7.5 month waking less than hourly unless held: sleep regression or developmental phase? Or me?

[ZestyLime]

Is this the 8 month sleep regression or am I doing something wrong?

My baby is 7.5 months. Went into own room at 6 months but settled after a week and continued sleeping as before which was one wake up overnight for a feed or slept through. Normally 8 till 6 with three daytime naps which were around three hours total

For the last three weeks he will sleep deeply for about an hour in his cot but wakes up crying. He won't be soothed by rubbing his chest and shushing or a dummy so he's picked up and soothed to sleep. He falls asleep in my arms within seconds of being picked up, before I've even sat down on the the chair in his room! But when I put him back down he instantly wakes up. This is whether or not I put him straight down or hold him for 15 minutes or even if I've fed him again if he seems hungry after a few wake ups. This goes on til about 1am which is when he always seems to be able to be put down, by this time there's been a dozen attempts. He then wakes up crying around 4:30 and the cycle starts again until 6 am when he can be put down again, usually for only an hour. Also, for the last couple of weeks he has been dropping the third nap. We have been doing bed time slightly earlier 7:30 as a result because his wake windows don't then get him to 8pm. Nothing seems to make a difference.
It has coincided with him getting on all fours and rocking, he can move his arms but not coordinate them with his legs to move forwards but can move backwards.
Is this a regression? Developmental because he's learning to crawl? Or am I doing something wrong? I will not let him cry it out and don't want to.

I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. My 8mo’s sleep (never great) also got a lot worse around the 3-2 nap transition, in a similar pattern of many hours of constant wakes/restlessness in the middle of the night, then eventually dropping off for a bit. I think sometimes they suddenly need a bit less sleep over a 24 hour period so you could try reduce the daytime sleep a bit to see if that helps him sleep better at night, and make sure he has at least 10-11 hours awake time during the day. But tbh it has been rough - long periods awake, can’t be put down, overtired on 2 nap days and undertired on 3 nap days. But it does pass. I remember with my first 8-10 months was a rough phase and it started getting better again towards 12 months. Also lots of new skills like you say and LOT of separation anxiety. Bit of a potent mix! Could he fall asleep independently before this? No right or wrong ways to do this but if you wanted to you could gently encourage him to fall asleep without rocking or feeding, probably wouldn’t solve anything immediately but would be helpful further down the line. Either that or don’t bother and cosleep for a while, less jumping around in the middle of the night. Having done both cosleeping and sleep training, I feel like there’s no right or wrong answer, it’s just finding something that more or less works for you and him.

You don't mention the obvious - teething. Have you given Calpol and Nurofen?

Yes sorry, have tried that hoping for a miracle when it kicked in but sadly no difference

I tended to rock to sleep or feed to sleep but have started to hold him without either and he does go to sleep eventually. I have tried putting him down drowsy but he doesn't settle and crys and then have to work to get him back to sleep and then end up rocking.
Occasionally he lets put a cry and I can see him moving on the monitor but before I've even got to him he's fallen back asleep within a minute but I suppose he could be doing that in his sleep rather than waking up and self settling. I have fears about co sleeping because my husband sleeps so heavily in worried about him rolling on him and we don't have another bed for him to go to. Thank you, it's nice to know it's not me and there is an end in sight eventually, I will persevere with two naps and see what he's like with a bit less and aim towards sleep training.

This was similar to my first baby, I spent hours in the night trying to put him in his cot. Then I just started co sleeping and it was a miracle. Game changer.

did it with baby 2 and 3 and it’s the only way I didn’t die with exhaustion