6 1/4 month old sleep regression?!! Please help

[yihhusb]

I am a working mom with my 6 1/4 month old son Hanson, my husband works in another city and basically I am on my own during the night. My mom takes care of Hanson during the day and he had 2-3 naps, his normal schedule is like the following :

How old is your child?
6 1/4 months old

What’s his daily routine?

wake up 7-7:30 am:
breakfast: within 30 mins after waking, breast milk 4-5 oz, a little solid food if he doesn't take more than 4 oz milk (he starts to reject the milk after ~4oz starting from 5 1/2 months old, guess he likes to self wean to solids!)

1st nap: ~9:30 am, 2-2 1/4 hrs after waking , usually takes 40min to 1hr nap

lunch ~11-11:30 am
the same as breakfast.

2nd nap: ~12 pm
1 1/4 to 2 hrs

mid-afternoon snack: 3 pm
5-6 oz milk with solid

3rd nap: ~4:30-5 pm
20-30 mins (sometimes skipped)

Dinner: clusterfeed 5:30 and 6:30 pm, put on bed after feed and story around 6:45pm, always make sure not asleep when put onto bed, no prop no need to stay beside bed to comfort, kiss good night and leave.

What’s nap routine?

Draw down curtains, pat to sleep (my mom)

How long are naps?
1st nap: 40 mins to 1hr
2nd nap: 1 1/4 to 2 hrs
3rd nap: 20-30 mins (starts to skip)

What's bedtime routine? Time?
bottlefeed with expressed BM and formula at 5:30 pm, then massage, bath, again top off at ~6:30 PM with BM and/or formula, story, kiss good night at~6:45pm

Do you bottle or breastfed??
bottlefeed with expressed BM and formula

How much? or how long?
4-6 oz per meal


How many wakes per night?

Used to be once or twice per night, now increase to 3-6 times per night

What’s your LO like when waking at night? How long is he/she up?
begin as mantra cry, then escalates if we are not in (try to wait at least 5 mins to let him self-settle, but almost never works!), when pickup, cries like crazy, so do PU/PD several times until settle, then pat to sleep if not feed, very difficult because his legs and arms are flailing around. Because he's mostly happy baby during day time, it makes me concern that he's in pain or something at night, usually up for 1.5 hrs if not feed, if feed, straight back to sleep

When you go to him/her is she fussing or crying? Or is it a mantra cry?
Starts with a mantra cry, but if we don't get in, the cry will escalate, if not picking up, will cry hysterically. But even though pickup sometimes will make him cry harder.

What have you tried to settle??
PU/PD, feed if 4 hours pass from the last feed

What do you do for A time and how long is it?
varied depends on whether feeding is involved. If no feed, 1-1 1/4 hrs, feed, almost down immediately

Are there developmental issues such as teething or milestones?
starting holding and eating toes last week??


Have you introduced cereal? Why, how much, and how many times a day? (for LO’s under 6 months)
0-2 times, depends on whether he has bowel movements the previous day, 1/4 cup per meal if he has smooth bowel movement.

Do they have a prop? If so what is it?
get rid of it at 4 months, used to be a stroller.

Do they have a lovie?
he has a fluffy dog on his bed, not sure whether he treats it as a love


Starting from ~6 months, he wakes frequently at night and getting worse every day, first he wakes ~10 pm, then 9:30, 8:30 and now is 7:30 as of yesterday, after the first wake, we normally fed him more milk (I know, I know it's bad... , now i have to suffer...), but starting 2 days ago, we just do PU/PD for ~1 hr to get him back to sleep, after the first wake, the night gets hysterical, he wakes 3-4 times and I ended up feed him twice as long as the feed is 4 hours apart.

I am using Tracy's 4 hour schedule and PU/PD 2 months ago and it works for a while until recently. Hanson doesn't have a tooth yet so i don't know whether it's due to teething. but he seems more active during the day though.

Please let me know what I should do, I need to defend my PhD thesis next month and sleep is so important for me at this stage, haven't really have a good night of sleep since he's born. But before at least his 1st sleep at night is at least 4 hrs-10 hrs long, but he regresses so much recently which makes me confused about what I should do next.

