6 month old and sleep issues

sunnyday1234

Hi Guys

We have a 6 month old boy who is great but night time has become a disaster. He was never great at night but did settle into a period where he slept from 7pm to 5am. In the last 2 weeks or so that has just fallen apart , he wakes now 3-4 times up until 1am and then wakes at 3.30 am and wont go back to sleep.

In order for us to get any sleep we have gone back to feeding him at 3.30 and bring him into our bed (from the cot) and he usually sleeps on then until 6. We often have to hold down his legs at this time though, otherwise he will just put them straight up in the air and stay moving around and wont go back to sleep.

Its very very hard and i was wondering if anyone has experienced this ?

Last night we just tried putting him in our bed for the whole night and it was even worse. Woke almost every hour!

moving_home

You just need to wait it out. It's a phase and will pass. I pretty much guarantee he will develop a new skill like sitting up or even crawling. We had sleep disturbance with every new skill. It's tough but worth it when you see them developing!

sunnyday1234

thanks. he is sitting up for a few weeks too, i suppose he started doing that around the same time alright.

any idea how long these phases usually take ?? we are knackered

moving_home

sunnyday1234 wrote: »

thanks. he is sitting up for a few weeks too, i suppose he started doing that around the same time alright.

any idea how long these phases usually take ?? we are knackered

No idea. I'm 3 weeks into one with my toddler and hoping for some sleep soon. I'm exhausted!!!

kilkea

Hi, I feel your pain. We had sleep issues with our little chap also. The broken sleep can really mess with your head!
Out of interest, do you think he is waking in discomfort by any chance? We were at the end of our thether and splashed out on a night nurse for a few nights. By the 2nd night she had settled him and I was amazed. Some of the key things she did was introduce Infacol drops before every bottle (not just the night bottle) and she also propped up his matress so it was at a slight angle. It turned out that he was struggling with wind and we did not spot it. The wind was waking him during the night but after she made the few changes he slept soundly from there on in.
I know it is hard but you need to take away that 3am bottle again otherwise it will become a habit very quickly.
Best of luck!

sunnyday1234

thanks. he doesnt seem to be in discomfort or i dont think so anyway. we used to give him infacol a while back but we have moved on from that a good while ago so i dont think its wind. When he wakes at 3.30 then he he will throw the legs up in the air and keep at it until he wakes and then he is fully awake. Its like he is in a light sleep cycle, wakes up and just isnt tired enough to go back to sleep.

kilkea

Hi, might be no harm trying it again. Our little chap is now 1 and we still give him the Infacol at each bottle. It is not harmful so you can keep giving it to him. It might just settle him a bit more and let him fall in to a deeper sleep.
Also, what does he sleep in? If he is not in a sleeping bag it might be worth introducing that also as it can reduce the amount of moving about they can do and therefore minimise the chance of them waking themselves up too soon.
A lot of this stuff is trial and error to be honest

sunnyday1234

ok thanks for the reply.

he does sleep in a bag and it does help - the size of the cot seems to be an issue

LegacyUser

Have been there on and off with my now 2 year old - legs in the air and everything.

You have to just let him at it. It's an absolute and utter killer but you need to just go in every 10 mins or so (I stretch to every 15 mins once it's been going on an hour or so) and keep telling it's time for sleep, giving him back his soother/blanket/teddy or whatever he uses.

The thing is - you can't make him go to sleep. He has to do it himself. So you basically just have to sit it out, one way or the other. Once you're happy he's not hungry or cold etc - let him at it. You don't say if he's making noise during all this - is he crying? If he's not, then leave him be. Seriously.

I might point out that it was at this stage, after a week of that at around 6.5 months, that my little one got moved to her own room. I couldn't take it anymore. I also realised that we were probably disturbing her when we moved or whatever in our sleep, and waking her up if she was in a light sleep. If he's still in your room, it might be something to consider.

LegacyUser

sunnyday1234 wrote: »

We often have to hold down his legs at this time though, otherwise he will just put them straight up in the air and stay moving around and wont go back to sleep.

Don't pin him down. If he's moving his legs about, that sounds like wind. If he's bottle-fed, you need to wind him fully before he goes asleep. It's a learned technique, try gently straightening his spine from stomach to top of head, so that the air can rise from his stomach up and out. If you don't do this fully, the air will make it's way through his digestion causing all sorts of squirming and discomfort. Patting and rubbing is next to useless. Bottle-feeding is also a demon for wind.

