6 Month Old Sleep Issues - East Islip,NY

She sounds completely normal. If your first was much easier than this, then I think you had an easy baby. What you are describing is how I would describe most of mine, only my first was WAY worse. She would wake up every 30 minutes to an hour.

My others never slept for long stretches beyond 3 hours. I think you're doing good to get such long hours in a row, even if it is only a few times. It really, really, really sounds completely normal to me. I don't think you are doing anything wrong or that there is something wrong with her. She's just being a normal baby.

My 4th has been my best sleeper. At 11 months she is starting to sleep for 8-9 hours at time. It's not most of the time, or anything, but it happens sort of often.

I don't do cry it out. I rock them to sleep as babies each time they wake up and won't go back to sleep. With my 4th, we've had to move her to another room because she is weird (hehe) and won't co-sleep very well! I didn't know babies like that existed. But she won't settle unless she has her own space. It took me a while to figure it out, but that is her preference.

When my hubby gets up for work, it always wakes her up. So she is now in her own room (the kids room). Often she will wake up and fuss for a minute or two. I used to jump and get her, but somehow I learned that if I leave her for a minute or two, she often settles back to sleep. Often she'll fuss for a minute. Stop. Then fuss again. Then stop. It might go on for 5-10 minutes, but she is not actively crying. It's more like she's fussing in her sleep. If she is actively crying and really upset, then I don't wait any time, and will grab her right away. But if she's only fussing, I will wait now, and she is often settled back to sleep in less than five minutes (and she is not crying that whole time. It's off and on fussing). With having so many kids, it's been a life saver to get more sleep to handle them and current pregnancy.

Anyway, doing it this way has led to longer periods of sleep for her. She'll often settle right back down. I never did it with my others because they slept in bed with me. I still sometimes try to bring her in bed with me when she wakes up, but she won't sleep. It's been so strange since I'm used to the opposite with my other three.

Rocking back to sleep is what I always do. I think it's a normal way to get the baby back to sleep, especially if you don't do cry-it-out.

Pretty much I see nothing wrong. It's totally normal. You aren't doing anything wrong. She's just being a normal baby.

The babysleepsite.com is a great website for ideas on how many naps a baby needs per age and how long at night, etc. It's really helped a lot.

I hope something in there helped. Good luck!

Looks like you answered your own question... She needs to be co-slept. Some babies can be forced to accept being abandoned in a dark isolated room and cry themselves to sleep wondering why Mommy left them (or being made to sleep apart from Mom while in the same room) - others refuse to be cowed.

I bet if you co-sleep - EVERYONE will sleep better.

It sounds like she isn't waking out of hunger, just out of habit and she needs help soothing herself back to sleep. Since you have been giving it to her this long, she has come to rely on it. You don't say whether you have even tried CIO. It does work, and when done correctly, only takes a few nights. It is hard to listen to your little one cry, but it will be the best thing for all of you in the long run. And, your child will be just fine... our kids were both good sleepers for the most part, but there were stages when we used CIO. They are 3 and 5 and they are happy, well ajusted, loving children who are good sleepers as well! Just be consistant and she will be fine!

We followed the Dr. Weislbluth book. I started sleep training at 5 months, but still got up to nurse once at night until he was 9 months. At nine months, we were sleeping 12 hours!

My baby slept in our room in a cradle until he was 5 months old.
He would only sleep 3 hrs at a time for a LONG TIME!
I couldn't breast feed after 2 mos of age because I dried up and we could not re-stimulate my breast milk to come back in.
So we had to switch to formula. The good thing was I could ensure how much he was ingesting so I could rule out hunger issues.
It could be a number of issues: hunger?, is she cold?, nightlight in his room, my baby would no longer be swaddled at 5 1/2 mos of age because he would become unswaddled and hit his arms on the sides of the cradle waking him up.
Switching him to his bigger crib w/no swaddling helped.
I was able to switch him when I realized that after his last feeding at 11pm and fell asleep in my arms he didn't know what bed I was putting him down in since he was totally knocked out.
Could she be teething and the pain waking her up?
You might just need to get up with her and feed her, change her diaper.
This stage will pass soon.
I will tell you since I didn't do the cry it out method (I just couldn't) I got up w/him in the night until he was 1 1/2 yrs old but then he started sleeping 6 hrs at a stretch and that felt like heaven. 3 months later at 21mos he started sleeping through the night wiht only one 2 hr nap per day. Only occasionally would a leaky diaper wake him in the middle fo the night. He's 2 1/2 now and sleeps through the night.
So hang in there. Do what you feel is best for your son and this stage will pass. You'll be through this soon. Enjoy this time with your baby because it goes by fast and it's sweet. But then.....the toddler stage is so much fun so you can look forward to that. :) I love it.

My son has been doing the same thing and he's about the same age. From what we've been able to see is that his waking is just his normal sleep patterns. Where an adult might wake up and turn over to settle back to sleep, babies haven't learned how to stay asleep yet. Usually I will let him whine and settle himself back to sleep, if I leave him for about 5-10 minutes he will usually fall back asleep. I will only get up to feed him if its been 4-5 hours since his last feeding (I'm currently trying to stretch out his nighttime feedings to 5+ hours) or if he starts really wailing and crying. Other than that he usually settles himself back down and we've been able to sleep from about 11ish to about 5 in the morning consistently. We also sleep in the same room as him since we live in a 1 bedroom loft, and although letting him fuss or cry sometimes sucks for us, it only lasts for a little bit and eventually he catches on and quiets down.

UPDATE: I read Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child and found it super helpful. I highly recommend that book since it gives a range of solutions between crying it out and not letting them cry it out. I was able to find a method that fit my comfort zone.

Im a mother of 7 and grandmother of 8 grandchildren and also work with kids of all ages. I will tell you that the years of being around babies and children. they only do what you let them get away with. Babies learn very early how to get the best of you. With there cry's , smiles, funny faces and not sleeping all night because they no you are not welling to let them cry it out. She playing a game with you to see how long you can put up with it. Try putting a t-shirt with your sence on it in the crib for a few nights.

Our pediatrician never found any medical reasons why my first child would wake 4-8 times per night, but at 18 mos old she was FINALLY diagnosed by another GI doctor with reflux, which is worse at night when the body is horizontal. Looking back, there were symptoms but not the obvious ones. I have since heard that babies who never really sleep through the night often have undiagnosed reflux. Does she sleep well in a stroller or worn in a baby carrier? Maybe you can experiment with getting her to sleep in an incline position and see if that helps. Also, I found with my 2nd child that the key to improving sleep is to get the baby down in the crib STILL AWAKE, so that if he/she wakes momentarily in the middle of the night, he is used to drifting back to sleep unassisted. I'll rouse him in the burping process before he goes into the crib if he falls asleep nursing. We didn't have him CIO, and he was an inconsistent sleeper (sometimes great and sometimes not) until recently... he now stays down for almost 10 hours unless he is sick or teething. I find it is also easier for him to go back to sleep if my husband attends to him at night, so nursing is less of an option. I really do think that if the baby is used to a nighttime feeding, you will be stuck doing it for a while, because breaking that habit is hard. Good luck!

Pamela Raven and Son cracks me up. Not every child that is "abandoned" by their mother in a dark cold room cries themselves to sleep. UGH.

A baby that is 6 months old could be growing, and she may just need to be fed every couple hours. Some babies are easy throughout the night, some are more difficult. You could let her sleep with you, but then you have the problem of making her sleep in her room when she is older and fully aware of the situation, which can be VERY difficult!