6 month old waking 4 or 5 times a night!

[TandLivsMom]

My daughter is 6 months old and hasn't slept good since about 4 months. From birth till 4 months she went to bed at 9:30pm and woke up at 3:00am, 6:00am for feeds and then 9:00am to start her day. I was tired but could deal with it! Since about 4 months it has all gone downhill. I have changed her bedtime to 8:00pm. Here is a rough schedule of our day:

8:00am- Wake up and breastfeed
10:00am-Nap for 1-2 hours or sometimes not even an hour
10:00am-Cereal with some fruit
12:00pm-Breastfeed
1:00pm-Nap for 1-2 hours but sometimes not even an hour
3:00pm-Breastfeed
5:00pm-Short nap...if she didn't have this short nap she would be miserable all evening until bedtime
5:30-6:00pm roughly-veggies with fruit
8:30pm-Breastfeed...sometimes she falls alseep at the breast. If she doens't then I just put her in her bed with her soother and she falls asleep.
So she wakes up anywhere from 11:00pm to 2:00am and then about every 1.5 hours after that. She doesn't always fuss right away but never goes back to sleep on her own. I am exausted and not sure how many more days I can go without sleep. My 3 year old son never had sleep issues so this is all new to me! Any suggestions!!!!

[Layla]

Hi & welcome to this site ,

How does your dd fall asleep? I believe she is overtired & needs more daytime sleep. When she wakes from her morning & afternoon nap (be it earlier than 1hr) what is she like... crying or happy to be awake? If she wakes happy that could be an indication of her needing more A time before a nap. Most 6mo's should be able to handle 2.25-2.5hrs. The morning & last A time (before bedtime) is usually shorter than other A times.....so her day should look something like this:

8am - wake for the day & breastfeed
9am - breakfast
10-11.30 - morning nap
11.30-12pm - breastfeed
2-3.30pm - afternoon nap
3.30-4pm - breastfeed
6-6.30/6.45pm - catnap
bath/bedtime routine
8pm - breastfeed & bedtime

So I would suggest adding 15mins or so to her afternoon & evening A time until you are close to 2.5hrs. In the meantime, I would put her down for the night earlier... often an earlier bedtime (when a baby is overtired) stops the night wakings & lets the baby catch up on some sleep.

If she has only napped for 1hr then the afternoon nap needs to be bumped up, so does the catnap & bedtime.

This is all of course considering she does not fall asleep with a prop (like a dummy) & NEEDS it to get back to sleep... in which case you will need to think about eliminating that association & weaning her.

What do you think?
Layla

[TandLivsMom]

Thanks so much for your reply! I nurse in the evening before she gets too tired so that I can put her to bed groggy but not sleeping. But she does go to bed with a paci although she is not addicted to it. She goes almost all day without one. I use it mostly for bedtime and naps. And she will usually spit it out once she is asleep. So you suggest that I give her more awake time before her morning and afternoon nap? I can generally always tell when it's time for a nap so should I ignore these signs and try and keep her up a little longer? I will try and adjust her bedtime tommorrow night and see what happens. Last night was a good night although I am not sure why because I had not changed anything because I had just read your reply this morning. She went down at 9:00pm(because we were at a wedding) and she woke at 1:00am, I gave her a paci and she slept until 3:00am and I breastfed her. She then slept until 5:00am and I breastfed her again because I find that if I don't she will really wake herself up and stay up for an hour or longer. She then slept until almost 8:00am. I felt very rested and she was much more content today. I would like to have her sleep through the night but I don't mind doing a 3:00am feeding. What is your opinion on the cry it out method?

Thanks again!

[TandLivsMom]

I was also wondering what a dream feed is? And what is PU and FF?

[Layla]

What is your opinion on the cry it out method?

Not a fan of it to be honest. Babies have reasons for waking at night (be it hunger or prop related or routine issues or other things....).
So I would work on her daytime schedule - I would work on spreading those naps out.

Dreamfeed is a feed around 10-11 (no later) to "tank" the baby up but if you haven't done it now is not a good time to start. Most wean DF's around this age.

Pu is pick up - are you talking about the pu/pd method (pick up/put down)

FF - formula fed

How did last night go?

[TandLivsMom]

Last night went great! I put her down at 9:00pm (a little later because we were at a going away party) and she slept until 3:00am. Which she hasn't done in a long time...she was waking up at least once or twice before 3:00am for awhile now. I nursed her and she went back to sleep. She woke again at 5:00am and I tried to give her her paci but she wouldn't take it so I nursed her again. She fell asleep right away and slept until 8:00am!!! I feel very rested today. I am still going to work on the daytime naps and awake time schedule and see if I can get rid of that 5:00am feed. She has been waking at 5:00am for awhile now so I know it's just habit and not hunger! Thanks so much!

[Layla]

Keep me posted.

The 3am feeding could be habit so you could try shh/pat instead (or whatever you do at the moment to settle her) or you could try to reduce the amount she eats with every night & hopefully she will get the idea

Sorry also wanted to say that if her catnap ends at 6:45, she should be able to go to sleep about 8.30-9pm (to be asleep by). I wrote 8pm on the routine but thats to give her some play time before she falls asleep. So aim for her to be asleep by that time pm so that she has about 11-11.5hrs at night

Layla