Baby is waking up every 30 minutes at night

[paprikka]

I cosleep with my 9 month old breastfed baby. When we first started cosleeping it was a lifesaver, she would sleep 6+ hours at night without waking up. It was almost concerning. Over time she has started waking up more and more, usually 6+ times a night. This week, however, she has been waking me up every 30 minutes as soon as the sun comes up. Some times she will refuse to fall asleep until 2 am. Last night she was awake until 2:45. So she wakes me up probably 2 or 3 times between 2:45-7 am. Then she starts waking up every 30 minutes until 11:30. I know that her sleep schedule is fucked right now. I don’t know what to do about it because she genuinely refuses to sleep no matter what I do. I’m exhausted. I’m currently 2 months pregnant and feeling extremely tired from that as well and I’m not able to sleep because the only way I can get her back to sleep is nursing her. I’m losing my mind. I don’t know what to do. I’m to the point that I started looking in to sleep training but I just can’t do that

 

[joeparis123]

@paprikka Mine went through this at this age, I figured it was part of the 8-10m regression. Was horrible ours was waking very frequently and sometimes he had the most trouble getting back to sleep, esp between 3-5 am. I always nursed mine back to sleep/bed share.

 

[joeparis123]

But also why is she sleeping to 11?! That seems cray! Since it's already a mess I'd let her wake up whenever you want her to (8 for us), we do 3.5/3.25/5 wake windows, bedtime 1030. He is most prone to waking up every thirty minutes for a few hours if he's very under or over tired.

What's the nap situation? Maybe you can contact nap for a week to get her back on track!

Hang in there it's ducking brutal.

 

[paprikka]

@joeparis123 She naps pretty well most of the time, I stopped contact napping a couple of months ago. We have an upstairs nursery with blackout curtains and I have her in there with no white noise or anything. She usually will nap 45 min to an hour and a half. Some times if we’re lucky she’ll sleep for 2 hours, if I’m unlucky some times 20 minutes. So it’s just the luck of the draw with nap time lengths but I follow her cues basically for when she’s tired. Maybe being more schedule oriented in general could help us but that’s never been my thing
Contact napping does help for sure with her getting a guaranteed good nap cycle going

 

[thunderchildau]

@paprikka If I’m reading this right she naps in a room in the day that has blackout curtains? I’ve read that babies should nap in the day with daylight shining in so their circadian rhythms can adjust and “know” it’s daytime. It helps them differentiate between day sleep and night sleep. Maybe try having her nap with curtains open and see if that helps her sleep better at night. May take a couple weeks.

 

[paprikka]

@joeparis123 My sleep schedule is really bad, and the baby isn’t wanting to sleep until both my husband and I are in bed a lot of the time. My husband works until midnight half the time so it takes him a bit to wind down and I’m on his schedule

 

[joeparis123]

@paprikka I'm rereading this and waking 2-3 times 2-7 isn't awful, and I'm thinking the thirty minute wakes after that are like, circadian rhythm kinda thing. This is abso not judgey but I don't think she's meant to sleep till noon which is why it's so hard 7 am onward

I know my son literally has like a clock in him, he cannot go to bed earlier than ten and it's very hard to wake him before 7. I can't really change his schedule even when I try haha. Little baby clock.

 

[paprikka]

@joeparis123 Ok I appreciate the suggestion!! Trying to get her to sleep sooner has definitely been on my mind a lot lately. I guess I should try to connect her last nap and try to get her back to sleep for the night from there

 

[joeparis123]

@paprikka By isn't awful I mean is awful but seems normal/ common haha

 

[joeparis123]

@paprikka Got it! Thats so hard

 

[paprikka]

@joeparis123 Glad I’m not alone! I hope that’s all this is and that things go back to normal

 

[cullen95]

@joeparis123 How did your LO do at 10 months? Mine is 8m and I think he may be beginning this regression. His first sleep stretch has slowly gone from 3hrs to 2 hours to 1.5 hours (last night) ..and frequent early morning wakes …

 

[paprikka]

@cullen95 Oh man, I’m glad this isn’t just me. It must be just a normal development stage. Sorry you’re going through this as well

 

[joeparis123]

@cullen95 We had a week or two of bliss at ten months but things got hard again with teething, talking up a storm , starting to walk, and separation anxiety. Honestly it's been pretty brutal.

He turns one next week and I'm really hoping it improves. I'm struggling for sure and worse than that after a year of broken sleep I'm just losing my patience at night with him which feels awful. Just so tired and tired of getting up and nursing. .i can't side lay nurse like others so I find nighttime nursing just so exhausting. And he loves nursing and has never been a great sleeper so anyway. Hopefully ten months gives you a small break at least tho!!

 

[cullen95]

@joeparis123 I feel this. The bliss lasts a week or so and then something new happens…same here! You are not alone. May 12 months give you 3 weeks of bliss!

 

[pleinsduremords]

@joeparis123 Did it resolve by itself for you?

 

[joeparis123]

@pleinsduremords Um yes and no. Forgot to mention to one part of it was him screaming bloody murder immediately upon waking (even with me right here).

Those things have resolved but with now walking and teething and getting close to one nap transition it's back to being pretty messy. It's so so so hard. But thankful for longer stretches at night even if every night looks different, some better some worse. At least it's not every gd night haha.

 

[andy44]

@paprikka Oh yes, as soon as there is even a hint of light at like 5 am, my baby (8 months) is squirming and whining and needing to be constantly re-latched. So I basically am in that “desperately trying to stay asleep but realistically not sleeping at all” state for the last two hours of our night. And I have no idea how many times she wakes and needs me to tend to her in the night. One time I tried to count and got to 10, but maybe that included the 5 am chaos.

I would lose my mind if the night didn’t start til 2 am though. That really isn’t sustainable… unfortunately if I were you I would be waking her up for the day earlier and earlier incrementally until it’s at an appropriate time, and that way the whole day’s schedule will shift including her bedtime. Quality of sleep is supposedly best in the period of I think 7pm-midnight if I remember right, so the more hours you can get her sleeping in that window the better.

 

[kudot]

@andy44 Ugh my baby is like this and she’s six months. Im happy to hear I’m not alone because people think Its crazy or my fault when I say she wakes up so much. I can’t stand tending to her all night long and I really hope it changes soon

 

[derrickolley]

@paprikka By 6 months she should have a sleep cycle that is linked to sun light hours so it makes sense that she's struggling to sleep after sun up and she definitely shouldn't be sleeping in till 11:30am.

What time are you putting her to bed?