7 month old won't sleep at night

[M24L]

Just Purley looking for some tips/advice.

DD was a great sleeper sleeping between 8-11 hours at night over the last month she has started wakening up around 1-2 and doesn't seem to settle back down.

She is BF so when she wakes up she's fed and literally doesn't seem to come back off. I've tried taking DD in to bed to Co sleep during these times as some sleep is better than none but she will not come back of the breast if she does its because she's maybe dozed off and she will wake up crying and searching for the boob. This goes on all night until 6am where bf simply won't do it so it's time to get up.

Back story, started weaning at 6 months she was on 3 meals a day at one point but recently she's started refusing breakfast , lunch is a bit of a hit and miss and tea/dinner just really depends. She doesn't drink much water as she's at the stage she likes to throw the cup about rather than drink it lol.

She naps between 2 and 3 times during the day normally from 9-10/11 12:30-2:30 and if she has the 3rd nap it's normally around 4-5. Bedtime is 9pm as this is just what worked for us when she was sleeping through the night so we've tried to stick with it.

As she's bf it's only me getting up during the night and it's starting to get very draining so I'm open to absolutely any suggestions/help/tips.

I would cut back on the food and offer milk more often during the day.

Sounds like she's going through a bit of sleep regression. Hang in there, it'll get better.

Babies don't really need water under one unless it's really hot, so I'd stop offering it to her and give her milk instead. Don't worry if she pushes it away, some is better than none and she'll take what she needs.

Are you producing enough breastmilk to keep her satisfied? We found our DD struggled with being BF alone and ended up topping her up with Aptamil Pro Futura. Even if it's just to get her through the growth spurt she's probably having, it's worth considering BF and formula feeding for a while to see how she is.

If she's refusing meals, it's likely she needs a bit more sustenance to keep her full at night. Ours started refusing anything savoury, she had a radar for when I was offering sweet potato and vegetables vs fruit! Instead of not giving it to her, we found distracting her worked well. I would prop my phone up on her tray with a Simple Songs cartoon playing, then she'd happily watch that and eat the whole bowl. This only lasted a couple of weeks and she's back to eating without the need for cartoons anymore.

Are you still offering her single foods for meals? It might be time to add in combinations. Not sure how you're prepping, but we found pureeing all the fruit and veg, placing in ice cube trays popping in the freezer, and then making different combinations worked well for us. It means she gets to know different flavours without having to lose my mind over prepping every mealtime.

Is it possible she's teething at the moment? The pain in her gums could be waking her up at night. We gave a dose of Calpol before bedtime milk kept her asleep for most of the night. Prior to that, she was waking up at 11/12 and again at 2/3. Ours goes to bed at a similar time to yours and was regularly waking at 7am, so I don't think the time she's going to bed is a concern (all babies are different, not all of them love a 7pm bed time!). As long as they're getting 10-12 hours a night.

Another thing we noticed, if we tired her out a bit more during the day she slept better. We make sure she gets at least one walk outside per day, along with time in her jumperoo, time in the playpen crawling around, and we introduced some new toys. All of that together worked for us, so worth a shot for you.

p.s. forgot to mention, your nap schedule. Can you space them out a bit? Try and keep her awake for around 3 hours between. She might also need to start dropping that 3rd nap soon. Around that time ours was napping around 9/10, then again at 2/3, and again around 5/6. We moved the morning nap to 11, with one more at 4 and she was much better at night. Instead of three shorter naps, she has two solid 60-120 minute naps twice a day and it we noticed a massive difference.

@Duracellbunnywannabe she is feeding around 8-9 times a day and then solids in between.

@jazzibelle she was bf and formula fed for the first 5 months as she was always looking for more, this went down to one bottle of formula and the rest bf until about a week before she turned 6 months where she just stopped taking the bottle of formula. The formula was given around tea time which was then in a sense replaced by solids as we started with tea (it was the one meal we could guarantee to have at the same time each day). She is pretty much getting combinations for breakfast we were giving her some porridge made with water as she has CMA and she seemed to enjoy it but recently just stopped and was showing signs of being full when offered it I thought ut was maybe down to the constant feeding through the night. For dinners she has vegetables, pasta, tuna etc and desert is normally some pureed fruits.

She has been teething for a while still no sign of teeth yet though I've tried her with calpol when I can tell that her teeth are bothering her by the usual biting on things, pulling at her ears etc but doesn't seem to make a difference to the bed time routine.

We have loads of play during the day I normally start her morning off with around 20 mins of tummy time, playing with toys, singing songs, clapping hands etc she then has her nap and around dinner time she has time in her jumperoo that she absolutely loves she jumps about going crazy, we try get out most days for a 30 min walk some times longer just depending on the weather.

I will try spacing the naps out more and see if that helps, the 3rd nap isn't always tbh she does go without some days just depending on what's happend in that day etc but if she misses out on the 3rd nap the night routine still happens.

My oldest DD was a great sleeper so this whole no sleep things is all new to me haha

My suggestion is give up the boob and increase the amount of food she's having. Give formula first thing and at bedtime. She will sleep much better

@M24L it would be so much easier if they could speak at this age and tell us what they need. Sounds like you're doing great and might just have to ride it out. Hang in there! :-)

@collieresponder88 I'm not sure I'm ready to stop bf at the moment, she looks to be bf like she's at the stage where she pulls at my top etc when she's looking to be fed.

@jazzibelle thank you, I know life would be much easier. Her little personality is shining through so some things are easy to read but not the reason for being awake all night haha!

If you're feeding her 8/9 a day then I think she might be snacking. Can you feed her 4x a day to make sure that she has a full feed each time?

@Dumbledoressister I let her feed for as long as she needs this is my first time bf as my oldest was ff so I'm not sure how to make sure she's not snacking I just feed as and when she wants it. Do you have any tips?

Back in the day we used to do an 11pm formula dream feed, I think they are probably now frowned on now but they worked for us.

@CloudPop is that just wakening them from a sleep, feeding them and putting them back down again?

Yes they don't actually wake up properly, get them up gently and give them the formula then put them back down. Sounds counter intuitive I know but it worked for both of mine.

And they were also breastfed at other times

Reduce the naps, sounds like she's not tired enough to go all the way through.

Thanks for your tips, we have been up since 7am this morning after another restless sleep and no nap as of yet so shes sort of reducing the nap herself today so we will see how that goes 🤞

[quote M24L]@Dumbledoressister I let her feed for as long as she needs this is my first time bf as my oldest was ff so I'm not sure how to make sure she's not snacking I just feed as and when she wants it. Do you have any tips?[/quote]
So what I did is just had stuck to 4 feeds a day at specific times (7,11, 2.30 and before bed). It's a bit rough the first couple of days but they quickly get the hang of it x

@Dumbledoressister thank you it is definitely something worth trying, she has started wanting more solids again and the last 2 nights shes been going from 9-2.30/3am and then the constant feed through the night is starting but at least we are managing to get some for of rest before it x