6 Month Old Daughter Just Started Not Sleeping Well

I really feel bad for some of these babies :( A child should never be left to cry alone, IMO, and to hear a child crying by themselves for 4 hours totally breaks my heart. Yes, they will be more clingy because they don't trust you anymore and are scared to death to be left alone to cry by themselves again. The only reason they start sleeping better eventually is because they have given up on mom and dad and realize they are all alone and no one will listen to them. Crying is the only way our babies can communicate with us and their cries should be responded to. Not to mention that a baby left to cry for that long can actually get so stressed out that their brain chemistry changes (the hormone cortisol is realeased and it is not good for the baby). Their heart rate also goes up to high when they get that upset, it's just not a good idea, period.

My advice, bring her to bed with you, it will be much easier to soothe her back to sleep and she will probably sleep longer knowing you are there. You will also start having similar sleep cycles so you wont always be woken up in a deep stage of sleep, most likely you will wake naturally right before she does looking for a nuk or to nurse? You didn't specifiy if you are bottle feeding or nursing. If you are nursing, it will be much easier to co-sleep during those night feeds. This stage wont last forever, enjoy your baby girl and be sensitive to her needs. Show her you are there for her!

I had one baby that was like this. I tell him now he was a mommy magnet. Any how my advice would be simple, sleep with your baby. all other animals do it, all our ancestors did except in the last century or so. When I was trying to decide what to do with sleeping for my first baby I happened to watch a show on TV by the human society that awarded a cat an award for saving a babies life. It turned out that the cat always slept in the babies room watching the baby. One night the cat woke up the parents and would not let them sleep. They finally got up and checked the baby, she was having an extreme asthma attack. My thought on watching this was " the cat knew not to leave the baby alone, why don't we?" Your baby also knows it doesn't want to be alone. This is a strange new world she has come into and the more she becomes aware of it the more she wants to know you are near.

well, its a good thing you dont use cry it out... it only works on the surface, underneath, you teach her that her needs arent important enough to respond to, and that trust breaks down between you. ....
www.askdrsears.com has MANY loving, responsive ways to deal with sleep. william sears has a whole BOOK on sleep and sleep issues, and how to get sleep, all in a loving, responsive, connection-promoting way. so many resources these days promote DISconnection, and thats hurtful to relationships with our children...
anyway
things that i recommend; night light (you probably have this already), make sure temps are good, check the back of her neck if shes too hot the back of her neck will be sweaty.. somehow undress her or lighter blanket or something, a white noise machine OR cd - such as 'for crying out loud' a cd with 8 tracks of different types of white noises.
cosleeping (having her sleep in the same room as you) and bedsharing (where she sleeps in the same bed as you) are both options and they are MUCH safer than people think. rates of SIDS are HIGH in this country, where in places that they cosleep/bedshare as a rule the SIDS rates are DRASTICALLY low. obviously, do it safely, and never when under the influence of any drug, drink, and reduce heavy bedding if bedsharing, otherwise cosleeping is safe no matter what because shes in the same room, you can respond to her faster and she doesnt get too worked up before you hear/get to her.

with babies, sleep is typically never a constant. there is always something that pops up once you think you have it all covered. developmental stages will cause sleep disterbances: rolling over, crawling, standing up, walking, all those things will interrupt sleep.
also, of course, teething.
if you suspect some teething, give her some tylenol and see if that helps her get a longer stretch in. night feedings are still MORE than ok, babies need to eat a LOT and even at night. but never leave baby with a bottle in her mouth, it rots teeth. however, breastfeeding at night, and baby sleeping with the breast in her mouth doesnt cause those same problems, so if you are breastfeeding, its more than ok to fall asleep with her still at the breast. i did that a lot with my son. it really helped ups both sleep.

if you bring her in the same room with you, you will find that you should be waking up at the same time or seconds/minutes before she does. thats an important instinct! :D it helps you not have to totally wake up and you can help her and get right back to sleep.

anyway,
no matter what you are doing, the MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF INFORMATION FOR PARENTING is to do what you know is best for you and your family. this may change day to day, from being sick to being healthy.... from being at home or being away... its all going to be different day to day. if bedsharing helps her after being away from you at child care, then that is ok! if you cant do it, cosleeping in the same room is also great!

babies cry. but the more you respond to their needs the less they will cry. seriously. the more connected you are, you will figure out sometime around a year that her cries change from a "help me now" cry to a "i need something but its not urgent" sort of cry. its amazing. but never ignore a baby under a year crying, not only will you not notice that time her cries change, but it hardens your heart to where you cant stand her cries in an angry way, instead of in a way that you want to help her, be empathetic to her, and help her get her needs met.
after all, empathy is not something that can be adequatly taught. empathy is learned by experience. if babies are shown it, they will show it to others.
:D anyway, like i said, do wahts best for you and your family. no matter the advice, even my advice, your doctor's advice, your parents and inlaws.... your instincts are the ones that are most important.
good luck!

