6 month old still waking every 40 minutes - 1 hour any advice??!

[Em_S]

Hi there, my daughter is 6 months old and wakes every hour at night, she is breastfed and refuses to go back to sleep unless I feed her. I'm so exhausted. She has always been a terrible sleeper never lasting more than 2 hours. Only recently has she slept on her own on her side before that she was constantly on our chest at night. She won't sleep on her back she instantly wakes up and only sleeps on her side but seems to go in a light sleep after an hour and her arm flings back and wakes her up. She sleeps the same amount on her front so I really don't know what the answer is.. She wears a sleeping bag and currently sleeps in the middle of me & my partner it's too exhausting going back & forth to the cot every hour and I need some sleep. She is on solids and it didn't do anything to help her sleep neither has formula. She also has a dummy. In the day all her naps are on me as she won't sleep on her own and wakes up when put down. She can't self settle. Any advice?! I'm at my wits end.. Thanks ladies

 

[noon_child]

Hi there, my daughter is 6 months old and wakes every hour at night, she is breastfed and refuses to go back to sleep unless I feed her. I'm so exhausted. She has always been a terrible sleeper never lasting more than 2 hours. Only recently has she slept on her own on her side before that she was constantly on our chest at night. She won't sleep on her back she instantly wakes up and only sleeps on her side but seems to go in a light sleep after an hour and her arm flings back and wakes her up. She sleeps the same amount on her front so I really don't know what the answer is.. She wears a sleeping bag and currently sleeps in the middle of me & my partner it's too exhausting going back & forth to the cot every hour and I need some sleep. She is on solids and it didn't do anything to help her sleep neither has formula. She also has a dummy. In the day all her naps are on me as she won't sleep on her own and wakes up when put down. She can't self settle. Any advice?! I'm at my wits end.. Thanks ladies

What is her eat and sleep pattern in the day? When does she use the dummy?

It sounds very normal for her not to self settle and have all her naps on you. Plus most babies go through a phase where the startle reflex wakes them up at about 45minutes in to sleep, and phases where they sleep badly because they are approaching a developmental leap, but it does seem excessive to be always doing this every night for 6months.

 

[jessmke]

Is she able to roll yet? If she can, then you can try putting her to sleep on her tummy, lots of babies sleep more soundly that way. SIDS recommendations (here in Canada anyways) say it's ok to put baby on her tummy if she is able to roll.

 

[Em_S]

Thanks ladies,
She has only just turned 6 months so has some puree fruit in the morning and puree veg for dinner, sometimes rusk after dinner or yoghurt. She also has 40 minute naps every 1 an a half to 2 hours in the day. She has a dummy for nap and bed time.
I have tried putting her on her front but still lasts the same amount of time, il try again though now she can roll over an see if she lasts any longer

 

[SpringCrane]

Oh man, sounds like my son at that age. He started that nonsense around 4 months and by the time he was 6 months I was losing my mind. He would just scream if my husband tried to settle him, so it could only be me. All night. Every night. I'm sorry. I know how hard it is.

After speaking to our pediatrician, we decided to sleep train at 6.5 months. I was against it, but (1) I was losing my mind and (2) he was obviously not getting enough sleep--he had bags under his eyes and was grumpy and irritable. It was a mess. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle any amount of "controlled crying" so I stayed at my mom's house for a few nights while my husband did the hard work. He had been sleeping in our bed or in a pack n play in our room, but my husband transitioned him into his crib and did some "controlled crying." I was adamant he NEVER get left to just cry himself to exhaustion feeling abandoned. I'm told the first night he cried for about 15 minutes and then slept 10 hours. Yeah. TEN HOURS. The second and third night were actually worse, but never all that bad.

Despite how well it worked... it didn't stick. He'd get sick or go through a new developmental phase, and we'd be back to very disrupted sleep. I think there were two additional "sleep training" sessions my husband did while I stayed at my mom's between then and 18 months or so, and I said no more. It would work for a few months, then we'd have a few months of bad sleep, then he'd sleep train, and it'd work, then it wouldn't... I said forget it. No more. Especially as he was getting older I think it was worse for him emotionally to go through "sleep training". So, we just did whatever we could to make sleep happen (usually me on the floor outside his crib and then he'd come onto the floor with me at some point for the rest of the night). We were getting sleep, but it wasn't ideal. At like 20-22 months or something, he just started sleeping through. And he has every night since (except for the occasional cold or something).

I know how horribly hard it is on you and your baby at this point. Despite my long rambling, I really don't have advice. If it's really gotten to a point of suffering for either of you, try something different. But, also know that it's really common at this age and your baby WILL SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT (at some point).

