If I do nothing, will this naturally improve?

[Drmum83]

Looking for experienced mum advice!
I have a 7 month old DD, I'm a FTM.
She's breast fed, growing well.
She has never slept through.
I think we have set up good sleep hygiene- she naps well (1.5-2hrs in morning and 40 mins - 1 hour in afternoon) This is in her cot, white noise. She does have a dummy.
We have a good bed time routine, she's weaning well on 3 good meals and 4 hourly breast feeds.
She settles quickly for naps and 7pm bedtime. My DH gives her a bottle of milk at 10ish, never taken more than 4oz.
Unfortunately. It goes downhill from there. Some nights (rare) she'll wake twice and I try to only feed if 3.5/4 hours has passed since last feed. However, some nights, she'll wake 4-5x. She's not crying, just moaning. Usually the dummy replacement service kicks in (me) and she'll settle.
ANYHOW - I know she's crap at self settling without sucking. I think this is the underlying issue here.
We are on cusp of some sort of gentle sleep training and dummy removal but I can't bring myself to do it yet. I feel it's gonna be a 2 man job and my DH is a rubbish sleeper as it is and has a pressured job which he needs to be on the ball for.

My question is - if we do nothing, will this improve naturally? I don't mind waking to feed once but I don't feel she needs more than that as she's feeding well in the day. My thinking was she'll soon learn to reinsert dummy and hence problem solved but am I kidding myself and hence should I just bite the bullet and sleep train?! Your experiences welcome!! TIA

My DS was exactly the same at that age. Not long after he learnt to put his own dummy back in (usually have about 3 in the cot so that he can always find ine easily) but things didn't really improve until he was crawling. Once he was on the move he naturally became a much deeper sleeper as he was so exhausted. He didn't crawl until 10.5 months. It is his first birthday next week and so far we have had 1.5 months of him sleeping 11-12 hours a night and 3ish hours over two naps in the day. He does of course still wake in the night .. but he shuffles about a bit and flumps down again to fall back to sleep.

So ... we did nothing! I hadn't yet reached my absolute breaking point and wanted to wait until I did. I am happy I waiting and count myself lucky that DS eventually figured it out for himself.

I hope things improve for you soon.

DS2 slept through once he could put his own dummy in (about 8 months). Have you got dummies attached to a dummy blanket or sleepytot so she can find them easier?

My ds is the exact same although 4/4 wake ups would be classed as good in our house

We haven't done anything and things are very very slowly starting to improve.

Sleep went tits up at 4 mo, he's now 8.5mo and its only recently he's started to improve

I am not strong enough to do sleep training so I think things do improve if you leave them but it does take time. He is crawling and has been for a while but unfortunately that made no difference for us .

Do you give something to hold in the night? No idea if it helps but ds goes to sleep holding muslins and I think they help comfort him if he wakes

DD learned to put her dummy in quite quickly once she was in her own room at 5.5m which was great, but she still often woke us crying- either she wasn't awake enough to search for dummy or had a bad dream or was hungry but usually only needed an extra feed once a night and not every night (she had a dreamfeed at 11 too). We've never done any sleep training. What improved it for us was mainly time, but also shutting her and our bedroom door so we couldn't hear her unless she really needed us - often she could go back to sleep by herself but we were already awake. Also we have just started to give a bottle of formula as well as a breastfeed just before bed, but that was to try and solve her taking 3 hours and numerous BFs to fall asleep, however it has also had the effect that she sometimes now sleeps 7-7 without even the dream feed. I think once she starts eating more at dinner time it'll get better still.
In short then yes I would think it will get better over time without any sleep training or with only very gentle methods. She will learn how to get herself back to sleep gradually and at some point she will be able to eat / drink enough to keep her going all night.

Oh and it was pure laziness that led us to just wait it out. Sometimes we'd talk about doing something particular to try and get her to sleep through from 11-7 but never did and it gradually got better.

Hi OP

I think - as wth everything - it depends on the baby! With my DS1 who was like your DC it didn't improve unfortunately and he was a terrible sleeper until 2 1/2 ( so I guess it did improve over a very long time!) and still wakes once or twice a week now.

You might be lucky though and it depends how you cope with lack of sleep ( I'm terrible but my DH didn't seem to find it so bad). Only do what you are comfortable with though - so if that doesn't include sleep training ( now or ever) then don't do it! I didn't with DS1 - I am with DS2 though

My 9m DD is sleeping much better since we put her dummies on a sleepytot. She wakes and finds the dummy herself then goes back to sleep. Only took a week or so for her to get used to it.

We started using it at about 7m I think, we were fed up of the dummy runs throughout the night, she is ff and had dropped night feeds by 6m and losing the dummy was the only thing causing her to properly wake up and cry. I tried going cold turkey with the dummy but couldn't handle the crying (wimp) so tried the sleepytot. Works for us!

Thanks everyone for all of your really useful advice and tips!
Definitely gonna try a comforter and sleepy tot. I guess I'm just a wimp and can't stand the thought of having a week or so of even less sleep!
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