly longer first stretches again, but now here we are. She does not seem to be uncomfortable day or night, generally very happy and chilled out.
Any ideas…or anyone where it’s just got better? I need some hope alongside my coffee!

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Meanwhile33 · 19/03/2025 18:01

That sounds very hard, sorry you have not had any helpful advice yet! Those days are a while ago for me but I think babies tend to do what they want, no matter what we do. So. I would say just set things up so you don’t have to get out of bed to feed her to sleep, and wait for this to pass.

SJM1988 · 19/03/2025 18:11

Not what you want to hear but some babies just arent sleepers. My eldest was an hourly waker for I think close to 6 month. Then slowly extending to 2 by 12 months. With a steady increase from there. He didnt sleep through until 4 and not consistently until 5.

MamaW05 · 19/03/2025 21:17

Thank you for the reassurance! Second guessing myself - I promised myself after my first I wouldn’t go down a rabbit hole of trying to find the magic fix. You are right. Some babies just aren’t sleepers and looks like number 2 is the same as her sister!
You’ve given me permission to roll with it and find the easiest way to manage vs not making rods for backs etc etc!

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