Please help!! 6 Month old not settling without a fight.

[~Hestia~]

Not sure if this is in the right spot or not, but it's in regards to my DS settling (or lack of).
I was originally rocking him to sleep, then once he got to about 4 months old we started patting him to sleep. Moved into his own room at 6 months where he was very happy & would go off to sleep on his own with no fuss.
This only lasted about a week & since then he practises his crawling for hours in his cot. He does it every night but will also do it before most day sleeps. It seems like it's getting worse every day.
The whole time he is doing it he squeals & chatters away to himself. Which I could cope with if he eventually fell asleep. But he gets so frustrated (that he's not getting anywhere) & overtired that he starts crying, which is when I go in. It will take about an hour to get him to sleep after all this, when he has already been playing around for at least an hour. And I can't let him cry himself to sleep, I can't listen to it.
If I try to settle him before he starts crying (when he is in there having a grand old time) he fights me 100%. It doesn't matter if I rock him, feed him, sing to him, pat him - he just screams & thrashes around until I leave him alone.
Last night it took over 2 hours for him to fall asleep, then he woke up for another feed & the whole thing started again!!
I'm really at a loss as to what to do now? Any suggestions?

[BabyMama]

ooh cheezel i can totally feel your pain!! we've had similar times with DS - it's always up and down and at the moment we're having that same problem with not settling for at least an hour. this is only since we moved him from his cot to his bed. i think they somewhat enjoy the novelty for a period of time. it's exhausting and emotionally draining though isn't it.

i've had much advice along the way but i think the one thing that has worked relatively well is to have a pre-bedtime routine and to try to keep the actual bed time consistent (eg 7:30pm each night). for us, we keep the tv off and try to keep things low key in an attempt to wind him down. we do bath, quiet play, cuddle, BF, bed - but just do what works for you.

and remember that things do change and they will get better in time anyway, no matter what you do. our little ones do test us don't they

[Fleur]

I don't have much to offer in the way of advice sorry but just wanted to let you know that we went through a similar thing at about 6 months... she had 2 - 3 weeks of horrible sleep times, it got to the stage where I was dreading bedtime because I just didn't want the struggle.
we stayed consistent, did whatever we had to at the time to get her to sleep, rocking, patting, dancing & she seemed to come out of it more or less by herself.
We have also started settling her into a routine but it's very baby-led, in that we took what she was doing most days, and enabled it every day ITMS. I think this helped a bit
So hopefully it is just a stage & he will come through soon. As with all things - this too shall pass

[tippytoes]

We are struggling too! Will keep an eye here to see if anyone can help!
Rach xx

[Peg]

my suggestion would be to: ensure the room is dark and try playing soft music, which may move his focus from crawling to listening

Also, is he sleeping during the day? I always found that if my kids didnt have a daysleep, they'd have a restless night sleep.

[Santosha]

Oh we went through the same thing at 6 months and it SUCKED! Here I was trying all these gentle settling techniques and my baby was receiving it like I was torturing her. It was so stressful and I just hated trying to get her to sleep during that time. I really feel for you, it's exhausting - but if our experience is anything to go by... it is a phase. For us it was a reasonably long one (about 2 months I think) but it may have been as it took this long to try 20 diff things before we found what eventually worked for DD.

Basically, we stopped 'trying' to get her to sleep. She seemed to be picking up on the cues that any kind of rocking, darkened room etc was an attempt to get her to stop playing and sleep, so she'd instantly buck up and start wailing. So... we kept the pre-bedtime routine the same so at least it was still these as part of the rhythm of our day (book, song, cuddles, sleeping-bag etc) but then instead of going straight into her room, I'd just start wandering slowly around the house with her in my arms. I'd hum or sing quietly and she'd settle down to try and hear me and would be content to stare at the rooms, lights etc. passing her by. As she relaxed I'd slowly move her into more of a 'cradle hold' and keep walking, then I'd just quietly wander into her (dark) room and turn her music on. If she reacted badly at all, I'd just keep humming and wander out again. If she stayed calm, I'd wander around her room and then start more of a rock. Over time I could get more quickly into going into her room and she'd relax more into me holding her and wandering. I think it helped me a great deal that I'd decided that I wasn't going to stress about it and try too hard to get her to sleep. I think she felt the lack of 'pushing' on my part and was therefore more relaxed. Since about 8 months I've been able to go straight from the pre-bed time routine (so the same cues are in place) and now just walk into her room and pop the same music on. I still kind of keep her upright, have a bit of a cuddle and a gentle sway to the music until she's quietened down from playing before attempting to settle her to sleep.

My state of mind continues to make a HHUUUUUUGE difference. If I'm in a rush to get something else done, stressed, anxious, whatever and just want to rush it and get her off to sleep, she's almost guaranteed to be awake longer. If I can remember, I just focus on my breathing for a while, enjoy the snuggles and relax with the music (I've made sure her bed-time music is music that I like) and she seems to just absorb my calm and drift off more easily. Much better for the mental health too!!

HTH. All the best.

[~Hestia~]

Thanks for the replies & tips - it's a relief to know we're not the only ones going through it!!

Babymama - yes it is very exhausting. I come out of his room absolutely drained once he's finally asleep.

Jasp - thanks. Sounds like he might come through it on his own eventually, hopefully it won't be too much longer!!

Tippytoes - hope you got some good ideas to use too

Peg - unfortunately he's doing the same thing during the day sleeps, so it's possible that it's having an affect on his nights. Will try playing some soft music.

Santosha - I agree, state of mind makes a big difference. I try hard to remain calm & quiet so that he doesn't pick up on how stressed I feel (some days I try VERY hard!!). Thanks for sharing your story.