Help!!
During the day my 6 month old is the happiest, most chill baby. Literally smiles all day everyday. He has never cried much and because he was a bit early (3 weeks) I was a little reluctant/hesitant to sleep train as early as my first. He was also always a relatively good sleeper so it never seemed pressing.
The 4 month sleep regression hit and it was rough. We were traveling during the time for almost 3 weeks of back to back travel so I gave grace for that. Cue a 4 week cold. Here we are at 6 months and things couldn’t be worse.
I try for 2/2.5/2.5/3 but each nap doesn’t extend pass 30-40 min unless I go in and rescue it. The last catnap is impossible unless it’s a contact nap. I’ve had days in the last week where I’m spending 6+ hours just sitting in his nursery with him which is difficult since my husband is a pilot with a constantly changing schedule and I have a toddler. I am on my own quite a bit and just can’t leave my 3 year old unattended for long periods of time.
We started CIO for bedtime after a bath, full feed, and cuddle and he normally goes down in under 30 minutes. I tried checkins with bedside soothing (hand on the back, patting, shushing) but it only seemed to upset him more. What’s happened now is a wake up around 2:30AM that takes 5+ attempts of 15 minutes or more of crying with increasing levels of intervention each time. I offer a feed but he just falls asleep. I try to put him down and he immediately wakes up and cue 20 minutes of crying until
I try again. It’s 4:15AM right now and I’ve been up since 2:30 trying to get him back to sleep totally unsuccessfully. He’s eaten, changed, been picked up and put down, rocked. Outside of bringing him to bed out of desperation for my own sanity and sleep I don’t know what to do. I had a mental break this week out to pure frustration and exhaustion. Can you help me fix what I’m doing wrong??
Edited to add: After writing this I got him and brought him to bed with me and he was fully passed out asleep within 2 minutes.