7 month wakes every 2 hours... Please help!

[rr16]

Please help!
My 7 month old has developed the habit of waking every 2 hours at night.
He used to sleep 5 or 6 hours straight through but for the last month or so he wakes up regularly.
I either nurse him back to sleep or just settle him again and he goes back to sleep quite easily.
To break the pattern I've tried just giving him water in the night and less naps in the daytime but nothing seems to work. Even homeopathic stuff from my pediatrician failed.
Can anyone please explain to me what controlled crying is?
I'd really appreciate some advice.
Many thanx xxx

I have been having a similr problem and after lots of reading seems that their sleep patterns change about 6months - they go from continual light sleep to sleeping in stages like we go, going into a deeper sleep then coming out and waking up again (like we do but we just go back to sleep) - it seems it is down to if they baby can slef settle - ie if needs a dummy, or being rocked/patted to go abck to sleep when they wake and need that again to sooth them back to sleep. We are just trying to teach our son to self settle - we are using Tizzie Halls book - save our sleep which is working really well. He has a comfort blanket thing which he snuggles up to, the idea is you leave them to 'protest cry' so whinging basically (change of pitch/sound of the crey with pauses) for at least 12 minutes, then try and settle them, but not picking them up, and not patting them to sleep, just calming them down and then leave them again for the 12 minutes, she says if you cant calm them after 40ish minutes to get them out of bed and try again when calm. If they start what she calls 'emotional cry' (may have tears, all one pitch, no breaks) where are properly upset then you always go to them and comfort them and try again when calm. Our son is self settling maybe 50% of the time now when he wakes int he night and last night slept 7-6.30, he did stir and grumble in the night be we didn't need to go into him so big progress!!

Controlled crying is similar but doenst have the protest/emotional split. bascially you leave them in the cot and go into them after 2 minutes to calm them down, then leave and if start crying again go back in after 4 minutes to calm, then next time cry go in after 8 minutes. then i think the next however many times you leave them for 10 or 12 minutes before going in and just keep calming them (without taking out of cot) and leaving them until they exhaust themselves. we did it with our daughter and it was heartbreaking to hear her so upset. The way tizzy hall suggests with the protect/emotional cry split makes alot more sense to me and is less stressful as you know when they are just whinging that they aren't really distraught and are ok to leave them.

Fingers crossed you find something that works!

It is very hard not to go up and try and settle them as soon as they start grumbling though - what my son has just started doing 40 mins into his nap! :(

Very common and your baby is still only little. Controlled crying is really designed for older children (esp over 1 year) who have a sense of object permanence - that is, they are capable of understanding that if you will come back if you leave them. At 7 months, they don't have that skill yet so CC or any other method that leaves the baby to cry on its own isn't recommended.

Have you tried Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution? It has a range of gentler techniques, like gradual withdrawal from bfing to sleep. More patience required but less strssful for you DS than cold turkey.

Hello there - don't panic, my DD did this too, exactly as you describe. She got worse and worse from 6 months til 7 months then two things happened - I got fed up and started shovelling the porridge in at bedtime, and also her first tooth emerged. Then she went from waking a minimum of 10 times a night to only 3 or 4 times a night. Then, at 8 months, she started sleeping through, and has done so for 3 weeks now.

Recommend you read this

www.askmoxie.org/2006/06/babies_and_cio.html

I tried CIO just the once and regretted it big time as DD got more and more beserk for 2.5 hours before i read this article and realised she is a baby who gets more tension if left to cry it out. Worth knowing before attempting the method.

Thank you all for your advice - went out and bought the Tizzie Hall book yesterday and started putting it into action straight away.

When I put baby down for his 9.20am nap this morning he cried so much and got in such a state I couldn't continue - then I saw your msg bobby99 and THANK YOU X the article explained SO much and I've got the confidence from you to trust that he'll settle back into a more livable routine soon.
Many thanks once again xXx

rr16 - you're welcome, hope it gets better for you soon.