Help!!! We are baffled by our six month old and her night wakings. She was a great sleeper until about 4 months old—she was only up once/night and a few times even slept through…but this was all while in her infant carseat, b/c she was a spitty baby. Anyway at 4 months she had outgrown the carseat and started waking more. So we did PU/PD to get her sleeping in the crib. She now goes to sleep in the crib very easily, with one of us sitting in the room in the glider rocker. Occasionally we will have to shush her, but usually she goes to sleep easily without any help from us at all. If she wakes up too early from a nap (ie, after just half an hour or 45 minutes), PU/PD sometimes works to get her back to sleep.
She had been doing one night waking to eat which I was fine with, usually around 2 AM and then back to sleep until 6 if we were lucky. Then she started waking up at 10 PM as well. I fed her thinking growth spurt, and tried to feed her more the next day to compensate, but she didn’t stop waking up. W2S did not work. So we went to PU/PD. For the past four nights, my DH has done PU/PD for up to 4 hours after the 10 PM waking. Sometimes she will settle for as long as 15 minutes, but then she is right back up again. All four nights I have fed her around 1 or 2 and she’s gone back to sleep until between 5 and 6…but as you can imagine our daytime routine is now screwed up and I think she must be just completely overtired by this point, having had such bad sleep at night. What should we do?? My DH wants to return to feeding twice/night, but I just don’t think she needs it at this point—she is six months and 18 pounds, and doing well with her solids during the day. I’m scared feeding her more at night will just lead to more disturbed sleep. But we can't keep doing this--we are all so so tired (including my three year old, who is supposed to be sharing a room with the baby--but she's been coming to bed with me while DH sleeps in her bed. Or shoudl I say "sleeps"! Ugh.) Anyway I would appreciate any advice you can offer…thanks in advance!
How old is your child? 6 months
What’s his/her daily routine? Depends on what time all the night-waking has pushed the morning waking to, but ideally:
6 AM up/breastfeed
7 AM cereal
7:30/8 AM nap for 45 minutes to 2 hours
10:00 breastfeed
11:00 cereal (not very consistent with this one yet)
12:00-1:00ish nap for 1 ½ hours
2:00 breastfeed
4:00 sometimes 30 minute catnap
5:00 cereal/banana
6:00-7:00 bath/stories/bed
What’s nap routine? Put her in her sleepsack, hum a song, hand her her lovey, and sit in the room across from the crib until she falls asleep. Sometimes she fusses briefly, but usually she goes to sleep within 10 minutes
How long are naps? 45 minutes to 2 hours
What's bedtime routine? Time? Bath/stories/bed, usually between 6 and 7
Do you bottle or breastfed?? Breastfeed. She has never taken a bottle.
How much? or how long? About 10 minutes, sometimes up to 20. She is quite distractible these days.
If breastfed.. one side or both?? (at each feed) both at each feed.
How many wakes per night? At least two, and they are lengthy!
What’s your LO like when waking at night? How long is he/she up? If I feed her, she will go back to sleep, but then wake up again anywhere from 2-4 hours later. If I don’t feed her, my husband does PU/PD (which worked great getting her to learn to go to sleep by herself in her crib). For the past four nights he has done PU/PD literally for 3-4 hours. She quiets but never goes back to sleep for longer than 10-15 minutes until I feed her.
When you go to him/her is she fussing or crying? Or is it a mantra cry? Crying. Loudly!
What have you tried to settle?? PU/PD, later in the evening I resort to just feeding her.
What do you do for A time and how long is it? About 2 hours…we run errands, go for walks, practice rolling, bounce in the jumperoo
Are there developmental issues such as teething or milestones? She is laughing a lot more these days, and loves to look at lights/mobiles…my DH thinks she just can’t turn her mind off and that’s why she’s up. He says as soon as he picks her up for PU/PD at night, she is straining to see her mobile/the clock (which we have turned away so she can’t see it from her crib.) I can't see any teeth, though her older sister did get two teeth at six months.
Have you introduced cereal? Why, how much, and how many times a day? (for LO’s under 6 months) Yes, always twice per day and sometimes three times. Sometimes she’ll eat up to 4 tsp but usually 1-2.
Do they have a prop? If so what is it? No.
Do they have a lovie? Yes. She seems to like it.
Thank you again!
Jen and baby Lily
