Help with babies sleeping?

D4nny

Hi everyone,
We are having trouble getting out 6month old son to sleep through the night.He was moved into his own room and cot at 3month old was brilliant for the first 4-5weeks was going to sleep at 7pm waking around 3am for a feed then sleeping untill around 8am,but now for around 2 months he has gone so far backwards with his sleep we dont know whats causing it we have got him im a routine wich we have pretty much kept to apart from trying different things this last couple of weeks but non of that helped so have reverted back to his original routine.Putting him to bed at 7pm is fine he goes to sleep no problem but come 11-1130pm this is the time he seems to become unsettled and after this time he will wake up around 3 times in the night,he will drink bottles each time but he will also wake afew times and wont settle.
He will only have 1 sleep in the day normally around 20mins but never longer than 1hr30.he has porridge for breakfast around 8am he has a dinner around 12-1pm and tea around 4-5pm also has a few bottles and will still drink around 25ounces of formula a day and has sips of water maybe 2-3 ounces throughout the day.once im home from work i have around 1hour with him before we both bath him wich is a calm time then he will have a bedtime bottle around 630 before bed at about 7pm.we have tried giving him a rusk melted into some milk aswell as a bottle before bed thinking he is hungry but again this made no difference we have tried keeping him up untill 8:30 and all this did was kept him to sleep untill around 12:30 then back into his normal routine of showing us every hour through the night.the only thing we have found to get him to sleep is to put him into our bed and he is fast asleep straight away but this is meaning my wife or myself has to stay awake,we can then put him back into his room but he wakes up again after a period of time and again the only thing to calm him down is to put him back into our bed wich we do not want to keep doing as we want him to be in his own room and bed for his own benefit.
So has anybody any ideas? As we are running out of what to try next?
Thankyou for reading and sorry for such a long post.

glentoran99

D4nny wrote: »

Hi everyone,
We are having trouble getting out 6month old son to sleep through the night.He was moved into his own room and cot at 3month old was brilliant for the first 4-5weeks was going to sleep at 7pm waking around 3am for a feed then sleeping untill around 8am,


but now for around 2 months he has gone so far backwards with his sleep we dont know whats causing it we have got him im a routine wich we have pretty much kept to apart from trying different things this last couple of weeks but non of that helped so have reverted back to his original routine.Putting him to bed at 7pm is fine he goes to sleep no problem but come 11-1130pm this is the time he seems to become unsettled and after this time he will wake up around 3 times in the night,he will drink bottles each time but he will also wake afew times and wont settle.



He will only have 1 sleep in the day normally around 20mins but never longer than 1hr30.he has porridge for breakfast around 8am he has a dinner around 12-1pm and tea around 4-5pm also has a few bottles and will still drink around 25ounces of formula a day and has sips of water maybe 2-3 ounces throughout the day.once im home from work i have around 1hour with him before we both bath him wich is a calm time then he will have a bedtime bottle around 630 before bed at about 7pm.we have tried giving him a rusk melted into some milk aswell as a bottle before bed thinking he is hungry but again this made no difference we have tried keeping him up untill 8:30 and all this did was kept him to sleep untill around 12:30 then back into his normal routine of showing us every hour through the night.the only thing we have found to get him to sleep is to put him into our bed and he is fast asleep straight away but this is meaning my wife or myself has to stay awake,we can then put him back into his room but he wakes up again after a period of time and again the only thing to calm him down is to put him back into our bed wich we do not want to keep doing as we want him to be in his own room and bed for his own benefit.



So has anybody any ideas? As we are running out of what to try next?
Thankyou for reading and sorry for such a long post.

1st Stop giving him the bottles at night time, That's what he is waking up for, He doesn't need it,


Have you tried lying on the floor in his room when he wakes instead of bringing him into your bed? That's what I had to do with mine to break the coming into our bedroom habit, then you can just creep out when he goes back to sleep,


There will be phases, when teething, growth spurts etc that will upset the routine,


Is he falling asleep on his own or is someone staying with him while he falls asleep?

GwylimT

If he is waking and taking a bottle he is clearly hungry, and you cannot stop him having the bottles he needs, so that wont change until he doesn't need them anymore.

Ours sleep in our bed until around 12 months, which means few sleep problems as they are right next to you to feed, although my wife breast feeds so after about eight months baby can do that on their own, the body temperature of parents also helps to regulate sleep.

FreddieFrugal

Hello there. It can be really tricky when they're not sleeping well.

Our son has been through phases of brilliant and ... not so brilliant sleeping.

One thing I spotted from your post was that you said he's only having one nap during the day.

Obviously every child is different but everything we've read suggested that babies really need to be having that second nap. Until they're over 1, maybe 18 months even.

Our son was in a phase of resisting the second nap and we really had to put a lot of effort into getting him to take it. But once his day time sleeping was sorted out it helped a lot with his night time too, not getting over tired.

He usually has between 30mins to an hour sleep - one in the morning and on in the afternoon. Sometimes longer, he has slept up to 2 hours before but obviously then has a shorter second nap.


He has roughly three patterns of night sleep:

1. He has a feed just before bed, wakes an hour or two later (9pm ish) for a top up feed - then sleeps through the night til 6:30

2. Has his night feed, wakes up around midnight or 1am for second feed, then sleeps through.

3. Has night feed, wakes up at 3 am for another feed and then doesn't go back to sleep until a couple hours later. (Luckily this doesn't happen too often) we just settle him, leave, see if he drifts off, if not go back. But we try and keep him in his cot, just go 'shh' and stroke his back or head through the cot bars.



At 6 months he probably will still be having a lot of milk, so that's not unusual.

Try not to get into the habit of bringing him into bed of that's not what you'd normally do. If you want him to sleep in his cot then keep him in his cot, or just pick him up, settle him, then put him back.

