HELP..7 month old isn't getting enough sleep!!

[Kel]

My 7 month old son who was born 10 lbs 4 oz has never slept through the night.He wakes up at 7.30am only has two twenty minutes naps during the day and starts getting tired around 8pm... he may sleep for an hour then he wakes up for an hour and so on. He just never seems to get into a deep sleep. I don't believe its hunger that is the cause since he doesn't want milk in the night and he has been taking solid food successfully for a two months. The slightest noise wakes him up such as switching a light switch off outside his room. I have tried absolutely everything from adding a blanket to his cot in case he is too cold to keeping him awake all day so he'll sleep but nothing seems to work. He is such an active baby and needs alot of stimulation. He is always on the go. If anybody could advise I'd be most grateful... I need SLEEP!!

Have you tried sleeping with him. Some babes like to feel the comfort of another body. I know its not an ideal situation for everyone, but what is important here? If it works and you all get sleep, who cares? He wont want to do it forever.

Good luck

I agree - My 9 month old was much the same - he was waking every couple of hours in the night, not really crying hard but taking a while to settle himself again. I had very little sleep as I was up and down constantly settling him - and when I brought him into our bed in desparation he settled at once! I have now decided that this is the better option and just bring him into bed when he wakes (I suppose I could have stuck it out and tried techniques to get him to settle himself, but patience was lacking and tiredness taking over!) He now sleeps through until 6.30am, then has a feed and dozes off for another hour. We have at last been getting some sleep, and although it would be nice to have our bed to ourselves hopefully this will, as you say, come one day.

Kel, have you looked at books on sleep training ? Never tried it myself but a friend did (and she was in did problems as well) and she was very pleased with the results... for her second child, she read Gina Ford which she told me helped her avoid some of the "mistakes" she made the first time around.
My only comment would be that your son is not sleeping enough and therefore not sleeping well.. I don't think cutting his nap is going to be successful he needs more sleep rather than less, so that got you far didn'it ?!?!?! Hence I think you need serious help.
Is his bedroom very dark ?
What happens after a 20 minute nap... what does he do ? cry, scream ? how long do you let that go on before you go in, what do you do then ?

I remember seeing this programme on tele about this 2 yo who would go to bed at 11PM, had no nap and woke up early. The mother was adament that her son was too energetic, didn't need much sleep.
She followed the author's advice (I think it was Christopher Green), she found it hard to do but within 2 days her son was in bed every night at 7PM and up at 7 AM + napping during the day (once solved, she left her husband because she realised they had nothing to talk about as before they had been so busy playing with their son until 11!).
I suspect your son is overtired and therefore appears over energetic... maybe I am completely off the mark.

Hi All, there has been occasions where I have allowed him to sleep with us in our bed. He does sleep for a little longer but is still restless & I don't feel I gain much. I have read Gina Fords Contented Little Baby Book but I felt I couldn't use these method as a first time mum.( But on my second child I will implement!!) When he has his two naps during the day he normally screams for about 30 minutes before. It's very rare he just nods off. Sometimes I can cuddle him to sleep and other times I can't do anything to console him. When he wakes up he usually screams. The rest of the time he is quite bubbly.

I have spoken to my health visitor who thinks I should put him to bed as soon as he gets tired and let him scream. I don't have a problem with this..I'm used to him screaming. Does anybody think I should look into a sleep clinic??

Kel, Your HV is well intentioned but what you need to make sure is that you do spot when he gets tired. A common mistake is to put babies to bed when they are too tired and then it is "impossible" for them to settle. One thing has struck me with GF's stuff, I put my son to bed at 730 every night whether he looks tired or not... and he always falls asleep within 5 minutes. If I relied on how he looks I would wait longer on some nights (especially when his first reaction to the word BED is NOOOO !) and miss the right time.
Is his room very dark during the day ?

Do you put him to bed at 9 AM ? -try that first.
If he falls asleep, wake him up regardless at 10 AM (waking up by removing sheet, opening curtains, etc)
Feed him at 1130 or so... and then put him back to bed at 1200 for 2 1/2 h max. It is very common for babies to wake after 45 minutes (that's their natural rythm)... don't go in immediatley, he might very well settle.
You can STILL implement GF if you want to. Plenty of mums started very late with the routine- usually when they could not bare it anymore.

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Pamina - read between pp 92 and 95... Your baby MUST sleep well during the day to sleep well at night.
Also as we seem to be debating GF's methods tonight I read something interesting from her book tonight :
p54
"Dilly Dawes, a leading child psychotherapist with the Tavistock clinic, and David Medder ate the University of Hertfordshire have both done extensive research into sleeping patterns of babies abd young children. Both come to the same conclusion, that a baby's sleeping habits can be determined by the prenatal expectations of the mother. Dilly describes mothers as "regulators" and "facilitators". The regulator mother has very clear ideas about how the baby should fit into her life. The facilitator mother tries to adapt to suit her baby's inclinations. Dilly claims that regulators are less likely to have problems than facilitators . David Messer backs this up. He claims that if a mother expects to get up several times a night, she probably will.
My own experience finds this behaviour to be true of many parents. But the facilitator mother's attitude will often change once she fully understands that her baby is unable to sleep well because of the wrong associations he has learnt from her in order to get to sleep. (..)"

