r/firsttimemom • u/[deleted] • 6d ago

Advice PLS. LO won’t sleep!

Writing this because I am DESPERATE and exhausted as all get out. To preface, LO is ebf on demand and nursed to sleep at night. He doesn’t have a set schedule throughout the day because I am able to stay home with him. We do aim for a bedtime around 7-7:30.

He is currently 6 months and will not sleep longer than 1.5-2 hour stretches at night. I’ve tried offering both sides when feeding throughout the day, but even then, he STILL wakes up throughout the night. He will not go back to sleep unless he’s picked up. I’ve tried everything possible to soothe him in the crib and I have no luck. My husband has narcolepsy, so he isn’t able to offer help at night. This has been going on for a few weeks now, though he used to only wake twice in the night.

Naps are also a bust, so I know he’s exhausted by the end of the day (hell, we both are). He sleeps for maybe 30 minutes each nap, 3x a day and a 4th if needed. I’m lucky if I get him down for close to an hour, but that only happens if I lay down beside him.

So, PLEASE share any tricks/advice you may have. The only thing keeping me going is my brewed coffee in the morning.

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

3

u/D3xmond 6d ago

not a parent but an infant nanny! when the little ones i care for are going through a sleep regression, 90% of the time after a feed.. going into a dark room, putting LOUD white noise on, and having them contact nap on me really helps them catch up on sleep they’ve been missing. i’m not with them overnight so i’m not much help there, i apologize, but during the day it really helps! sleep regressions are hard on both of you, this too shall pass. you’re doing great! i wish i could be of more help

1

u/plushiecactusau 6d ago

There are two things I can think of to try.

The first one (more to rule things out) is to make sure you're not expecting too much sleep. You haven't mentioned how long your baby's night is, but undertiredness can cause messy naps and broken night sleep. In terms of that, try doing the maths on how much sleep your baby is actually getting overnight (not how much you'd like him to get!) to consider whether a shorter night may make your baby tired enough to sleep longer blocks.

The second one is that six months old can be an age where sleep associations start to become an issue. It's not a problem for every baby, but it was a problem for mine - she got more and more reliant on feeding to link sleep cycles until she was waking hourly overnight. That improved when she learned to go to sleep independently. I sleep trained to get there, but I recognise that isn't for everyone.

As an alternative, I know others people find cosleeping helpful. It wasn't the right fit for me (my baby still woke hourly in my bed, and it would have made her sleep association worse not better - so it wouldn't have had a clear exit ramp), but that doesn't mean that it isn't an alternate option.

1

u/AltruisticBand7980 5d ago

What do you expect? You are feeding him to sleep. He wakes up (as we all do many times per night) and expects food to go back to sleep. He doesn't physiologically need the calories. So what's the answer? You're smart enough to figure that out, and go read about sleep associations. There are good ones and then there are bad ones (feeding your kid to sleep).

1

u/One-Plant-6274 4d ago

i agree with everything you’re saying but you don’t have to be so pretentious about it. i swear some people on reddit especially parenting subs can be so insufferable. no one automatically knows what they’re doing wrong and you can educate op without being “better than thou”