Seven-month-old still not sleeping through the night

[Lookydo]

My ds is nearly seven months old and is still not sleeping through the night. Any advice/tips as to what we can try to get him to sleep through? Don't think we can face Controlled Crying, but we're considering getting dh to try a bottle of water in the night - the theory being it won't be worth ds waking up for. At the moment he wakes up and wants to breastfeed 3 or 4 times a night. Sometimes I hear him wake and he DOES go back to sleep, so it's not as though he can't put himself back to sleep. In the day he's taking solids well - 3 meals a day - and has 2 formula feeds aswell. He goes down really well at 7.30pm and I don't feed him to sleep or anything. In fact, I feel rather cheated because I feel like I've followed all the advice and made sure we haven't created any bad sleep habits - ie. feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep etc. So why isn't he sleeping through? Any advice/your experiences gratefully received.

NB He sleeps in a cot in his own room (only moved him out of our room 6 weeks ago). He is teething at the moment, but as he's never slept through the night I don't know how much longer I can keep making excuses for why he's waking up.

I know some mumsnetters think you should just live with a situation like this, but I really want to change it if I can. I just keep imagining what it'll be like in a year's time when I still haven't slept properly and I'll look back to this period and wished I'd bloody done something! I feel SOOO knackered all the time. And surely I shouldn't still be a walking zombie by now. Also, my health visitor said that if you don't get the sleeping through cracked before the 8 month stage, the waking habit can become very ingrained.

Help!

lol blueshoes. Im not gonna talk more on the subject as everything is misconstrued . Hope yours sleep soon

Very few 7 month olds sleep through ime.

Some children walk early, some talk early etc., Frazzledbutcalm's slept through early. Just because her dcs did, it doesn't mean all babies will.

Babies get back to sleep quickest when their needs are met soonest, ime.

As for this supposed 8 month cut off date before you condemn your child to a life of insomnia, well, that sounds like the usual frothing bark of a HV untroubled by facts, information or knowledge.

It is very tiring to be woken by a baby every night, and of course you want the baby to sleep through if possible. I'm sure he will eventually, it is still early days, but I understand you want to check you are doing all the right things. Your hv's remark about 8 month babies sleeping through is just putting you under pressure and is unlikely to be based on any evidence whatsoever, so was unhelpful to say the least.

If baby is teething, are you using teething gel or other teething medication in the night?

If you have got plenty of milk, and baby is also taking 3 meals of solids a day, why are you giving formula? Maybe the stuff is giving baby stomach ache.

I would ditch the formula, and bf lying down when baby demands it at night. I found it was as well to wait until the crying was established, because sometimes it might be a quick squawk and the baby was asleep again before I got to the cot! It's also worth checking that the baby is not too hot or cold or wet before offering milk.

Are you able to feed lying down? And how do you feel about co-sleeping, once the baby has had a night time feed? So long as neither of you has been smoking or drinking or is obese, and the bedclothes are not too hot for the baby, this can save you getting out of bed again. Some babies will sleep very well this way, keeping still and quiet enough to let the parents sleep too, but others are such fidgets that nobody gets any sleep!

Are you having to change nappies at night?

I'll second Elastic's advice.

Your HV is bonkers btw. DS was waking, oooh, a lot at 8 mnonths. And 9 months. And 10 months. In fact, he didn't reliably sleep through until he was 15 months. No waking habit at all, ingrained or otherwise.

There are two things to remember:

1. whether they sleep well or not is almost entirely a matter of luck. DD is a much better sleeper than DS was, we are lucky. It wasn't our fault DS didn't sleep well, it isn't down to anything we did that meant DD slept much better. Some babies sleep and some don't.

2. the ability to sleep is not linear. DD is going through a bad phase atm. She's 6 months. She's trying to stand, she's just started solids, she's suffering separation anxiety AND she's had 1 cold after the other for the last 6 weeks. Soon she'll be feeling better and she'll start sleeping better too. Probably even better than she id until her sleep went to pot.

This sounds really harsh - but believe me, I really sympathise with you. It's so hard coping on not a lot of sleep, but I think it's easier second time round (even though there's a toddler to throw into the sleep deprived mix) because you do know that in a year's time, this will all be a memory. Chances are your DS will be sleeping through reliably by now - in fact, a few weeks might be all that's needed. You don't know when it'll happen, it just does and then, when you're in a Mexican stand-off with your toddler, you look back on those lovely cuddly night-feeds and think 'God, I should have made the most of those'.

