6mo waking every two hours - please help

[sjmkoutsis]

Hello everyone,

Our 6mo son is waking every two hours on the dot and to this day has not slept through the night. We have been following the routines from the books with no luck.

We swaddled him, we play white noise and he uses a dummy to fall asleep.

Sometimes he wakes at night just for the dummy or milk or to poop. Other times when he wakes we put the dummy back in and within an hour he will cry again.

We tried dreamfeeding him at 4 hrs after his goodnight feed but this did not help / we tried this for three weeks.

During the day he follows his routine perfectly, just at night it's horrible and it's hard because me and my wife work full time.

Here is his routine for the day;

5am wakes up and we don't know why- we were told to give him his milk feed then by he refuses it

6am Solids Breakfast

8:30am Morning sleep with a bottle of milk before he sleeps- I guess he uses the milk as a sleep aide. We tried not giving the milk and he just doesn't fall asleep. He will sleep for 1.5-2hrs

10:30am wakes up

11:30am lunch solids

1pm afternoon sleep with bottle of milk again. Usually sleep for 1.5hrs-2hrs

3pm wakes up

4pm dinner solids

6:30pm evening sleep with bottle of milk


Please help us

[nevinsmama]

Hi there, I think you have it pegged, he is most likely using the bottle as his way to get back to sleep. Has he ever gone to sleep independently? If not then you will need to work on finding another way to get him back to sleep without using the bottle. Have you used shh/pat to settle him at all? This would be used, and gradually reduced, to teach him how to settle himself and go to sleep on his own. Have a look here:Shush-pat - How to
I would make a point to feed him when he wakes up and then lay him down calm but awake and assist as needed from there. He will cry and he will be mad as things are being changed up but if you stick with it and are consistent you will will go on his own. Just to be sure, is there any reflux or any suspected discomfort?
Hope this helps, let us know if you have any more questions!