6 mo wakes up and stays up at night - PLEASE HELP!!!

[anuta77]

Dear moms,
I desperately need your help.  My 6mo has become a very poor night sleeper.  He goes down for the night relatively quickly at around 7pm but then proceeds to wake up what seems to be earlier and earlier every day, last few days before 11pm.  If I feed him he goes down only to wake up a couple of hours later, obviously not hungry but not sleepy either. Last night he stayed up for 2 hours (12-2am)until finally falling asleep.  Nothing that I did during those 2 hours seemed to work.  He then slept until 5:30 (I fed him again and he dozed off for about 40 min)  My husband is convinced we need to let him CIO. I would like to be done with night wakings and feedings but how do I make sure he is genuinely not hungry???  He is a big boy, over 20 lb by now...

Here's our routine:
7:30 am - bottle (about 4oz as he usually eats around 5am)
8:30 am - breakfast (baby cereal)
9 am - nap (usually he drinks the rest of his bottle right before), sleeps for 1.5-2 hrs
11 am - bottle (6oz)
12 pm - lunch
1:30 pm - nap (until 3pm)
3 pm - bottle (6oz)
4:30 pm - dinner (veggie pure + fruit)
6:30 pm - bath
6:45 pm - bottle
7 pm - asleep

Occasionally he would take a catnap at around 4:30 if his afternoon nap was early or short.

My biggest issue right now is the fact that he wakes up and STAYS UP for over 1 hr in the middle of the night but of course, I'd like to eliminate all night wakings and night feedings!!! Please help!!!

[mamat]

IS he up and just playing or is he up and crying? My lo did this for a few nights in a row just last week (5 months old) and was wide awake several times through the night. She just eventually stopped doing it. It was just after she learned how to roll over so I dont know if maybe your little one just learned a new trick and he is awake because of it? Has it been happening for long?

[anuta77]

it has been happening for a while but getting worse by the day.  for the second day in the row he woke up at 10:30pm after going to bed at 7pm.  I offered him milk, he ate about 4oz.  when he woke up yesterday at 12 after eating at 10:30 he wasn't hungry.  he was babbling and crying intermittently.  even falling asleep for a few minutes only to wake up again.  that went on for 2 hours.  i'm afraid the same is in store for me today.  He has been rolling over for a while so that can't be it.  he did start babbling more recently, though...

[mamat]

Hopefully your night is better! I know that my lo only did it for a few nights and then she got over it. She seems to be sleeping much better after lots of nw as well as babbling and playing for what felt like hours at a time!

[gemma2313]

How long is your lo awake at a time during the day? ie the Activity (A) time which includes time from opening eyes to shutting eyes IYKWIM.

my ds1 is now 22mo but I remember that its around the 5 - 7mo point that lo's start to radically increase their A time throughout the day. My ds1 started having major cot parties (awake at night and NOTHING puts them back to sleep) from about 4.5mo. I then added a few minutes to each of his A time during the day..

from your routine it looks like your lo only does 1.5hrs before his first nap...and then 2.5hr to his second nap, then 4 hrs til bed.

Have you tried increasing the amount of time he is awake first thing in the morning (til maybe 2hrs?) and see if that makes any difference? It will push back the other nap in the day and should balance out any OT that you might be getting if he doesnt catnap.

my ds2 is now nearly 4mo and has just started have 2hrs A time so I wouldn't be surprised if you find that yours is able to handle at least 2hrs in the morning (after a few days.. he'll need to adjust to the routine change).

Also, my ds1 used to look a lot more tired than he actually was in that first A time and so I continued to put him down for his first nap earlier but it always resulted in a bad night ( a lot of people get bad naps but he was always a good napper just punished me at night!). As soon as I stretched that A time the cot parties stopped.

HTH.