7 month old waking every hour

[jimblejambles]

Dd is 7 months old and slept well until about 5 months and has steadily got worse.she now wakes every hour wether it's night or nap time.
Sometimes I can pat her to sleep, sometimes a cuddle will do it but more often it's a bf that will get her to sleep.
She is eating loads during the day and still has bottles of milk during the day. I breast feed at night.
Everyone comments on how active she is (she is constantly moving) so I don't understand why she isn't shattered at the end of the day.
I don't want to do controlled crying with her even tho my health visitor insists it's the only way.
She has a bit of a cold at the moment that isn't helping but I need some ideas on how to get her to sleep if anyone can help.
Thank you

I expect that you might feed her to sleep in the first place? A couple of things to try;

Make sure that she has enough daytime sleep as overtiredness can cause her to wake more at nighttime. At 7 months there should be at least 2 naps or 3 in some cases where the naps are quite short.

Teach her to self soothe and move milk to earlier on in the bedtime routine. So Pjs, milk, book, sleeping bag and then into bed. Settle her within her cot so soothing words and a bum/tummy rub but don't get her back out of her cot. Stick with this and she should get the message pretty quickly - I would expect her to improve within a week or so.

Sorry, just to add, if you're still happy to BF at night, set a time limit for the night feeds. So if bed time is 7, say that you will feed once or twice at night and only after she has slept for 5 hours or so.

Thank you. Will start doing that tonight. I think when she first started waking up I fed her just so I could sleep and we have got into the habit now.

Great advice from cantthink. Controlled crying isn't the only way. Sounds like she has a sleep association with milk / suckling - you can gradually and gently wean her off it. Try to shorten night feeds by detaching her regularly (if he screams you can feed again, but if she's ok then settle her - over time she will be easier to settle with less milk, then none) and soothing her in other ways. Set yourself goals for gradual reductions every night, either the time spent feeding, or how long she goes in between, or both. Put her down where she is going to sleep all night, so when she naturally rouses (as we all do) she isn't unsettled by having been moved/ a different environment. Only thing that i differ from cantthink on is when putting 13mo DD to bed she often goes into cot, comes out for quick cuddle, goes in, this can happen a few times. I'm ok with it, I see it as her need for reassurance that she isn't stuck there forever - and if I don 't it becomes a battle of wills, which isn't restful! She eventually settles then sleeps all night. It ok me a month or so to sleep train her, from 9mo, because I wanted to be gentle. It was simple and fily easy but slow. Two steps forward, one back.

If you don't want to do controlled crying, have a look at the No Cry Sleep Solution book. it will take some time (a few months) but people on here swear by it, especially as a way of getting rid of a feed to sleep association without crying.

We were exactly the same as you at 7m, now at 8m and we have some improvement! In the last week she's going 4hrs or more between wakes at night.
If you don't want to leave her to cry, try sticking it out a bit longer?

And yes an improved bedtime routine has helped us.

HELP!
have a nearly 7 month old who wakes every hour and it’s exhausting. He’s dropped his bottles throughout the night and I usually offer one but he will only drink around half and then not want it. He doesn’t fall asleep on the bottom any more either. When he wakes up he doesn’t fully wake up and I try to leave him a while to see if he will resettle himself but he never seems to. We have started self soothing and 9/10 times he will send himself to sleep for naps and had started to for bed time. He may need the occasional hand on his tummy and hand to reassure him and help him. He is weaning and is eating meals and has a slight stuffy nose and is learning loads at the moment but I’m just all out of ideas as to what can help.