To sleep, perchance to dream . . .

After a brutal first 5 days trying to teach Atticus to settle himself to sleep, I can report a little light at the end of the tunnel. He has a wonderful, long bedtime routine and now usually drops off to sleep without crying. We still have night-feeds to contend with, and I'm trying to work out where I stand on that one, but in general he is sleeping solidly from 7pm-1am. The witching hour comes around 4am when he really wants to get up and at the world. In the early days I would just tuck him in bed next to me and nurse him until I was ready to get up. Now, if I try that, he nurses and then gets up to play- thinking he's just had breakfast. So, we need to find a common ground there but, for now at least, there is a little sleep happening in our house.

Welcome to my nightmare

Ah, the nights of my baby sleeping sweetly for hours has come to and end. As with his sister, Atticus was an increasingly good sleeper as an infant- notching up a full night (well 8pm-5am) by about 3 months. However, yet again, here I am at 6 months with an otherwise settled and happy baby who wakes literally every hour throughout the night crying sadly. Is it separation anxiety? Teething? Increased mobility flipping him onto his face or back? I don't know and I don't know how to fix it.

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I do know what not to do. I am not nursing him every time he wakes, but do feed him when hungry (usually around 11pm, 4am and 7 am). Right now he is up for the 7th time in the hour since I put him to bed. It goes without saying that we are all shattered beyond reconition and ready to try almost anything.

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He has a beautiful bedtime routine: family dinner, bath, massage, song, breast, more songs and snuggles; and a regular bedtime. He loves his crib, and wakes up in the morning to gurgle and coo at the silk veils and rainbow mobile of paper cranes and his sister's face peeping in.

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He is feeding well during the day- both solids and breast-milk, and is otherwise thriving. I know that this is probably my doing somehow, and have always found sleep to be the hardest aspect of parenting my children, as the best of plans made in the light and logic of day can go out of the window in the somnabulic state of the early hours. I just hope I can find a solution that doesn't require crying it out for hours at a time.