7 month old suddenly stopped sleeping/self-settling-getting desperate!

[rebeccacad]

Sorry - this is a bit long!

My 7 month old has always been a pretty good sleeper at night, though was a bit of a nightmare getting her to learn to nap in the day.

She slept through for a while and then started putting in one night waking.

She has always had the same bedtime routine (bath, expressed milk bottle in dark room, put down awake) and 9 times out of 10 she went off on her own fine and never woke before 3am. I know. Lucky old me.

We've just returned from 10 days abroad. The journey out there was a nightmare and we didn't get in till 5.30am, after which she was pretty hysterical and I ended up feeding her to sleep in bed with us.

After that she has refused to self-settle for a single nap or at bedtime or after a night feed and will scream herself silly if I don't feed her in to a deep sleep. She did scream for a whole hour in the car when she wanted to fall asleep but I obviously couldn't feed her to sleep. She is screaming, screaming, screaming in a new totally hysterical way - not grizzly, tired crying. But as she now also does this screaming when I'm dressing her and she doesn't want to be dressed etc I'm inclined to think she's just learning how to express herself more forcefully.

She's now waking every 2 hours at night and up for the day full of beans at 5.30am.

I'm knackered, it kind of ruined our holiday and now we're home and she's still doing it I'm really worried. Particularly as I'm on call for someone at the moment (I"m a doula) and my husband isn't going to be able to get her back to sleep without me.

So my thoughts are: maybe she's teething (no red cheeks though, no more dribble than sual, teeth still sitting just under the gums as they have been for about 6 weeks), maybe it's a developmental thing (she seems to suddenly be very clingy, cry when I leave the room and her babbling and coordination has come on hugely in the last week), maybe it's just the disruption and she'll go back to normal.

Has anyone ever experienced this? It's like after that nightmare journey she turned in to a completely different baby and I basically don't know how to help her get back to sleep. She must be tired and I feel completely exhausted.

Thanks for your suggestions - I need a bit of MN advice today!

Hello!

I have no advice but I feel your pain. My6.5month DD has started doing the same!

Luckily she is still OK at night but daytime naps have become so elusive, and when she wakes after just 20mins say at lunchtime, there is no hope in hell of me getting her to settle back for more (she used to do 2hrs at lunch).

Also, her screaming has reached new levels - she gets herself so worked up that it's like she loses the plot and can't really remember why she's crying but just yells and yells and yells.

I have taken her to the GP twice - first time was a diagnosis of colic (weird as she's 6mths, so I don't believe that). Second time, when she did a live example of the screaming during the whole appointment, the diagnosis was teething.

I have also taken her to a McTimoney chiropractor who made lots of noises about things being misaligned, and DD being 'stiff', but nothing has changed since we saw her.

Next stop is a cranial osteopath...

I am also telling myself that it must be a phase and she will one day go back to sleeping at lunchtime so I can actually get something done?!

My only other thought is that this new behaviour started around the same time as we started weaning, so I wondered if that could be a factor?

Anyway, there's no advice there, but hopefully knowing that someone else is going through the same thing may make you feel better?

Good luck!!

Snap rebecca, we've just come back from Corfu and the whole thing turn into an endurance test. She would feed during theday and wanted to feed lots at night. But now we are home... well - last night she woke at 10pm and fed then screamed and screamed for hours and I had to feed her to sleep in my bed where she finally settled. I too am shattered. Its like coming home with a different baby. I can only assume you me and Lisba LO's are going through a developmental thing. My 'wonder weeks' book suggests this starts around now when they realise Mummy can dissappear and not come back.
Sympathy and Empathy x

Rebecca- snap too. We had a fortnight in rhodes and our good sleeper started the same. It took nearly ten days after getting home to get him 'corrected'. We put ours down to a change in water ( mixed with formula) and change in his food ( normally home made purees) but I guess it could just eqaully be the unsettlement of change! Good luck!

This is reassuring me hugely - thanks so much. Glad to know it's not just my baby that's been swapped with one who hates sleeping!

my 6.5 month old has started doing exactly this. having been the incredible sleeping baby who slept all night (well 9pm to 7am)from virtually day one and self settled if she did wake has disapppeared .

since i started weaning her 2 weeks ago she has been waking on and off through the night and needing to co sleep . she has a cold and am hoping that when this settles and she is more use to having food in her tummy she will settle again. as at the moment i wake up feeling i haven't really slept at all.

I am currently having a nightmare with my LO - she started waking in the night at 6.5 months, settled a bit at 7months (for about a week) and has now got worse again. She is waking between 3.10am and 6am. She will wake up and cry, does not need food, have tried bonjela, she just wants company, she is clearly tired but won't self settle. When we leave the room she will cry again and eventually will go quiet, only to wake aqain 20minutes later and go through the whole process again. I am knackered - having been up for hours the last few nights - she was better than this as a newborn. Any ideas?

We have had phases like this too. One turned out to be teething, one I think was developmental (she was learning to sleep on her stomach, slept much better once she'd got used to that) and the latest one I think was linked to the huge cold she's just come down with! So fingers crossed it will all settle down again by itself soon.

In the meantime if she is overtired, a few long pushchair walks might help to sort things out if she sleeps well in there?