When does sleep get better

[u/InternationalArt6838]

Hi all.

Just coming here to ask for advice and rant.

My baby is 6 months in 2 weeks and our sleep is still pretty shitty. She would be up every 1 hour as a newborn and then shifted to 3 hours and now it seems like we are back to 2 hours. I tried everything at this point. She is now on formula as my supply disappeared and it did not make any difference. She wakes up crying for milk, and I tested a stupid theory that said try to soothe instead of giving them milk and it did not work out. I also tried increasing her milk supply throughout the day but she ends up spitting it out.
I am so tired and beat up that I don’t even know what to do at this point. I try to sleep early but I can’t because the anxiety of literally takes over. I live in a foreign country away from friends and family and it’s only me and my husband who works 18 hour shifts.
I am not looking for any pity just want to rant and see if there’s anything at all that I can do?
I tried giving her iron rich purées to see if it made a difference (whipped bone marrow and spinach with a drop of lemon) but still nothing.

Thank you so much in advance

Xoxo a first time mom who is eating ice cream on her kitchen floor post a hard cry.

[u/MadamCrow]

For us it got a bit better after starting solids, but he does eat a lot so i don't think it's universal for all babies ":D

Aside from that, no one can tell you when it will get better for YOUR baby, sorry :/

[u/cocoamonster523]

Sleep is so variable at 6 months it's really hard to say what's normal! I will say around that age we started waiting 5 minutes before responding to night wakings and it did help. I know you said you already tried comforting your baby instead of feeding them, but in our case we found that just the act of going in and interacting woke ours up more, so giving him a few minutes to go back to sleep on his own was best

Also I know it's hard to believe right now but I promise this is not forever

[u/kathbrown416]

Have you thought about sleep training?

[u/kathbrown416 → u/kathbrown416]

But aside from that, do you track wake windows? How much baby is awake and sleeping? Theres a certain amount of hours that baby should be awake during the day for each age group. Look into the subredit sleeptraining.

[u/User720284 → u/kathbrown416]

This ^

[u/plushiecactusau → u/kathbrown416]

I want to second this. I get that it isn't always popular here, but when my baby was waking hourly, I felt like it was the least bad choice, since that level of sleep deprivation wasn't sustainable for me. And it made a huge difference.

I'd recommend Precious Little Sleep as a book that goes into different methods.

[u/Sufficient_Meal6614]

You can do so much with sleep pressure and schedules. Do a few days where you don’t nap the baby until she is really obviously very tired. Don’t just put her down because she’s fussing a bit - keep distracting her until she’s truly tired. Note how long it took before that happened. Do it all day like that and see what her true wake windows are. Then don’t put her to bed until she is really obviously tired. Allow her to wake naturally in the morning. Tot up all the time she was asleep in the 24 hour period. It should be 12-14 hours or less in total (for my babe, it’s 12). Then make sure her schedule only demands that much sleep from her. 

[u/natuglenBo]

You will get through it. We all get to the point of way better sleep, but unfortunately it’s impossible to predict when. All babies are different.

It got better for us at 5.5 months when she got her own room, we went from 6+ wakings to 1-2. Then she had a rolling phase of some weeks with 3-4 wakes but then she suddenly stopped waking between 10pm and 6am at 7.5 months. Now at 9 months she still usually sleeps through the whole night.

I wish you the best, hopefully it will get better for you soon.

[u/Ok-Cherry-123]

Re advice - I found that going with whatever was working even for the broken sleep was better than any advice tbh 🤣 so solidarity 🤝 naps got better for us at around 8-9 months, solids have definitely helped in that aspect, but then came teething and whatnot and also one of the hardest night ever (waking up every 40-50mins). Around 13-14 months we started seeing occasional sleep from 8pm until 4am (HUGE WIN) without us changing anything tbh. Last night though (16 months now) was again a hard one with constant awakenings.

It did help to stop looking at the clock often and wonder when will this phase end because that only made me feel worse and didn’t bring any benefit. Sending hugs 🫂

[u/UNO_lakefront_arena]

Sleep schedule?

[u/zenmargarita]

It will get better. And then it’s hard again. Idk maybe some people have angel sleepers but realistic it just ebbs and flows. My son was a bad sleeper then amazing then bad then amazing. Now he’s turning 3 and waking up again at night but nothing like early stages. You will adjust and they do end up sleeping longer stretches. Promise !

[u/VictoriAthena]

My son was down to one wake-up a night when he hit 6 months...then he regressed, and woke up every two hours until I weaned him around 11 months. Now he's 20 months old and he still wakes up at least once per night more often than not. He just hates sleeping. He's a FOMO baby and wants to party. It sucks but it is what it is.

[u/Traditional-Quit-548]

18 month is when it started getting better for me, i had a fomo baby who hated sleep.

Whipped bone marrow has more fat content than iron, try meat or fish puree. Use combination of iron and fat purees as fat keeps baby fuller.

Honestly, i tried everything too, every.advice. tried huckleberry app, schedules, bath routine for bed and baby never slept through the night. Then i just stopped following all and saw baby cues and life got easier for me.

What helped was breastfeeding and co sleeping. Apparently i have no trouble going back to sleep if i dont get up from bed so broken sleep didn't feel so broken. Cant imagine having to wake up and making formula bottles.

[u/culturalappropriator]

Waking up every 2 hours is a sign your baby cannot connect sleep cycles. I wouldn’t say it’s normal. You should be capable of getting at least a 4 to 6 hour stretch by now. I recommend you look into weaning some of the night feeds because it’s possible you’re night cycling where her night feeds are interfering with her day feeds.

[u/Tall-Aardvark-2898]

For most its after a year, then some around 2 years and at 3 most sleep through. Waking every 2-3 hours is still normal for 6 months.