If you get it right, there will be some loud burps and then he is ready for sleep. Farting means you haven't done it right! Good luck.

sunnyday1234

thanks for that . he doesnt cry unless he gets his legs stuck in the cot or turns over on his stomach and gets frustrated that he cant get back. This is why we are afraid to put him in his own room - if he turns over on his stomach and cries and we dont go into him etc but i have been calling for him to go into his own room

you still have this issue after 2 years ????? i dont think i could cope with that. if this continues then he will be an only child

how will putting them in own room improve things so cos if you are checking every 10 mins when they are awake, then isnt that the same thing as having them in the room anyway

genie_us

Hiya

we noticed similar breaks in sleep routines. There's a great app - at least I found it very accurate - called The Wonder Weeks. I can't remember if it's free or not but it alerts you when the baby is going through a developmental stage (they call it a Leap) and I found that every time it was alerting me, something like that with his sleep happened.
But it does pass. My biggest tip is don't keep bringing him into your bed if you're only doing it as a last resort and not as a conscious decision to co-sleep if you get me. Their cycles will go back to normal but if he then becomes dependent on being brought to your bed then that will become his normal.
(Unless that's your choice of course! I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it!)

I used to run in every time my son even whimpered. I didn't go so far as using the cry it out method but I just basically got used to the difference of him giving out and actually crying. When he actually cries and something is wrong we go in and soothe him, when he's giving out we don't. He's 19 months now and sleeps through all the time unless there's something wrong ie if he's sick or growing a tooth etc
(As I frantically touch wood!!)

I say just wait it out. Once you know there's nothing wrong and he's not distressed, don't keep taking him out of his cot. It will pass!

LegacyUser

sunnyday1234 wrote: »

thanks for that . he doesnt cry unless he gets his legs stuck in the cot or turns over on his stomach and gets frustrated that he cant get back. This is why we are afraid to put him in his own room - if he turns over on his stomach and cries and we dont go into him etc but i have been calling for him to go into his own room

you still have this issue after 2 years ????? i dont think i could cope with that. if this continues then he will be an only child

how will putting them in own room improve things so cos if you are checking every 10 mins when they are awake, then isnt that the same thing as having them in the room anyway

Hehe!! No I don't, but I've had all the phases on and off. They tend to coincide with the wonder weeks, as someone else said

I've waited them out. I understand you not wanting to put him in his own room if he's at that alright. No, what I mean by every ten minutes is - she wakes, I go in settle her and then no matter what she's at, I don't go in for another ten minutes. Minimum. And go back in, resettle. There's no bottle and no getting out of the cot. As someone else said, if you keep taking him out, he'll wake looking for it. Mine was doing it at 14 weeks - initially it was wind, we had about 2 weeks of it, then one day she woke, I went to take her out and realised she was smiling up at me. So she stayed in the cot, I was just making it interesting for her at that stage by taking her out. It was absolutely torturous (I can't emphasise that enough) but I basically lay there putting her soother back into her mouth. After a couple of nights she began waking later and later and going back to sleep quicker til she slept through. It takes a minimum of three nights for it to happen though. You pretty much just have to lie there and let him at it. If he turns over, turn him back, but otherwise - let him at it. There seems to be something about the ten minutes, it seems to give them the time to resettle.

For the record, no. 2 is 11 weeks old here. This time I'm forewarned and forearmed (kind of!)

sunnyday1234

so we put the young lad in his own room 2 nights ago and we sleep in another room with the monitor - the situation is better as we dont hear every single movement. His pattern seems to be bed at 7pm, wakes maybe 1-2 times before 12 for soother. Then awake at 1.30 for a bottle (wont go back to sleep until he gets it) , then sleeps until 5.15 - 5.45 AM.

I think we will plough on with this method for a while as he seems to still need a night time feed (he is just gone 6 months old but he is a big baby and eats loads)

Does this sound normal ?? i think we were too caught up with him still needing a bottle at night but from what i read on the web its pretty standard at this age and particualry for a hungry baby

genie_us

sunnyday1234 wrote: »

so we put the young lad in his own room 2 nights ago and we sleep in another room with the monitor - the situation is better as we dont hear every single movement. His pattern seems to be bed at 7pm, wakes maybe 1-2 times before 12 for soother. Then awake at 1.30 for a bottle (wont go back to sleep until he gets it) , then sleeps until 5.15 - 5.45 AM.

I think we will plough on with this method for a while as he seems to still need a night time feed (he is just gone 6 months old but he is a big baby and eats loads)

Does this sound normal ?? i think we were too caught up with him still needing a bottle at night but from what i read on the web its pretty standard at this age and particualry for a hungry baby

Hi Sunnyday

I'm by no means an expert but I don't think he needs that feed, I think he just thinks he needs it. The only reason is because I was in the same position and discovered it by accident really. I reckon he associates it as part of the sleep routine. I would try and eliminate it - it's tough at first but if he's eating well during the day as you say then it's not coming from hunger, it sounds like more of a habit. If he still wakes you could swap the feed for a cuddle. Thats basically what we ended up doing, and from there essentially stopped picking him up every time he woke and he just got used to it.

