My 5.5 Month Old Is An Awful Sleeper: Why It’s Happening And What’s Actually Working
It’s 2:14 a.m. and I’m leaning against the crib rail, staring at my 5.5 month old who just woke up for the fourth time since 10 p.m. My water bottle’s empty, the baby’s pacifier is still warm from his mouth, and my partner’s asleep down the hall because he has an early work shift he can’t miss. Three weeks ago, we had a solid stretch: he slept six hours straight three nights in a row. I posted a proud photo of him sleeping in his crib to my family group chat and thought we’d cracked it. Now? I’d give anything for a three hour unbroken stretch.
I’ve tried all the basic stuff. I cut out the late afternoon nap, moved bedtime 15 minutes earlier, then 15 minutes later, I feed him an extra ounce before bed, I even tried oatmeal in his bottle like my mom suggested. That just gave him a bad case of gas, so that’s out. I scroll parenting Instagram at 2 a.m. and see all the sleep consultants saying he should be sleeping 12 hours a night by now, that I’m creating bad habits by picking him up, that I just need to be consistent with cry it out. But when I tried that the other night, he cried so hard he threw up all over his crib sheet, and I felt like the worst person alive. So that’s not for us.
I brought up the constant night wakings at our well-baby checkup last week, ready to hear I was doing something wrong. Instead, our pediatrician laughed and said most people don’t talk about the 5.5 month sleep surge. The 4 month regression gets all the press, but between 5 and 6 months, babies are suddenly mastering half a dozen new skills at once. For my son, that’s rolling. He just figured out how to go from back to belly last week, and his brain doesn’t stop practicing it, even when he’s asleep. He’ll roll over in the middle of a sleep cycle, forget how to roll back, panic, and wake up fully. It’s not that he’s hungry, or that he hates his crib, it’s that his brain is working overtime. It’s a developmental growing pain, not a failure of sleep training.
That clicked for me, so I made a few tiny, low-effort changes instead of overhauling our whole routine. The first thing I added was 10 minutes of unstructured skill practice right before the bedtime routine. Every night after his bath, I lay him on his play mat on the floor, and just let him roll. If he gets stuck and fusses, I help him out, but mostly I just sit on the floor and fold laundry while he goes back and forth, over and over. He gets tired out from practicing, and it’s not a new, exciting thing to try in the dark anymore. That alone cut one wake-up out a night, which felt like a huge win.
Next, I adjusted his crib in two tiny, safe ways. I swapped out the loose, fancy organic crib sheet I loved for a cheaper, tighter-fitting pack and play sheet I had lying around. The old one would bunch up under him when he rolled, and he’d get mad at the lumps, which would wake him up more. I also tucked a worn cotton t-shirt of mine under his sheet, at the head of the crib, so the smell is there but it’s not loose enough to be a safety hazard. I don’t do co-sleeping because I’m a light enough sleeper that I never actually rest, but the familiar smell helps him calm down faster when he jolts awake.
Finally, I changed how I resettle him. I used to hear him cry, jump up, turn on the nursery light, pick him up, rock him, feed him just to be sure he wasn’t hungry. Now, I wait 30 seconds first. Half the time, he’s just grumbling in his sleep, or working through a new movement, and he’ll settle back down on his own. If he keeps crying, I walk in, keep the light off, reach into the crib, put my hand on his back to hold him steady, help roll him to his back if he’s stuck, pop the pacifier in, rub his back for 10 seconds, then leave. I don’t pick him up unless he’s actually hungry or hysterical. That keeps him in that half-asleep state, so he doesn’t fully wake up and need an hour to wind down again.
Last night, he went down at 7:30 after 12 minutes of extra rolling (he was really focused on getting the movement just right that time) and woke up first at 11:12. I did the resettle, he was out in 2 minutes. Then he didn’t wake up again until 3:47. That was a four and a half hour stretch. I woke up at 3:47 and couldn’t believe I’d slept that long. I fed him, did the resettle, and he slept until 6:30. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best night we’ve had in three weeks.
I know this won’t last. Next month, he’ll probably figure out how to sit up, and then he’ll be doing that in his crib all night, and we’ll be right back here. I still forget to answer text messages half the time because I’m tired, I still eat cold cereal for dinner more nights than not. I don’t have a perfect sleep routine, and I don’t have a baby that sleeps through the night. But I stopped looking at this as a problem I created, or a problem I need to fix immediately. It’s just what happens when your baby is 5.5 months old, growing faster than his little body can keep up some days.
If you’re here too, up at 2 a.m. with your 5.5 month old awful sleeper, you don’t have to try a 10-step sleep overhaul or force a method that doesn’t feel right for you. Try 10 minutes of skill practice before bed, swap the loose crib sheet, wait 30 seconds before you pick him up. It won’t fix everything overnight, but it might get you one extra hour of uninterrupted sleep. That’s enough for right now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » My 5