7 month old wakes up nearly every hour

[Chocomelon]

Breastfed baby has only slept more than 3 and a half hours at night a handful of times. A good night for us I'd wake ups after 3 hours but some nights he is waking up every hour.

I can handle the wake ups when they are every couple of hours but when they are less than that it's really tiring and he is often sleeping only an hour to an hour and a half at a time.

He wakes up wants a feed to sleep and then goes back in the cot in our room.

His sleep isn't getting any better.

He's having three meals a day as well as milk.

Any advice?

No idea but our 7 month old is the same won't even go in his cot so you absolutely have my sympathy and if you find a magical solution please share it :) xx

You have my sympathy as my DS was shocking at this age.

Personally, if it's an option I'd move him into his own room. Both of mine slept more once they were away from me. Get DH/DP go slope with his sleeping bag for a night or two before you use it so that his cot has a reassuring smell as well.

Another thing they helped was the No Cry Sleep Solution.

How are his naps? I found that if they slept better in the day it helped their nighttime sleep.

Does he sleep if he's held? I ask because my second baby was the same and at 6 weeks we took him to a cranial osteopath who had an excellent reputation with babies. We'd had a ventouse and forceps traumatic birth and the gentle manipulation on his head seem to work wonders.

So does my 3.5yo. This is what your baby should be doing, roll with it.

Hi @Chocomelon i know this thread is two years old and your little one isn’t so little anymore! But did you manage to find any solution to his awaking? My 7 month old wakes up every bloody hour! I’m so exhausted- just want a magical solution now:-(

There's no solution. It's what they should be doing.

They do not need to feed every hour at 7mo. We had this and it was utterly miserable, and obviously the baby isn't getting enough sleep either.

@Anonymous2610 We did pick up put down sleep training which worked in about three days. If you don't want to, at least in a few months you will be able to night wean.

Ignore the poster upthread who thought this was ok for a pre-schooler. Hopefully her child is night-weaned now!

Whenever my daughter goes to hourly night wake ups it is always a sign something is wrong. Nearly always her silent reflux. She is 4 and still goes to sleeping like a newborn when her reflux is no longer controlled by her medication. Waking every 40 minutes and only sleeping if being held.

If all her needs are met she will sleep through the night as soon as she is ill or there's something wrong she starts waking again. Pain is nearly always the cause of her wake ups the trick is to find out the cause of her pain

@seedsandseeds Surely not at this age? Newborn stage I can expect them to wake up every few mins but at 7.5 months, surely they should be going longer between feeds and waking up less often?😭

@Legomania thank you for the suggestion! Might give it a try soon!
I did speak to the GP today and she said maybe I need to show some tough love!😢
And worth getting a sleep consultant in to find the root cause😔

@Superscientist he does have a bit of a cough but it’s not enough to not let him sleep. Got it checked out with the GP and they said it all looked fine!
Hes also a very bad co-sleeper! With my first one, I coped by cosleeping but this one, I can’t even do that in peace!
The GP suggested night weaning him slowly which I’ve been planning to do anyway but just wish he drank more formula!

At 7 months old? Of course.

Modern society really needs to grasp biological normal infant sleep. Our expectations are askew

That was me. And I'd never wean my child.

@seedsandseeds does/did your child really wake hourly as a matter of course at 3.5?

I do think that pushing the idea that hourly wake-ups are something that must just be endured, past the newborn stage, to someone who is obviously desperately sleep deprived is not helpful.

Just a word of caution my daughters sleep has been equally bad my breastmilk, formula, oat milk and now nothing. The reason being that's not connected to why she's awake. It was quite a learning curve to settle her once I had to stop breastfeeding and she was getting comfort rather than a feed and it took some time to replicate it.

Aa soon as we understand biological normal infant sleep the quicker we'll let go of silly expectations like sleeping through without waking.

It's tiring. That's life.

@seedsandseeds I was specifically referring to the 'hourly' part. Obviously waking at night is normal

Also, there's tiring and then there's 'getting too little sleep to function' - again, normal for when you have babies, not so normal with children

That's normal also.
This should be reiterated for people to consider before having a child.

You don’t need to nightwean necessarily. I considered doing it at a similar age when sleep deprived, however it’s a rocky stage, so much development, separation anxiety, solids…. so sleep can be a nightmare for most babies breastfed or not. We were in a very long stint of split nights at this point.

Suggestions:
You could send baby’s dad in every other feed so you get a decent stint of sleep.
He might have tummy ache from the solids so maybe make his dinner light, and have a bigger lunch, or trial a bigger gap between dinner and bed time.
Could you trial him in his own room? Sounds counter productive when you’re getting up so much, but you might be disturbing him.