I am clearly a regulator (but I started out as a facilitator.... having failed....) and I have spotted some facilitators out there... and they are usually the ones who can't stand GF. If they have no problem with their babies sleeping and feeding then I think it's fab... but that's not always the case as these posts show.

So Silly Drawers and Mr Meddler blame Mum, do they? Helpful stuff...

Nobody is blaming anybody.... get real !

thought you were bored with stirring it on GF scummymummy!

Well... I was a bit bored Bossykate and their names were too silly to resist.

Also, I genuinely find it unhelpful to couch these issues in terms of what parents are doing "wrong". While there are obviously sometimes adjustments that parents can make to solve sleep problems, I don't think that most parents react well to intimations that their child's problems have been caused by unfortunate parental attitudes and behaviour. It doesn't seem the most positive way to proceed. Just my opinion.

Scummymummy - Obviously you read her stuff in one way - I don't feel that this how she speaks to me at all ---- I found her stuff is a lot of common sense and is often quite reassuring because she does solve quite a few problems... look at how many mums think she is great ! And not all follow her word like the Gospel (not even I)

Hi Guys.. last night I put the nipper in his cot at 8.30pm and left his room.. after 5 minutes of screaming he feel asleep!! He woke up briefly at 12.00am then 5.30am and I woke him up at 7.30 am this morning. This may have been a one off but I will perservere... I can't believe how jolly he was this morning. I finally got abit of sleep!! I'll keep you informed!!

Kel - well done.
So how is his sleep during the day today ? Did he have longer naps ?

Scummymummy, You've had me in stitches here! Dh is wondering what Iam laughing at.
Good luck Kel!!
I've done controlled crying with dd and she now sleeps 6.30 till 7.30. Sometimes I hear her wake in her cot in the wee hrs. But she just chats to herself and goes back asleep.
Just keep at it and I promise it will work!

Pupuce are you the real GF? Or are you on commission
If not are there any areas where you have found help and effective guidence elsewhere?

Im proud to be a 'facilitator'!

Not sure I understand your question, Lill. I am fed up of having to argue the GF stuff.... abuse me all you want i DO NOT CARE !- it's a waste of my energy. I only want to help those who are asking questions.... if they don't like my advice they don't have to follow it.

Pupuce - being fairly new to mumsnet I have found all this talk of GF very interesting. She is someone I had not come in contact with before, and I must say I am intrigued.
However the point I was trying to humorously make was that you do not seem to pass on your own advice but merely regurgitate, verbatim at times, someone elses.
I realise that there are obvoisly a number of mumsnetters that have found GF to be very helpful but at times mumsnet.com looks more like GF.com

Lill, wellcome to mumsnet if that's not a little belated! For a while there I was mixing you up with Lil....very confusing for an old spongey brain like me.
I have only been around for a few months...beware, it's addictive.
If you stick around, and I hope you do I think you will find your last comment not only untrue but not really in the spirit of mumsnet.
All of us pass on our own experiences, which may or may not have been helped by childcare professionals who write books on the subject.
Pupuce does not actually "regurgitate, verbatim" GF or anyone else, and any advice she or anyone gives is said from a spirit of "this has helped us" . Anything suggested comes with an unspoken "take it or leave it".
Pupuce, keep up the good work. I always enjoy your posts.

Batters, I cannot reiterate enough about what you say about the "controlled crying". My 13 week old baby is put in her crib at night (normally about 8 pm or 8:30 pm) fully awake after she has had her milk and been winded. I find that if she doesn't go to sleep straight away, she is normally asleep within 5 minutes at the most. If, after, say, 2 minutes, she is still crying, I resettle her and calm her down, but do not pick her up to comfort her. I just let her know that I am still there.

When she wakes in the night for her night feed (any time between 4 am and 6 am), I also put her back down awake and she ALWAYS falls straight back to sleep, although this might be because the room is kept dark and she has no stimulation of any kind.

My other two have always been good sleepers (although that seems to be changing a bit with my 9 year old now) and the middle one even asks to go to bed. His normal bed time is 7:15 and if it gets to 7:30 and he is not in bed (normally on the 2 days I am working - I don't like to get in from work and have him go straight to bed!) he asks to go to bed.

I find my baby is a good sleeper at night (although still waking for a night feed) and also sleeps a lot during the day. I don't worry about her having a late sleep as I know that, even as late at 7 pm, if she has an hour awake and is then fed, she is then tired enough to go to bed and stay asleep. She has slept through the night a few times, but this is not normally the case, although I know she will get there when she is bigger.

Re the Lil/Pupuce conversation, I reacted to the bait in Pupuce's comments about facilitator's and regulator's too, this bit
"I am clearly a regulator (but I started out as a facilitator.... having failed....) and I have spotted some facilitators out there... and they are usually the ones who can't stand GF. If they have no problem with their babies sleeping and feeding then I think it's fab... but that's not always the case as these posts show."
really got to me, as I felt Pupuce you were being as judgmental about 'us' (facilitators) as you complain about when we question GF. I'm not sure that just having the sleeping/feeding thing sorted is all there is to being a mum