Help! EBF 7 month old nurses back to sleep every 2 hours

[Solsticethefloatinghome]

Help! My 7 month old is waking every 2 hours, sometimes every hour and a half. He won’t settle unless I nurse him but obviously he’s not hungry every time. He goes back down within 15 mins but it’s so hard. I’m shattered. Someone tell me they also have/gad this. On top of this he wakes between half 5 and 6 every morning too. I just want to know if I’m doing the right thing by nursing him back every time? And to hear other people in the same position as me. It’s not just my baby RIGHT?!?! 🥱 🥱

Sorry to hear this. Babies are hard and all different, one of mine slept through at that age and another woke regularly until 18 months, despite being treated the same. There is no right or wrong (as long as there’s no hitting, shouting, leaving hungry etc). There’s nothing wrong with nursing him back to sleep, it’s the fastest way which is of course why we do it. However there’s also nothing wrong with trying other methods like a drink of water or a cuddle or a bottle or a dummy. Personally the sleep deprivation killed me and I sleep trained mine. But this is a very personal decision. You say EBF, is he weaning? Mine older one particularly loved to eat food at that age and used to eat a bowl of porridge before bed which filled her up and kept asleep for hours. But I can 100% say it is definitely not just your baby and one way or another you will get through it.

Thank you for your message, i am weaning him at the moment so when i say EBF I just mean no formula (sorry to confuse). He eats a good size dinner portion before bed I think but maybe he could eat a bit more which might help. He has porridge sometimes in the morning and his morning nap after that is always really good and lasts nearly 2 hours as opposed to when he has toast and then he will only nap for maybe 45 mins or so.
the sleep deprivation is horrendous. It’s worse now than when he was newborn because the days are so active too now!
I love nursing him to sleep, the bonding and cuddles are great but I just don’t want to be making it worse and the Health visitors say ‘they shouldn’t need feeding through the night at this age’ so I just don’t want to be getting it wrong equally if he wants nursing I don’t want to say no. I try to cuddle him or sway him back first but he definitely just wants the boob 😂

This sounds familiar to me. My health visitor said similar “he doesn’t need milk at night at that age” but clearly my baby didn’t hear her and carried on demanding boob for several more months. It is really hard and difficult not to question yourself when you’re so tired. As long as baby is healthy and happy then you’re not doing anything “wrong” BUT it’s ok to change things if you want to, because it’s easy to lose ourselves in motherhood and your wellbeing and feelings matter too. FWIW I’m don’t think there’s any such thing as “making it worse” - this is what baby has always known so it’s not like you’re getting him into new bad habits, it’s completely
normal and natural and he’s been doing it every day of his life. He will stop at some point by himself, but they do vary hugely as to when. If you’re coping and enjoy the closeness as you said then carry on, but if it’s all too much (-and of course you still love him, both can be true) and you want to try a bottle or a cuddle then that’s ok too. And when I say “try” I do mean try pretty hard because these babies love the boob. If your partner can go that can help, my second one never took a bottle from me but was perfectly happy taking from my husband.

On the subject of naps, something that can also help is getting the day time naps more predictable and structured, usually at this age one nap of 30 ish min in the morning, 2 hours at lunch time and then nothing until bedtime. Is it possible he’s having lots of day sleep and just isn’t that tired at night?

My DC3 was like this. They're 11mo and still breastfed 3X a night. They wake more like 5-6 times (often more tbh) but their dad cuddles them for the other times.

I know not everyone likes co-sleeping, but I coslept- following the safe 7 from lullaby trust. Hubby couldn't do night feeds (uncontrolled epilepsy)- and everything was on me at night and in the day.... I was too exhausted and getting headaches (she was cmpa and wouldn't take formula).... She woke a few times a night for a feed until 14 months ... (I fully weaned off l on holiday with my mum who did the night wakes for a week as she wanted a 2hr night feed when I went back to work!)

Could it be sleep issue rather than a feeding issue? Could be sleeping too much in the day, or napping too late, or needing to drop a nap, or need a later bedtime. Often frequent wakings and early rising are because they don’t have enough sleep pressure to last the night so they rouse easily and need settling.

But when my baby’s sleep is really bad I don’t try too hard to settle him without feeding because I just want to get back to sleep myself. Maybe I’m kicking a can down the road, but survival now is also important! He’s just turned 6 months though and has suddenly started being happy to be patted to sleep in my arms after only wanting to feed to sleep his whole life.

well the last 2 days we’ve tried only 2 naps and at the moment last night was the same. Maybe tonight will be better.
I don’t try too hard to settle without nursing him otherwise he is wide awake and harder to put back. Last night I ended up putting him in bed (safely) with me at 0400 because he decided it was time to wake up.
The thing is I’m happy to get up in the night, he’s a baby and him sleeping ‘through the night’ really isnt important to me but every 2 hours for the last 2 weeks is HARD! 😣
I’m going to carry on with only 2 naps a day and hope this might start to help. I’m also introducing lunches starting on Monday as at the moment he’s only having breakfast and dinner so maybe that will help to. Who knows 😣😣

Hi - same boat here with my 8 month old, no advice just solidarity. I also feed back to sleep at every wake up, a part of me just thinks it won’t be forever and try to enjoy the snuggles, but also so very shattered!

That’s what I tell myself. One day we will wish for these quiet night time snuggles. On a particularly hard day I always think ‘when I’m 80 years old if I was offered the chance to come back and experience this day one more time then I would’ so it can’t be that bad 🥰🤣

Solidarity! Exactly the same here with my 8 month old. It’s exhausting. I do sometimes wonder if he’s getting enough in the day as he’s always very distracted so going to try and feed him a bit more.

he’s like clockwork, longest stretch is two hours on the nose!

He slept so well until 5 months…

Another vote for cosleeping. We have set up a sidecar cot. Baby rolls over to me for a feed / suckle, then rolls back into the cot to sleep. I barely stir these days. It’s brilliant.