end of my rope, he will not fucking sleep

[omuwalamulungi]

7 month old wakes up every hour, not hungry, not cold, not uncomfortable. He has been doing this for weeks and every time I drop off to sleep he wakes up. WEEKS. He naps ok twice for at least an hour during the day, is not overtired. I do plenty to wear him out through the day and he has a good bedtime routine.

Please tell me what else I can do.

When he wakes, is he upset? If so, could be worth checking for reflux? Is he on solids- if so, could it be something he's eating?

Are you getting any time out? If you're wiped out, maybe consider asking your Dr/Chemist about Magnesium supplements.

Don't have any answers I'm afraid but I know how you feel! My 8mo was the same a month ago and she has improved - she wakes every 2-3 hours now, so still not great, but it feels a lit more manageable. But I don't know whether it was anything I did. I have been trying to help her learn to go to sleep by herself during the day which has helped her get happier with being in her cot but I still feed her to sleep in the middle off the night, and it feels more to me that the hourly waking was a short phase that she passed on her own.

He has slept five hours in a row twice ever.

He has reflux but has gaviscon. He's not upset he just wakes up and shuffles about making a noise. He's such a useless sleeper we have pretty much always coslept because I could not be arsed with the three hour fight at bedtime any more. I still regularly try to get him to sleep in the cot but it's too much of a fight and even if he's sound asleep the second he's put down he snaps awake. He was very good in his Moses basket but outgrew that at 10wks.

He's not really eating anything new but has two or three reasonable for his age meals a day plus a few snacks, I don't force him to eat or anything it's dictated by him.

He slept for an hour and a half earlier and I had to go and check on him more often because I thought he must have suffocated to be quiet for that long.

I never get any time off, all the offers of babysitting dried up as soon as he was born. His father is a waste of space and halfway across the world anyway. My mum just criticises me saying cosleeping is the problem until I invited her to try bedtime for a few days and she had no more luck than me.

Reflux has a huge impact on sleep - and babies with reflux seem to have super-sensitive hearing as well, so noise might be a factor. have you tried elevating the head of the bed? Had to elevate my bed as well because we co-slept. I fed DD slippery elm mixed with her food, which also seemed to help. It is shit and I know how tired you get.
Have you got a sling? Only thing that kept me sane was walking every day with DD in a sling (pushchair didn't work, she howled).

My DD was exactly the same at 7 months, at one point waking every 45 minutes on some nights but mostly every 1-2 hours. It lasted for about 2 months then improved slightly to every 2-3 hours. I think it was teething that caused it. I would feed her back to sleep (co-sleeping) so didn't feel too bad during the day.

Feeding to sleep stopped working and I was going back to work so we reluctantly did controlled crying at 10 months old. Wasn't much fun but it was effective and after a week she would settle on her own at night and for naps and now (6 weeks later) usually sleeps through 7-5.

Not sure if that helps but there definitely is light at the end of the tunnel! Don't worry about co-sleeping though, it's lovely - I really miss it now and if we had another baby I'd do the same again.

Feeling your pain. Have reflux baby, 7 months and have similar situation. For 7 months have put him in his cot time and time again, with him waking between 30 minutes and 3 hours throughout the night. In last 2 weeks I've given up and have him co sleep propped up on me he won't sleep. Controlled crying may not be an option (epic vomit and gagging in reflux baby - I know!) so I feel pretty trapped by the situation now.
People not in your situation can judge all they like. You just need to survive so do what you need to in order to get through until he hews out of his reflux.
Sorry - sympathetic, but not much good advice for you (but watching with interest in case someone else does...)

Seems like there's nothing more I can do and the only reason some of us feel the sleep regression more than others is that we don't have good sleepers to begin with.

He is also teething so it could be that. I don't cosleep because I enjoy it particularly just because if I don't I get no sleep at all. My mum is staying with me and was so unsympathetic this morning because I asked her to take him away from me for a little bit, she did but went out of the room making sarcastic comments about how shit I'm going to cope when we go back home next week.

I was just about to write a post about the same thing so I feel your pain. My ds2 was a great sleeper until he hit 4 months, now at 7 months it's got increasingly worse. He wakes every 45-60 minutes and immediately starts crying. At bedtime I get him into his cot okay, but after that first sleep he won't stay in there. I soothe him, feed him etc, but I've spent hours trying to get him back to sleep in his cot until recently I've just given up and bring him downstairs with me. I'm so tired and really grumpy and horrible all the time. Ds1 wasn't like this, the only difference is that he had a dummy but ds2 rspits them out.

Sorry I'm not helping, but you're not on your own.

Your mum sounds like a real unsympathetic PITA to me. What a comment to make! Anyone would be strung out after 7 months of that. I have no constructive advice, I'm sorry, but just wanted to say you sound like you're doing an amazing job.

People tend to forget how hard it is. I'd defy her to do any better.
Embrace the cuddle time and worry about it when you need to in a few months time. X

Last time we went home he was much better so I'm hopeful of being able to sort out his sleep, it's a hot country so he just gets exhausted and actually was sleeping 3-4 hour stretches. Most people have told me that even for sleepers like him by 1yr things are almost always better.

I forget as well that he's learning how to do so many things at the moment, of course his brains working hard. Mum struggles to sympathise with people anyway, it's not new to me.

Thanks all. Feel terrible now because he's such a lovely happy little thing but I struggle to remember that through the night especially at the dreaded 3:30am not night but not morning wakeups.

I am officially starting TTC #2 today. This is making me reconsider

Well in that case as a counter to this - he's no trouble at mealtimes and has taken to weaning like a pro, likes going out in his buggy and is currently sitting in a cardboard box playing with his toys quite happily.

It's just the sleeping...

My DS never slept one full night for the first 12 months. On his 1st birthday I realised I couldn't/ wouldn't do it for another year & decided to buy the Dr Ferber book that I'd avoided due to thinking his CIO method was cruel beyond belief...then I read the bloody book & realised that's just not the case at all.

I honestly wish I'd bought the book at around the 6 months mark. I'm not going to try to persuade anyone, all I'm going to say is have a look at the book & make up your own mind.

DS is 13 months now & sleeps from 7:30pm-7:30am every night.