6 Month Old Canberra Baby Fighting Sleep

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Baby Sleep Coach Raquel Tara Canberra Infant Sleep Q & A

Allison a mother of an almost 6 month in O’Connor, Canberra ACT in old says:

Hi Raquel,

I having some issues with my almost 6 month old son.

The last 7 days now he’s been fighting naps & not wanting to nap at all. He’s been either fighting his bottles or when he does eat he won’t eat very long. He tries to fight us at bed time too. His routine has always been the same he wakes at 8 am. He usually takes 1-2 naps. He gets a bath about 7:30-8:00 and goes for bed about 9.

Paediatrician told us it could be the size of the nipple on his bottle, the formula or his teething. He does fine with the size of the nipple on his bottle. I’m worried about upping it because he has a habit of eating too fast and almost choking. His formula is fine. We have him on soy because he can’t tolerate milk based and it possibly could be the teething and being very overtired – I don’t know. I’ve tried everything from letting him chew on a teething toy, panadol, bounce to tire himself out and even cuddle with him and do skin to skin and nothing seems to work. Any advice would be amazing!

Raquel Tara Baby Sleep & Development Consultant’s response:

I can see straight away from the information you have given here that some changes need to be made to his sleep routine. I would start with E.A.S.Y (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You), with a top up around 30 minutes before each nap and full after dinner bottle (if he’s on solids) before the bath routine (no top ups before naps). At 6 months the average baby is still waking for 1-2 feeds overnight. The key to having them drop those feeds overnight is to have them know how to self settle by breaking the sleep habits such as feeding to sleep or rocking to sleep, dummy/pacifier and so on.

6 months: some babies will start to show signs of the 3-2 nap transition at this age by refusing the 3rd nap or the 3rd nap begins too late in the day. We can help hold off the transition by capping the first two naps at around 1.5 hours each (and making sure the 2nd nap ends by 1:45-2:15pm) to ensure the 3rd nap can occur. About 2.5-3.5 hours in naps is average at this age, and 14.5 hrs/24 hour period.

His bedtime is also very late. The healthiest and most restorative sleep happens between 10pm-2am. This is true for both babies AND adults. Babies need around 4 hours more sleep than adults though so having them in bed and asleep by 8pm is key. For a baby of 6 months a schedule of 6-7pm-6-7am is ideal. We base that on when the last nap of the day occurs and at this age we want that last nap to be finished by 4pm.

If you want some help with this, I can come to your home and support you through these changes. You can have a looking at my packages here:

Canberra Overnight Respite and Respectful Sleep Training — all done for you in your home by Raquel Tara, Australia’s Leading Baby Sleep Consultant.