PS: his milk intake down from 38-40 (can't wait to eat) oz per day at 5 months to ~32 oz (have to force him to eat sometimes) now

and he's almost 23 lbs at 6 moths checkup, above 95% of weight and 75% of height.

one thing I want to  add: Hanson sleeps with his "swaddle me" swaddler almost since born and still using it, I am wondering whether he starts to hate to be swaddled at this age and wants more freedom, since he's bigger and stronger now. So we let him out of the swaddle recently after his first night wake, but he keeps sucking his or my fingers without being able to sooth himself to sleep (he doesn't use pacifier), we had to end up re-swaddle him in the middle of the night~Should I continue swaddle him or should I give him more freedom?

Any advice is welcomed, thx a ton!!!

[Layla]

Hi and welcome to the BW!

I think you might be looking at the 3-2 nap transition (you mentioned he's starting to skip it so I would take that as a sign it needs to go). I would start with increasing A times so that you're around 3hrs A times across the day. The morning nap might be short because he isn't tired enough to sleep past 40mins. I've attached a link for you to read through All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months

You may have to temporarily put him to bed earlier if he's not taking the catnap but your A time will be quiet long before regular bedtime. An earlier bedtime is needed so that he's not up too long before bedtime, which can then lead to more night wakings. Some days when mine doesn't take her catnap, I put her to bed at 6pm for the night.

Starting from ~6 months, he wakes frequently at night and getting worse every day, first he wakes ~10 pm, then 9:30, 8:30 and now is 7:30 as of yesterday, after the first wake, we normally fed him more milk (I know, I know it's bad... , now i have to suffer...), but starting 2 days ago, we just do PU/PD for ~1 hr to get him back to sleep, after the first wake, the night gets hysterical, he wakes 3-4 times and I ended up feed him twice as long as the feed is 4 hours apart.

I would do this. No need to feed him more than that and generally the rule of thumb is to feed as often as you would during the day (4hrs) and do pu/pd for the other nws

Hanson sleeps with his "swaddle me" swaddler almost since born and still using it, I am wondering whether he starts to hate to be swaddled at this age and wants more freedom, since he's bigger and stronger now. So we let him out of the swaddle recently after his first night wake, but he keeps sucking his or my fingers without being able to sooth himself to sleep (he doesn't use pacifier), we had to end up re-swaddle him in the middle of the night~Should I continue swaddle him or should I give him more freedom?

Yes, this could be affecting him too. What about transitioning to a sleep sac (I use a gro bag). With time, he might learn to use his hands to sooth himself to sleep.

But honestly, I would start with looking at dropping the catnap and you may find that the NWs will disappear.

Let me know what you think and how you go with that
Hugs

[yihhusb]

Thank you so much Layla, we will start tomorrow slowly increasing the A time between naps, hopefully the situation will improve.

As of the sleep sac, we start using it tonight and he ends up waking 3 times already since I put him down 6:45 pm (now is 9 pm), I guess it takes time for him to adjust.

I will let you know how it goes in a few days!

[Layla]

Yes, it will take time to adjust to the sleep sac.

With regards to eliminating the catnap, just make sure if he doesn't have the catnap, you need to be putting him to bed earlier.

Also just to rule out pain/discomfort...have the nws started around the same time as solids were introduced? discomfort from certain foods maybe?

[Layla]

How are you going?

[yihhusb]

Dear Layla,

Thank you so much for your concern! So sorry that I replied this late! I worked day and night the past month for my defense, and now I am done with it~

As for Hanson's sleep, we found that his frequent waking is due to teething. We didn't know that until his first 2 teeth popped out 2 weeks earlier, I didn't know it could take such a long time for the teeth to pop out!

Now he has one solid meal before bedtime (we introduced the solid meal around 7 months) and still wakes once or twice per night (I guess the upper teeth is about to show up) and I will feed him once or twice if there is 4 hrs since his last feed, things are getting better.

I wonder whether I should start to get rid of the night feeding completely although he is in teething pain (a bottle seems to sooth him down at night)? My mom start to use pacifier to relieve his teething pain at nap time (He never used pacifier before 7 months) and it seems to help him sooth himself down a lot, is this a bad idea? I am afraid that the pacifier would become his new prop for sleeping! Should I ban the use of it?