6 Month Old Waking up SO Much.... SLEEP DEPRIVED MOMMA

At six mos, I would try starting some solids. It could be that he's just not getting enough with breast milk and needs more to sustain him through the night. Start with some cereal and/or stage 1 foods and see how he does and then go from there.
Good luck!

Are you open to co-sleeping? It was a life saver for me.

I enjoyed having a little time to myself each night, so I did put our son in his own bed each night. The first time he woke, I brought him to my bed and nursed him lying down (side-lying position) and went back to sleep. After that, each time he woke I just latched him on and went back to sleep.

Oh my gosh, did I start getting more sleep after that!

Just FYI, I had no trouble at all getting him to sleep in his own bed. I wonder if it helped that he always began the night in his own bed. As he grew older and slept longer, he really had no reason to leave his bed and come to mine.

Hi S. :)

So he's breastfed exclusively - couple of things.

So does that mean you haven't started solids yet? By 6 months, I think if he's sitting up by himself and is interested, you could start feeding him a little bit of cereal .. he might be hungry. That's my best guess as to why he is waking so often during the night.

The other thought is are you producing enough milk? If you're tired and so busy, and not getting sleep - I'm wondering if he might not be getting enough at each feed. There really isn't any reason for him to wake that often at this age. Be sure to drink plenty of water - when we get tired and are busy, we sometimes forget to drink enough. Helps to keep up your supply.

In the meantime, what worked for me when I was exhausted, was to have the baby start in their own crib but I co-slept after the first feed. I only did that with my last child, and wished I had done it with all of them. I found I got so much more sleep than if I was getting up. My baby had no trouble transitioning to her own crib as she slept through. It wasn't an issue for us. I agree with Gidget below.

I tried sleep training with my first (and was successful), but by my second, I just did what came naturally to my baby and I. My babies only really woke because they were hungry, and if they started waking more, I just upped the food during the day. They slept through on their own when they were ready.

Good luck :) make sure you get some rest!!

Added - Just a thought too, you might want to rule out any medical reasons (ear infections, etc.) that could be keeping him up at night. Sometimes mine would be really fussy (teething or ear infections) and be waking in pain (not for food).

If you're not open to any kind of sleep training, then I'm afraid you're stuck until he decides he's done with you. You continue to drive this habit by responding in the way that you do, and he's well past the point of needing to eat that much at night - if at all.

There are options to sleep train that don't involve crying. But unless you're willing to tolerate even a little bit of it from him, you'll never change this behavior. He's got you trained.

For your own sanity, please look into the No Cry Sleep Solution, or something similar.

I'm going to recommend the baby whisperer. It's a middle of the road approach. Instead of crying it out, you hold baby till quiet, then put baby down. Your library should have a book.

sounds like the meds you are on are wayy too strong, 6 month old are terrified they are going to miss something..like you farting or even yawning. a baby swing will save your sanity or a rocking chair, babys loooove to be rocked..course it could be the baby is going through a growth spurt is simply hungry..every two or three hours. when mine was 6 months old , we went through the same thing..eat and doze eat and doze..i fed her, put her in her baby swing, put my shirt in the swing with her,watched her doze and dozed on the couch beside her..snore . K. h.

Okay, here goes...

I've had 3, expecting 4th, successfully breastfed the first 3 for 13-14 months each (which was my goal). Had all three sleeping through the night (which I classify as at least 6 hour stretch of time) by 7 weeks of age (and 10 hour stretches by the 4 month mark).

Here are my suggestions to you.

1.) I would suggest that you get a schedule put in place. It is possible that your baby is snacking. If he is snacking, then he is only getting the foremilk (the watery milk that only helps with thirst) and not getting the hindmilk (the fatty milk that helps satisfy his hunger). Your goal needs to be to get a full feeding in each time you nurse him.

My schedule for each of my kids at 6 months of age was as follows:
Nurse at 6:30am, 9:30am, 12:30pm, 3:30pm, 5:30pm, 7:30pm, *sometimes 9:30pm, sleep through the night. Notice the cluster feeding in the evening...that is to help prepare for the night ahead.

