6 month old sleep issues -help!

[Rachel600]

Hi

This is my 3rd dd and she is feeding to sleep! We got into this due to getting the older two organised and working round them and feeling totally shattered. In January dd3 was sleeping well, only waking for 1 or 2 feeds but since the middle of Jan she got cold after cold after cold and she even has one now! This led to me feeding more at night and now she wakes every 1 and a half hours, I feed her, she goes back to sleep then 1 and a half hours later she's awake again. Her longest stretch at night is 7 until 9 30. She barely naps in the day as we have nursery runs 5 mornings so she doesn't know where she is.

Yesterday she had an awake time of 5 hours in the afternoon and must have slept for an hour and a half in total all day and she was wide awake at 5 am yesterday and today. I'm so tired I can't think straight, All I do is survive the day and I feel like I never play with my girls as I'm always doing jobs. DH is never here and I don't get a hand from him. My mum sometimes picks up dd1 from nursery but only once a week. I've started a second nursery but this has meant I'm in and out 5 mornings instead of 3. It's not helping.

Please help me wean her off feeding to sleep at night, I don't even know where to start with it. Too scared to incase she wakes up and won't go back to sleep and if she cries she might wake the other two.

[jessmum46]

(((Hugs))), with more than one LO things are always going to be trickier.  Sleep deprivation is awful

Could you tell us when you need to be out of the house for nursery runs?  Will LO sleep in the car or stroller?

Can you post a typical sort of day for her?  Don't worry if it seems all over the place .

Is she feeding to sleep for nap times as well?

Sorry for so many questions but once we know a bit more, we can hopefully help you find a routine that works around your other commitments, and can support you with weaning feeding to sleep.  As a start have a look at this Gentle Removal Plan which has some great information that you might find useful.

Will look forward to your reply

[nevinsmama]

Hi, sorry you are having such a hard time. I have been where you are with the incredibly frequent feedings and the sleep deprivation, it can be just painful! I remember waking up and seeing it had been 2 hours since I fed her last and being so tired I just fed her again, it was a vicious circle!

Things will get better! You have some great questions from Katherine which I know will help us help you better. A couple things I thought of...do you have a lot of white noise to help block things out for your other two DD's? Knowing that they won't be disturbed can help while going through this process. One more thing just from a surviving-the-process sort of standpoint..do you have a cot or something you can put in her room (is she in her own room?) so you are in and out less and could just camp out in there? Every little bit of sleep helps! Hope this helps!

[Rachel600]

Thank you so much for your replies and sorry I havent got back to you sooner but its just so busy!!

With regards to feeding to sleep its only at 7pm and throught the night, but I resorted to it due to needing to be a bit alert for the other two. She only started feeding lots when she was 4 months before then she was sometimes having one feed at 2am!! I think illness hasnt helped her at all as it made her wake up alot and then thats where the habits have formed.

She sleeps with us and will be until I can persude DH to change the double bed arrangements in the other two rooms!! There is no space for another cot!

For naps she either sleeps in the car seat or pram or has a cuddle and then once nearly asleep she goes in her moses basket. Car seat naps vary from 20 mins to 45 mins, 45 mins for a pram. Moses basket varies from 45 mins to 2hours.

A typical day would be up anytime between 5am and 6 30. She then has a feed, cereal and fruit.

Then at 8:00 off to nursery and she will have a short sleep in the car seat, she hates the car seat and its not a good place for her to sleep in but thats what happens.

Back by 9 am and she is normally awake again after 20/30 mins sleep.

Then we go back at 11am to pick up from nursery and she will again have a short nap.

Back for lunch at 12ish

in the afternoon she has a nap around 2 to 3 depending on that second nap.

This can be short or long, no pattern.

If its short then I sometimes put her in the carrier so she can have a nap whilst I make tea. Or if she naps until about 4 then she stays awake until bedtime.

I try and work on an activity time of 2 and a half hours or sometimes 3hours but this doesnt always work out due to what we are doing in the day!!

She is in bed by 7/ 7:30
She wakes at 9:30 and we have started to not feed her back to sleep and she has gone until 12 for her first feed of the night which is a great improvement. But after then she wakes every two hours or even hour and wants a feed or she screams!!! And not wanting everyone awake I of course give in and feed but my plan is to lengthn the gap between feeds so that I would feed her at 3 30/4 am then 6 30/7. Thats the plan but Im sure she will change that grand plan. Im shattered and its hard not to give in to feeding her to sleep!!!

Anyway that is a typical day, the second nursery I started starts at 9 and then I dont pick the girls up until 1 so its difficult to get her to nap well those days as she wants to nap before we go back out again and its not enough time to get her up, feed her etc. So I wish Id never started the second nursery now!! And wish I was still having two days at home, so I may stop going to that nursery, my poor DD's I feel like Im messing them all around.

Any advice will be great, thank you 
 

[jessmum46]

(((Hugs))), it must be really stressful with all those different things to consider.  Such a big part of this is letting go and accepting the things we can't change isn't it?  It's just a fact that the third LO is going to have to fit in around the others - the key is going to be working out how to maximise her sleep and yours as well

Typically at six months LOs would be on two long naps and a catnap, or have dropped to two long naps.  I think perhaps you may have to go for something a little different to the 'standard', and really work on trying to maximise her afternoon nap at home in her Moses basket, accepting that the morning is likely to be a couple of catnaps. 

