Oh sleep…how I miss you! I’m looking for some help and/or commiseration on our sweet six month old’s nighttime sleep. It’s a long story so have your coffee ready!

Starting around 6 weeks old, we would almost always get a good 5 hour stretch between night feedings (nursing, on demand). Then the 4 month regression hit us hard, holiday travel, learning to sit up from laying down, crawling, etc., and we were up every 2-3 hours (10 pm, 2 am, 4 am, 6 am, almost exactly). Obviously, that was not going to work long term. At her 6 month ped appointment, her doctor assured me she could go longer at nights without a feeding so we decided that DH would comfort her any time before midnight and I would try to get down to one overnight feed over the course of a week. It went well but we soon realized it wasn’t really fair because DD didn’t know what time it was so it was a little sporadic (in her mind) if I would come feed her or not. So we dropped that single feed last week. The first few nights went surprisingly well with just some brief whining around midnight. It never escalated to full on crying so I felt ok about it. Those few nights were heaven and I thought we had reached a turning point. But the past three nights have been all over the place. She still goes to sleep ok but starts whining again around 8, 10, 12, 2, 4…just all hours. I say whining and not crying because she is rarely even fully awake. If we go in and pat her, she will settle and stop but will start back up after about 15 minutes. This went on for over an hour last night with checks. I really don’t want to backtrack and start feeding again but we are at a lost. Some other things to consider:
• We have a pretty solid nighttime routine with bath, books, a few minutes of rocking. I did move nursing before bath to disassociate feeding with falling asleep. Typical night look like 5:00 pm nursing, 5:30 starting to “eat” some solids, 6:00 bath and pjs, and it the crib by 6:30. My DH doesn’t get home until 6:00 so I would hate to move it earlier but I know that it might need to happen.
• She’s been in her room, in her crib since about 6 weeks old. She never liked being swaddled so she is just in footed pjs and has been for a while.
• We nap trained around Thanksgiving and DD goes in her crib awake for naps. She falls asleep pretty easily but the self-soothing does not translate to night. We do an EASY schedule during the day so feeding and naps are spaced apart. I typically do an extra nursing session after that last nap and before dinner.
• She has a lovey in the crib that she uses some of the time. She never took to a paci but there is one in there just in case!

Anything I’m missing that might help her out? And any ideas about the whining – maybe that is her way to self soothe? We say she sounds like a motor trying to start!

After writing all this out, I’m realizing the one thing we probably need to do is just be patient! She is a happy and healthy little girl and I know that is what is most important.