6 month old night wakings - have we created a monster?

[chlobo]

About a month ago our then 5 month old started nightwaking seveeral times a night. This was after 2 months of sleeping 11-12 hrs straight with no waking.

Now, a month later she still wakes 1-2x/night. And she'll only sleep by being nursed down and after she wakes she'll only go back to sleep if someone is holding her (and continues to hold her). Needless to say we're exhausted. In addition, we can only get her to nap in a pouch, in the car or nursing. It seems she always needs to be "on" one of us.

I realize that 6 month night waking is pretty common but this has been going on for a month. She had a growth spurt but it was at the beginning. I fear that we have created a sleep association that is having a negative impact on us.

Anyone have any thoughts? We're about to try CIO, but I just don't know if I have the emotional stamina for that as it seems too much (at least for me).

[deenass]

The EXACT same thing happened to my son when he turned 6 mos. We struggled with it for 4 mos, bringing him into bed, nursing him back to sleep but it kept getting worse (he's wake every 2 hours after being in bed with us, stopped sleeping in our bed, wanted to crawl all over mom and dad). At 10 mos we started working on CIO (but it took a while before i couls really listen to him cry, so it was a variation of staying with him, rubbing his back, etc). At 13 mos I had lost it and we let him cry, and by G-d he did .... but after about a week it got better. I still don't have a "sleeper" but at least he doesn't wake every 2 hours and he could go to sleep on his own.

Follow your heart ... I for one have leanred I'm a MUCH better parent when I've gotten 6 hours of sleep IN A ROW, and that my being up all night had a negative impact on my ability to keep up with him.

Good books to read are Ferber, and Healthy Sleep, Happy Baby (by Wesissbluth).

Good luck!

[sntm]

fwiw. we've always responded, always nursed to sleep and jack's nightwaking improved on it's own, though he still wakes. i started having him sleep with me, which works beautifully for everyone. i'm very well rested, even when he is sick and nightwakes a lot.

if you don't want to do that, look at No Cry Sleep Solution. It takes longer but is much more gentle and if you start if before you are too far gone, you'll be more likely to stick with it and see results.
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shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03

[jec2]

thank goodness I am not alone! We were doing so well with sleep too. From about 4 months until about 6 months DS was sleeping anywhere from 5-11 hours/night. For the past 3-4 weeks he's been up every hour or two. Last night, he slept from 8-12:45 so maybe this is a turn around! I have no advice, but I've just been bringing him to bed with me around 10-11 or else I am doing the nurse/rock for hours on end.

I've read the No Cry and like the book a lot. However, when baby is waking, baby is waking. There's not much you can do about it as far as I can tell.

However, it is nice to know I'm not the only one going through this. Strength in numbers :)

[chlobo]

DD used to sleep with us but she's too restless a sleeper. She constantly thrashes about in her sleep and moves around. So if she's in bed with us, no one is getting any good sleep. Moving her to her crib at 2 months was the best thing for everybody (until now) as we all were better rested.

I guess the part I don't get about the No Cry book is how exactly to do the transition. We can't even put her down in her crib asleep b/c she wakes EVERY time we do it, regardless of how long we've waited.

It is nice to have company, though. Maybe between us all we get 8 hrs sleep a night!

[dotgirl]

Our guy went from sleeping 10pm to 6am to waking up at midnight to feed (at 5 months).. and then he moved to waking up at 1am and 4am (the last 3 weeks).. We finally just said no more.

I know that not everyone advocates a feeding schedule, but we use one at night, and it works for us.(Just as a side note - we started solid foods about a 1.5 weeks ago, and that didn't change his "new" waking cycle at all.) Riley is a regular little guy during the day - you can practically set your watch by his eating schedule. He eats at 9-9:30, 12-12:30 and 3-3:30. And then he usually wants to eat again around 7:30, but that part varies.

Anyway, things got a little twisted around, and he was eating at 3:30 and then at 5:30! Yikes. We talked to his care provider and got that straightened out, and now he eats around 7:30, and then goes to sleep from 9:00 until 11 - now here's the scheduled part. At 11, we wake him up and feed him. Then he goes right back to sleep, and about half the time will sleep until morning .. the other half the time he wakes around 4am and then sleeps until 7. And although going from 2 wakings per night to 1 might not seem like an improvement, I promise you, it's soo much better.

Anyway, that's been working for us for the last week, so fingers crossed that it keeps working. (As I said, I know a lot of people don't advocate scheduled feeding, but this hasn't bothered Riley at all and now we're not zombies during the day.)

[jec2]

>
>It is nice to have company, though. Maybe between us all we
>get 8 hrs sleep a night!

LOL! I hear ya!

Yikes, however on DD being a restless sleeper and thereby making co-sleeping a undoable :(

The transistioning to the crib for the past 6-8 weeks was a nightmare for us too. We had been doing so well before. I would nurse/rock for 15-30 minutes most nights, which was wonderful. Then, this funky sleep and the transistions to the crib were a bear for us too and that is why I finally went back to co-sleeping. Last night was different, and I don't know if it is here to stay. But, if I figure anything out I will let you know the tricks I'm using.

Hang in there, though. I keep telling myself that I won't be doing this when he's in college :P

[miki]

Carren,

Hope you get more sleep soon! We're a week shy of 8 months. My little one was a pretty good night sleeper until about 4-5 months. Then she started waking 2-3 times a night. That went down to 1-2 times after 6 months and now for about 2 weeks, she's been having a few nights a week where she'll sleep from 6pm to 5:30 or 6am. (Although today was one of those ugly days that started at 4:30am) I was tempted to try to eliminate the night feedings by doing the thing Ferber suggests and shortening the amount of nursing time each night but I never did. She just went back to sleeping better on her own. But I've also known many who did conciously try to stop the night feeding and/or CIO and it worked fine for them.