I know its tricky, we got lazy on holiday and just kept bringing him into bed, that's probably why his sleeping was off when we got back and had to try and get him back to settling himself again.


Sometimes you just have to accept that its going to be difficult for a bit and get on with it. Don't make major changes, as that could make things harder in the long run.


Hope his sleep improves soon!

System

1st Stop giving him the bottles at night time, That's what he is waking up for, He doesn't need it,

Totally agree, my middle Son, however lovely, kept waking up for his bottles throughout the night. It was the only thing that settled him.

I couldnt go down the 'controlled crying' route as i had got 3 other children who he would have kept awake so i started diluting his bottle so towards the end it was just flavoured water. It did the trick.:rotfl:

glentoran99

GwylimT wrote: »

If he is waking and taking a bottle he is clearly hungry, and you cannot stop him having the bottles he needs, so that wont change until he doesn't need them anymore.

Ours sleep in our bed until around 12 months, which means few sleep problems as they are right next to you to feed, although my wife breast feeds so after about eight months baby can do that on their own, the body temperature of parents also helps to regulate sleep.

No necessarily, 23oz of milk a day and food is more than enough for a 6 month old. Same as an adult the more you eat the larger your stomach gets so the more it takes to feel full, that's what happens when babies take too much formula too, My Lo would have taken as much milk as you gave her as often as you gave her it

haras_nosirrah

babies are not designed to sleep through the night at this age

my son was a dreadful sleeper till 12 months. He was up every 2 hour and babies sleep really lightly mainly due to biology - a deep sleep for a baby can put them at higher risk of sids.

we co slept (read the safe sleeping guidelines) and keeping him near helped to regulate his sleep.

since 1 year he has slept through nearly every night. No cio needed. It is really hard and sleep deprevation is a killer. As you are bottle feeding can you share the wake ups or you go to bed at 8:30 and hubby does the 11:30 feed and then you do the next one so you have a decent block of sleep?

a lot of people fall into the trap of feeding babies more and more thinking it will make them sleep through. It stretches their tummies and then they either need more to feel full or they wake up with tummy ache.

sheramber

We found if we kept our baby in the cot but patted their back they dropped off again.

To begin with it meant sitting next to the cot for a while until it worked but then the time got shorter and shorter as the baby didn't really waken up fully. There was no stimulation to keep them awake.

My son had a comfortable chair in the baby's room and sat on that and cuddled him until he fell asleep again.

Babies do not conform so it makes life easier to accept the situation and make the best of it.

We found responding immediately we heard the baby stir prevented him waking fully and he dropped off again quickly.

SunnyCyprus

I can totally empathise with you. My eldest was a pain in the bum where sleep was concerned, and when she was 6 months, I was pregnant again and busy with settling/breastfeeding her or being sick! Not a fun time!

Be strong, and as long as you are giving enough milk between the hours of 6am and 8pm, water at night will suffice. Keep LO in their own bed, have a quick cuddle when they wake, offer water, and put them back to bed. During the day introduce another nap, an hour at least morning and afternoon. We double napped until about 18 months. It really helped to cut down on temper tantrums because she wasn't over tired at any point in the day.
Good luck xx

euronorris

I'll be honest, there is no magic answer. What works for one baby, will not necessarily work for another.


For us, we had DD in a co-sleeper in our room until 7 months. We tried putting her in her cot in her room at that point, but most nights she would end up back in bed with me as she would wake so frequently.


In the end, we did controlled crying and after a week she was settling herself of an evening, and sleeping through! It felt like a miracle, but I don't think we did anything magical. I think it was just the right time for her.


She has 2 X 1 hour naps in the day, again in her cot (sometimes they are a little shorter, sometimes a little longer), goes to bed at 7pm (after a bottle of milk), and I do a 'dreamfeed' around 10pmish, and she then wakes around 6.30amish now (she's 13.5 months now). This has been her routine since she was 8 months.


You might find a similar routine works for you, you might not. Good luck with whatever you try.


She's a very good sleeper these days, but the early days were horrendous.


With controlled crying we did: put her down and walk out (after saying sleepy time now, see you in the morning, mummy and daddy love you), wait 5 minutes, if she was still crying, we went back in and picked her up, soothed her, put her back down and repeat, but left a 10 minute gap this time, and repeat. We never went past 15 minutes as we couldn't bear to, but to be honest, after the first 2 days, she was settling within 5-10 minutes after a couple of weeks, she would just chat happily to herself for a few minutes before drifting off. She still does this now, sometimes she goes straight to sleep (if she's really tired).


And there are still times she wakes up - not well, going through a leap, teething (the molars were very difficult for her), she's recently had her 13 month jabs and they caused some upset too.


Try not to put too much pressure on the expectation of sleep. I know you're tired, and I know you're probably getting a lot of queries from people about baby is sleeping but ignore them.

Kynthia

It's very common at 4 or 5 months for sleep to regress. Also I wouldn't be confident saying such a young baby didn't need milk at night but probably wouldn't offer milk at every waking.

So while you need to start building good habits you also want to remember he's a baby and they are generally meant to wake, to need you, and to have different things going on at different times as they aren't robots. So even once you've got him used to setting himself back to sleep there will be nights he's maybe had a nightmare, or he's learning a new skill which is making his mind work overtime, or he's teething or a bit under the weather, or he's having a hungry day, etc.

With my first we would have occasional nights where one of us would sleep with the baby while the other slept in the other room. We haven't got a spare room now so it makes it a little harder. However nothing is forever and it will eventually pass so don't feel you have to do something like controlled crying if you'd rather not. There things like "gradual retreat" you can try and I'm sure your health visitor can give you some advuce. Some children's centres have a sleep clinic where you can get advise.