7 months, travelling, teething and cant self settle

[timon]

Hi everyone,

Our DS is almost 7 months and for the last 2 months we have been travelling and visitting relatives in Australia. And for the last month he has been teething. Prior to the trip he was an ok sleeper and would wake 1-2 times a night for a feed (he's BF but has been on solids now for 2 months).

Anyway, we are finding that we have to rock/sing him to sleep for all his naps now and several times through the night. Before we start CC we want to be sure it isn't just teething and will settle down again once we get him back to UK and into a stable routine.

It just seems a bit crazy to let him cry-it-out for hours (and he will!) when we're going to be shifting him to new places for the next month still amd he is teething.

So really I'm looking for advice on whether moving a baby from pillar to post from 4-7 months and/or teething would be causing all this unsettled drama ... and whether we should just stick it out with calming him to sleep because any CC / cry-it-out wont work while he's teething / moving around anyway?

Thanks in advance.

He's too young for CC. Don't do it.

personally yes i do think the moving around could cause him being unsettled, so maybe just need to keep having patience with him, and the teething cant be helping. dont leave him to cry it out it will be so hard on both you and him. have you tried everything for the teething: bonjela, powders, teething necklace, just incase any of them really helps?
or maybe increase his solid foods a bit more if you think it could make a difference?
would exhaust every avenue before leaving him to cry it out
i hope you manage to sort it out and he settles down for you before too long

Ok, thanks guys. So regardless of the travelling/teething it's too young to CC? We'll be back in UK by 7.5 months so how long should we wait to see if he settles in to a routine before considering it? Presuming his need for rocking/nursing to sleep every time continues ...

It doesn't have to be CC, you could try gradual withdrawal or PU/PD?

Thanks everyone again. Last night we tried making the room pitch dark (previously we had used a night light) and he slept much better. two blocks of 4-5 hours.

So what advice is there for the use of night lights vs pitch dark?

We just figured with pitch dark he wouldn't know where he was as opposed to knowing he wasnt somewhere regular ...