six month old - don't know what to do for the best

[pandysmum]

My DS is now six months old and has never been a fantastic sleeper, although we have had periods of quite settled sleep patterns, and one amazing stretch of 3 nights in a row of sleep, on the whole most night times are quite frustrating. I am now considering controlled crying mainly as my usual techniques of shush pat etc for settling him to sleep seemed to have stopped working and now my ds is determined only to play in his cot when i put him down. At the mo, if i leave him to play he eventually starts to scream, and boy can he scream and he doesn't seem to be the type to eventually just settle down, this is my main reason for seeing cc as a last resort cos i know he will be a tough nut to crack. So im not sure what to do for the best really although i know i need to chose and then stick to it. I think my main frustration is that he has shown he can sleep through as i said before so why can i not recreate this. I stopped feeding him in the night a while ago but this hasn't helped him settle on the whole. I know this is a mixed up post but i feel as though i am just trying a bit of everything but doing nothing well or properly. All advise greatfully received.

could he be teething? what type of milk is he having ie bm/ebm/ff/non-diary milk? if ff could he need a change of milk? (maybe he has wind? just an idea).

I am with you on the whole lack of sleep business though, ds is 6.5 months and has always woken 2-3 times at night and now is waking 4-5 times. I am putting it down to 1) teething as he is dribbling like a footballer (you like the topical reference ) and he settles are a feed/suckle and 2) my own fault for feeding him back to sleep even though i know this was going to set a pattern of waking at the end of his sleep cycle searching for that magical sleep-inducing nipple. I am working on that.

I know with DD it took a long time to break her night waking, using version of baby whisperer techniques, but i could not bear cc, no matter how upset and tired i was, i just could not do it. DH thought i was soft in the head, i considered it abuse. But that is a personal opinion and only you can decide on how to manage the sleep.

Hi, my ds is now ff and has been on this formula since birth (he was bf apart from one ff a day by dh as i couldn't get the knack of expressing until 5 months)It could be the teeth, like your ds he too is giving most of the England footie squad a run for their money in the dribbling stakes. He settles with a dummy which i don't particularly like, he could settle well at about 5 months without (in fact at this point would refuse a dummy on he few times i offered him one) but now i feel as though i could be trying to settle him all night if i didn't put the dummy in.
Thanks for your help.

I know how you feel. Ds was a terrible sleeper and absolutely determined to get me up if he was up. We resorted to a 'soft' cc (patting every 5 mins) when he was 6 months in a bid to break the night feeds. He maybe slept through once or twice but became easier to resettle when he did wake - which was enough for us. But we ended up doing another stint of cc at 10months when he started waking and crying for 3hrs at a time, again never really slept through but became easier to resettle. Then same again at 15mo, tried cc to break the 3hr screamathons - but ds would not be broken. After day8 he was crying non stop from 1am - 5am. After that we co-slept and had the best nights sleep ever. Ds's bedtimes could still take a while - dh or I ended up lying down next to him till he fell asleep then sneaking downstairs for a few hours of adult time. No point in expecting him to self-settle in our bed.

We've continued co-sleeping till about 1 week ago (ds now 22months). It's not for everyone and both you and your partner need to be happy with it. We were so pleased to all be sleeping and happier during the day that for us it was a no-brainer and we wondered why we'd gone through the heartache of cc so many times.

My convoluted point is - if you have a hunch that your ds is very determined to get your attention at night then you may find that not even cc will help. If he wants to be with you then you won't be setting up 'bad habits' by co-sleeping for a bit. Ds now prefers to sleep in his bed...dh and I still take it in turns to join him when he wakes at night - but it's only been a week, so who knows how independent he might be in a couple more months.

i wouldn't do cc. my ds is a terrible sleeper, has never slept through in 2.5 years. its normal for some and i think you have to accept that some babies don't sleep that well and thats normal - its clearly normal that babies don't sleep, judging by the amount of books and methods on the subject. six months is still wrong and babies want soothing, not to be 'cracked'

making your baby feel secure is the most important role of a parent

Teething.

I find the period from 6 months to walking, the most testing for sleep.

They are developing so fast, gathering strength for crawling/walking, teething, digesting solid food etc..all this makes them restless.

It does get better.

If you are at the end of your tether then CC could improve things. You need to be pretty sure though as it is tough - I did it with two of my three.

Nothing to add other than I'm in same position and have a thread running on here too, it's called 'sleep training or leave things be...so confused' or something like that. Some of my replies may help you out.