Really need help with sleep for a 7 month old

[Enigma85]

Hi, I know baby sleep is talked about a lot but I feel so desperate now. Baby slept through the night in the early days up until about 2-3 months then started waking a lot. We put it down to a regression but she's 7 months on the 14th June and her sleep is getting worse!

She'll wake about 7am, have a nap between 9-9.30 for 1hr 10 mins and then will only do two more naps in the day for 30 mins each! We are weaning and she'll have dinner about 5.30 when partner gets home then bed between 7.30-8.30pm. She is ebf and still in her next to me as I can't stand the thought of going to the nursery every time she wakes. She used to do 3 hour stretches but now it's like 1hr50-2.5 hours, she'll wake and I try ignoring in the beginning (she's not crying), then if she gets upset try putting the dummy in. This often works after about 30mins but then she'll only sleep another hour or so then wakes up upset so I feed her back to sleep. If I feed her she'll go to sleep again almost instantly.

Nap routines are to put her in her sleep bag, dark nursery, rock in the chair singing twinkle twinkle then put her down. Night time I feed her in the bedroom, kiss her in the head then put her in next to me, she will get herself to sleep easily when she's tired.

We're just so exhausted now it feels like the night wake ups are getting more and more regular and we really need some help please!

I had this and I sympathize. Getting up 12+ times a night every night for months nearly broke me.

I had to break my child's feed to sleep habit. Once it was gone, he started sleeping through again within a couple of weeks.

Find ANY other way to soothe and resettle. For us I would put on white noise, pat rhythmically and sshhh gently. After 5 min if that didn't work I'd pick up and gently rock. If that didn't work I'd feed to sleep and try the whole cycle again next wakeup. No eye contact, no communication.

It's gruelling to do this in the middle of the night when you're sleep deprived and just want to rest, but it WILL mean more sleep in the future.

I only did the above at night: for daytime sleep I used a variation of controlled crying. But I so wasn't up for doing that at night.

Could you maybe try putting baby down to sleep earlier? I did a bath at 6pm followed by bottle & in to bed for 6-30.
I am no expert but I found this worked for me. Baby would sleep for longer stretches, I think my baby kept waking so often because they were overtired. A friend recommended me to try and it definitely improved things for me.
Hope sleep improves for you soon x

Came on to say same as @Farmersweeklyreader. 7am - 7.30pm with only 2hr 10 min naps is quite a long day.

Try moving bedtime earlier and see if it helps. If it doesn't then I'd look at trying to lengthen the naps. Have a look at Sleep to Wake method or contact napping etc x