Of course that's just my experience with it, and every kid is different but I don't think he's waking because he's hungry anyway.

sunnyday1234

yeah. i gave him from 1.30 am to 2.15 am last night trying to get him back to sleep and he just kept moving around and kicking so i gave in eventually. Its hard to know and even harder to try stuff cos of getting up for work etc

genie_us

sunnyday1234 wrote: »

yeah. i gave him from 1.30 am to 2.15 am last night trying to get him back to sleep and he just kept moving around and kicking so i gave in eventually. Its hard to know and even harder to try stuff cos of getting up for work etc

Oh I know, honestly I was in the exact same position. People telling you all sorts of conflicting advice too making things more confusing! It can be really stressful plus the fact you're trying to figure it all out on little or no sleep doesn't help.

Eventually I had to make myself learn the difference between him crying out of distress and crying just giving out. What I did was along these lines:

First night, he wakes up crying and although it starts off just giving out, when nobody appears he gets more and more worked up. After about 5/10 minutes I go in, soothe, and when I know he has started falling back asleep, transfer. Sometimes this had to be done once, twice, even 3 or 4 times a night. I reckon it helped that I did the transfer before I knew he was fully asleep. It was as if he was getting used to actually falling asleep in the cot.
Each night it gets less and less. Eventually after a few nights he started giving out, not upset, and went back to sleep on his own.

The other thing I did was fire a load of soothers in there at bedtime so if that's why he was waking, chances are he'd find one of them in the cot!!

LegacyUser

Well, what you could try is to give him a bigger bottle at bedtime, then a "dream feed" around 10 or 11. Then at least you know when he wakes at 1:30am he's not starving. I know we gave our little one a dream feed for months, probably over did it but I don't think we stopped til she was 10 or 11 months. She only ever took an ounce or two, but it meant that when she woke at night, I was happy to hold out on her and not offer a bottle, and I didn't feel guilty wondering was she starving. Also gave an extra 30ml in the bedtime bottle too.

He probably IS just waking out of habit at that time, and he will continue to do it once you stop offering the bottle at the time, but he'll get the message after a couple of days. Meanwhile make sure he's well fed before that so you don't have to worry is he hungry. Genie_us makes a good point about transferring before he is fully asleep. That is advised everywhere, put them in bed when drowsy but not fully asleep because they then know that they are falling asleep in their own bed and they learn how it feels. Also ditto on the soothers - we have a default position of two soother min. We even have a third in a box on the shelf, for the nights when we have to go in, can't find the two in the cot and are too tired to think about where they might be!!!

He IS only 6 months so you do have to expect that he'll wake a few times in a night, but the key is to get him into the habit of falling back to sleep quickly and eventually over time, he'll start to wake and fall back asleep himself. He's doing quite well really when you look at it, but I know any waking at night is not good for parents!!

I'm currently failing miserably at daytime transfers with my second child, but she's good at night. Can't win

sunnyday1234

thanks - will give it a go :-)

moving_home

sunnyday1234 wrote: »

I think we will plough on with this method for a while as he seems to still need a night time feed (he is just gone 6 months old but he is a big baby and eats loads)

Does this sound normal ?? i think we were too caught up with him still needing a bottle at night but from what i read on the web its pretty standard at this age and particualry for a hungry baby

Yes it's perfectly normal. I wouldn't cut this feed yet. 6 months is still quite young and he's hardly fully established on solids yet. As he eats more solids during the day he should fill up and naturally drop the bottle at night.

sunnyday1234

great thanks for that , its helpful. how would we know when its time though to drop it ? as he will still likely wake from habit

LegacyUser

No you'll find that he will stop waking from habit quite quickly...like could be in a week or two.To be honest we just kept going til solids were well established like i said, then stopped one night whem we were hapoy she was sleeping through.We never offered any other feeds at night after dream feed.You could try moving dream feed forward by 15 mins each night til it meets bedtime feed either.I wouldm't do it quite yet though.

sunnyday1234

BusyIzzy wrote: »

No you'll find that he will stop waking from habit quite quickly...like could be in a week or two.To be honest we just kept going til solids were well established like i said, then stopped one night whem we were hapoy she was sleeping through.We never offered any other feeds at night after dream feed.You could try moving dream feed forward by 15 mins each night til it meets bedtime feed either.I wouldm't do it quite yet though.

well we dont do any dream feed. its bottle at 6.30pm and bed at 7. Then bottle during the night.

would a dream feed help ?