Help - I'm so sleep deprived I'm falling over

[BumbleNova]

All the time and dropping things. My DS (nearly 7 months) has always been a terrible sleeper. He has done 6 hours once but is currently waking every 30 to 45 mins. I've run out of ideas!

We have a solid bathtime, massage, read a book then breastfeed routine - starting at 630. I'm just about managing not to let him fall asleep on the boob. But he then wakes after 30 mins - rinse repeat.

I'm only feeding him around 7, 12 and 430/ 5. He has 2 meals a day and is EBF.

We have white noise, lavender pillow spray and a "sleep muslin". We have been co sleeping but he now elbows me out the way. We have a cot for him.

What am I doing wrong? I've read all the books and we have been doing the no cry sleep solution. I'm so lost and getting desperate.

@whereonearth not every waking - he actually rejects the boob to get him to sleep. I feed him lying down in his room, where his new cot is.

We took it in turns to be the person who got up. One night I'd wear earplugs and sleep through, next night DH would. That way we were each getting 3 nights of sleep per week, which felt like an enormous luxury.

At 7 months mine were all useless bastards at sleeping.

Does he go into his cot awake and settle himself to sleep? That's the key thing.

Maybe sit by his cot while he falls asleep but don't feed/cuddle/rock.

How many naps a day now? I'd aim for an hour in the morning 9-10, two in the afternoon 1-3. Bed at 7.

I’d say try to just stop all night feeds, however they take place. You want to break all associations with feeding and sleep. We didn’t see any improvement with my son’s sleep until I stopped feeding him at night. I didn’t think he had a feed to sleep association because he settled himself to sleep at bedtime and I’d feed him for a few minutes at a night wake but put him in his cot fairly awake. It still was enough of a ‘feeding’ association to be causing the problem. When I stopped feeding him at night, he started sleeping through and napping better.

We didn’t do controlled crying - my husband went in to him for 2-3 nights and stayed with him & did whatever it took to get him back to sleep. (Bum patting mostly). He cried and was cross but it’s anger, not being scared - there was a loving parent there. Like I said, 2-3 days of no night feeds and he was sleeping through.