my 6 month old wakes all night long

[tired_mummysophie]

hi there, my 6 month old baby has never really slept well. when she was first born she acted like a typical baby getting up every 3/4 hours and by 8 weeks old she was sleeping quite well and only waking once during the night. Her milk then changed to anti-reflux milk and it seemed to all go wrong from there. she seems to have got worse by waking up for 3 hours at a time and it just seemed to get worse. she seems to wake up every couple of hours and i never know if she will go back to sleep or not. i havent had a full night sleep since she was born and im lucky to get anything over 6 hours of broken sleep. ive tried everything feeding her more in the day, more solids, less solids, with the light on/off, with sounds playing, different blankets/sleeping bags, in my room, her room i really feel like ive tried everything and nothing works. ive tried control crying but it doesnt seem to work and ive been doing it for about 6 weeks. when she is awake through the night she either talks or moans until i come in. she has a dummy which she seems to like to take in and out of her mouth and i think that is one of our weaknesses but surely there is more to her not sleeping than just the dummy! if anyone has any help i would really appriciate it because i dont know what else to do and i go back to work soon.please help me!

[weaver]

Hello there and welcome to BW,
hope you can find the support you need here.

Sorry to hear you've been through the mill.  I'm going to ask some questions and see if we can get some more information that might help others comment.

First of all though, I should say that this forum does not support any form of controlled crying or crying it out as we believe that it breaks the bond of trust between parent and child.  We understand that people get desperate but would love to support you in using gentler methods in the future.  We will not, I'm afraid, offer advice or support for controlled crying.  You may well need to invest time in rebuilding trust with your baby after 6 weeks of CC.

I'm assuming from what you write that LO has reflux?  is it under control do you think?  You might want to mention whatever medication she is on and the dosage, there are some very experienced folks here who could comment on that.  I have no personal experience of reflux but I know that frequent wakings can be a sign of discomfort, and that babies whose reflux is not well controlled are likely to be poor sleepers, the poor wee things.

Does LO nap during the day? If you have a routine, could you post it and maybe we can help tweak it? 

[Lolly]

Welcome!

Please tell us some more about how your days are now and of course the reflux and we can help.

I have 2 refluxers and although my DS didn't sleep well for a long time, my DD did because we got her reflux under control a lot sooner.

Laura

[tired_mummysophie]

well she has been on infant gaviscon for the reflux since she was a few weeks old, it didnt seem to work to so we tried cow and gate anti-reflux milk and it did work but thats when her sleeping patterns changed. she kept wanting more milk and walking more during the night. she used to be awake for an hour for a feed and then it just kept increasing until she was awake for up to 3 hours at a time. we changed her milk as we didnt think it satisified her and we changed to hipp organic as it was meant to be more gentle. we ended up going back onto the gaviscon with the milk but her sleep never improved. we ended up changing her milk again as she still wasnt happy so we went onto aptimal and have stayed on it ever since. as soon as i started weaning her she wasnt so sick anymore and the gaviscon has always made her constipated so she is now off it. She will still fight a feed but gets on ok. yesterday i actually decided to bring her off her dummy and went cold turkey with it as all seems to want to do is play wqith it and im not sure if its too much of a distraction. its the only thing i havent tried!
her routine is that she wakes around 7.30am has her milk at 8am, then breakfast at 9am. i have took out lunch right now as she stopped drinking her milk for a while and needed her to get back to that than proper food. she has another bottle at 1ish and then tea at pm and a small bottle of milk and then milk at 7.15 in her room. she naps around 10.30/11am and then 2.30pm it is normally for around 45 mins. i have tried giving her less or more sleep as i tried the easy routine. Poppy will go to bed awake after her bottle at night and fall to sleep on her own after i have left the room. it seems to be later that she will wake which is normally around 10.30/11pm, 2pm(thats if she hasnt stayed awake at 10/30pm) then 4pm which she is always awake for a couple of hours.
sorry its a long post but want to post everything.

[weaver]

Thanks for the info!

You say you have tried the EASY routine, do you want to set one up again?  That's what we would try to do with you, it might not be what you want  but from what I can see here, she's not getting enough day time sleep and she is waking up at night because she's overtired. 

Average A times for 6 mos are between 2hr30-3 hours, some babies get less, some more, and that's from eyes open to eyes shut.  And 6 mos is the usual time for babies to drop their third (shortest) nap, the last nap of the day, the cat nap. So I would probably suggest trying to get Poppy on to a 2 nap routine and hope that would help her nights.

Have a look here for some sample routines, but bear in mind that each baby is different, so maybe none of these would fit exactly.
Sample EASY Routines from 0 - 13mths+

Lastly, I have to say again if she has on-going digestive issues, I'm afraid no amount of tweaking and routine planning is going to help her sleep. 

HTH.

[tired_mummysophie]

thank you for your response,
yes i think maybe another easy plan would be good. I feel she does sleep better if she gets more sleep in the day but how can i get her to sleep more? I would probably say she has a total of maybe 2 hours during the day and they are over 2 naps. I will have a look and see if i can adapt and routines for her.
I have also not given her a dummy for the last 4 days in hoping she will better at night without it but right now she is the same.
Lets hope a new routine could help her
xx