advice on getting son to sleep through the night pls

[dannisilvester]

son is 7 1/2months old. still isnt sleeping through the night completely yet.isnt even in a set routine in the night either in respect to what time he wakes and how many times. he goes to bed at 7pm after a full bottle. i usually have to feed twice a night and hes awake by 6am to get up. im due to return to work soon and im pretty exhausted after 7 1/2months of badly broken sleep...any advice is greatly received :-)

7.5 months is still very young. I have two boys and I did an identical bedtime routine with them and DS1 slept through at 11.5 weeks until 9 months old and from then he has woken up at least once a night ever since grrr! DS 2 did not sleep through until 6 months old and he is now nearly 10 months and is consistently sleeping through. From what I understand STTN is as much of a developmental milestone as walking and they will do it in their own time. With DS2 I did start giving him a dream feed at 10pm to break the 4am waking habit and then one night I was chatting on the phone to a friend and forgot to give it to him. He never woke up and has slept through ever since. The HV told me unless he dropped it himself (which he did) to not worry about trying to cut night feeds until 9 months when solids were well established. Perhaps try waking him for a dream feed at 10.30pm and see if that pushes him through till 5-6am. Good luck /emo/te/1.gif

i will give it a try thankyou. we got to a stage a few weeks ago where he was only waking once at 4-5am..having a bit of water then going back to sleep til 6.30am but then he got a cold so set him back again to 2-3 feeds a night x

Unless he was off his food/milk during the day when he had the cold, there's no reason why a cold would cause him to actually be hungry during the night when he wasn't before, surely?

How many bottles/how much food is he having during the day? My son is 7.5 months and generally sleeps through - he's had a cold this week and has woken up approx every hour during the night but I'd never considered feeding him. He's woken due to discomfort/blocked nose/sore throat, not hunger, so I just comforted him, changed his nappy, put some menthol rub on his chest then settled him back to sleep (not flippant, wasn't that quick!)

I'd be tempted to just offer water during the night - much less interesting so less of an incentive to keep waking night after night.

he has a bottle in the morning, food at lunch, bottle in the afternoon then food at tea and a bottle on settling down at 7pm.i know he has it in him to go through the night totally but its just putting this into practice with him. when he had his cold and teething i still carried on with the water giving but he never seemed content plus the cold was waking him properly so its probably my own fault really i gave him milk to settle again x

You refer to 4/5am awakening and this might sound strange, but a HV once told me that lots of babies stir at 4/5am as this is the coldest part of the night?! Although i imagine this would depend on the time of year to reflect when the sun starts to rise. Anyway it made sense for me and our situation. Does he use a sleepbag? They are great for little wrigglers who keep kicking off blankets.

yes hes got a sleeping bag because he is such a wriggler. i find him in all kinds of positions.its 3am now. he woke up at 2.30am and ive just gave him warm water. hes showing no signs of settling at the min so will see where we go with this one...

How did you get on? Did he wake again after the 3am wake up? To tell the truth, my lil boy was an awful sleeper- didn't sleep through until he was one when i decided to get tough. He would have a spate of sleeping for a few hours then he would go through a phase of waking hourly, then 2 hourly etc. A real shock after my little girl slept from 11-6 from 10 days old! Anyway, as controversial as it is, but i got the support of the hv, i just had to leave him cry. If he was very distressed my husband would soothe him without picking him up. The hv recommended my husband did it so he wouldn't smell my milk. After a few had weeks it did work and now he sleeps well. Depends how desperate you are- he pushed us to our wits end!

he stayed awake a bit longer that night but then he never woke up again. last night he woke for a few mins had a few sips then settled til 5am but only needed his dummy and went back off til 7 so defo seeing results so i will just keep on with this. i have tried the letting cry method but my other half stresses me out even more by keep asking how long its been and reminds me he has work etc so makes me give in to the crying. i was extremely lucky with my 1st child. she slept thru since 3months old so naively thought he would do the same but the saying of no two are ever the same is very true! x

So glad things are improving! Yes can't believe how different they can be! :-)