Holy Sleep HELL!

This question is actually about my nearly-6 month old singleton, not my twins. In fact, my singleton is making my twins look like a breeze in the sleep department ;-)!
I'm hoping for a little insight or advice here. I'm not a new Mom, but my twins and my singleton are like day and night.

I'll start by saying that DS3 (singleton) is exclusively breastfed (we try to throw in a bottle of breast milk here and there to allow my DH, me, and our older boys to go out for a while, but he fights the bottle terribly). He has always nursed during the night, but we appear to be having a major setback.

A few weeks ago DS3 started showing clear signs that he wants to go to bed earlier. So, he now goes down around 8pm. He takes about 3 naps/day which vary wildly in terms of length--anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hrs (3 hrs being rare).
He was waking once per night to nurse--usually around 3 or 4 am. About a week ago, he started waking earlier around 1 or 2 am. This then caused him to wake again around 4 or 5 am.
For the past several nights, he has gone down around 8 or 9pm, is fairly unsettled over the next couple of hours causing DH or I to have to go up 2 or 3 times. We try to give him a paci to settle him back, but he's refusing that now, too. If he settles back, he then wants to get up and nurse again around 1am, won't always go right back to sleep, and is up again a few hours later. The past few nights, he's only sleeping maybe 3 hours (if that) at any one time (at night). He had been going about twice that long.
This wouldn't be as bad if I didn't have to get up at 7am with 2 year old toddlers. I'm absolutely EXHAUSTED!

So, what's going on? What do I need to change here? Are my expectations too high? My older boys were sleeping through the night long before this.
DS3 is still swaddled, although he fights it. But, when I remove it, he wakes himself very quickly by batting himself in the face. I do believe he's starting to teethe and even gave him Tylenol a couple of times to see if that would help him, but it made no difference. He can be gassy, so I regularly give anti-gas drops before bed. He is burped, he is sometimes rocked.
I don't believe he's waking from hunger. The boy isn't even 6 months old and is just shy of 20 lbs.!
I should add that he sleeps in his crib in our room and my face is only about a foot away from his at night. Is he waking out of habit to nurse because he knows he can?

It just seems to me that at this stage, we should be able to expect a good 6-7 hour stretch at night.
We didn't sleep train the boys til around 1 year old, if you could even call it that. They have always been pretty good sleepers. I hate to think of sleep training yet. He seems too young. But, I'm getting desperate. I wonder if I should leave the room so he doesn't see me right there. But, why is waking so frequently in the first place? I don't know. I just know something has to change a bit. Even it he would go from 9ish to 3am or so and then again until 7am would be fine. But this every 2-3 hr thing at 6 months old is for the birds (he still nurses every 2-3 hrs during the day)!

I'm sure I'm forgetting some details, but I hear him crying. Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

 

I would move the crib to another room and have dh soothe him when he wakes so he doesn't smell you. Just moving the crib might help.

 

I agree to move the crib. That was the first thing to help me with my singleton and the next thing was when I was able to wean myself off using the baby monitor. Part of my problem was that I was reacting EVERY time I heard something from her out of instinct. That being said - it definitely could be teething or a growth spurt. Unfortunately, I'm not much help there. Only 2 things helped my daughter with teething a dose of ibuprofen (when she was old enough) and a good nursing session.

 

There are a whole bunch of possible things. It definitely could be teething. It could also be a growth spurt (6 months is common). Have you started solids? Starting solids can disrupt sleep. It could also be developmental - any new milestones that he's working on? It's also possible that he's overtired - that can often cause more night wakings. Do you think he might be ready to drop a nap & move to a much earlier bedtime? My experience had been that sleep cycles. Sometimes my children sleep really well and then sometimes they don't. Hang in there! It'll get better.

