Seven-month-old waking hourly at night and only taking very short naps

[Aifardajjas]

Hi. My dd is 7 months old. She dosent sleep, wakes up after every hour or sometimes even after 10-20 mins. Her naps are also 10-20 mins long and just 2-3 times per day. Its been seven months I had no sleep, I am exhausted. She wants milk everytime she wakes up. I tried loads of things nothing helped. Does anybody had a similar experience? What do you do in this situation?

Have you tried...

cooler room
warmer pjs
feeding her more food through out the whole day
worm medication
white sound
GP check up - pain related issues - ears, UTI.
leaving her to self settle
teething ointment
red night light
dark room
wheeling her in the pram/or car ride for her daytime sleeps
teaching her to sip water from a sippy cup and from someone else administering care.
leaving her with another adult for your own sanity, as a respite,

I have tried everything except worm medication and night light. Her pediatrician said she cant do anything about it. She dosent goes to anybody else except my husband who dosent bother. Thinking of sending her to daycare so I can have some peace but my heart dosent agree.

I think if you’ve tried everything and you can’t continue with things the way they are then it might be a good time to find a sleep consultant. There are so many out there who work with different techniques and most will do a free initial call so you can see how they can help you before committing to it.
We used one for both of our babies and it’s been so helpful giving us the tools to be able to settle and extend naps and night time sleep etc. It doesn’t mean leaving to cry it out. I found it helpful having someone outside of our situation to give us advice and guide us. It’s can be hard to see how to make change when you’re in the thick of sleeplessness.
Maybe do a bit of research and see what you’d be comfortable with and finding someone who can help.

Ok. I would focus on nights first. You could try not giving her milk every time she wakes up. Instead, comfort her - hold her, walk around with her if you can, or if you can't try sitting in a chair and maybe gently tilting her back and forth. Give milk every two hours (or every hour if she won't stop crying) then hopefully eventually you can stretch to every three or so hours.

No guarantees this will help! My baby was never a good sleeper and around eight months went through a terrible phase of waking every 45 minutes. It only lasted about a month, though.

Ah, and whatever you try, Id stick to it for at least a couple of weeks!

Thanks. I will try this.

Recommend giving details to chat gpt and updating it as you get on

Is this new behaviour @Aifardajjasand how is she fed? Is she FF or BF? Have you started introducing solids yet and what does she eat in a
typical day?

She is not a good sleeper since the start, its been worse since she was 4 mo. She is on FF and BF both, drinks less than 20 0z during day. Her weight is fine she is on 50th centile. Yes she is having solids. I am giving her 2 lots; morning and evening and snack in between.

OP I feel for you, I had the same with mine and its so so hard.

There are many reasons why a baby can't sleep through. Some have easy solutions, some have difficulty solutions and others don't have any. The problem I had was that online you have a million "experts" telling you what you should be doing. And I would try one and worry if I should be trying one of the twenty other solutions I read about.

A sleep coach helped for me, not because she helped get DS to sleep but because I felt we had a plan we work on together and tried things with a clear goal. And I didn't feel I must be doing something wrong because I had someone telling me I was trying all the right things.

My child never slept through, woke up at between 8 and 16 times a night until at least 15 months. Not saying this will happen to you, most people try things and eventually find something that works. But just so you know it's not something you are doing wrong. Some babies just can't connect sleep cycles, it's something they have to learn on their own. Just like rolling over, walking and talking, some learn it fast than others but they all get there eventually.

For me things started to get better at around 15 months and from 2 and a half he wakes up around once a night. Even now at 4 he wakes at least once and I go and sleep with him.

I know a few people who say that a osteopath really helped their child sleep better. Maybe worth a try, I went at around 4 months but it made no difference to us.

The thing that I wished I had done sooner is buy a single mattress and co sleep with the mattress in the floor. This made the world of different to my sleep.

If she’s combi-fed then 20 floz sounds about right although I’m not trained so you might want to check on one of the BFing helplines. Under 6 months though a BF baby will only take roughly 25floz in 24 hours. They don’t need the huge volumes that a FF had to have.