[octmom]

Ah--- it is so nice to know that I am not alone in this! DS slept through the night pretty consistently from about 8 weeks until 12 weeks, when I went back to work. Then it all went out the window. Many nights he wakes up twice and there have been weeks when he has slept through several nights in a row. Every time I wake up and realize that he slept through, I make sure he is OK and then give thanks for the gift of uninterrupted sleep. The week that he hit the 6-month mark (very recently) was particularly brutal. He had an ear infection and was up crying every two hours at least for four days. As soon as we'd pick him up, he was fine, often falling right back to sleep. But the second we laid him down, his internal sensor went off and he was crying again within minutes. Talk about exhausting! Turned out he also gained almost a pound that week, so I think a growth spurt coincided with his ear infection. Ugh.

We're now trying to give him a paci first when he wakes and pat him without picking him up. It has worked sometimes, and other times I have nursed him back to sleep. I have been able to let him whine a little, but I still haven't every let him really CIO. I am afraid that it would go on for hours and I just can't handle that yet.

Also, he's still sleeping in our room, in the PnP beside the bed. We are now trying to transition him to his crib in his own room, after making excuses for months. It's me who is really clinging. He slept in the crib for about 5 hours last night and then I put him in the PnP after a nursing session in the wee hours. Five hours is progress for us! I really missed having him right there beside me.

So, we're trying both the transition to his own room and trying not to nurse him to sleep every time he wakes. And we just introduced baby food (other than cereal) on Saturday, so we're taking on a lot at once. Also, I think we should be putting him down earlier at night than we usually do, but that's for another post. I am thinking about trying that "dream feeding" idea of nursing him one last time just before I turn in.

I've rambled on too long, but I am just glad to know that I am not the only one whose 6-month old still wakes often, still requires nursing to sleep or the Baby Bjorn sleeping pill (we use the carrier A LOT, but DS is getting WAY too big for it), and who has not yet fully transitioned to his crib! :)


Jerilyn
DS: Sean, 10/29/03

[lmintzer]

We're right in there (or should I say "up" with you. DS will be 6 months old next weekend. His night sleep is just awful. He needs us to put him to sleep for the night (which we do by lying down with him, giving him this wonderfully soft blankie to put by his face, and sometimes adding the hairdryer and swaddling to the mix). DH can get him to sleep this way too, unless he is hungry, and then I nurse him in bed as well. It doesn't bother me that much that he can't fall asleep on his own. He's little and feels cozy and safe this way. We put him in his crib (usually around 8) and he makes it there until about 11:30. That's it. That's his big, whopping long sleep stretch. At that point, he cries, and his cry usually sounds like a hungry cry. We can soothe him back down, but it's pointless, because he'll sleep only another 5-10 mins. and then will cry again to eat. So, at that point, I bring him in bed with me and nurse him down. I am just too tired to sit up in a chair by that point.

He winds up sleeping with us for the rest of the night, and lately, it's been really disruptive. He thrashes and scratches and moves so much. I keep waking up to calm him back down and help him fall into a deeper sleep, somtimes by holding in an almost-restraint hold (wrapped around him with my hands gently holding down his arms), sometimes by just re-inserting the paci (if I'm lucky), and if all else fails, nursing or swaddling him.

It feels ridiculous to be swaddling a roughly 15 lbs. almost 6 month-old baby. And he has mixed feelings about it too. He typically fights it but then quickly settles and seems comforted not to have to contend with his own wildy-flailing limbs. What GIVES with a baby being so active that he wakes himself up? I don't think it's reflux anymore (he had reflux for his first few months but is doing better with that now).

DH keeps threatening our co-sleeping arrangment, saying "He needs to be sleep trained. He needs to be in his crib." He doesn't really mind the little guy in our bed, but he's tired of me complaining about how tired I am. I think if co-sleeping were really working, there wouldn't be much he could say about it.

I have such mixed feelings as well. We did CIO (finally) with Jack out of utter desparation. My heart breaks thinking about doing it with Joshua, although I know that he'll be better rested and happier once he can string together some more uninterrupted hours of sleep.

I keep hoping that one night he'll stop needing the swaddling and will skip 1 of the night feelings. If he could give me a little hope, I could hold out longer.

In fact, naps are finally getting better! He's developed his 1st nap of the day (a la Weissbluth). He gets tired roughly 1 1/2 hours after waking and is asleep within 2 hours of waking up for the a.m. His nap typically starts at 8:30 p.m. and lasts anywhere from 1-2 1/2 hours. Not bad! To me, it's like a miracle, after having Jack, the 30 minute napper. We still swaddle him for this nap, but we can actually lay him in his crib awake with the help of a white noise machine and a paci. If he's calm, he'll just suck himself to sleep. 2nd nap is variable (time and length). But I DO have hope now re: napping.

At any rate, this is a long way of saying "you're not alone". I think the big difference for me this time is in my own attitude--I am not as upset about all of this, going through it now for the second time. Jack is the world's most reformed sleeper. His sleep was pure hell, so if he could get better, anyone could!

Sign me "Sleepless in Chicago"

[Melanie]

We found the "No Cry Sleep Solution" book by Elizabeth Pantley to be very helpful. My guess is that your little one is starting to get hungry in the night. I think our son started nightwaking again around that time. Unfortunately for us he was not ready for solids for many many many more months after that, so we have dealt with lots of nightwaking and eventually found co-sleeping to be the way for me to get the most amount of sleep.

The book, however, addresses all sleeping arrangments.