Why does my baby still not sleep at night?!!

[Mimi2018]

Hello

I have a 7months year old and she still does not sleep throughout the night - or at least sleep with only one or two wake ups for feeds.

I just don't understand I thought it was meant to get better esp as I started her in solids at 6months.

She wakes up every 1 to 2 hours sometimes in a good day 2.5hours

I am breastfeeding.

Surely when my daughter wakes up 5/6 times she can't be hungry all those times so what else could it be??

Is it because breastfed babies want more comfort and more clingy??

Is it she wakes up for reassurance I'm still there?

As I notice when I give her the breast on some of the walk ups she's not really sucking it's just to fall back to sleep again..

Please help with an explanation and how i can help better this?

Urgh that must be exhausting! I was reading one of my baby books and it commented that 30% (I think it was 30) of 9 month olds don't sleep through yet. Not what you want to hear!

What do you do when she wakes? It could be that she would self sooth back to sleep if you left her to it. Depends what you are doing at the moment though.

It's really hard op but what you're experiencing is pretty normal. My formula fed 14 month old still wakes frequently.

I think the best thing you can do is try to go with the flow and make sure you get to grab a few hours sleep in a row where possible.

It could be loads of different things. I can't really answer without more info - how do they fall asleep at bedtime? Do they always need your help to fall asleep when they wake in the night?

It sounds like she needs the breast to fall back asleep. It's really common but so hard! Is she in her own room? My DS was exactly the same - he went into his own room at 7m and after about a week there was a huge improvement. I think mainly because I wasn't hearing him and leaping up at every tiny noise.

Thank you for your replies

So baby relies on the breast to go back to sleep - I think this is called sleep association which unfortunately I have got baby into since birth as she is my first where the only thing that soothes her crying was the breast where she then fell asleep and 7months on this has still been the case so she associates the breast with sleep and comfort which to some extent is normal I believe..

The trouble I have is if she hasn't fully conked out on the breast then she will not let me put her down until she is so the rouble I have at night time is if I was to leave her to it she will cry and cry crash into my bed until she gets soothed and comforted and put back to sleep with the breast

So I'm not sure what to do now...

There is that 10% of the time where she doesn't want the breast to go sleep or back to sleep instead she wants to be rocked and walked up and Down with but I will be honest by that time I'm so shattered I don't have the energy to do that to I just rely on the breast aswell

I just want some sleep back I do t mind if she wakes up 2 or even 3 times but not 5/67/8!!!

My DD was the same once we started weaning, up multiple times.
It is perfectly normal for a baby that age, but it’s hard going for you. Is there anything you can do to get more sleep? We started bed sharing (DD had always slept in a crib up until then) and that did help as sometimes if I gave her a little pat she wouldn’t fully wake.
Just to add that feeding to sleep is biologically normal and lots of people do it - I’m still doing it and DD is 18 months.

Could you introduce a big fat formula bottle last thing at night to really fill her up? Sounds like she's grazing?

Noloudnoises breastfed babies don’t only feed because they are hungry - she could be hungry, thirsty, needing comfort, needing fed to get to sleep, or any combination of those. Frequent wake ups at this age are not fun for mum but they are normal. OP says her baby is barely sucking at some wake ups so that definitely sounds like comfort not hunger.

That sounds really hard. You are doing a wonderful job. It is very normal for a baby of that age to wake frequently during the night. It will get better. You are doing a wonderful thing by providing the comfort and security that your little one needs at night. For us bedsharing absolutely saved my sanity at night, as did stopping looking at the time. Now I only wake up a bit to feed my little one, who then rolls over and goes back to sleep. You may have already tried this but I’d definitely recommend trying it safely if not.
Good luck and remember that you’re doing a wonderful job.

You are in the worst bit for sleep in my humble opinion ! Between four and eight months both my babies woke a lot at night...it really takes a few months for solids to form a bigger part of their nutritional intake.

All I can say is you can try patting and cuddling back to sleep to reduce the voob dependence ...I did get so exhausted in the end I had to reduce night feeds as I was going crazy

I got my husband to do the wakings over longer periods...so if I had fed the baby two hours ago I would get him to go and get him back to sleep .. .

It's tough...they grow out of it ....in the long run.. you will sleep again I promise !

Do you have a partner who could rock/pace/cuddle/whatever it takes back to sleep for a few nights? This will really help break the association. It will be hard and she will cry but at least you know she's in someone else's arms and she will sleep eventually!

Other than that I think sleep is largely developmental. My DS is 8.5m and has just randomly started settling himself for naps. We didn't change anything so I can't pinpoint what exactly happened.

Because we get unrealistic expectations from not having enough info out there
Mine still doesnt at 2 yo
Many of my friends have the same problem

I know this is not what you want to hear but this is really, really normal and while hard, doesn’t need fixing (and probably can’t be fixed). Hunt out Sarah Stockwell Smith and look at her stuff on babies. It helps reset expectations of what babies should and shouldn’t be like. We’ve somehow created a myth that babies should sleep through when in reality, waking babies are the norm and it is totally expected behaviour for that age. Also, you haven’t created a sleep association. Babies can’t make those connections so young so don’t panic.

