Any ideas on helping my (BF) 7 mo sleep longer?

[TravailsInHyperreality]

'Cause I'm really ready for him to go longer than 2 hours at a go. And 2 hours is on the long end of things - it's quite normal for his naps to only last 1/2 hour - 1 hours, and for him to night wake (and feed) every hour and a half to 2 hours.

He's been primarily BF, although he's had the random top-up and a few bottles of formula, so I'm not opposed to trying mixed feeding. (Although definitely not ready to completely wean him from BF!)

We are currently (happily) co-sleeping which we choose to do because I'm lazy and can sleep while DS feeds. DS has a cot in his own room that we often use during the day for naps and when we put him down in the early evening before we're ready to go up to bed. But recently he's gone off napping in the cot because I can't lie next to him while he drifts off, so we've laid a mattress on the floor of his room and he naps on that (after falling asleep next to me, sometimes/often on the boob). When he wakes up on his own it becomes a full-on, 5 alarm cry, which is very difficult to soothe him out of - generally requires holding and BF until he's stopped. When he wakes up next to me in the nights he just snuggles closer and finds my boob, no crying. When he wakes up next to me in the morning (usually around 8.00am), he's full of gorgeous smiles and happy gurgles, no crying. It's just when he wakes up on his own that he becomes so upset.

The issue seems to be that he wakes up very easily and wants to be next to him/comforted back to sleep (which is what happens in the night, during the day he generally just wakes up after that initial sleep - hence the short naps). I'd love to figure out a sane and ethically sound way to help him sleep longer on his own.

Any suggestions?

Forgot to mention that we're doing BLW, in case that info is useful to your suggestions.

To me, it doesn't sound like food is the issue, as unless there are issues with feeding there is no physical reason why he shouldn't be able to get all his calories in during the daytime, by this age. But obviously lots of babies still wake for feeds for other reasons. Your DS has got used to your presence when he falls asleep, and when he wakes up alone he gets upset. All babies wake during sleeps, as do adults, and the trick to baby sleep is that they need to learn to put themselves back to sleep during naps or during the night without an aid or a 'prop;' in your case, you.

There are a multitude of ways to approach this, including different gentle or 'ethical' approaches (in my opinion gentle sleep coaching which involves letting a baby grumble a bit with a parent present, is anything but unethical, quite the opposite), but if you have got this far with exclusively BF you have done really well and introducing formula is unlikely to improve your sleep issues. So I'd focus on breaking the feed-sleep association before giving up on the exclusive BF. Try the No-Cry Sleep solution book, or google Jay Gordon or gradual retreat, and see which method takes your fancy.

Thanks for your input, surgical - I've heard good things about the No-Cry book, so I'll have a look at that as well as your other suggestions.

It gave me a bit of a jaw-drop when you mentioned that he should easily be getting all of his calories during the day - I've just assumed he's got a ridiculously high metabolism (he was crawling at 6 months and is now standing and cruising, so he is a very active boy!!) It's very hard to know how much they're taking in when EBF.

I'd agree with surgicalwidow - food probably isn't the issue, more that his sleep associations are based on needing you there to breastfeed him back to sleep when he stirs in the night.

It's really hard when you are happily cosleeping (I have done brief periods of cosleeping with all three of mine, so I can see where you are coming from) because it's lovely and snuggly and convenient and they don't wake you up crying and you can doze whilst they feed etc etc. But it can also end up being a bit of a 'short term gain for long term pain' scenario! I do think that at this age babies can be very prone to night waking if they are still in a room with a parent. Obviously they can also still be prone to night waking if they're in their own rooms! But my own experience is that my DC have ultimately been much more settled in their own rooms after that 5/6 month point, and far less disturbed by us. They might still have woken up occasionally, but certainly not with the regularity you are describing.

My most recent example: my 7mo who was, prior to a holiday earlier this summer, down to one or maybe two wake ups/breastfeeds per night, and was actually starting to do 11-7 some nights. We had to share a room with him whilst on holiday, and he woke up every hour or two through the night like bloody clockwork and needed BF back to sleep (he was mixed fed at the time) or wanted to cosleep on each and every wake up. Got home - put him back in his own room - hey presto was back to either sleeping through or just the one wake up/feed again! Fast forward a couple of weeks and he is now sleeping through 90% of the time (I've now stopped BF though as always planned to stop at 7m). I had a very similar experience with my DS2 at the same kind of age, too...

I know it's easy enough to suggest and probably a lot less easy to achieve in practice, but some gentle form of sleep training as surgical suggests might well help. If you want him to sleep longer, he's going to need to learn, eventually to (a) settle himself to sleep and (b) resettle himself without your presence/boob to get him back to sleep.