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Original poster

7 MO waking every 2 hours in the night.

33 replies

nello · 26/01/2015 03:45

Feeling too tired to even write this post!

DS, 7MO who slept through the night until 4 months sleep is getting worse and worse. Last night went to bed at 7pm and then woke at 11, 1,3,5 and was ready to start the day. Not sure what to try, but have another LO to look after, aged 3 and this sleep deprivation is not making me a very good daytime mummy :(

DS has two naps in the day - 1/2 - 1 hour in the morning about 2.5 hours after waking and a longer nap of about 2 hours after lunch. He eats three good meals a day, plus 5 breastfeeds.

I have no idea what to try. He is currently in a bedside co-sleeper but often ends up in bed with us which doesn't help him particularly. Wondering if we should move him to his own bedroom.

Any ideas?

OP posts:
Original poster
nello · 26/01/2015 04:33

I should mention that DS seems to be making lots of leaps at the moment - getting ready to crawl, increasingly observant of small things around him, trying to pull himself up….could these be anything to do with his rubbish sleeping?

Thinking of moving him into his own bedroom anyhow. I can always sleep in the single bed in there, and maybe try and ignore him a bit when he wakes in the night (as he doesn't tend to cry) and maybe limit him to one feed after midnight. He is hurting my nipples so much when he feeds right now - kind of chopping on them. It feels like glass is cutting them :(

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MissYamabuki · 26/01/2015 05:06

Marking my place as I'm having the same problem with 6mo DS (but my DS never slept through, and doesn't nap .).

Orangedaisy · 26/01/2015 05:22

Sounds v familiar. Mine is 10 months now and was up every 1-3 hrs from 4.5 months til a couple of weeks ago. Slept through before that. About a gazillion people told me to do controlled crying but I didn't fancy it. Just after new year we decided to stop feeding (bf) her to sleep-my partner shushed her instead. Not a miracle cure but she has definitely reduced the number of wakings and maybe three times has slept through. I am told they grow out of it.....

MollieCoddler · 26/01/2015 05:27

No advice but my 7 month old is exactly the same except he does howl in the Middle of the night, like a banshee

moomin35 · 26/01/2015 05:40

Same issue here :-( it's exhausting. DS was a great sleeper from 8 weeks to 6 months but just this last month has been dreadful. I've read it can be down to them learning so much at this age and in our case it might be teething but right now I'm wondering if he'll ever sleep through the night again :-(

tinymeteor · 26/01/2015 05:57

Just been through the same thing. DD was great until 4 months, had the famous sleep regression and by 7 months was waking all over the place. Now 9 months and sleeping way better, one night feed and predictable naps. I put it down to the developmental shitstorm she was going through at the time. Now she can crawl, pull up, cruise a bit, she's way happier and tiring herself out during the day hence better nights.

I did find that things got better once I endorced a more regular get-up time in the morning. Not easy when you've had no sleep and crave the extra half hour if they're finally snoozing, but it seemed to get the day going on the right track do naps, feeds and bedtime all followed a bit better.

Hang in there... Brew

NancyDroop · 26/01/2015 06:10

We had this with our now 1 year old. Two things helped at once: moving her into her own room/cot and not picking her up in the night if at all possible. Mine was about 8 months when we made the change and honestly it was instantaneous.You might still feed a bit at night but we phased it out around then.

We had a sleep consultant (advice via email & phone). We reluctantly tried controlled crying which for us meant letting her cry about 3 mins befire going in touching her, saying night night ans walking out. Repeat repeat repeat. The first bight was tough. Then the second night she woke 2-3 times rather than 10. Then the next night 1. It was magic.

Beachgirl15 · 26/01/2015 08:00

This resonates with me. I have a DS who is 12 weeks and a DS who is a very active 3 yr old. The baby is waking every 1.5 hours at night and it's near killing me. He's never slept through. Reluctant to try controlled crying but would it be worth it?

Nello - is the baby waking up your 3 yr old? I in part wonder there are so many wakings as I'm worried about waking my eldest. Sorry I can't help but wondered if you think that might be the case for you? You have my total sympathy though. Not sure I can cope much longer with this!

