To ask for help with my 7month old baby’s routine?

[jellybellydancer]

My 7 month old is not a great sleeper so I want some opinions and ideas on what our current routine is so I can try and improve our night times.

8am wake
9am breakfast
10am nap (bf to sleep) for approx 40 mins
1pm lunch
2pm 2nd nap (bf to sleep) for approx 40 mins
5pm 3rd nap (bf to sleep) for approx 40 mins
7pm dinner
7:30pm bath
8pm bed (bf to sleep)

DS still wakes at least twice a night but can be up to every two hours. He’s not in his own room yet because of the amount of waking up and I do just feed him back to sleep because it’ll take 5 mins as opposed to leaving him awake and he’s rolling around, hitting his cot, chatting etc.

HV suggested stopping BF to sleep and putting him in his own room. So I’ll try that next week. I’m happy to try gentle sleep training but I don’t want him to be too upset. He will only feed to sleep with me, I cannot seem to shh him, rock or pat him to sleep. Although he will sleep with his dad if he holds him.

I have weaned him and he is on 3 meals a day now, this helped his sleep initially but he’s gone back to how he was before again with bad sleeping. Although he is a bit poorly this week.

Obviously you can’t do this every night but have you tried giving him some calpol and/or ibuprofen in the run up to bedtime. It might help you rule out whether pain (most likely teething) is contributing to the waking up during the night which will help you have some appropriate strategies to deal with stopping bf during the night.

Weaning made no difference to my boy's sleep at all so don't count on that being a cure all! Is he upset in the night or just chatting and moving? We only go in if our DS is crying or yelling. I'd suggest that last nap is a bit late - we never let our sleep past 4pm if we could help it - he is normally asleep by 7.30 at the very latest.

We FF but only moved from feed to sleep for nighttime sleep at about 10 months. It didn't make any difference to his overall nights sleep so just do what you want - 7 months is still little. My DS is 16 months and settles himself off to sleep now for nap and bedtime.

He needs to learn to self settle so that when he wakes in the night he can roll over and go back to sleep without the need for comforting.
I would suggest stopping feeding to sleep to start, you have to do it in stages but firstly you may try feeding him before bedtime and ensuring he stays awake then when feeding and burping is done, perhaps rock or cuddle & pat to sleep. Do this for a few days then you could try putting him in his bed and sushing him whilst patting and stroking head etc. If he cries a bit then let him for a few mins, cuddle and soothe then put back down etc. You need to slowly wean him off of being comforted to sleep so that he can do it himself. That will help with the night wakings.
Also very dark room - pitch black if you can.
Self settling is basically the crux of the matter, at 7 months he is used to being bf to sleep, you have to break that habit and ensure he can get to sleep without your assistance (in the most part, there’s always going to be times where they need a bit of extra comfort).
Also you want to aim for 2.5 hours between naps and try and extend the lunch nap to 2 hours max rather than having the late afternoon one.
The fact he can’t go more than 40 minutes - which is the length of a sleep cycle - is because he cannot resettle himself.
Solve that and it will improve I promise!

Hi, I think you need to move your second nap forward for now. You want a maximum of 3 hours awake time at this age ideally, possibly even only 2.5 hours when baby is only cat napping. Over tiredness leads to more night waking.

I might get shutdown for this, but I also think about 7 months is the best age to sleep train. Baby still likely showing obvious sleepy cues, and not able to do things like stand up or throw things out the cot. You might be pleasantly surprised that it's not as bad you expect. We put baby down said goodnight, then came in after 2 mins, 3 mins, 4 mins... by 5 mins was asleep.