I tried pretty much everything apart from CC (which is something I just couldn't face doing at 3am!) and still none of my three slept through on a regular basis until they were 18 mths. In fact I did nothing at all with DD, as I figured after trying everything with the DSs I might as well save my energy, and she still followed (almost)the exact same sleeping patterns I actually think my DCs were out to get me.......

I know you don't want us to tell you live with the situation, but if you've tried everything you're prepared to do what else is there? IME it can be far less stressful to just accept that this is how it is and look at solutions for your own needs - how you can cope with their crappy sleeping patterns if you can't change them.

I'm glad I didn't hear a lot of these comments when I was going through this with my son - we tried as hard as we could to go with his waking pattern but then I ended up very ill from lack of sleep + sinusitus and the choice was taken from me - we had to CC. Turns out he was just in a bad habit and didn't need to nurse that often. But this advice would have made me feel horrible about my decision.

For some people, sleep deprivation can be a serious health issue and advice to wait it out may not be okay for everyone. I agree that a 6 month old may not be able to sleep through the night (mine didn't until 12 months) but waking up 4 times a night is very very different.

Your attitude to baby's sleep pattern can be more important than the amount of sleep. When my dd2 was 13 months, I took part in a Sleep And Attachment study, which entailed filling out a questionnaire about her sleep habits, in which I was proud that she was a good sleeper. Then I had to keep a diary for 2 weeks, detailing her actual sleep and waking pattern. I was amazed at how often she woke up, and how I always made excuses for her and didn't mind, because she was easy to settle quickly.

The moral of this story is, lower your expectations; compare the pattern now with how he was as a newborn - you MUST be getting more sleep now!

For me I sent my dh in for 3 nights as ds was waking at 9 months, twice in the night for 2 hours each stint! I'd done bedtime routines, follwed structured daytime routines etc but eventually just said 'this has got to change' so dh went in, ds couldn't get any milk from him! (we weren't using formula at the time). After 3 nights we had 1 night through, then 1 night of 1 1/2 hours crying, then another night through, then 1 of 20 mins crying and after about a week he regularly went though the night. I reckon once a week I now go in to him at night to soothe him after a nightmare but no more night feedings!
It didn't work with me doing the CC, I tried but ds knew eventually he would get milk from me (red head, very stubborn baby!) so dh took a day off of work and we did it over a long weekend and the following week dh had an easy work week. We are very pleased we did CC but it was more dh's effort (although I still had to listen to 2 hours of crying and found that hard).
Sorry, I know that's not the answer you wanted but we did the bath, milk, bed regular routine, we did everything else we could think of to help him sleep though but ended up having to be 'cruel to be kind'. I'm not so tired so I am nicer company for ds in the day!

We tried the old cold turkey treatment for 3 nts when dd2 was six months (back in August or so). ie we didn't respond at all to her crying (except to sneak a peek that she wasn't in danger etc). It was horrid. It was a nightmare. On night 4 it worked. She has slept through 7pm - 7am ever since. In fact, this week she hasn't woken up til 8am, Yippee!!!! U got to be psychologically prepared for it though. And tbh your lo might just make the switch without u doing anything. Good luck!

My 2.8yo ds STILL doesnt sleep through and neither does my 8.5mth dd. Ds can do CC and it does work, only at the moment it wakes dd up so am loathed to try it again.

Good luck

CC trying doesn't work with dd aged 3 as she just has a seizure from the stress. Am getting a tad fed up with broken sleep though. We give her a muscle relaxant to stop the muscle spasms but she still wakes and then she screams for ages. The HV is totally useless and knows nothing about sleep in disabled babies.

Not sure where the vitriol comes from on this thread... "beep beep beep"... "nutter" etc.

I don't think it's abnormal for a baby under 7 months to sleep through.

I do think that there are ways of encouraging a baby to sleep well at night which do not involve treating said baby like a "pet".

2 out of 3 of mine slept through from 10 weeks. Not rocket science, yet I am also sure not totally down to luck.

Arrghhh this thread has irritated the cr@p out of me. I think I'll be parping now...

ROFL at people thinking their young babies sleeping through is something brilliant they've done. Honestly, that's hilarious.

I've read this thread with great interest as my ds is the same age as yours Lookydo and has never slept through neither!

I simply can't face controlled crying. I believe it works but I'm not convinced of the psychological impact (sorry to throw that one in there...)

