PLEASE HELP ME WITH MY 7MO

[Latinorapida]

Hi please can anyone with some experience help me.

I’m a ftm to a just turned 7 month old. He will only nap on the boob but even that’s not enough these days. I have to rock on the rocking chair whilst bfing him and then once he’s asleep slowly get onto the bed and lie there whilst he naps. If I move he’ll wake up after 10 minutes so I move to the bed so at least I can put my feet up. I’ve accepted that this is the only way he’ll nap. My problem is that now the rocking chair is rarely enough. Now the only time i can get him down for naps and bed time is by feeding him and rocking him whilst on my feet. The rocking chair won’t do. It takes about 40 minutes. When I think he’s asleep I’ll move onto the bed whilst he’s still on my boob but 90 percent of the time he fusses and I have to get up again and feee him whilst on my feed moving around the room. I just don’t know what to do to. He also wakes up about 5 times a night sometimes more and just seems to be fussing most of the time the boob will work but more and more it’s not enough and he just seems restless. Things are especially bad at the moment because he’s teething but aside from that they’re still pretty crap. I’m not asking for him to sleep through I’m just asking for at least one night to only have, say, 2 wake ups.

7 months of this no sleep is torturing me and I’m suddenly starting to find it completely unbearable.

We co sleep - that should be giving me more sleep. It’s not. I can’t cope anymore and I don’t se an end in sight. At least when he was smaller I would at least get they first chunk of sleep with him of 4 hours straight

I feel like I’m losing my mind

I’m afraid that number of wake ups is normal for a breast fed baby. My 20 months old varies between feeding any where from 1 to 5 times a night but that’s not dissimilar to my DD1 who was formula feed as who didn’t have milk then.

I would try laying down to feed to sleep. You can also rocked then my spooning and rocking your body. Try loud white noise.

How many naps a day is having at the moment? What does his typical wake up/sleep pattern look like?

Try to get as much sleep as you can. Go to bed with your baby every night. Nap during the day and the weekend nap while your partner looks after the baby. Try taking him for a walk in the pram or sling for nap time - it may take a few attempts for this is work.

7 months is a tough time. It does get better.

Will he nap in the pram?

Or can you feed in front of Netflix and let him sleep on the boob while you rest?

Honestly - stop the rocking. A few days of him screaming it out and you will have a different baby. I sound mean but they do have to learn to self settle. All three of mine are/ were breastfed and all slept through by 7 months. Loud white noise helped. But no rocking. And I co slept so absolutely no judging. Good luck

@Thatwentbadly

He has about 2/3 naps a day. They vary SO much timewise. Sometimes the first one is 30/40 minutes long. Sometimes it’s 90 minutes. Middle one tends to be the longest and then a 40 minute one as his last one and then I get him ready for bed around 6ish.

It’s normally 6am wake up (used to be 7:30 :( )

8am nap

8:30-9:30 wake up

11:30-12:30/12:30-2:30/1-2:30 really varies

If his second nap was early then he’ll probably have another one at around 3 for 30 mins

6:15-7 bed time but it always takes about an hour until he goes to sleep. And if I leave the bed for too long he wakes up

I can’t feed him in front of the tv as he gets too distracted. I think he really struggles to switch off.

Yep he will nap in buggy but for the past couple of months he’s so hard to feed during the day that I rather feed him whilst he’s napping so that way I know he’s getting his milk.

My main issue I that I can’t just lie there and feed to sleep. He needs the constant rocking - and chair isn’t enough anymore he needs me on my feet. I just can’t Handel it anymore. The weather is getting nicer and nicer I don’t want to have to spend 6pm onwards every evening on my feet feeding and rocking a baby who’s getting heavier and heavier.

And when he naps in the pram if the pram stops he wakes up. So if I dare pause to get a coffee or go into a shop for a second it’s game over.

It just doesn’t seem like it’s getting any easier.

It seems like as he’s getting older he needs more and more from me in order to be able to sleep.

Does this improve? Every nap/bedtime is a battle. 7 months of this nonstop is getting the better of me now

I would try and stretch it out to two naps a day or make bed time later. I think there isn’t enough time between the last nap and bedtime - generally this is the longest wake period.

For both my girls 6 to 8 months was the hardest.

No advice but my 7.5 month old is pretty similar, wakes near on hourly at night for boob and I have to rock to sleep for naps and he usually contact naps. Occasionally I can roll him onto the bed but need to make sure he’s in a deep sleep before I do that. It’s soo hard as I don’t want to do any sleep training but at the same time like you worried about the summer and ideally I want more sleep and to spend an hour with my husband not in bed with the baby.

I really feel for you, it’s sounds really hard. Have you tried the Huckleberry app? I’ve relied on it for nap times etc. I agree with above poster, try two naps with longer awake times. The app will help with this. Good luck

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I think the extended final wake window has worked!!!I was really dreading bedtime because I just cannot take almost an hour Iof rocking and feeding and prancing about on my feet anymore.

His last nap was 1:40-3. And I took him to bed at 7 so 4 hours awake and I thought I would try just getting straight in the bed with him and he fed abs then started twisting around fussing but after 15 mins... asleep! Still on my boob but nonetheless he’s asleep and I’m just lying here on my phone. Thank you so much!! I hope it’s not a one off! X

Will checkout that app too for the day time naps! Thank you! Gosh tonight has made me feel a lot less defeated by it all

Excellent news. The others things which improve my life are AirPod headphones to listen to podcasts/watching TV while feeding to sleep and then put your mattress on the floor and baby proof the room and ninja role out of there.

Now if you can tell me how to get my 20 month old to go to sleep quickly I would really appreciate it.

Excellent! Definitely try the longer wake window for a week or so – there might be days when he's a bit grumpy before bed, but if it's right for him, he'll probably adjust pretty quickly. You may find it makes naps easier too, although you may need to tweak the times a little. We had this with our wee one when she was ready to drop to one nap, but all the advice said she should definitely still be having two. We had a month of miserable nap and bedtimes, gave in, tried one nap, and nap and bedtime got much easier, no doubt (with the benefit of hindsight) because it's much easier to fall asleep when you are actually tired.

OP this is not normal for a breastfed baby as a pp commented and isn’t something you just have to put up with.

I’m currently working on my 9 month olds sleep and it is nowhere near as bad as you’ve explained! I started by following justchillmama on Instagram and watching her free videos on YouTube. I promise you the free content has made such a difference without even paying for the courses she offers.

Extending the last wake window has definitely been a game changer. I think I used to persevere with getting him to sleep perhaps sooner than he was ready because I got obsessed with the idea of him being overtired! Last night I think he was really fighting bedtime so my husband took him out of the room and walk around with him for 20 mins and then he was ready to sleep. Think I need to listen to him more (the baby, that is, not my husband)

I’m really struggling with daytime naps though?? I’ve tried stretching his awake windows a little so he can have 2 naps instead of three but it’s hard because I find that once he wakes up for the day he wants his nap about 2 hours later. If I continue with the three naps a day, how long should these be?

Thanks again you guys Xx