6 month old and NW every 2 hours

[Samsparks83]

Hi I'm new and desperately need help!!

I have a 6 month old who keeps waking every 2 hours at night and will only settle if we sshhh him or pat his bottom. We have recently taken away his dummy as he was waking every hour but now he is still doing it regardless.

His schedule is this:

6am wake 8oz bottle
Awake time
9am nap for 30 mins
9.30am breakfast porridge
Awake
11.30 lunch
12 nap for 1.5 hours
Awake
2pm 4oz bottle
3pm 30 min nap
4.30pm dinner
Awake
6.30pm 8oz bottle and bed

He was having a DF at 10 but doesn't seem to store for them so we have dropped this and increased his day time milk. He is fully weaned now as started at 4.5 months.

We are so stuck on what to do as our other son was so good at sleep!!

[lolsyb1982]

Hi there and welcome!

Usually waking that often at night is either discomfort or often overtiredness. If these NW have always been the same it probably is routine related.

Ok so a couple of things I can see from your day.

His first nap is 30 minutes, that often happens if a LO is overtired (OT). Have you tried giving him a slightly shorter A time to see if he naps longer? At this point you would want to be working towards dropping that 3rd nap and getting 2 longer ones All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months

Also after that 3rd nap which is also short  he's doing a full 3hr A which could be making him OT come the end of the day. It might be worthwhile trying to get him to bed earlier whilst he's short napping to see if it helps catch him up a bit.

Is he an independent sleeper at nap and bedtime? If he's not it might be a good time to start working on it as it could help reduce some of the wakings or at least get you some more sleep if he can resettle himself.

[Samsparks83]

Hi thanks for replying!!

The problem I have with the morning naps is that it ties in with the school run for his older brother. We leave at 8.15...

He is a nightmare to get off to sleep and we usually have to pat his bum or ssshhh him to get off. When he has his longer nap he usually has to be rocked back off to sleep after 30 mins to get another hour. This all started when we took his dummy away as he was waking every hour when he realised it had fell out!! But he seemed more settled with his day naps having it... I really don't want to go back to giving it to him...

We've got ourselves into bad habits and now I'm stuck on what to tackle first..!

[lolsyb1982]

Ahh the joys of fitting in naps with school runs!

Do you ever try to resettle that morning nap?

I've no experience of taking the dummy away. My dd2 still has hers at 10 months but I would agree that if he was waking every hour to have it replugged then I probably would have weaned it too.

You already use ssh pat to help him sleep but just in case there's any more info in here that might help you I've attached a link Shush-pat - How to

The other method used is this Pick Up/Put Down (PU/PD) - Everything you ever needed to know! and might work better for his age if ssh pat becomes less successful.