Please please please help me (7 month old sleep)

[Kalinaa]

I really hope one of you lovely ladies has some kind of advice for me :(

I am a FTM and my beautiful DD has never slept well - ever. However since she was about 16 weeks it has gone from bad to worse, and for the last probably 4 months or so she has woken every 45 mins all night long.

Sometimes like last night she will sleep as little as 15 minutes before waking again. For a while I was coping with this as she was relatively easy to settle back down again, however now she is spending more of the night awake than asleep, as every time she wakes it can take me up to an hour to get her back to sleep again. Multiple times this week she has been awake for long stretches, such as between 11pm and 2am, last night it was between 3am and 5am.

She has been slow to pick up weaning but is offered 3 meals a day, even if she only eats a few tea spoons as I was wondering if she was hungry. However when she wakes she doesnt really want to feed (I am EBF) she will just comfort suck if i let her. She will not go down sleepy but awake, she will either fall asleep eventually while feeding or me and my partner will rock her if that doesn't work.

Please tell me what to do :( is this something she will eventually grow out of? Or do I need to consider a more hands on approach such as CIO (I didn't want to go down this route really but I will if it will work!) I also want to say im not expecting a miracle, but if she would just sleep maybe 2 or 3 hours in one stretch I feel like I could recover!

Sorry for the waffle and thank you for any help.

My sympathies as this sounds exhausting and sleep deprivation is torture. Can you tell us a bit more about her routine? What are her naps like?

No advice but have a 6 month old that is the same so your not alone. He has picked up weaning really well and is eating great so can’t be hunger but he does always want the boob when he wakes up in the night. I don’t normally record how he sleeps but wanted to check I wasn’t exaggerating when I say he is up hourly 😬 he was up 8 times last night shortest sleep being 26 minutes and longest 1 hour 37 but most common wake up was 57 minutes. Before 4 months he would sleep 3-4 hours at a time and I used to moan at that 😂 really hope it’s a phase but seems like a long one.

Have you tried bedsharing? Saved me with my first.

This is around a sleep cycle for a baby of that age and she needs to learn to knit them together, my son was exactly the same. Shushing and patting to comfort or whatever you usually do and then reduce each time

‘Midwife Cath passive settling’ might help? It is basically CIO but she explains it.
I’d always start in the daytime though not at night.

Thank you so much everyone it means so much.

@linerforlife If we get up at 6 she is usually down for a nap by half 8. This is usually around an hour long, sometimes if she wakes I can get her down for slightly longer. She then has another nap around half 11, 12 ish for about an hour and a half, this is usually the longest of the day. I then try to get her to take one more about 4 but she fights this and sometimes I only get about half hour from her. I then start the bed time routine around 6.

@LuckyC27 You know as much as its rubbish we are both going through it it does make me feel better to know im not alone! Your night times sound almost identical to mine, i feel like im an absolute zombie in the day and like im just operating on autopilot! I really hope your bubbas sleep improves soon too!

@WineInTheWillows Yes we are bed sharing, honestly dont think I could cope at all if we weren't doing that. Her cot feels like a waste of money lol!

@LutherRalph1 Thank you!! do you mean just shortening the amount of time i'm comforting her? it's so difficult because unless shes sparko asleep when I put her down i can't get her to sleep at all

@PartyofPun I've not heard of this, i'll have a read! Thank you so much.

There is a sleep regression and huge developmental changes at this time which disturb sleep. I personally find cosleeping helps especially with the separation anxiety they get at this age but it not for everyone. It will settle down again soon. Is she teething?

Generally if you are doing purées it’s recommended to move to 3 meals a day from 9 months so I could cut back on the food.

I agree with PP she is waking up between sleep cycles and needs to learn to connect them. This means teaching her to fall asleep without input from you - how do you get her to sleep at the moment? Do you need to hold, feed or rock her? If so this is probably part of the issue and you need to assist her to do it with less input from you.

So the “drowsy but awake” thing is good advice but I did the Little Ones programme which advises creating sleep associations - eg white noise, a dummy, a grobag, or whatever and try to make sure they nap in their cot using these so they learn it’s sleep time.

Then put them in their cot for their nap before they get overtired and try to get them to sleep. The Little Ones advice was sshing and patting them I think but with my older daughter stroking her face worked better. It’ll take a while the first few times but stick with it and be consistent and the idea is they’ll learn to do it with less input from you and be able to connect sleep cycles and sleep longer. It worked with my older daughter really well.

I seem to remember the advice being to do this in the day, and at night to just do what you need to do to get them down!

Good luck, it’s really rough when you have a bad sleeper

Sorry if that makes no sense, my 7 month old isn’t a great sleeper either and I’m exhausted

Essentially what others have said. This is the 4 month sleep regression. She won’t grow out of it for a long while if you don’t help teach her how to connect sleep cycles.

That means sleep training. You can either do gentle, which is a little bit of crying over a long period, or more direct like Ferber, which will be more crying over a shorter period but done and dusted in a few days.

People often say the amount of crying roughly equals out!

@Thatwentbadly Thank you so much for the advice, I didn't know that about feeding, she generally wouldn't eat much if anything at all anyway but maybe ill just reduce it to 2 meals a day for now. I don't think she's teething at the moment as doesn't appear to have any of the symptoms of it.

@ChocBeforeCock Brilliant username!! And thanks so much for the lovely post. At the moment we will do anything and everything to get her to sleep which im sure like you say is part of the problem. I'd say its equal parts feed to sleep or me and my partner rocking her, but we will also hold her, last night we even took her for a drive to get her to sleep which is not something we have done for months but we are so exhausted. I have been using white noise but it hasn't appeared to do much at the moment but i haven't been consistent with it, it appears consistency is key here so I know i need to be strong! I will give this a try, thank you again.

