Ds (7mo) only sleeping for 1 1/4 hours at night. Please, please help...

[civilfawlty]

I just don't know what to do. He is on the 96% percentile, and loads of smaller babies have been sleeping well for ages. A few weeks ago he was doing 3 hour stretches - which now seems like luxury. After a holiday, he is now waking every hour and a quarter. I feed him to sleep. He just won't settle any other way. He seems to feed more at night that in the day I'm desperate. Please help, clever people.

is he well established on solids? how does he settle to sleep at bedtime? does he fall asleep while feeding then too? and how many feeds is he having during the day. Really, at his age, he shouldn't need to feed all night long like that. He may be having a bit of a growth spurt so it might be worth waiting a few days to see if it settles down, but if it doesn't then I'd be more inclined to think he is just waking inbetween sleep cycles, as babies do, but that he doesn't know how to put himself back to sleep. If you want the continuous feeding to stop, I think you need to a) cut out the majority of night feeds (at his age 1 or 2 feeds should be adequate) & b) help him learn how to fall asleep by himself.

I would probably decide from the outset at which times you are willing to feed him - so perhaps initially you might say ok I'll feed him at 11pm and 4am but at no other times & then you can start work on cutting out all the other feeds inbetween times. You could do this cold turkey & try & settle him another way, unless its at those 2 chosen times of night, or you could eliminate the feeds one by one, every couple of nights, until you have only those 2 feeds left. Hopefully this should help to increase his appetite during the day. You could do something like pick up put down, whereby if he cries you pick up, comfort him til he's calm & then put down, if he cries again you repeat & repeat until he starts to show signs of settling & he will eventually fall asleep in his cot. Its isn't the same as CC or CIO as you are right there to comfort him when he is distressed. It might also help if your partner/family member/friend could help doing the settling on the first few nights, as your LO knows they can't get milk from anyone but you, yk?

HTH.x

If he is feeding more at night than in the day, he is reverse cycling. Have a read of this on Kellymom.

You might also find 12 alternatives for the all night nurser helpful too.

Also, are you feeding him an hour before offering solids? Most of his nutrition should be coming from the milk until he is one. Once he is one you can feed him after solids.

omg it is a nightmare, isn't it?

My 7mo was doing this a few weeks ago - we started the No Cry Sleep Solution and it worked pretty quickly (though we were already doing quite a few of the things e.g. bedtime routine). After a good week he's not sleeping quite as well now but it is still far better than he was and I'm hoping we can get back on track.

Not sure if it has anything to do with centiles - mine is on the 25th - and I've heard many people say weaning didn't help sleep, I'm afraid.

That is all I can recommend so far! that and chocolate - for you, not him!

Is he actually feeding at night? How long is he on the breast and do you think he is feeding or is he using you as an aid to settling? You'll know best what he's doing as you know how long he would generally nurse for when genuinely hungry.

If he is genuinely hungry then you can address this by working on his balance of solids and milk during the day and also by reducing the time on the breast at night. If its not hunger, you will need to address how you feel about him using you for comfort (sites such as Kellymom do advocate doing this IIRC), but if you don't feel this is right for you, there are gentle, no-cry ways of helping him to learn how to self soothe.