Help and advice needed! Multiple wakings (long, sorry!)

[kitty1989]

Hi there,

My DD is almost 7 months old (29weeks) and has always had issues with sleep. She has never slept through, the best we have had was 2 nights at 4 months of 1am - 6.30am! Now she is waking up 5/6 times in the night, some nights waking at 3 am for a few hours.
DD starts to show signs of sleepiness around 6.30 pm so we change her into sleepsuit, nappy change etc & feed. She doesn't always feed to sleep, normally she pulls away and grabs my finger (dummy signal) usually she is asleep after that within minutes. Some nights it's a screaming battle until she's asleep, following the same as above. After that she sleeps on me & feeds occasionally until 9pm when I put her into her cot in her own room. We go to bed between 10pm & 11pm and if it's been over 2 hours since last feed I will give her a dreamfeed. This is where the fun begins.

She will wake by midnight. Then again an hour after, and an hour after and so on. Usually after going back to sleep approx 4.30 am - 5am she will sleep until 6.30 - 7.30. Each time she wakes she feeds and follows the same 'routine' as above but with me putting her back in her cot after 10mins of sleep - she usually wakes up as soon as her head touches her cot so it begins again. I have tried to leave her to self soothe but she just gets so wound up. I left her to cry the other night after trying to settle her for 50 mins (she wouldnot feed, she was just crying) and she continued to cry for over an hour, then I went back and she eventually went back to sleep after another hour of cuddles, milk and dummy.
During the day she tends to have a nap 2-3 hrs after waking for an hour. She naps following the same as night time- milk & dummy. She usually naps on me or in her pushchair if we're out. She also naps for 2 hours in the afternoon until 4.30 ish.
We are 99%sure she has cmpa and I'm now thinking she may have a wheat allergy (sleep got a lot worse after starting to have toast every morning) when I cut out /reduced dairy from my diet (she's bf) we did see an improvement in her colic type symptoms but these seem to be coming back now, and it's still 2 months until our appointment with the allergy specialist!
My dp can't help with night time as she wants feeds and he needs sleep as he has to be up at 6am for work and I'm reluctant to express until I'm 100% sure all dairy is out of my system.

I know that the routine I've got us into really isn't helping things, neither is teething or the allergies but I just don't know what to do now I really am desperate for us all to have a decent nights sleep! Please help me I don't know what to do

[kitty1989]

Wowzers that is long, i didnt want to drip feed...thank you to anyone who has the patience to read this x

[FATEdestiny]

I would do all settling in the cot. Not on your lap at 7 months old, when younger maybe but not at this age.

I would also, for the sake of your sanity, either have the cot next to your bed in your bedroom or have a spare bed next to the cot in baby's bedroom for you to sleep in.

Then at every wake during the night and for putting down to sleep at night and in the daytime, feed, dummy and into the cot. Then stay right there next to baby, lying on your bed eye-to-eye with your arm in the cot, firm hand on chest/back and patting for reassurance. Calm, quiet, reassuring, always present. But not picking baby up. Keep on putting that dummy back in, shushing, patting, reassuring through any crying.

[kitty1989]

Thanks for yor help we had a much better night last night thankfully! She sneakily nodded off on me during the last feed so I woke her & put her in the cot where she slept for 30min then woke up screaming and it took 90mins of shush patting (she thinks this is a game) and holding her hand until went back to sleep at 9.30! I.didn't do the dreamfeed when we went to bed at 10 as I'd given her a super quick feed while trying to settle her and she slept until 12.30! Woke up, quick feed and cuddle and put back in the cot almost asleep, just hand holding for 5min until asleep, then the same again at 3.30! It's really given me a boost and I was so happy when I got her to sleep without feeding to sleep! Fingers crossed we have the same tonight. Thank you flowers