NancyDroop · 26/01/2015 09:27

If you need help justifying controlled crying to yourself - there has been FAR LESS crying overall. My LO woke up crying every 1-2 hours. A week after some controlled cryong she was sleeping through. I think 2-3 nights of crying, going in and out of her room every 3-5 mins until she settled was totally worth it for both of us

SpawningSalmon · 26/01/2015 10:03

I could have written your post. Right down to the toddler and cot side bed. I am finding that the best thing for us is to get DS (8 months today!) to bed at 6pm on the dot. Any later and he wakes up loads. We missed it on Saturday by 20 mins and he woke 6 times between 6:30 and 5:15 when he got up for the day. Last night, bed at 6 and he woke twice - 10 and 3 (still bfing at these times) and got up a bit before 7. It has taken me a while to realise that he needs to go down so early as you assume an earlier bedtime means earlier rising (and he has been waking early a lot- horrible, just horrible) but it really does seem to help. Thank god, as I have been on MY KNEES with tiredness.
Also, my DS does self settle so that isn't a factor for us.
Hope things improve for you soon.

Original poster
nello · 26/01/2015 10:34

Thanks all. Your messages have actually made me cry! Thanks for the support. Going to get a cup of tea and read them all through again.

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NancyDroop · 26/01/2015 14:45

Let us know how you get on nello. If trying the non pick up method it is good to start a night where your DP can share the load and some zombie parenting the next day. 2-3 nights in and I'm sure it will be a lot better.

Fingers crossed and good luck!

Original poster
nello · 27/01/2015 05:53

I got some sleep last night!! :) He slept from 7.30 - 11.30 (feed) and then until 4.50 (feed) and then 6am wake up. That is a great night for us so feeling much better. Amazing how one night of sleep can make you feel so much better after 2 weeks of hardly any!

What I did differently was a combination of your suggestions - I breastfed him before his story and putting him in his sleep bag so he fell asleep on my boob but then i woke him up to burp him and read and get him in sleep bag. He was very cross with me and cried a lot, but I stayed with him shushing him and patting him and picked him up a couple of times as he got really worked up but kept putting him down. Eventually i patted him to sleep rather than fed him to sleep….I wanted to not pat him, but i had to. Not sure if it was that that made hum sleep better or not, but will try again with it tonight.

Beachgirl - DD doesn't get woken by DS as her room quite far away from ours and he doesn't cry loudly. Also we live abroad and have noisy air conditioning which buffers noise between bedrooms. Sorry - not much help.

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Schweetheart · 27/01/2015 07:10

I feel your pain too - we're in exactly the same situation. Dd1 is 3 and dd2 is 6m and has never slept through and last night was probably up every hour or so. She's a nap-resister too.

Thing is know that as soon as she can self-settle it'll make huge improvements - but - I'm too tired to teach her to do so. She won't settle/calm if DH goes in, she's a proper booby monster and that's the only thing that soothes her. During the day I rock/walk her to sleep in the buggy or go for a drive... But even that us becoming less effective. Gaaaaaaah.

salmon interesting you get your ds to bed at 6pm as dd2 has, ever since she was tiny, generally been totally over it at 6pm. But how on earth do you do dinner and bath etc for your toddler if you're getting the baby to bed that early?

Schweetheart · 27/01/2015 07:11

Also nancy - do you think the sleep consultant was worth it? How much do they cost?!

NancyDroop · 27/01/2015 08:32

nello congratulations for getting some sleep! Well done for breaking the boob cycle, that's very important. The first few times you do something different like that the will cry bloody outrage but our surprise was how quickly that stopped. A couple of nights in my LO would start to howl the second i put her in the cot (rather than being comforted to sleep on the boob, our previous technique) but then quite quickly stop and just go to sleep. It was magic. It's like she just understood: oh yeh this is where I sleep now. I'm going to do that.

