6 month old - confused as to sleep?????

[~Belinda~]

Hi,

In the last 10 days, I've adopted a new sleep routine for my 6 month old. She has taken to it well and will have an AM and PM sleep and wake only a couple of times per night. Before the new sleep routine, she wouldn't even sleep in her cot at all but every sleep is in there now. I've had to re-settle many times but she is getting the hang of it.

Just a question and wondering whether anyone can help me. She will go to bed at 6pm as she will be very tired. Then she'll wake every hour until about 10pm (screaming every time and takes a while to re-settle) and finally will sleep after about 10pm. Why would this be? I'm confused.

Thanks for your help.

[Olive]

is she having dinner then a bottle? perhaps she has a full uncomfortable tummy,what time is her dinner?

[MantaRay]

I'm not sure Belinda. My first DS usually didn't go down for the night until 9 or 10pm at that age, and the second DS was, and mostly still is, too tired to stay awake past 6 pm and would be out like a light.

What is your night time routine like? Do you do bath then dinner, or the other way around? Maybe changing that could help. Also, maybe it's hunger. Have you tried an extra feed the first time she wakes to see if that makes a difference? That late afternoon/early evening time is often when they cluster feed.

HTH.

[~Trish~]

Could she be a little overtired? Maybe she is still adjusting to two day naps? My DS2 is still having 3 day naps, I know he should be on 2 by now, but he really needs it! One is only a catnap, but it gets him through until his 7:30pm bedtime.

Maybe in the next week or two she will adjust to her new routine and then cope better at night.

Sounds like you are doing a great job

[~Belinda~]

Hi Girls,

Thanks so much for your responses!

Trish, she may be overtired? She has an hour in AM and PM, I find she doesn't sleep much longer than that, sometimes 1.5hrs but that is rare.

Manta, she has a bath at 5.30pm and then a milk feed at 6pm, has about 220mls. She will always wake for that late night 9 or 10pm one anyway and then go straight to sleep after that. I haven't been giving her dinner at night because I found that she was waking every hour and then I cut the night dinner out and she wasn't waking every hour. But that was a month ago, maybe her tummy is ready for dinner now, what do you think?

AJP, no just a bottle at this stage.

Hmmmmm....hard to know.

[Olive]

maybe try putting her down at 5.30 or 5.45 and see how you go, id say she's overtired, 2 hrs all day isnt much

[~Trish~]

How much wake time is she having between naps? My 8 m/o DS can only handle 2 - 3 hours before he needs a nap.

She really does sound overtired, but I could be wrong!

[~Belinda~]

AJP, she only used to catnap through the day so now we are doing a new sleep routine, she will sleep 1hr AM and PM and I think that's good because it's solid! She does seem so tired by 6pm. Being a first time Mum and not really knowing too much about all of this, do you know why being overtired would cause her NOT to sleep? Probably sounds like a dumb question! Thanks!

[~Belinda~]

Trish, she wakes normally at 7am and then sleeps after 9am but up before 11am and then down again after 1pm but up before 4pm??

[~Trish~]

Hmm...it's hard to say! My DS is usually up at 7am, has a nap at 9am (usually 1.5 hours), goes back to bed at around 12:30 - 1pm, has another hour or so then has another nap at 4pm(ish) for an hour or less. He then goes down happily for the night at 7:30pm. His naps usually total 3.5 hours per day. I know he should be on two naps soon, but I know he wouldn't handle it. If he slept a couple of hours at a time we could do it!

Regarding overtiredness interfering with sleep, I found the following info:

The reason it is easier for your baby to fall asleep before she becomes overtired is that when your baby becomes overtired from nap deprivation, she becomes fatigued, and her body produces stimulation hormones to fight the fatigue. This chemical stimulation interferes with night sleep and subsequent naps. So remember, sleep begets sleep and more pointedly, good naps improve the quality of night sleep. The opposite is also true: Nap Deprivation Causes Night Waking.

HTH

[Olive]

ditto trish!!

[MantaRay]

Sometimes you have to experiment to find what will work too. It could be that more day sleep could help, so could changing bed time, giving solids, doing bottle before bath - any one of these might be the key. I would probably start by trying to give her solids at night again and see what happens. When in doubt, try the easiest option first LOL!!

[~Belinda~]

Thanks so much everyone for your replies.

I'm lost! Tonight I fed her bottle FIRST and then solids and then a bath, she was very relaxed and went to bed at 6.30pm only to wake at 7.00pm and has been screaming for 2 hours straight.

Have given her cuddles, tried everything. We have given her panadol and teething drops, when I touched her gums she screamed, I resorted to rubbing some SM-33 on them. This is the third night in a row she won't settle (but is really tired) in her cot before 10pm, then she sleeps unti 7am.

I wouldn't mind if she wanted to stay up with us until we went to bed however, she's falling asleep by 6pm most nights.

No idea what it could be! Hope it gets better soon

[boo]

Hi Belinda,
Sounds to me like she is overtired - DS gets like that when he hasn't had enough sleep during the day. DS is also a catnapper - he wont sleep any longer than 45mins to an hour at a time during the day (sometimes less) but I try to make sure he gets at least 3 day sleeps. This had made a huge difference to he's night sleep he now
goes to bed around 6:30pm and will sleep until 7am.

[~Belinda~]

Thanks Boo, oh thanks for sending those gorgeous pics through email too of your little ones, been ages since we heard from you!

All is going well with her sleeping now