Sleep regression of a 6 month old.

80s Child

Our 6 and a half month old seems to have had a sleep regression. He goes to bed between half 8 and 9 and falls asleep quite easily on his bottle, taking 4-5 oz approx. He'll sleep soundly until 2am approx, but after that he could wake once an hour. Sometimes it's just mooching and we turn him over and he falls back to sleep. Other times he looks for his bottle and we may have to bring him into the bed to settle him. We always try to put him back into his cot once he is settled. He only takes a couple sips of his bottle generally before falling back to sleep again.

At 6 am most mornings he comes into the bed fully and is wide awake by 6.45am. We change him and bring him downstairs for a little playtime before he goes back to his cot for another hour around 7.30. He then wakes and has his breakfast between 8.30 and 9.

He is in a good daytime routine. He goes down for his nap around 11.30 and usually sleeps for an hour and a half. His next nap is around 3.30 and he sleeps for an hour and a half to two hours. He is a very good eater and we have recently increased his portion sizes thinking he may be hungry at night, but to no avail. He is teething so we know this is having an affect on him but we still feel he's very unsettled. We're lucky that he usually goes back to sleep easily each time he wakes but our sleep is so disturbed. We're also conscious that he shouldn't be relying so much on the bottle at night. We have started giving him an extra snack to make sure he's full going to bed but this hasn't made a difference. Up to two weeks ago he would only wake once or twice in the night so this is a big change for us. Coincidentally, he was only put into his cot two weeks ago also, having been in a crib beside the bed before this. We would have thought that the transition to the cot was the problem but he sleeps soundly in it during the day.

The above may not happen every night exactly as described above, but certainly every second night or more. Any advice on how to improve his sleep pattern is much appreciated!

farmchoice

80s Child wrote: »

Our 6 and a half month old seems to have had a sleep regression. He goes to bed between half 8 and 9 and falls asleep quite easily on his bottle, taking 4-5 oz approx. He'll sleep soundly until 2am approx, but after that he could wake once an hour. Sometimes it's just mooching and we turn him over and he falls back to sleep. Other times he looks for his bottle and we may have to bring him into the bed to settle him. We always try to put him back into his cot once he is settled. He only takes a couple sips of his bottle generally before falling back to sleep again.

At 6 am most mornings he comes into the bed fully and is wide awake by 6.45am. We change him and bring him downstairs for a little playtime before he goes back to his cot for another hour around 7.30. He then wakes and has his breakfast between 8.30 and 9.

He is in a good daytime routine. He goes down for his nap around 11.30 and usually sleeps for an hour and a half. His next nap is around 3.30 and he sleeps for an hour and a half to two hours. He is a very good eater and we have recently increased his portion sizes thinking he may be hungry at night, but to no avail. He is teething so we know this is having an affect on him but we still feel he's very unsettled. We're lucky that he usually goes back to sleep easily each time he wakes but our sleep is so disturbed. We're also conscious that he shouldn't be relying so much on the bottle at night. We have started giving him an extra snack to make sure he's full going to bed but this hasn't made a difference. Up to two weeks ago he would only wake once or twice in the night so this is a big change for us. Coincidentally, he was only put into his cot two weeks ago also, having been in a crib beside the bed before this. We would have thought that the transition to the cot was the problem but he sleeps soundly in it during the day.

The above may not happen every night exactly as described above, but certainly every second night or more. Any advice on how to improve his sleep pattern is much appreciated!

sounds fairly normal to be honest I'm afraid he is only 6 months old so maybe a bit young to start taking a hard line with him, when he falls asleep in your bed I'd leave him there and see if he stays asleep for longer, does he have a soother? if he does and he is in the bed putting it back in might get him back to sleep straight away and if he does not it might be no harm to try one.

failing that just try and get as much milk into him as possible the first time he wakes up.

shesty

To be honest..... I wouldn't take him out of bed and I wouldn't give him a bottle. I'd leave him in the cot, sit with it and if he takes a soother, keep putting it in. Yes it means you will be hanging over the side of the cot dying, but a few nights of it should break the habit. He's still small so it's not surprising that he's waking during the night because they all do. Once you're happy he's had a good bedtime feed and plenty food during the day, I'd hold out a bit on him. He's at an age where they are learning and developing hugely every single day and it's all very new and exciting,so they start to wake a lot more.

They all go through phases like this. It's hell. But a few nights of hell gives you much better long term return than getting into a habit of taking him out and feeding him to sleep, because very quickly that will become what he needs to go back to sleep and he'll wake several times a night. They form a habit in the blink of an eye (specially at night) and you then spend months trying to undo it :rolleyes:

dori_dormer

Completely normal! There's a leap at 6months have a look at the wonder weeks app. The disturbance in sleep usually only lasts a week or two. He's a baby. No need to take a hard line. Filling him up during the day will make no difference. Their stomachs are small and when they are empty they are empty. My almost 7 month old takes 1 or 2 7oz bottles a night. We dream feed 1 at 11 when we go to bed. And the other is between 3 and 5 am.
These leaps are important. Also hunger, comfort, warmth , pain from teething are easy fixes. There's no reason not to give them. He's told small for going 12 hrs without food if it's not natural to him

tobdom

We had something quite similar with our now nearly 6 month old which started (regression) just before x-mas, when we moved her out into her own cot in a separate room. We've been through a lot of things trying to figure out what it was (hunger, cold, pain etc.).... She'd go down about 7:30pm and would wake almost like clockwork around 1:30am. She was fairly easy to settle back down but would be quite unsettled some nights and we were flat out going out to put the soother back in etc. We had almost convinced ourselves it wasn't hunger, but we tried giving her baby porridge as her 'solids' feed around 6pm, before her last bottle before bed. It seems to be doing the trick so far.....

We've also tried to get her into a habit of self-soothing/settling for sleeps. Tough at first as part of it is letting them cry a good while before intervening, but once you know there's nothing really wrong with them (other than being used to being settled off to sleep) then you can persevere - it is worth it and it doesn't really take too long to implement. I know it sounds very hard-line, but it is of benefit to baby & you/your family....

I could recommend getting a book called 'Save our sleep'.... some of the techniques/tactics/routines are quite militant, but I think if you commit to it to break a bad cycle and then get them into a good sleep habit/pattern, then you can relax it back a bit.

Best of luck!

80s Child

Thanks for all the above advice! I'm afraid he doesn't take a soother. We have tried it a few times but no joy. Glad to hear it's fairly normal that he wakes a lot. We've been comparing him to another baby his age who is sleeping through and we've also been hearing that he shouldn't be relying on the bottle so much at night so this eases our worries. We haven't managed to leave him in the cot and let him cry it out a bit yet so we might try a couple of nights of that this week and see how it goes! Thanks again ��