6 month old waking several times in the night.

Please help, any advise would be greatful....................
I have a gorgeous 6mths old baby who has been exclussively breastfeed. From 4wks old she began sleeping right through the night, approx 8-12 hrs a night. Once she was 4.5mths old she began waking in the night, i put this down the teething and was happy to feed her and recomfort her (she now has 2 front teeth).

Now she is 6mths and is still waking twice in the night, basically 4hrs from when she goes to sleep, then first night feed, 3hrs sleep and wakes for 2nd night feed, 3hrs sleep and wakes for first morning feed.
I then put it down to her being hungry as she was getting older and ready for solids. She now gets solids 2x daily (although only a few teaspoons as she is still getting use to eating it). I am breastfeeding her 3hourly and sometimes 2.5hourly, she is generally not a cluster feeder in the evening.

I have been told that she doesn't need feeds in the night anymore and i should just try and resettle her, last night i tried this and she screamed for 1/2 hour before i gave in and fed her. I even tried to give her some water in case she was just thirsty, she drank some and then continued to scream.

I know that she is now in a routine to wake in the night and i dont know how do get her out of it.
Is it normal for them at this age to be waking every three hours?

I'm tired and need sleep, i struggle to sleep in the day with her as she will only sleep for approx 45mins, i try and resettle her and normally she wont go back to sleep (sometimes she will).

Any suggestions will be really helpfully, thankyou in advance

Angie :)

I'm sorry i think i put this in the wrong area. i thought it said general parenting discussion, not gentle parenting. Should it be moved to another area?

I would say your DD doesn't need two night feeds if she is getting enough to eat in the day. My DD is 3 mths old and I have been advised to cut down to one night feed (from 3 feeds +).
I have to do heaps of feeds in the evening to make this happen, and it has worked on some nights (not last night though lol).

When is her last feed before bed? Could you do a "dream feed" or roll over feed just before you go to bed to stretch her out?'

Also, how does she fall asleep? Is she fed to sleep, or patted or does she self settle? I have tried to teach my dd self settling (in a gentle way) and it has really helped day sleeps and night sleep in general.

The only other thing I would suggest is feeding her 4 hourly if possible. I also feed my DD 2.5-3 hourly, but she only takes one side and is essentially "snacking" all day. When I can stretch her to 4 hourly, she takes both sides and sleeps much better at night.

Its so hard isn't it?? I hope you find an answer soon!

Thanks Anna for your advice,
I had been advised to try a few more feeds in the evening to see if that would help so i will give it a go. About the dream feed, i have been trying to go to bed as early as possible (around 9pm) so that i can get some more rest, so a dream feed is hard as she normally goes down for the night at about 8-9pm. If i do go to bed later i do try and give her a feed. Last night i feed her at about 9:30 and the next feed was 4am so that was a really good night (cross fingers it continues).

I struggle to extend feeds to 4hourly as she doesn't sleep for very long in the day and when she wakes she wants to be feed and that can be from 2.5-3hourly after last feed. So normally she would wake, feed, play 1.5hrs, sleep 45 min and wake (i try and resettle her but sometimes it doesn't work) and then i try and hold the feed out for around another 1/2 hour until she is due again. Sometimes i put her back to sleep again before her next feed is due. Maybe though i will try a little harder and give the 4hourly feeds a go.

Its amazing how if they sleep well in the day they sleep well at night. So far today she has had 2 big sleeps and therefore 2 x 4hourly feeds and last night she slept well. Last night before her bed i gave her a bottle of EBM. Maybe this could have also contributed to a better sleep as she got quiet a lot of milk.

She self settles now, i have trouble getting her to sleep in my arms now (which is probably a good thing), so i pop her in her cot and sometimes she may grizzle a little but generally she will go straight to sleep.

Thanks again
Angie

Hi again,

I know all about catnapping...my DD is a shocker for it some days! I tend to go play, feed, play, sleep just to stretch her out. Its so hard when they don't sleep in the day though, because you never know if they're crying from hunger or because they're tired!!

If she goes down at 8pm, I would feed her at 4, 6 and then 8, so she should be able to go 10 hours to 6am. Otherwise, try and put her down at 9, and feed her at 5, 7 and then 9, so she can go through to 7am (that's what my MCHN said to me anyway). So the day looks like this: feed at 7am, 10:30, 2pm, 5pm, 7pm, 9pm.

The other thing someone suggested to me was to make sure the first feed of the morning is in a room lit with natural light, so they associate feeding with the day and not with night-time. I think this has definitely helped DD set her body clock better.

Anyway...its all trial and error isn't it? I hope you find a solution soon!

This is just what worked for me and may not suit you... My DD was waking two to three times per night and wanted to be fed back to sleep, she had rarely slept through until then. So I refused to feed her overnight, I made sure we weren't busy during the day and she wasn't sick/teething so I could commit to it. Each time she woke I would put the dummy in her mouth and rock her back to sleep. I also sometimes gave her water incase she was thirsty. It took about three nights and she got the idea and now sleeps 7pm-7am, I still give her a dream feed at 10pm which she still sometimes wakes for. Good luck!

Thanks again everyone,
Last night she fed at 6pm and finally feel asleep at about 8pm. I woke her at 10:30 for a dream feed, she then woke at 2:30am, 5:15am and was awake for the day at about 6:30am. Yep i'm tired.

Anna i am going to try the cluster feeds, cross fingers it works.

kristin, thanks for your advise. i tried to resettle her and give her water one night and she still cried. i think i need to be a little more persistant and not give in after half an hour. its hard in the middle of the night when all you want to do is sleep.