7 month old baby is a terrible sleeper! HELP!

[oss48]

Hi!

Looking for advice. My 7 month old baby is a terrible sleeper, he was great until the 4 month sleep regression and we have never recovered from it.
He is breastfed on demand, eating 3 solid meals a day (he eats loads! ) has 3 naps a day and is the easiest baby during the day. Come night time and this all changes! I can get him to sleep relatively easily, bedtime is calm and consistent, however for the first 2 hours he wakes every 5-20 minutes! He eventually settles for longer but will wake every 1-2 hours. We are at breaking point and struggling to function like normal human beings in the day.. we also have a 3 year old! It has got to the point where something needs to be done.
I normally feed to sleep but have stopped that the last few days. We put him in his cot to begin with but after a while we give up and end up cosleeping with him.

Any advice?? CIO is something I’m not prepared to do!

What are his naps like? If he’s not getting enough day sleep he might be overtired by bedtime?

I found sleep got steadily worse from 4 months until 7 months. After 7 months she seemed to turn a corner. Have you tried a dummy? We persevered with a dummy and it did help her sleep more independently in the long run. Understand it’s not for everyone though.

Thank you for your responses… his naps are hit and miss to be honest.. 2 30-45 mins ones and his lunch time one can be from 30 mins- 2 hours but it doesn’t seem to make much difference to the evening.

Good to know @Onlyinstillwaters ! I am hoping this is the same for us and we are close to turning the corner although we are still yet to have any teeth too!
He doesn’t have a tummy, I’ts not for me but I have tried when we were desperate, I can’t say I tried for long but when I did he just spat it out 🤷‍♀️

Our baby went through the 4 month sleep regression and it was bloody awful. We made some changes a month ago (when he turned 6 months) and he now sleeps through most nights. The changes we made;

• put him in his own room to sleep
• if he woke up and cried we go in his room, hold him for roughly two minutes and then put him back down. No rocking, no shhhhing and no feeding. I would never let him cry (maybe a few grumbles but never let him get upset!). For the first few nights we would have to go in quite a few times but after the second night it improved massively.
• putting him down awake. For 6 months I breastfed him to sleep but we changed it so we fed him, put him in his sleep sack which woke him up and then put him in his crib. It took him a while to learn how to go to sleep himself and there are still days we have to pop in, hold him for a few minutes and put him back down again.
• no more feeding in the night. I found this emotionally tough as I love breastfeeding but after getting sleep I quickly got over it!

Hope this helps! I’m completely against CIO and my boy would probably of screamed all night if we tried it anyway. This method means I still cuddle him when he needs it and he doesn’t get too upset.

@BumbleBeeBumbum that’s some great tips! Thank you so much! We will definitely try this! Now to find the energy to try something new 😂

@BumbleBeeBumbum I think my boy would cry all night too!!

Hey @BumbleBeeBumbum I sort of just half-heartedly tried the method you just described above as it sounds sensible when my DD woke up just now. But she cried for ages as I held her so I went back to my usual bf to sleep and it seems like she was truly hungry. She's 6 months and only just started solids but she wakes up every 2 hours to feed and then sleeps pretty easily again. Did you find hunger an issue when stopping breastfeeding in thr night? I'm wondering whether it will work better when she's having actual meals in the day.

We actually spoke to a sleep consultant and were told at 6 months they don’t need to feed at night so I took her advice. Before we did this, he fed at least every two hours at night and would have big feeds. He was on one meal of veggies a day (probably less calories than milk). He wasn’t ever interested in a morning feed probably because he fed all night. I made sure before I started this that I would offered him the boob at least every three hours during the day so I knew he had lots of milk before bed.

I will say that the first couple of nights were tough. I would go in, give him a two minute cuddle, kiss and then leave the room. Sometimes he wouldn’t go to sleep and would cry so I would keep popping in at least every five minutes. Took about 30 minutes till he would fall asleep. But I was really strict with it…I would never let him get really upset… but I wouldn’t feed / rock / etc as he needed to understand that I just couldn’t do it any more!

Only took a couple of nights and now he nearly always sleeps through. He has been poorly recently and needs more cuddles but he still sleeps extremely well.

Maybe your partner could do it for the first couple of nights as your boy might be used to you feeding him to sleep?

Sorry I just read you said “she” and I said boy. Sorry!!!!

@BumbleBeeBumbum thanks I'm going to try all your tips properly in the next couple of weeks when we move her to her own room! It sounds much more doable than just cry it out.

@Luckyelephant1 please let me know how it goes! x