Many times breastfeeding moms (not saying you're doing this) will start to stretch out those daytime feedings, and it ends up being at the expense of night time sleep. Get those daytime feedings more on a schedule and see if it helps!

2.) You may not be a fan of the CIO method, and I get that, but I would also encourage you to read up on the different sleep stages for an infant. It is quite normal for a baby to cry out between sleep stages. If you go in and get the baby, you may actually be waking the baby up without realizing it. We think crying means the baby is awake...when in actuality, the baby may be transitioning to that deeper stage of sleep that he so desperately needs. I have posted on this before (feel free to read some of my other posts). I would strongly encourage you to wait for 5 minutes in the night before you go get your baby. You may be surprised to see that he falls right back to sleep before the 5 minutes is up. Keep in mind that 5 minutes in the middle of the night seems like FOREVER. Look at the clock. Quietly wait. See what happens.

Please, please, please, try some of these suggestions (or other suggestions if you feel more comfortable with them). You absolutely need to do this for both you and your baby. Sleep is so incredibly important for both you and baby!

Good luck with things!

I know you say he is exclusively breast fed. It might be time for more. He may be ready for cereal. At 6 months he should be sleeping longer and deeper. Also could be that he's ready for a thicker diaper.. Is he waking up soaked? Does he have a pacifier?

In the immediate short term, please get some help,. By help I mean ask a friend or neighbor or babysitter or someone to take both kids for an afternoon. Send them for at least 4 hours. As soon as they leave the house, go straight to bed and get at least 4 hours of sleep in a row.

Even better would be if you can get someone to stay overnight and take all the night shifts for just one night. I know you don't want to do this all the time (supply, bottles, etc). But if you just get one full night of sleep, you will be able to think through the best way to work on sleep habits. But right now, you are in survival mode. You can't think. You need sleep. Please get someone to help you (husband, relative, friend, or sitter) and find a way to get some.

Okay so you have to do everything possible to make things easier for you
-sleep when you can. in car on your lunch hour if at work, sleep when your baby sleeps, rest if nothing else.
-let things go around the house. Dishes don't really need to be done right now. Do only things you HAVE to do like grocery shopping (try ordering online & having delivered. Worth it. Safeway does this.). Do laundry.
-For right now...grab baby & nurse.
-Sometimes boys seem to sleep les.
-I was sleep deprived for a long time so I did what I could to help me w/my baby (walking him in stroller so he'd sleep, leaving him in car seat in stroller & parking him in room w/door slightly closed, going for drives.
-Not sure how far apart your kids are. If they older one still naps, try to lay w/younger child during that time
-like I said.....let rest of the housework/stuff go. Only do what is necessary
(laundry, grocery shopping).

With my 7month old(and all my kids) I try to keep him up and engaged for a few hours before bed. He gets a jar of baby food and then a warm bath and lotion and I nurse him to sleep. This will hopefully give me his longest sleep stretch of 3ish hours. Occasionally 5 hours! Them I just bring him into bed with me and nurse him throughout the night while I sleep. I do the whole I'll cross that bridge when I get to it thing so I'll worry about getting him out of my bed, weaning, getting out of his swing later. Right now this is how we can all get some rest so we can make it through the day.

That's how my son was (my first kid)...he was up all night long and didn't really sleep though the night till he was 3. As a baby he was up every hour. Sometimes he miraculously would sleep 3 hours and I was so thankful. It was maddening and I was so sleep deprived. Nothing I tried worked. And believe me, I tried everything. I think I read every book out there. I only have guesses why he was this way. He started teething very young (getting teeth at 4 months) and it obviously was very painful for him. He was a very needy baby...any kind of change was hard for him. I believe now it was his personality showing through. He is 10 now, but he's got a strong personality. He is very sensitive to pain. He is very sensitive to emotion and is very emotional at times. He is very strong willed. Transitions have always been hard for him. He's just always been this way. Anyway, I hope you can figure it out, but I never did even though I sure tried! He was so much work, it was so exhausting. My daughter was not like this at all, thank goodness.

