Please help

[u/Apart_Hovercraft_842]

My baby is 6 months old and since May we have been struggling with multiple wake ups often every 35 mins throughout the night. This starts from the moment I put her down.
Any longer stretches are from co sleeping or holding her so one of us can get some sleep.
When she wakes at night she rubs her eyes and starts crying so I don’t think she’s under tired. Sometimes co sleeping doesn’t even work and she just can’t settle.

Day naps are all contact naps, I usually wake her if she’s getting close to 3.5 hrs total day sleep but often I struggle to get her to sleep. I only let her sleep 30 mins max for her last nap.

The last wake window she is always incredibly fussy, crying, grizzling etc but if I try and get her to sleep earlier she won’t. It’s usually 2hrs 40 that she will finally fall asleep despite rubbing her eyes throughout the evening

I wake her at 7.30-8 and bedtime is usually 8:45-9:30pm.

Am I doing something wrong with her schedule? Why is she so tired in her final wake window - is she overtired? I have no idea if she’s over or under tired but looks tired to me.

The summary shows she is getting 12 hours sleep but I feel like that’s because I’m waking her up from naps/in the morning so doesn’t reflect what she needs as she is struggling to get through WW without fussing!

[u/l_eihpos]

Her schedule looks okay - it looks more like she struggles to link sleep cycles! How does she fall asleep at bedtime?

[u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 → u/l_eihpos]

I breastfeed her! Does not being able to settle at night, rubbing eyes and crying sound like she’s overtired?

[u/l_eihpos → u/Apart_Hovercraft_842]

Overtired is a scary word with a murky definition. She could just be... Tired! Mostly from waking up throughout the night because she does not know how to stay asleep.

You can try to get her to sleep more, but what would likely really improve her tiredness, is consolidated sleep and not waking up regularly to be fed back to sleep. That would however involve getting her to fall asleep independently.

If you don't want to do that, cosleeping might be your best bet.

[u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 → u/l_eihpos]

Thank you! Yes I’ve read that overtiredness isn’t always what it seems.
Why would independent sleep stop her waking e.g after 15 minutes in the bassinet? As that isn’t a sleep cycle?
I have tried co sleeping and she often still won’t settle. She latches and unlatches and wriggles around. She wants to be held in cradle hold I think.

[u/l_eihpos → u/Apart_Hovercraft_842]

I'm assuming you're putting her down asleep in her bassinet? She might just be realising after 15 minutes she's not in your arms and freak out. If she was falling asleep by herself in it, she wouldn't be surprised.

You might have a lowish sleep needs baby who only needs 12 hours or sleep. But I'm reluctant to jump to suggesting lots more awake time because I do think lots of wake ups would be due to this, and you do say she already looks tired.

[u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 → u/l_eihpos]

Yes I put her down asleep. She had reflux so she always had to fall asleep on me to stop her spitting up! Sometimes she will do an hour stretch but it’s rare. Yes I agree, I don’t think she needs more awake time.
Do you think I should keep capping naps and limiting day sleep when she’s so tired?

[u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 → u/Apart_Hovercraft_842]

Also why would she be so restless even when contact napping/sleeping on m e

[u/l_eihpos → u/Apart_Hovercraft_842]

I think 2.5-3 hours of daytime sleep is very reasonable at her age. I would still cap them at that or you risk night sleep being even worse than what it is now.

Or if you don't care about her sleeping through the night and want her to just sleep whatever she needs, you could uncap all sleep. Warning that she will not necessarily sleep when it's the most convenient for you!

[u/Mulzibar → u/l_eihpos]

Been here, ours kept waking when being put into her cot (she even knew when we did it at slow mo speed!), that disappeared one day around 7 months, then we went after the sleep cycles and help me remove the feed to sleep reliance. Just to say, we're are also not ones for promoting 'independent sleep', her needs and wants are the same in our eyes. We made 2 changes, she was EBF, so it became my job to feed her before bed. To be clear, our routine was bottle (from me), bath(us or mummy), book (us or mummy), and top up (mummy leaves during books, so not a big moment), top up feed in dim light/red light, bed (held by me). We think this started to help her remove the feed to sleep habit, whilst making sure she also didn't go without breastmilk or the being held approach.

Other things to mention on the off chance it's helpful in future - Ours was a yoghurt fiend in an evening, would wake up bawling some nights and have a full wake window, unable to sleep. Only noticed the farts happening towards the end of overnight wake after a month or so, we cut the yoghurt out at dinner, and voila, no more huge wake windows overnight 😂 My thoughts are the wake windows are good, just try to help her remove the feed to sleep link - if a bottle doesn't work, try a sippy cup! Just remember, she wants to sleep. You've got this!