It does change as they develop and agree with others, this is probably the worst bit. Mine got better and started sleeping more consistently longer hours (6-7 hour stints) at 10 months even though we were still breast feeding. She went into her own room just after that and now sleeps through from 7-6 (unless ill). We had no issues with weaning and she could fall asleep easily without boob when the time was right and she was developmentally ready.

Baby went to bottle at around 8 months and also started to sleep through around the same time. I had gone back to wrk and so this worked for us. We are both so much happier now he sleeps well at night. It could have been a coincidence though

My dd is 6 months and she is exactly the same @mimi2018

No advice, but solidarity!

My dd is also a bottle refuser, so no one can help.out with her either!

My 6 month old is the same here too! So are lots of my friends babies- formula and breastfed!

I survive by having my Husband take baby at the weekends after his feed at 6/7am (whatever time he wakes up that is a slightly reasonable hour to get up!) and I sleep until the baby needs his next feed, usually 3 hours. It's a lifesaver. Then after that feed I take the next hour to have a long shower and hairwash and get ready in peace. Basically weekend mornings are my own and dad gets quality time with baby.

The rest of the week I'm a walking zombie and have baby on my own from 6am - 7pm everyday, but that's just how it is and I've gotten used to it now. 5 wakings a night can be normal for us 😩 so I now cosleep with baby and he sleeps better. Separation anxiety is common at this age too so I'm happy to comfort and let him in bed for now.

I'll miss baby when he doesn't want night feeds or cuddles (I tell myself to get through...!)

How long do you wait until going to her? It might be worth just waiting a few minutes before attending to her, to see if she self soothes. Also, as you said, she can't be hungry every time she wakes up so don't move to breastfeed every time because if she's using that as a way of getting back to sleep then you're going to have a very tiring time.

I don't think it's unusual I'm afraid OP, 7 months is still quite young to be sleeping through and IME a lot of parents experience a regression between 8 and 10 months. My bf DD was an appalling sleeper until she hit 10 months, when she all of a sudden started sleeping right through for no apparent reason. We did nothing different, she was just ready I suppose! I hope it gets better for you soon as I know how exhausting it is.

Have you tried building other associations with sleep and gently introducing them? Like a scent, comforter, white noise? It must be so tough for you! But every baby is so different and some need the extra cuddles and reassurance, and then can sleep by themselves much later. I'm reading the Gentle Sleep Book and it's so reassuring. Also someone one here told me to read the Beyond Sleep Training Project on Facebook. That page is great for moral support! Well done on being so nurturing - it's exhausting but your baby's needs will change at some point. But breastfed babies do need to boob for way more than food - comfort, safety, security, plus we release hormones or something that bring on sleep! So it's natures way. In the mean time I would try to build other associations. Or maybe a local maternity nurse can help? Good luck

Some babies and toddlers are like this. They are naturally lighter sleepers so they wake more. Hunger, thirst, too hot, too cold, loneliness, noises, wind etc

It will pass. Once children are around 2-4 years they will more than likely start sleeping deeply. Ask parents of older children and many will say they sleep like a log.

So try different strategies to help them sleep but don't be discouraged, it will all be sorted out naturally in a few years. In the meantime be kind to yourselves and try to get rest as much as possible, any way that you can.

It could be the weaning, or it could just be her.

DD1 didn't sleep a full night until 13-14 months. She was regularly up in the night until 18 months.

DD2 has slept through from 5 weeks BUT! Has just turned 7 months (weaned recently) and is now waking 1-2 times a night. Solids can mess around with sleep for a while. She's also wanting to roll on her tummy and get on her knees (precursor to crawling) and is quite excited about doing that at bedtime

I know that's of no practical help but just to say I have had two very different experiences of baby sleep and even the worse of the two righted herself in the end. She's a dream sleeper at 2 and has to be woken in the morning after a 7-7.30 bedtime. I dread her dropping her nap!

Baby sleep is a lottery IMO.

Have you tried feeding lying down? Make the area safe then you can close your eyes and go back to sleep while feeding

My 5 year old still doesn't. My 2 year old does. Sometimes it's just luck of the draw.

Thank you everyone for your reassuring comments it's made me feel slightly better to know that this is quite normal at her age and I can see from the threads that maybe at 10months it may get better however it could take longer..

I have tried to associate sleep with other things like walking and pacing up and down - though I admit I haven't really given that a proper go as by bedtime I'm so shattered that I just wan to put her on the boob where she will fall sleep and also at 2,3,4am I really don't want to get out of bed

Unfortunately I have to do everything on my own as my partner feels that it's unfair he has to wake up as he's got work but I think that's unfair on me as then it becomes so tough with no sleep every night but I just don't bother rely on his help anymore

I'm just hoping it gets better soon

If you don't think she is hungry don't feed her. You need to break the association between feeding and sleeping.

I always fed so i could dose lying down, but i breastfed every 3/4 hours not on demand ad that suited my dd.if she woke before a feed i always used to give her a chance to go back to sleep, and if not i'd do everything else but feed. Took maybe a week and she reduced to 2 actual feeds in the night, then down to 1 at 4 months, then none at 6 months