All About 6 Month Olds
6 months. Welcome to Little Winks Sleep, where our clients with 6 month olds are Keeping. Us. Busy.
And it makes sense! Typically parents have this mindset of ‘Baby is so little. They’ll get the hang of it eventually’. And around 3 months, baby lulls them into this false sense of security that they are nap champions. I’ve fallen for it myself. I even have the t-shirt.
Then BOOM: 4 month regression. And though we tell ourselves to just keep swimming and make all-sorts of promises to the universe that we intend to keep should baby actually start sleeping through the night … we eventually do hit a wall. And it’s a brick one. Ouch. For many people, this happens in month 6.
So let’s talk about life with 6 month olds! What are the benefits of teaching them to sleep at this age? What are the challenges?
Benefits:
Baby’s weight is at a point where you can feel confident that night feeds are not necessary to keep them healthy. Paediatricians agree that night feeds are necessary for baby’s development at least until they are 13-15 lbs. Typically babies have reached this weight by 6 months.
6 month old’s don’t protest that much. As soon as they understand the skill, they are much more willing to adapt it as a habit. Teaching sleep can become more difficult once baby reaches 10 months of age (though it’s far from impossible) because baby becomes more aware and vocal.
You’re getting longer awake times (generally 2.5 hours), so you can actually do things. You are out of the land of constantly napping. Want to pop by the park? Pick up your fav beverage at the coffee shop? Get some groceries? It all just became possible.
Baby is getting really interactive and their personality really comes out. They are engaged and want to explore. Awake time becomes fun!
Challenges:
Awake times drastically increase. You quickly have to shift to a 3 → 2 nap transition to accommodate this change. Thankfully, we walk you through that.
We’re starting solids at this point. This can confuse whether a nap might be rough because of timing, or gas, for example. At Little Winks Sleep, we recommend not beginning another new skill while teaching sleep. It’s best to focus on and understand one skill at a time.
Teething usually starts picking up. Teeth typically only hurt for a couple of days when they are popping through, but they drool for a month and a half, so parents sometimes take more extreme measures with sleep to comfort their kiddos. These comfort methods (often rocking or feeding to sleep) can cause baby to start to rely on us as parents to get them to sleep again.
Parents often get nap-trapped. They are so desperate for sleep that they’ll go hardcore in our coaching and self-led courses, and practice ALL of baby’s naps in the crib. Then they lose those on-the-go skills. It’s great to keep some stroller, cap, or carrier naps going so that we can still use those napping on-the-go skills.
Bored and tired can look the same. Often parents rush too quickly to the nap, when they could try a distracting activity and baby will perk back up. This rushing to the nap can cause babies to take a long time to settle, and it means the nap won’t be as quality.
Coach Bonnie and I had a conversatation all about 6 months old. You can watch the video below!
If you have a 6 month old and you feel like you need a hand with sleep, feel free to check out our self-led course, Sleep Sleep Baby. One of our coaches hosts a Q&A each month for additional support.
Or if you’re the 1:1/BFF type, check us out and we’ll get a coaching package going that’s right for you. You can do that on our website at HERE
Not sure what’s best for you? Book a free 15 minute call with one of our coaches HERE and they can talk with you about what’s happening with your baby and sleep.
Sleep sweetly,
Anna