Is this never going to get better??

[Curls91]

After months of awful awful sleep with DD who is now almost seven months, he have finally got her falling asleep on her own, she basically chats herself to sleep which is amazing and happened quickly and fairly painlessly after previously needing to always be fed to sleep and carefully put down.
But she STILL wakes every 45 minutes - 1 hour screaming and will only be fed back to sleep.
I just don’t understand why, this is supposed to be the whole problem with sleep but it still hasn’t helped at all! I’m fairly certain it’s not silent reflux so now I just feel like her sleep will never improve.

Being able to go to sleep independently means being able to go to sleep independently all the time.

Your child can go to sleep independently at the beginning of sleep. That's the first step, it's the start. It not the end point though. That's why you've not fixed the issue. All you have so far is the first step to fixing it. Its progress, acknowledge that. Now you have to work on settling independently on all wake ups

Hey honestly I think the whole ‘self settle to solve all sleep problems’ is a myth tbf, my little boy self settled well from early on but never slept well overnight, I remember 6m - 14m being very tricky as you’re at your last ebb, you can’t remember the good sleep from before baby, you’re knackered from months of no sleep, and you thought it’d be so much better than it is by now.

I don’t have the answers, we ended up co sleeping from first wake up just for sanity, but it’s so incredibly tough. We’re at 2.5yo now and he still wakes to get in our bed (and now has stopped self settling altogether).

Someone will probably confirm this but I think for self settling to work you need to implement it at overnight wake ups too and I’d have no idea how to do that, a sleep training method I’d assume but I never wanted to go down that route.

Needing help to go to and stay a sleep isn’t an issue, or the cause of sleep problems, it’s natural. Feeding to sleep is the biological norm, it’s also not an issue. Settling independently isn’t the same as developing the ability to link sleep cycles, which happens in its own time. Frequent wakes at 7 months isn’t out of the norm at all.

That said this is a lot of wakes, what does her sleep look like throughout the day? Have a look at the Possums Approach

clicked send too soon

Possums Approach - which is a natural sleep
support method that’s in line with normal infant sleep development. It might help.

Bedsharing really helped me. Just because waking is normal doesn’t mean it’s not hard on us. Go to bed early, leave the chores to DH, rest when you can. It does get better in time.

I do think some form of sleep training may be helpful. It must be miserable for her as well to never have a block of sleep for longer than an hour.

I think it's a myth too, sorry.

You will get loads of conflicting advice unfortunately as that is the nature of sleep issues, the info is so woolly that there are so many theories, all claim to be "evidence based" and all of them can't be right at once. (Probably they just all fit different babies!) You kind of have to pick one theory and go with that and set a date in mind as in if there is improvement by this date, then great, if not, try something else.

It can be very normal to wake frequently at night at 7 months old. My babies would wake every 45-60 minutes at that age if they were not with me, but if I had them in bed with me then I would get longer blocks of sleep plus it was less disruptive to resettle them. So I chose to handle it that way. I know that is "going backwards" in the theory of trying to make them independent so that they will be more independent in sleep, but I didn't think there was much in that and I felt it was easier to go with the flow.

Sometimes it's helpful just to hear that your baby isn't broken and you aren't doing anything wrong. They do eventually sleep longer on their own I promise. It just tends to take longer than the sleep training books/websites suggest.

If it's every 45 minutes regardless of where she is sleeping, it might be worth ruling out other issues. You say no silent reflux. Any other issues to look at? Allergies, wind, teething, cold? Has it always been this way or a recent change? Is she going through some kind of developmental spurt - working on sitting or crawling? Does she breathe through her mouth when she sleeps?

Load of rubbish, the only 7 month olds that “self settle” are unicorns.
Babies need parents support to sleep and that’s just how it’s meant to be.
I know Sarah Ockwell smith has some recommendations, pink noise, etc which might be worth a try.

We got a sleeping consultant after 1 year of waiting for sleeping. I dont know why we didnt do it earlier

My little one is almost 7 and a half months. Since starting weaning she’s been pooping much more often. Every couple of hours. Sometimes small amounts, sometimes big. We’ve tried different foods but can’t see a pattern.

It also started around the same time we cut down on breastfeeding. She’s now formula fed except before bed and any night feeds.she’s well otherwise.

The main problem we are having is that she’s now pooping at least a couple times overnight which is waking her up. She’s a good sleeper and the odd time she goes longer without needing changing she sleeps through.

Help! I don’t remember this happening with my little boy (now 3). Has anyone experienced this when weaning? Does it just pass? Should we be doing anything else? I’ve been thinking about allergies but I’d hate to go down that route if this is just a normal thing.

I'm not sure it's right to say the only 7 month olds which self settle are unicorns! Our daughter could and started sleeping through on the odd night around 7 months. Admittedly it took quite a few more months for this to be consistent, but they are capable of it once night weaned. On the nights she didn't sleep through she was only waking once or twice unless ill. I know lots of other babies who have been sleeping well by this age too.

I would say waking every 45-60 mins every night is actually quite abnormal by this age. Sure regular wakes ups can still be expected and you will have some bad nights - but not that regular. I would get a sleep consultant involved personally and work with them. They will work around what you're comfortable with ie involving a sleep consultant doesn't automatically mean you're leaving them to cry. Good luck.

In my experience how ds goes to sleep hasn't made much difference to him needing help in the night.

Three things did make a difference to how he slept.

1. moving him to his own room at 6 months. It's much quieter than ours and when he woke, it would take a little bit longer to get to him and sometimes he would go back to sleep by the time I'd got there. It wasn't a miracle cure though by any means. Just helped a bit, there was still sleep regressions and bad nights after this.

1. Having a regular bedtime. There was a period where he started nursery and would only nap once there despitebest efforts, and twice at home and had wildly different bedtimes. That caused a lot of chaos.

1. Nightweaning. This is what really made the difference. No way I would have done it before toddlerhood though. Generally speaking it isn't worth him calling out for a cuddle. Sometimes I hear him stir and just go back to sleep. I have maintained a feed between 4-5 as it gets us a later start. He definitely wakes up for this feed I think his body expects it? He probably sleeps through once or twice a week?

I think at 7 months there are so many variables with naps and food and teeth etc... it's somewhat a fools errand trying to sort it out. I think waking as often as you describe does make me think pain though? Is dd very very upset when she wakes? Could be teeth, or allergies or ear infections? Ds had a whole string of ear infections and now has grommets. It made him miserable day and night, but ibuprofen did really help.

The sleep training method I followed said not to settle baby with food (after they've fallen asleep independently) until after midnight because they're not going to need a feed (provided they ate well before bed). Worked extremely well for my DD but I'd recommend reading the book Precious Little Sleep to get all the info, tips and details of how. My DD went from waking every 1-2 hours to one feed a night in 3 days.

It's tough but worth it for a well-rested baby and parents.

I agree with @MGee123 I think waking that often is a bit abnormal. You get bad nights but on the whole you would expect to be getting decent chunks of sleep at that age. Mine started doing 7pm-4am regularly at 6mo.

A sleep consultant will tell you to start by looking at your nap/ feeding schedule in the day as first port of call.