K. - we are just going through this now with our 8 mth old. She shares a room with her 2 1/2 yr old brother, and almost 2 weeks ago, we decided she needed to start falling asleep on her own. We had a fun sleeping bag for our son, and had him 'camp out' on our floor so sister wouldn't wake him. My biggest concern for doing that was getting our son used to sleeping in our room, but the transition back has been easy.

It's very hard to hear your child cry for that long, the 3rd night she cried for almost 4 hours (2-6 AM!), but now she's maybe up once or twice. If she gets up a third time and it's between 2:30 and 4, I give her a small 'snack'. One thing that has benefited us that was hindering her sleeping: we had a night light for my ability to feed her at night. WE got rid of that and added a radio on low to drown out other house sounds before we all go to bed. She's sleeping longer at night and at naptime, but unfortunately, a side effect of it is she has become more clingy, especially to me. Take time to love her and reassure her that you do come back and this phase will pass.

I'm so glad you are not feeling free to do the 'cry it out' method--it would only teach her not to ask for help. The only way a baby can ask for help is to cry. Imagine for us adults what it would be like to have to get through each day with only crying or not crying. What your little one wants is probably some relief from teething and more closeness. And yes, the separation anxiety phase is undoubtedly on it's way if not there already in her world. Giving into her demands for closeness and comfort each and every time, no matter how exhausting, becomes a wonderful investment of time because the reward is a secure toddler who is fine being away from mommy because she got what she needed when she needed it. For a baby, a "need" is exactly the same thing as a "want"; she wants you to hold her, so she actually needs you to hold her. I think the solution is to get a baby sling and review what Dr. Sears has to say about attachment parenting and cosleeping http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/T130200.asp

More than likely she is at an age where she needs to learn to go to sleep on her own instead of having to rely on mom to put her to sleep and keep her sleeping. I have 5 kids and learned the hard way when I had #2, #1 would only go to sleep if I rocked for an hour, which with a newborn doesn't always work so well. I also have a daycare and I can almost bet that the reason she wasn't sleeping at daycare was b/c most daycare providers don't have time to put a child to sleep.

I would recommend having your son sleep elsewhere for a few nights like camping in the living room or your bedroom floor and teaching her to go to sleep on her own. Following is a good website and e-book, I bought after my 3rd one wouldn't sleep: http://www.sleepsense.net
Very good information, she is very blunt but very good.

Hi K.,

This is not unusual at this stage in a little one's life. I think they are just at the age where they finally realize what is going on, and they've found out if they cry Mom or Dad come back to get them. I've found that if you put babies to bed asleep they don't learn to pacify themselves, so that they can go back to sleep on their own. When they wake-up they want someone to hold them to go back to sleep instead of being able to do it themselves. I would suggest that you start putting her to bed awake...I'm sure you are going to have to let her fuss some...but this is the only way she is going to learn to put herself back to sleep when she wakes up in the middle of the night. It shouldn't take long, and will be well worth it. I'm sure she probably woke up some before this age, but hadn't realized yet that if she cried someone would come....now she knows. Good luck!

C.

Hi K.,

My son is the same age and we just started experiencing the exact same issues last week. It was getting next to impossible to get him to sleep and usually took 1-2 hours of all our usual tricks including larger and larger swaddle blankets. Last Friday night, after 1 1/2 hours of us holding and rocking him and him screaming the entire time, we decided to let him cry it out. The crying lasted another 1 1/2 hours but then he fell asleep. The subsequent nights have been 1 hour 10 minutes of crying, then 45 minutes, 30 minutes, and last night 20 minutes of crying. Naps are even shorter--I just put him down and he only cried for 4 minutes. I know with your other child this doesn't seem like and option, but it is the only thing that has worked for us.

Good luck!