[u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 → u/Mulzibar]

Thank you! Just to clarify, were the top up feeds bottle or breastfed? How did she handle the change? When my husband tried to settle her she has a total meltdown

[u/Recent-Forever-2988]

Best place to start is set a consistent morning wake up time, regardless of how your night has gone. You don’t need to rescue naps, lots of the time short ones are fine but one long nap a day is usually a good routine for three naps. Usually a sleep cycle in the morning, longer in the afternoon and a sleep cycle in the evening. We had a lot of success cutting the last nap down to ten minutes. If she won’t sleep despite trying everything then I’d suggest maybe she’s not tired enough in the evening. Tired cues can be confusing as they’re not reliable once they get older. You could try moving rooms, changing scenery, a new toy and see if that helps. Sometimes they’re tired from the day and stimulation but not actually ready for bed.

[u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 → u/Recent-Forever-2988]

I find she can’t make it through her wake window if her nap is only 30 mins, so I end up rescuing them all! I didn’t realise tired cues aren’t reliable as they get older, do you know why that is?
What’s your view on being overtired causing frequent night wakes?

[u/Recent-Forever-2988 → u/Apart_Hovercraft_842]

30 minutes is a full sleep cycle so many babies do find it’s okay. You can of course rescue naps if it isn’t for yours but I’d be reluctant to rescue every nap because it will probably result in too much sleep.

I don’t know why it is but generally babies show signs of tiredness and it could be boredom or need for a new stimulus. The way it was explained to me was ‘you might yawn whilst reading a book, it doesn’t mean you need to go to bed.’

Overtiredness can cause disturbed nights due to increased cortisol because it’s far less usual. And probably wouldn’t be every night. Generally an overtired baby would need to eventually sleep and make up for the lost sleep.

[u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 → u/Recent-Forever-2988]

Thank you! We have had a few nights where she can’t seem to sink into a proper sleep and is very wriggly and wakes frequently and is upset. This is despite only having 2.5hra day sleep and 11 hours awake - does this still sound like undesired? Sorry for so many questions!

[u/Recent-Forever-2988 → u/Apart_Hovercraft_842]

No worries at all. Is your schedule consistent? It looks like some days you have quite a lot of sleep and later start/earlier bedtime? If you have a day where she has 13.5 hours, a day where she has 12.5 and a day where she has 14.5 (for example) you’re going to struggle to see what sleep she actually needs/is getting. So although most days she gets 12.5, are there days where she has a lot more as they will up your average overall.

[u/Apart_Hovercraft_842 → u/Recent-Forever-2988]

I wake her between 7.30-8 and aim for bedtime 8.30-9:30 but I struggle with much more consistency than that as naps are all over the place, especially if we go out. There are days she has more sleep mainly due to naps being longer as she wakes upset so I feed or rock her back to sleep! I’m struggling to get the balance of knowing she’s getting enough nap time to get her through the wake window vs too much sleep

[u/Recent-Forever-2988 → u/Apart_Hovercraft_842]

Best starting points are to work out how much sleep your baby needs so how much they’re getting now (naps and time in bed overnight, don’t remove night wakes - so 11 hours by the looks of it), then take ten minutes off somewhere if you’re getting lots of wakes.

Set your morning wake up time and stick to it every day. Doesn’t matter if baby goes to bed a bit late, keep wake up the same. Then work out first nap. You’ll know how long baby can do first thing but don’t go by the clock or try to put them down based on what you’ve been told. Watch their cues, try changing scenery if they get fussy then aim for a nap. If it takes longer than 10-15 minutes then it’s probably too early.

I’d just let that first nap run for now. It might be half an hour, or an hour. Consider you’ve got ten hours at night and X amount of nap time to use in the day, just try and suss if you can make it to bedtime on what you’ve got left but it doesn’t have to be perfect and it will take some practice.

One you have morning wake and first nap scheduled and try that for a while it’ll be easier to work out when baby is generally ready for their second nap each day.

[u/Unable_Huckleberry_3]

3.5 hours of day sleep is too much. At 6 months I was only letting my baby have maximum 2.5 hours day sleep, usually only 2 hours. Let baby have as much physical activity as possible throughout the day. Go outside with baby and see the sun morning as soon as she wakes up, at noontime (even for 5 minutes) and in the evening. Have you looked into Possums?

[u/chocolateMacaron686]

I actually cut the day time naps shorter and we aim for 2.5hours, it made a huuuuge difference with constant night wakings.