7 month old early waking help!

[Rooblue2013]

My LO is 7 is months old and has never been a good sleeper, he will wake many ones between the time I put him to bed and the morning (last night was 12 times) then he was up at 5 am! It's

It just get worse an worse, it's pretty clear he is not ready to wake up at 5 he doesn't want a feed, he will then want to go back to bed at 7.30!

I need some advice on how to get out of this rut and get him sleeping like he use to waking up near 7 o'clock! He is rocked to sleep and is an awful napper through the day! I am considering controlled crying when I feel it's the right time but right now I don't he has no routine and it's really taking it toll on me

I really feel for you! I can recommend the no cry solution by Elizabeth Pantley, she has tons of suggestions and doesn't make you feel like somehow you have failed. Her methods may take slightly longer but there is no controlled crying which personally I couldn't do. Try rocking slightly less than you do now and try not to put your baby down when he is totally asleep, he may protest but then you can then pick him up and repeat but again put him down when nearly asleep not fully. If he gets more and more worked up Pantley would say just rock him to sleep again but try this again the next night, so that they don't get stressed and link this with sleep time. But try repeating this a few times and he may wear himself out and then he will be doing the falling to sleep bit himself which should help when he wakes at night, then he may have a go at putting himself back to sleep. When you are trying to change things it can feel worse for a few days/weeks but then hopefully it will get better. My baby is an early riser too, things I have read about and am trying are: Black out blinds, white noise machine (to lull them back to sleep), pushing the first nap of the day back by a few minutes each day so it's not just an extention of the night time sleep, Kim West - Good night Sleep tight author suggests a dramatic wake up where you go in and be lively saying good morning!, open curtains. My baby won't stay in her cot awake in the morning for long but I have been trying to leave her in there a few minutes more each day and she has started to entertain herself babbling for longer than she used to. What time do you put your baby to bed? Oh and I invested in a nice transistional toy, slept with it for a night and then put it between me and my baby while she fed and she has now started sucking it to sleep. Hope some of this helps a little, Good Luck, you are not alone x

Does he go to bed at the same time every night?
Maybe try when he wakes at 5 keeping things the same as you would if he were to wake in the night? Keep it dark and quiet and try rocking back to sleep? It may just be a habit that he has gotten into.

One more thing I forgot, a gentle bedtime routine if you don't already have one. I have started doing a nap routine which has helped lots with day time naps. I change nappy, put on some relaxing music, put my baby in her sleeping bag then just say a key phrase (Pantley suggest this), I say "it's time to nap now". At night if she wakes I go in an say, "it's okay, it's time to sleep". They overtime get to learn that this means it's time to sleep.

I always think you can't control the time they wake but you can control the time they go to sleep. I would try pushing bedtime and first nap time further forward, maybe by 15 minutes every few days until he is going to bed an hour later and not taking the first nap til 9.

I would definitely try to start a proper routine, and stop rocking to sleep and get him self-settling.

I have a bed time routine, bath, bottle, story, bed, all done in his room with a little lamp on so it's not to bright and it's quiet. Which I do finds helps as he does no it's bed time, I did have a routine but we've had many feeding problems and his milk got changed for the 6th time an it got ruined and I just can not seem to get it back no matter what I try and do!

My plan was to try and push his morning nap back until 9.30 and limit it to half an hour? Do you all think this would work? And then to have a longer afternoon nap limit it to 2 hours? Do you think another little half an hour nap late afternoon to help make his bedtime later?

Oh I would love to stop rocking him but he just screams and screams, which I think I am going to have to result in controlled crying as I tried the gradual retreat but if he knows I'm there it makes it worse.

Tonight he has gone to bed and asleep by half 6, usually it would be 7-7.15.

When pushing his nap forward do I still limit it to half an hour as I was going to do it gradually?

It's so hard to know, I personally wouldn't limit his naps because I keep reading the more they nap the better they sleep and this has usually been the case with mine, just heard you should try to push the first one a little later gradually. I let my baby have a short cat nap in the eve and this helps her not get over tired and crazy when it comes to bed time. She goes to bed around 7 - 7.15. What sort of feeding problems have you had if you don't mind me asking? My baby has a cows milk protein allergy which seriously affected her sleep before we knew what she had and have you tried a dummy?

They thought he had cows milk protein allergy but we have tried so many milks none of them have made any difference, difference in he really struggles with his weight either loosing, not gaining or the most 3oz! He is on infatrini peptisorb high calorie milk but no really improvement! Also on ranitidine for silent reflux. Which in all honesty has calmed down loads! Well today I tried 9.30 sleep for an hour, 12.30 for two hours but was at his grandads house so didn't sleep for two had about 50 mins then hour again at 4. I'm home all day tomorrow so I'm hoping the above goes to plan

Ah bless him that sounds very stressful for you. I can sympathise we had terrible reflux too and my baby just couldn't lie flat on her back and we had ranitidine then omeprazole but she just got completely better when I cut out milk from my diet as I was BF.
Have you tried raising his cot in case reflux is waking him at night but I guess you said the reflux has calmed down? I guess you probably have so hoping I'm not sounding patronising! I have read that some babies are so sensitive to milk that they even react to the extensively hydrolysed formulas, I am about to try mine with aptamil pepti 2 to see if she can handle it but she is very sensitive. Did you try rocking him just slightly less, when he literally just on the absolute verge of falling asleep them putting him down? That did worked with mine but she still gets up ridiculously early too. anyway Good luck

It can be very stressful I just think the lack of sleep makes everything 10 times worse. Its OK you don't sound patronising but yea I did and I've just started lowering it bit by bit so he will be lying flat again.my lo did try aptamil pepti 1 to start with but as I said before none of them made any difference, hope it works for your lo, just a word of warning these cmpa free milk and hydrolised milk smell and do taste foul. My lo had neocate at one point and was such a struggle to get 2oz into him. To be honest no I didn't as last night was an awfuk night he was up from 1 until 4 so I just needed sleep to. Such a vicious circle.as I said before I'm going to try longer sleeps tomorrow and see how that goes. Hope the aptamil pepti 2 works for your lo

I know being sleep deprived is awful and you will do anything just to get them back off. I oftne feed mine to sleep when she wakes really early in a hope to get her back off knowing that I am creating a sleep 'prop' but I just get so tired! Hope longer sleeps make a difference and thanks for the warning about the milks!