@Scrunchies Thanks so much, I thought this might be the case. I'll do some research into the methods. I feel like I get the most stressed about her lack of sleep than I do my own so I know I have to bite the bullet and make a change somehow!

@Scrunchies

Essentially what others have said. This is the 4 month sleep regression. She won’t grow out of it for a long while if you don’t help teach her how to connect sleep cycles.

That means sleep training. You can either do gentle, which is a little bit of crying over a long period, or more direct like Ferber, which will be more crying over a shorter period but done and dusted in a few days.

People often say the amount of crying roughly equals out!

No, you can't train them to link sleep cycles, that's developmental. You can train them not to bother you when they wake between sleep cycles, but that's about it.

OP, there's a Facebook called the beyond sleep training project you could join if you don't want to 'sleep train'.

www.nhs.uk/start4life/weaning/what-to-feed-your-baby/around-6-months/

Info on weaning above- have a good look around the whole weaning section for recipes and dos and don'ts.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.wchc.nhs.uk/content/uploads/2019/12/SaferSleep_6-12months.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjolejc8c_uAhVKUMAKHYF8D2QQFjAVegQIDRAB&usg=AOvVaw1clHgUzlplQiU0Yjh4V3Wi" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.wchc.nhs.uk/content/uploads/2019/12/SaferSleep_6-12months.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjolejc8c_uAhVKUMAKHYF8D2QQFjAVegQIDRAB&usg=AOvVaw1clHgUzlplQiU0Yjh4V3Wi

The above has some NHS advice for sleep at your baby's age. Sleep training is not recommended.

@WineInTheWillows Thank you so much for this info, and i'll check out the facebook page I really appreciate it. It's so tough because I just want to do what's best for her and I feel like it's all my fault she won't sleep (which it probably is!) even though all ive done since birth is try to attend to her every need! i know how exhausted i am and just think it must be so much worse for her being unable to stay asleep. i can handle riding this out if it is what is best for her but i just dont know especially with friends with babies who sleep through the night.

Our baby got out of this phase, but I coukdn't say what was a 'successful technique' and what was developmental. But what made a difference when the setting was changed (for example, staying at grandparents) was the sleep association - I have the same song I have sung over and over again since he was born, the same toys, etc. But again, it's hard to know whether it was actually effective. Good luck to you, not sleeping is horrendous

Also have a look at Lyndsey Hookway on instagram (and she has a book too but DS is older now so I've not got it)

She has very helpful advice, based in science and evidence on what's normal, what's not and how to respectfully tweak it.

[quote Kalinaa]@PartyofPun I've not heard of this, i'll have a read! Thank you so much.[/quote]
It's just controlled crying. She's just renaming it to make it sound better.

Anything that starts with 'strict' regarding babies is probably not going to be a gentle approach is it....

I’d try dropping the 3rd nap if she’s fighting it. My DD dropped her 3rd nap around 7 months and was much easier to settle at bedtime and slept a lot better (rather than waking every 45-60 minutes).

It was a struggle for a few days whilst she adjusted but she then started taking longer naps and sleeps a lot better at night. She’s 9 months now but I’ve been doing the same routine since 7 months, she wakes around 6:30-6:45am and has her first nap at 9:30am which usually lasts until 11am and then second nap is 2:15/2:30pm and I wake her by 4pm then bed for 7pm.

I found my DDs sleep has changed a lot between 6 months - 11months (now). We haven't followed any techniques but persisted a bit more in her being in the cot for naps and the start of the night. Now she will often nap 1-1.5 hours in the cot and often does 3/4/5 hour stretches at night. Still not great but much more manageable than waking every hour. I think it might be development because we haven't specifically done anything. However perhaps we are more consistent with white noise, sleeping bag, bed times etc. No overnight solution and we've had ups and downs. I considered sleep training but now her wake ups are less frequent and I have my evenings back, Im reasonably happy to wait it out.

It’s definitely worth baring in mind that weaning can really disturb sleep while their little tummies get used to all that digestion. It’ll settle down but it’s a misunderstanding to think that feeding them food will help them sleep better at this young age- that comes much later once their digestive systems have gotten used to it.

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Hi we are going through something similar with our 7 month old, so restless at night, just wondering how long it took for you to see improvements and if so what did you try. Thanks.

Hi, @Kalinaa hopefully your little one & your sleep has improved!
similar to yourself & @Danielp87 we are also going through something very similar at the moment with our 7 month old. Just looking to see if you have any tips, I’m trying to avoid sleep training but will consider it if it’s necessary. Thanks!

@Danielp87 @EmmSutton hi!! She’s 2 and a half now so has drastically improved!! but the things that worked for me - I stopped breastfeeding at about a year and a half. I think it was harder for me than her! As soon as she stopped the association of comfort feeding she was sleeping much longer stretches. Sorry I know this doesn’t help if you’re not breast feeding! And I know this doesn’t work for everyone and I’m not advocating stopping - I just wanted to share my honest experience.

Another thing that really helped, dad taking over bed time. This was difficult as at first she was so so upset but it’s amazing how quickly they adapt. Whenever I read this advice I used to think this could never work for me and I doubted she would ever settle but now she sleeps in her bed at night, she still wakes a few times but just has a quick cuddle with dad and goes back to sleep.

she was a bit older when we tried these things so I’m not saying they will work at 7 months that is the only thing. But we never did cry it out - it was hard getting through it and the sleep deprivation is so so hard - but it does end. Sending love xxx