Have you had your thyroid checked? Pregnancy is very hard on your thyroid, and your symptoms are classic hypothyroid - the brain fog, the insomnia, getting sick all the time, not feeling well in general, meds for PPD not working very well... this was exactly my issue with baby #2 as well, and it took me 6 years to get diagnosed. Yes, YEARS. So if I can save you the headache of figuring that out, I'd be happy to have helped! Ask your doctor to order up a thyroid blood test (TSH, free T4, free T3, thyroid antibodies, reverse T3. They can do all of this from a simple blood test, and you need ALL of these things checked, not just TSH.)

So that would be my suggestion #1.

My suggestion #2 would be to pick up the book BabyWise. Everyone I know (myself included) who has tried it has loved it. Basically the book encourages getting the baby to have a nice, big, full meal at each feeding (rather than snacking, and only getting the watery foremilk, which is not as filling as the hind milk). When I started doing what the book suggested, my girls began sleeping for much, much longer. Through the night by 6 weeks for sure, and gaining weight at a pretty fast clip. At 6 months, maybe your son is also ready for some solids, which may help him get better sleep as time goes on as well. Does he have any way of self-soothing, like a pacifier, or a lovey of some kind? It would be good for him to start to learn to self-soothe so he can put himself back to sleep when he wakes up. I'd encourage you to also wait a few minutes before you pick him up at night. A lot of times, restless sleep can seem like the baby is awake and fussing, when actually he's just in an active state of sleeping. If you leave him alone for a few minutes, he may settle back down on his own. Watch the clock for 5 minutes and see if he doesn't calm down without your help. If he really starts to escalate, then of course go pick him up, but let him try to get himself calmed down first. He may surprise you. (You can also try this at naptime first, if that's easier.)

Best of luck. Little ones are hard, especially when you're already contending with a toddler. ;) Hang in there.

My oldest didn't sleep through the night until about 13 or 14 months. It was utter torture but I had my husband's full help. What worked for us wouldn't work for you. I will say we did try a few methods of CIO but none of them ever worked for us. It was a like a light bulb went off for that kid, though. One night he was up frequently and the next he slept through. My husband and I literally didn't talk about it for a few days because we didn't want to jinx ourselves. We felt like it was a developmental issue. Plus our oldest has always been a lighter sleeper, more sensitive overall and a bit more needy at times. We made this conclusion because our youngest slept through the night, starting in the hospital. I promise we did absolutely nothing different between the two kids. We had no chance to even try something different with baby #2.

With my oldest my very good friend had a similar issue a few months ahead of us. She didn't have the help of her husband so I'll provide some tips which helped her. She moved a real bed in the nursery. She'd put everyone to sleep in their cribs/beds. When a night time wake up came around, she'd nurse her baby to sleep. She didn't have much luck with side lying so sat in a comfy chair in the nursery. Once the nursing was done, she'd have a choice, sleep in the nursery bed or go back to her own bed. For the nights were the wakings were further apart, she'd go back to her bed. On the nights when the wakings were close, she'd stay in the nursery. It was imperfect but she said it did help. She said she moved the bed close to the crib. When her baby first stirred, she'd tried patting through the crib slats. If the crying escalated, then she was right there to comfort and/or nurse. She said she always tried to rock and comfort prior to nursing.

Both of us tried the CIO methods with little to no success. We also tried stuffing baby throughout the day and right before bed. However, that didn't make much difference as you can't make a baby eat.

I know from talking to various friends some babies respond well CIO and some don't. Some babies don't fight CIO; others fight it so hard the end results are worse than where you started. CIO in general is touted as the end all be all solution to sleep issues but there are exceptions to every rule. If you decide to try a form of CIO, remember to be consistent and give it a go for at least a week or more.

Whatever you decide I wish you peaceful sleep soon. Good luck.