 

I could have written a similar post for my singleton!!! My tiny twins slept through the night without looking back at 4 months, but my big breastfed, no-binky baby woke 1-2 times a night until 10 months!! I tried everything! There is lots of good advice here... two things that I found helpful for me were (1) ibuprofen for teething. I never found Tylenol helpful at all when it came to teething. Your son is almost 6 months which is the age you can start it so it might be worth a try. (2) oatmeal. I switched from rice cereal to oatmeal at dinner time around 9 months and it wasn't long before his sleeping improved. I don't know if you are doing solids yet, but that is another easy thing to try if you aren't doing that already. Good luck... sleep issues are not fun!!

 

I would try a much earlier bedtime.... sorry I was going to write more but 'they" are now yelling for me to come get them up from their nap... will come back and update later...

 

Okay I'm back, half a day later ... We went through something similar with Liara and if I could go back and change a few things, one of them would be to keep her naps to a more consistent length .ie. To wake her when she slept too long.. Anyway here are some of my thoughts on your issues:

- try an earlier bedtime, if anything this will help him get that extra sleep he is not currently getting, even if it means that the 3rd nap is only 30-45mins. Our girls have a 5.30 bedtime and have done since 4months. They have a 5.30 wake up too which isn't great but at least it's 12hours.
- move to a different room if possible - you might find that with you not hearing his fussing he may gradually fall back asleep without you nearby (I now shut my bedroom door because I can still hear them if they cry but just means that I don't hear their little noises).
- sleep cycles at this age from what I remember are two during night sleep... You could try not responding to the 1am wake up, we actually did this, because I just figured, well you just spent 2mths sleeping without that feed so I know you can do it again! But we were on bottles and she wasn't finishing the feed so this was easier for me.
- teething,I put amber beads on them when they were 4mths old and we didn't even know they were teething until their teeth popped up one morning! yes there were nights when I gave her panadol when I wasn't sure what it was waking her up, but like you it didn't help.

I wish had some magical advice for you because Liara was exactly the same, and combined with Sierra's seriously horrid gas issues (which btw cleared up at 7months so hang in there!), I remember how frustrating and crazy it is not getting the sleep you desperately crave.

HTH.

 

Thanks for the thoughts, ladies. I am starting to think that LO is just going to be one of those babies who takes a while to start sleeping longer stretches.
The past few nights have been a little better.
Last night, I put him down around 8-8:30p and he woke to nurse around 1:30a. So that's a 5 hr stretch. We went back to sleep around 2:30a and he was back up in the 6:00a hour. He's still not getting as many continuous hours during the night as I'd expect by now.
I'm open to moving the bedtime earlier (and shorten or eliminate the 3rd nap), but my sense is that he'll still wake around the same times he's used to nursing, rather than sleep through.

Sleep is definitely tough right now. I just signed a contract to write a grant for my former employer. I work from about 8-10p and so am not getting to sleep until about 11p. Then, LO is getting up about 2 hrs later, and again a few hrs later, then it's time for the older boys to wake. So, you can see why I'm tired.... as most of us are!

This time won't last forever. But, if he'd go til about 3 or 4am before waking to nurse, I'd be a happy mama (although what he's doing now is better for my milk supply!)!

missbossy-- what's your LO's schedule like now as our boys are only days apart?

Oh, as for solids, I gave him a taste of oatmeal cereal 2x in the last week just to see if he seemed interested since he'll be 6 months old in 4 days. He really didn't. I'm in no hurry to start giving solids regularly. I think we'll ease into it. Plus, I don't buy into the "myth" that he'll magically sleep better when he starts.

 

Emmett usually wakes up around 6:30am. He naps 2 - 3 times/day (if it's 3 naps it's usually around 8:30am, 11:00am, 3:30pm - ish. If it's 2 naps it's more like 9:00am, 1:00pm - ish). And he goes to bed between 6:00pm - 6:30pm most nights. I nurse him before I go to bed around 10:30pm - 11:00pm & then he wakes once or twice during the night to nurse. The longest single stretch he's given me so far was 7 hours. Once. But most nights I get at least a 5 hour stretch. If he's overtired or otherwise not feeling well, he may wake 3 - 4 times, which sucks the big one.