7 month old sleep gone to shit after illness. How do we get back on track?!

[Dillybear]

I’m back looking for sleep advice, again! 🤦🏼‍♀️ My DD is not a good sleeper. Pretty much all the threads I’ve started on mumsnet have been about her crappy sleep. She certainly isn’t the worst I read about, but I’m struggling again at the moment and could use some advice.

She’s almost seven months now. She self settles for pretty much all her naps and at bedtime. She is getting better and better at this and it’s very rare now that I have to go in when she’s going down to sleep. Until recently, overnight she would wake 2-3 times for a feed, which was really not ideal but two feeds were manageable. The wake ups were lasting around 15 minutes so I did get some sleep between them. In terms of naps, she naps well. I try to keep her total naps to three hours in a day or less, as I find she sleeps worse when she gets too much daytime sleep.

On Wednesday she woke up early in the night and sounded really unwell, clearly had a cough/cold (not coronavirus!). I knew she wasn’t herself and wouldn’t settle in the cot. I don’t believe in fighting a losing battle with a poorly child so brought her into bed with me. She didn’t sleep well (and I just didn’t sleep as she was so restless) but she slept more than she would have otherwise. Same again on Thursday. Friday, she was doing better so she has been back in her own cot since then. Anyway, her wake ups are taking hours now. She falls back to sleep on her own for 6-7 minutes at a time, then wakes and fusses. Sometimes she cries and I go in, but she calms down straight away when I comfort her so I know she’s not in pain. Other times she’s just clearly trying to get back to sleep and struggling. However, for her naps and bedtime she is still going to sleep perfectly happily on her own. The last three nights she has had around nine hours’ sleep on average. This morning she couldn’t get back to sleep after she woke for a feed at 5am - for her, that is very unusual, I actually can’t think of another time that’s happened.

I just don’t know what to do anymore. She self settles! That’s supposed to be the key to good sleep! Why can’t she get back to sleep at night? Do I just need to ride it out? Do babies just regress after they’ve been poorly? I realise she’s not the worst sleeper, but the longest stretch of sleep I’ve had since she was born has been about 4 hours and the lack of sleep is starting to really affect my mental health. I keep hoping things will get better, but I’m starting to lose that hope now. It’s just one thing after the next.

[Harrysmummy246]

It's only been 5 days, can hardly say it's gone to shit!

What are you doing when she's only sleeping a few minutes? She's only 7 mo old so could well need milk or cuddling. That's not unreasonable

[Harrysmummy246]

Entirely possible she's still got congestion or earache.

Or teething

[Dillybear]

@Harrysmummy246 thanks for your reply. I feed her when she wakes up every time. I know she can go back to sleep on her own, so I assume that if she’s starting to fuss when she’s woken up that she needs something. I don’t actually think she has much milk, I think it’s more comfort than anything. But I don’t mind that, it’s being awake for 2 hours at a time that is the problem! It’s just hard to understand why the wake ups are taking so long, but she can get herself off to sleep fairly easily. Especially as she used to be able to get back to sleep no problem after a feed overnight.

[Harrysmummy246]

8-10 mo sleep regression incoming

Baby sleep does not just get better....

Yes it's frustrating and exhausting and draining but unless you are willing to sleep train (never here), then boob and cosleep and go to bed early was what worked for me

Didn't night wean til 21mo either

[Bobble011019]

Sounds like she's regressing. This happened us with DS and he went from being an amazing sleeper to a terrible sleeper. He's now almost 1 and he still doesn't sleep.

If I had to give you advice I would suggest try not putting her in the bed because you then become their dependency :( it gets harder and harder the older they are to train them out of this too. Could be teething/growing. Try settle her in the cot and hope it fixes itself.