 

[noon_child]

Thanks ladies,
She has only just turned 6 months so has some puree fruit in the morning and puree veg for dinner, sometimes rusk after dinner or yoghurt. She also has 40 minute naps every 1 an a half to 2 hours in the day. She has a dummy for nap and bed time.

Is that food in addition to milk and does she have a milk feed before the dummy at night? (just important to rule out hunger as a factor).

Sounds like she's finding sleep transitions hard. I found, when that was an issue for us, that I had to stay by her (for daytime naps and when putting her down for the night) until I saw signs she was transitioning from one sleep phase to the other - moving, grunting etc. - and as soon as it started I needed to reassure her, shhhhing and patting, singing, whatever was soothing so that she'd not wake up fully and would get to the next sleep stage. I even spent a while holding her arms while she slept so that when she startled she didn't wake herself up by hitting herself in the face!!! When it was really bad, me or my husband took it in turns just having her sleep in our arms instead of even attempting to put her down (she didn't seem to startle so much) for the first 4hrs of the night (7pm - 11pm), then I'd give her a feed and she'd finally seem cosy and sleepy enough to be put down and sleep till around 2:30/3:00am for her next feed. After a few weeks of this she seemed to get used to transitioning without our help.

 

[sil]

Merlins Magic sleep suit worked amazing for us for the startle reflex at that age.

 

[emyandpotato]

No advice but exact same situation here. You're not alone.

 

[Wugz22]

Going through the same thing. We've decided to cut out some of the feeds, and then work from there. I give her the last night feed around 10:30, and then from there on out, we try and find ANY OTHER WAY to get her to sleep than feeding. Night one was awful. It took two hours of crying (while we're with her, rocking, etc...) until she finally gave up and went to sleep without a bottle. Did the same last night, and she didn't wake for almost 5 hours after her 10:30 feeding! Have no idea if it was a coincidence or not - we'll see tonight!

 

[Spudtastic]

This was my daughter.

I took her to the osteopath and it helped a bit.

 

[mammaK12345]

Ugh I'm in this boat right now. I think I'm going to have a breakdown. I want to yell and cry anytime I have to try to get him to sleep. I have no clue what to do! He never was a good sleeper. Same as you, the only time I could get him to sleep was on me (the added challenge is I'm at SAH mom with a 19 month old as well). He doesn't like dad, at all. He screams like hell when Dad goes in to soothe him.

He was diagnosed with reflux at 3 months, with only a little improvement the doctor said we really need to stop sleeping with him or it will be a hard habit to break. For the most part I have, unless I get really desperate. Most nights he wakes up at least 5 times- usually 3 times before midnight, every 30 min - 60 min. Sometimes it takes 2 hours to get him back to sleep. On a bad night, that trend will get worse and worse. Last night he woke up 4 times in a 15 minute period- I eventually just brought him into bed. Sometimes even naps are awful. We have a good routine, we have tried different bed times, we have tried all different sized bottles, breastmilk or formula- no magical formula ever produces the same results. I don't think he is hungry. I don't think it is the reflux. He did have tongue and lip tie fixed, so it's not that. I have no clue.

He was getting too big for his Rock and Play, which he was in because of the reflux- and the crib transition has been HORRIBLE. I ordered that magic suit, I'll try anything.

 

[sunnydee]

Have you tried "wake to sleep"? My 5 month old was waking every hour or half hour throughout the night for the last month or so and it was driving me crazy! Only thing that would settle him was nursing even though I know he wasn't hungry. He was just waking out of habit. So the idea is to reset his sleep cycle before his habitual night waking. I set my alarm to go off every half hour for the whole night and just went into his room and sorta half woke him up, just enough for him to stir a little bit then quickly left again. Sometimes even opening the (squeaky!) door was enough. The second night I went in every hour. The following night he only woke up 3 times when he was waking about 8-9 times a night.... Now he only wakes up twice! I nurse him and he goes straight back to sleep now, can't believe I had never heard of this before, it works!!

 

[Rainstorm]

I had the same problem with my ds, and I'm sorry to say I never found a solution. When we found out I was preggo again, around 15 months, dh started doing the night routine, and he went from nursing to sleep (3 times a night) to rocking and singing 3 times a night. Finally at 18 months he feel asleep on his own and started STTN up until today (except a short lived regression when his sister was born). This time around, even though dd is completely different, I have noticed that I did contribute to ds being a bad sleeper: I would pick him up as soon as he started fidgeting, even if he wasn't crying, cos I didn't want him to wake up completely and then have to start over, but I didn't realise I was encouraging multiple wakes