Night waking 7 mo is breaking me

[yellowgecko]

DD is 7 months actual / 5 1/2 months corrected (prem baby born 6 weeks early),

She was sleeping through, moved her to own room at 6 months.. Fir the past10 days, she's gone down between 8-9pm, then woken 1am /4-5am/ 7am to start the day. Naps are horrendous, really struggle to make her sleep, even in pram. DS is then up 5.30-6am. I go to bed when she she does but I'm averaging 4 hours a night.

She's EBF, I'm doing it all. She won't settle for DH, screams even louder. I can't sleep in the day as have DS4 to look after too.
No family nearby. We're trying to get a bottle in but it's not consistent.

Is this sleep regression? I'm so fucking tired. It's like having a newborn again.

I could have written this. We coslept 5-12 months and it saved my sanity.

Oh I feel your pain...currently up for the 4th time tonight! My little one (7Mo) had just started sleeping through again and the heat wave happened....her waking seems so much worse than before. I'm hoping that when it cools down she will sleep more. I'm telling myself she's done with sleep regressions now.

We started worked on naps at that age as had similar story and both sleep deprived. Aimed for three naps 2-2 1/2 hour gaps between them.

I would alternate and try a pram walk/walk in the baby carrier/drive/initially and then we worked on cot naps after he was more consistently napping across the day and not as overtired.

I remember being told to bring bedtime earlier eg 6;30 if the naps have been poor.

Does your baby need milk to get back to sleep?

Good luck x

It was around this age DS1 went from being an OK sleeper to absobloodylutely horrific. We ended up sleep training (CC for us) as nothing really worked and I was patting him for hours in the night, sat on the floor next to his cot slowly loosing my mind. He slept much better after he learnt to fall asleep alone, but still woke sometimes and still does now at 3. Although now he often just needs us to find a teddy or pull his duvet up. He loves his bed, asks to go to bed often and is not the least bit traumatised by the way.

I understand sleep training isn't for everyone but there are various methods so if you have a read you may find something that suits your family. Or co sleep as others have suggested. I never slept very well cosleeping so was never a long term plan for me although I did do it a little with both kids especially if they were/are ill.

We also started being stricter about daytime naps at this point too (as a pp has mentioned) and making sure he had 2-3 consistent naps each day at similar times.

It's so different this time. We're starting to get nap times but she fights them, especially in the afternoon.

To get out of the house takes hours, then I have to think of something to do / somewhere to go. Then DS wants to do something else...I go back to work in Oct and honestly I can't wait. Even on 4 hours sleep. She only wants me. It's exhausting. I didn't think it would be like this.

I'm just so fucking tired.

So this morning, she had some puréed fruit for breakfast around 6.45. Started rubbing her face towards the end, decided to take her upstairs to nap as we'd usually take DS to preschool and she'd have a micro nap in the car...literally as soon as I put her down, she woke up and screamed. Pick her up, she falls asleep. Put her down, she cries. Rinse / repeat for 25 min...

Ended up putting us all on the car at 8am, all still in pjs. Drive around for 20 min, she's wide awake.

Fed her at 9am, left house to drive to local park 10am, it's now 11.30 and she's still awake, despite being wheeled around for well over an hour and being in the car. So she's been awake almost 6 hours with maybe 10 min of micro naps.

What else am I meant to do???

So, I have a 9m old, 8m old adjusted. Baby had a sleep regression from like 4-6ms where was waking every 1-2hrs most nights. Was losing the will to live, made some improvements. Now crawling and sleep is not as good as it was. I am lazy so haven't done proper sleep training, still nurse to sleep and then put in cot.

Sleep environment: have you tried black out blind (you can get stick on versions with suckers) and white noise machine? Is your baby a comfortable temperature? Are they full on carby food for dinner as well as milk? If I focus on all these things, I am more likely to get a good night's sleep.

Transferring to cot: my baby nurses to sleep, then I wait at least 10 minutes before scooping and putting into cot. If I do it sooner chances are they will wake and cry.

Nursing technique: I feed lying down near the cot with baby next to me. This no longer works with crawling, I now have to have contact, ie baby nursing on me lying down, otherwise baby rolls/crawls away at intervals.

Naps were horrendous length-wise at regression stage. 30-45min each x 2 on the worst days. I think this was developmental as eventually they lengthened as I suppose she learnt to link sleep cycles. Now my challenge is packing in as much activity as possible to tire baby out before sleep, otherwise her awake windows can stretch to 4-5hours! But yes, the advice is day time sleep breeds night time sleep... Unless you have too much of it for the baby's age in which case the night time "sleep pressure" is reduced.

Oh, yeah, and when struggling then the carrier comes out. Rocking her works as a last resort if nursing or pram doesn't.

Also, she is probably staying awake so long because of the micronaps. I find with my baby if she has a 20min nap, she is cranky, but the nap clock almost resets even if she has very little sleep, and you have to start counting the awake window again.

Try re-settling. If she wakes up, nurser again or pop her in sling and rock until falls asleep again. This sometimes worked for me, but you have to get in ASAP with re-settling. Sometimes it resulted in a super long nap so give it a go if you can!

@EMOJIgate thank you, I think I'm going to have to be stricter with naps. DS was like clockwork with his, I've been more relaxed this time and tried to let her guide me but I've got to try and enforce them more rigidly

Posted too soon - I think because she's corrected I'm completely losing track of where she is developmentally.

Of course, she slept last night 9pm-5am and she's now been asleep 1.5hours
She does hate being put down. I will try side lying feeding.

Thanks all who posted, I was feeling pretty crap yesterday. It's amazing what a little sleep can do

@saywhatwhatnow how did you start sleep training - with patting or leaving the room straight away? I'm a bit reluctant to do it at night as I don't want to disturb DS's sleep but if we can get it done for nap time maybe night time will follow...?

Completely get it! It's especially hard because no doubt you know of some babies who sleep beautifully. Difficult to get through it with no sleep and questioning why yours isn't falling asleep in the same way. I always get into the pit of "what am I doing wrong" but of course I am not doing anything wrong, it's just luck of the baby sleep draw!

Some sleep consultants recommend starting self-settling training with the first nap of the day as this is the one the baby is most co-operative during.

Good luck!