So the principles we followed are

  • no more bf'ing to sleep
  • instead wind them and put them in the cot
  • they will howl at this change of routine so go in every 3 mins, pat them once, say night night, walk out. They will eventually fall asleep.
  • the first few times they will howl for a while but then the surprising thing (and merciful) thing was how quickly it changed.

We now put her to bed with a cuudle and kiss, put her in the cot, say night night and walk out. If she wakes in the night, which is rare, we help her turn on her side, say night night and walk out (unless she's pooed, but that is a totally different tale of woe Grin.)

What I now realise is that the picking up, shushing, bf'ing, etc etc was actually keeping her awake when she wanted to sleep. I think she thought she needed to go through all that before being allowed to go back to sleep somehow.

NancyDroop · 27/01/2015 08:41

The sleep consultant we used cost £80 for a phone consultation/advice or £200 for that consultation plus sleep plan and on call advice for 6 weeks (which we went for).

Was it worth it? Totally Yes best monetly ever spent! However, in one way the advice is so simple I'd say save yourself the money and just try the things I wrote above (and I'm happy to be your cheerleader!).

The reason it was so worth it for us is that we didn't know what advice to take so by getting a sleep consultant we were in a way just saying: ok we will take her advice now. We will trust it and follow it because we don't know what else to do.

My DH and I are both super gentle with DD so we went to our consultant saying: please no crying, we can't do that! But she convinced (very gently) to try a little bit of crying and BAM! the whole situatio was transformed.

Like I said above I now feel bad for enabling DD's fragmented sleep. A couple of hoeling sessions for now unbroken sleep was the right thing for us.

NancyDroop · 27/01/2015 08:42

Sorry for typos Smile

Schweetheart · 27/01/2015 10:25

That's really helpful nancy, thank you. I know what we need to do so I guess it's just a case of manning up to actually do it.

I kind of want to sort our day times first as I know being overtired from bad naps doesn't help all the night wakings.

I read somewhere about the difference between normal stress and toxic stress. Ie getting used to something bit resisting it is normal stress, being repeatedly shouted at is toxic stress. That makes me rationalize some crying.

We did gradual retreat with dd1 at about 7.5m when she went into her own room for getting her to go down, but tbh once she was asleep she didn't wake much. I don't know if I want to put dd2 in her own room when she's up 3/4/5/6 times

NancyDroop · 27/01/2015 10:44

I think her being in her own room is key (or at least not being able to see you). When DD can see me / hear me she doesn't self settle. So Christmas was a struggle, staying in one room when visiting parents.

Hopefully you won't have to get out of bed much more than a coyple of nights.

And I think a better nights sleep might help the days? Try it that way round?

Schweetheart · 27/01/2015 15:13

A better nights sleep will definitely make me feel better in the days!!! Wink

I'll talk to DH later and formulate a plan. Thank you.

Original poster
nello · 27/01/2015 17:15

Loving all this talk - taking it all in…tired this evening after a busy day. Kids are in bed and i'm having a cuppa and off to bed. No boobie to sleep this evening and a little bit of crying. Picked him up once and did do some sushing - think he was really over tired as got him to bed a little too late, so tomorrow will get him to be earlier and hopefully he won't get as worked up.

:) Thankful for having a thread here to chat all this through - would love it if people kept the chatting up

OP posts:
Original poster
nello · 27/01/2015 17:19

Nancy Can I ask why your sleep consultant chose this method rather than gradual retreat? Are they that different? Is your method called controlled crying?

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NancyDroop · 27/01/2015 17:36

Hope I'm not being a know-it-all - we just had such a dramatic improvement that I want to share the sleep vibes Smile

NancyDroop · 27/01/2015 17:42

So just had a read about gradual retreat. I didn't really sit in the room as I felt it was worse that she could see me but that I wouldn't go to her. So I would go wait outside the door, and go in every few minutes. Yes, controlled crying. One reason I didn't want to do controlled crying when I contacted the sleep consultant is that I thought it would be a permanent way for her to fall asleep And that seemed cruel. But the consultant persuaded me and we then experienced that this only lasted 2-3 nights and now she likes to go into her cot: sleep time!

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