7 month old suddenly waking ALL the time

[HP21]

Hi all,
Whilst my 7 month old has never been the best sleeper, we had reached the stage at 4-6 months that she was sometimes (rarely!) sleeping through but mostly only waking once or twice per night. She was also going withought a feed for 12 hours overnight.

At 6 months this all went wrong and now, at 7 months, she is waking anywhere from one to 6 times per night. Sometimes it seems to be teething pain, sometimes wind and sometimes for no reason at all. When she is inconsolable I have given in and fed her and she has taken a lot of milk so maybe she was hungry??!

I am shattered but what worries me the most is that it doesn't seem to be getting any better. Have I done something terrible along the way to have made her do this???

She is breastfed and we are going down the baby led weaning route. She's a healthy weight and otherwise a smiley, happy baby!

Any thoughts/ tips/ suggestions/ sympathy ;) would be great! Thanks!

[Cavort]

Sending sympathy as I've been there and you can see from the time now that we're still not out of the woods yet at 15 months.

It's just a phase. It could be the things you mentioned or just a developmental milestone but whatever it is it will pass.

My DD is also night weaned but goes through phases like this when she insists on a night feed. I just give her one. It never lasts long and then she goes back to not having one again.

[purplemurple1]

To me it sounds simply that she needs more food during the day. Could you either bf more or spoon feed?
Mine just couldn't do blw, whilst he could get food in and chew he just needed more than his interest/concentration would allow. As he also decided milk was just a drink and wanted food at all hours I started spoon feeding until he got the hang of shovelling things like mash in with his fists until he was full rather than bored.

[HP21]

Thanks both for your advice :) and sympathy.

It's good to know that you have been through similar, Cavort. I'll carry on feeding her at night and hopefully eventually she'll phase out the night feeds again by herself. It's just nice to know I'm not the only one who has been through this.

Purplemurple, the weird thing is that started to eat a lot more solids in the last few days. I was hoping it would help, bit no luck so far!

Fingers crossed it's just a developmental thing and stops being a night time party baby soon.

:)

[AnotherStitchInTime]

It is just a developmental thing and will pass.

Teething, learning to crawl/sit/stand/walk, wind due to trying new foods, full moon....

Who knows? DC3 is still in this phase at nearly 9 months and likes to wake for an hour between 4 and 5am as well as several feeds. Dd1 woke at night until she was 2. Dd2 is 2.5 and has only started sleeping through recently. It has been nearly 6 years since I had an unbroken nights sleep

[HP21]

Thank you, AnotherStitchInTime. It helps massively to hear that it probably isn't me that's messed up along the way :)

You must be exhausted. Why does no one tell you these things before you have a baby??? Maybe for fear that the human population would die out!?

[AnotherStitchInTime]

I think people like to perpetuate the myth to each other for fear that they will be judged/told that friend's baby sleeps all night. A lot more babies wake at night than people admit. It is a highly competitive subject . It is probably an inbuilt baby safe guarding system to stop them dropping into deep sleep for risk of SIDS and to keep the mother (and food source) nearby.