sudden sleep issues: 6mo

My previously amazing sleeper has suddenly started to wake up frequently, particularly in the early part of the night. Last night, I think it was 6 times in 4 hours.


Here's the history:


pre Chinese New Year -- he'd go to sleep on his own, wake up once in 12 hours, and often after his 6am feed go back to sleep again for 1-2 hours.


Then, we all had sleep troubles during CNY b/c of the fireworks.


Then things started to get back on track but suddenly took a wrong turn. He started to refuse his 4pm bottle of formula from Ayi [he's breastfed other than that], and woke up twice in the night instead. Then 3 times. We thought that he was probably having a growth spurt and that it was getting on to be time to start solids anyway [he's already 9kg], and he doesn't seem to be showing any of the usual ill effects [no rashes, no sudden changes in diaper contents]. Then day 4 of solids he starts to have sleep issues in the early part of the night.


We thought maybe he was overtired -- put him to bed earlier to no avail. Made sure that he wasn't falling asleep on the breast -- no help.


He seems to be having trouble burping -- even if he burps quite well before he goes down, many of the wakeups have this flavor: screams like he's losing a toe, we go in and pick him up and pat him, he burps, then relaxes and goes right back to sleep. Then wakes up screaming 20 or 45 or 30 mins later and does the same thing. Is this correlated with starting solids or just coincidence?


He has been so resilient up until now... His daytime naps are notmslly pretty short -- he was averaging 3 at 40 mins each before, but they are also shrinking, which was one of the reasons we thought it might be overtiredness [the other was that he keeps falling asleep on the breast in the evening, so I kept inching his last feed earlier and earlier until yesterday I fed him at 5pm]


Am falling asleep typing this.

Just when you think you have your baby figured out, he/she changes. It can be quite frustrating.


- Try to find a routine that works.

- Eventually he will settle down.

Thanks guys. I keep thinking that he will settle down -- he has had these periods before but they generally don't last more than 2-3 days, and they are generally followed by something wonderful -- one less nighttime wakeup, an extra half hour between daytime feeds, an extra 2 hours of sleep during the night -- but this one seems like it keeps getting worse.


Burping is definitely part of it -- I can't figure out why he suddenly is having so much trouble burping, but last night he burped immediately after I picked him up most times [even though I was very careful to make sure that he burped after every feed, and only feed him every 3-4 wake ups [which worked out to be about every 3 hours last night]. After I pick him up and he burps, I can just set him back down, hand him his cat and tell him goodnight again about half of the time -- it's just that it takes me a good 20 mins to settle down and get back to sleep which is no fun if he wakes up again within the hour. He doesn't seem sick at all -- he just seems like it's Christmas Eve and he's too excited to sleep.


He's not rolling over or sitting up at night -- he sits up great during the day, but even in the daytime he anchors himself so that he doesn't end up rolling over to his tummy.


He is at least managing to put himself to sleep again at night, and he does put himself to sleep again during the night some of the time, but sometimes he is up talking to himself for an hour first. We generally leave those alone unless he gets so loud that he is likely to wake up his sister [who sleeps on the other side of the apartment].


I have let him set his own schedule up until now because he seems to have such a strong biological clock -- he's been doing 3 naps of about 40 mins, and any time that I have tried to move towards consolidating them into 2 naps by keeping him up an extra 10 mins once he gets sleepy, he has rewarded me by taking a 20 min nap instead, waking up cranky as all get out and having trouble sleeping the rest of the day. Even with all of his night wakings, his daytime schedule had stayed pretty much the same except for today, when he had his first nap on schedule then his second an hour early [we went in to wake him up after 2 hours] and then his third on schedule. Of course, that was while he was sleeping well at night....

"I keep thinking that he will settle down"


I've been thinking that for 3½ years! ;)

or maybe you should look at what kind of solids you are giving him...maybe theya re not agreeing with him.


anything and everything that is considered easy tod igest might affect your baby...so try giving him something other than whatever it is u are giving him.


and yes some infacol or gripe water before u put him down might help as well.

Some hopeful news -- yesterday we dropped the rice cereal and only gave him carrots [which were the new food that we were introducing] and breastmilk, and he did much better. Not as good as his previous nights, but basically woke up 3 times, ATE at each wakeup and then dropped right back off to sleep when his belly was full. I went out looking for infacol and/or gripe water yesterday without any luck, but we have a friend coming to visit from the US who will bring some today [we hadn't exhausted our options, but the timing just worked out this way]. The other thing that we did was to do "fart calisthenics" with him before his pre-bed feed -- bicycling his legs, etc. Not quite sure what helped [changed too many variables] but hopeful for tonight. Thanks again.

"fart calisthenics"


I am totally stealing that expression. Brilliant!