DS wakes at night, he gets a bottle, back to sleep. All in the space of 10 minutes. Personally I believe that's a sacrifice worth making for him. Ask me again in a month's time though as I'm back to work in a week!

Well, this is how it worked with us.

My ds woke up every night for a 2am then a 5am feed until he was 10 mo old (I'd also give him a dream feed at 10.30pm when I went to bed.

I was prepared to do this until he was 10mo old but then I'd really had enough - and couldn't believe he really needed the food any more, it seemed more like a habit.

So at 10 mo we agreed no more and when he woke up wanting a feed dh went in with a bottle of water and stayed with him until he went back to sleep (I meanwhile sat on the sofa and cried my eyes out).

He did cry a lot the first 3 nights ( I could cope with this - just - cause his daddy was with him). I couldn't cope with controlled crying in its true sense, either.

After 3 nights he started sleeping through and we have never looked back. Maybe we were lucky but it worked for us - those 3 nights were bloody tough though.

None of mine have slept through, maybe the odd night of 9 hrs, but ds2 is now 9 mths and goes at 7pm, 11pm feed - sometimes dream feed sometiems he wakes for it. then another feed at 4am then again up for day at 7 ish.
Except sometimes like last night he was up 6 times.
Today another tooth popped through.
So I am just livign with it, but then my ds2 on most nights is only waking me once and he is quick and resettles straight away.

If he were keeping me awake, regularly I think I'd be tempted to find a prompt resolution.

none of mine have ever slept through before 18mths I meant
Cor ds1 is 13 now, think I might be in a straightjacket if he had never slept thtough by age 13!!!

I think you either get a sleeper or you don't. You can try your hardest to 'sleep train' whatever that is but if your baby wakes then you are just very unlucky.

Me? I am lucky, mine sleeps. Never eats anything but sleeps! So saying I will bet a whole big bag of cash dd1 wakes tonight just to prove me wrong.

Also my ds wakes anything from 1-5 times a night on a very regular basis.

Some babies are great sleepers and others are not. But both dh and i are soo looking forward to when ds is older and still in his pit at 8am and then we can go in with the hoover or something else noisy to make sure he wakes up

I think you do have to teach your baby to sleep to a certain degree. With ds he had no set routine and often was placed in his buggy infront of the tumble dryer to get him to sleep. I didnt ever put him to bed in his cot for a nap as dh worked from home and i didnt want the screaming to disturb him too much. Even to this day he will not nap in his bed.. Car, yes, whilst out in buggy, yes, cot NO. We decided that all the things we wished we had done with ds we were GOING to do with dd regardless of the screaming that may occur. She has a routine that can be moved forward or back with ease, she sleeps in her bed during the day without any problems at all.

I agree with frazzled here and rather surprised at the kneejerk reactions of some hitherto reasonable MNetters at what she has said.

Lookydo - The fact that you are here, asking for advice on how to get your DS to sleep through the night suggests to me that "Suffer. That's what we all do." is not exactly the reply you are hoping for. Am I right? If you are interested, those of us who have kids who consistently sleep through the night would be happy to give you some practical advice.

Assuming we won't be insulted and booed, of course.

Lookydo - Just walked away and thought about this one, I was told that if you get their day sleep sorted their night sleep will follow.

We did cc for 3 days at 14 weeks to get 2 day sleeps into place in cot. Not nice but worth it. Once dd was sleeping in the day (3 hrs total in cot over 2 sleeps) she went through the night immediately.

Is your LO sleeping ok in the day?

I am sure that there is an argument about this one too but it worked for me.

Mellieandmin - exactly what I did. It took three days also, but have never looked back. How much they sleep in the day does impact on how they sleep at night I think. My dd never has more than 3hrs sleep in a day (10 months)

I am a big fan of routine and I know that this does not always work for everyone but after a very demanding dd1 I was determined to give 'routine' a go. It has worked for me and dd2 has slept through since 12 weeks (being lifted for a dream feed till 6 months)

Cheapslutonjunk - ROFL laughing at people who think u CAN'T help/encourage/train whatever u like to call it, your young baby to sleep through the night. Honestly, that's hilarious.
Gosh, this thread IS annoying isn't it?

I personally think that the fact my dd does sleep through the night is because of something brilliant that I have done!!!Dd1 never slept at all - complete nightmare. Dd2 sleeps through - becuase (IMO) I have taught her good sleep associations therefore I (and DP) take all the credit!

Blummin right, karen. We went thru 3 nights of hell and got a result. I flipping well am taking the credit!!