So you could try for something like:

WU whenever, don't start day until at least 6am
CN on nursery run between 8-9
CN on nursery run between 11-12
Long nap at home - try slightly earlier at 1.30pm ish - I wonder if she is already OT by 2/3pm so does a short OT nap, with occasional long 'crash out' naps?
BT try slightly earlier esp on days where she is up nearer 5am - would 6/6.30pm work for you?

With weaning the feeding to sleep at night, is there any chance of DH or a friend/relative taking your older LOs for a couple of nights so you'd be able to stay consistent with sleep training and not have to worry about waking them?  If that's not option, I'd definitely second Maryn's idea of white noise.  Have you thought about how you want to settle her without a feed?  Are you familiar with PUPD?

[Shiv52]

How far away is nursery?  Is it possible to keep her awake to you are back?  Literally have one of the girls keep her awake on the way there then get her out of car sea when you are there and you sing, keep the windows down, whatever you need to do to keep her awake on the way back?   I just think if you could keep her awake then nap as soon as you are back would mean you have a chance of a decent nap at home?

[Khalam's Mama]

I think either of those options have potential. What do you think might work for you?

[Rachel600]

Hi

Thanks for your replies and I think trying to maximise the afternoon nap will be the thing I will have to do at the moment with the potential of keeping her awake until we get home for the future. The whole nursery trip takes about 45 mins due to 10 min drive, park, walk etc..

I will try for an earlier nap in the afternoon as she must be shattered due to short naps in the morning. I can't wait until the Easter holidays, I won't be leaving the house 

As for settling her at night without feeding I'm not sure how I'm going to tackle it, I need to start on the 7 30 bedtime one which might help with the nights!! Last night she woke up many times after 10 30 and I just can't seem to stay awake to deal with all the awake times properly, she wanted to wake up at 4 30 but luckily she went back until 5 45!!! I did pupd with my first dd. I need to space out the night feeds and I'm going to try to night.

[jessmum46]

Good luck

[Rachel600]

Down for the first time awake at 7pm Fingers crossed for a good nights sleep.

[Rachelss]

Hi, another Rachel here, also with 3 little ones!  I completely agree with everything suggested in this thread, especially the white noise and similar ideas to make life easier.

One thing: I am finding that even when our littlest cries at night, it is rare that it disturbs the older two.  I guess it depends on how well they sleep, but I think they get used to it quickly and can tune it out.  It doesn't always work but it does mean that I am less stressed about every little sound (which means that he settles back to sleep faster)

I also agree with the suggestion of finding a way to really focus on your youngest for a few days if you possibly can.  I did this a few months ago and it paid dividends as I started to understand what he needed and also took a hard look at how/when he was sleeping and napping.  We've had some glitches along the way since then but I have more confidence that I am doing what I need to do for him, even if it is all a bit fast-paced due to having to keep up with the two older ones.

A couple of other thoughts: when I was in the "tired fog" of many night wakings some time ago, I found it helpful to make myself write down what had happened though the night as I found that I simply could not remember otherwise.  This gives you a quick record every morning so you can start to look for patterns and work out how best to tackle the next night and so on.

Also, for quite some time I pretended that I could manage to feed him in bed with me at night, but in reality this meant that I always fell asleep and then really struggled to get him back into his cot when i woke a while later.  This wasn't helping at all.  I made the decision to sit on a chair to feed him at night, and to stay awake and put him down straight afterwards, and it really did make a difference to the amount of sleep I managed to get, as the night became more structured.

And finally: I am re-learning that the 5-6 month stage is a tricky one, so it may be that there are some short term challenges mixed in with the longer term bad habits.  This doesn't help as such, except that you can be confident that some of it will shift and change again soon in any case, which may move things in the right direction.

Sorry, rambling thoughts but hopefully some useful ideas in here somewhere?!

Rachel

[Khalam's Mama]

So how was the night?
Isn't it Easter holidays from tomorrow? Maybe if you can get some good naps at home and really commit to tackling nights he will be well rested in 2w enough to survive the morning run. I found those early naps really perpetuated the ew. 

[Rachel600]

Hi

Thank you for the replies, we have taken a step backwards with dd3 and sleeping over the past few nights but also a few steps forward in that she is self settling more.
 It is the Easter holidays now so I'm staying at home mainly for 2 weeks so that I can focus on dd3. I might even reduce the nursery outings next term as I don't think it is helping dd

I like the idea of writing down what happens, I'm using a sleep app at the moment but it just doesn't help as I don't make notes and don't realise how much I'm actually feeding her!! So I'm going to take my notepad to bed and I realised that I actually used to go downstairs with dd1 for feeds and at the beginning for dd3 which definitely gave it more structure and I was getting better nights, I might try that tonight. Dd1 always seems to hear dd3 and if I creep past her room it disturbs her and as its on the way to downstairs I think I stopped going down there as, there she would be wanting to see what was going on! Or it's that she wants to be involved as once dd2 is around it all is a bit crazy.

So the plan is self settling at 7 then 3 to 4 hourly feeds and if she wakes at 2 hours she won't be fed initially,dh might try and settle her and we are going to hold her off until 3 hours minimum.

[Khalam's Mama]

She should definitely be able to go as long at nnight as she does in the day btween feeds so I agree not to feed under 3hrs. I would be tempted to say 4hrs tbh.
Good luck. Let us know how it goes over the night. I would be reluctant to feed downstairs in case it wakes her more.

[jessmum46]

Sounds good - let us know how you get on . I agree about the feeding downstairs - the goal with night feeds should be short, minimal stimulation and straight back to bed.