I can't cope

[NotthespecialONE]

Surely this is not normal - my 7 month ds still wakes in the night every 1/2 hours, he's never slept for more than 2 hours!!
I've had enough, I can't can't cope - it's making my miserable and depressed.

Meant to only one can't - sleep deprivation for you.

Not normal. Are you offering him milk every time he wakes up? If so, stop.

If you're not offering milk, how are you settling him?

Oh gosh it sounds awful.

What is his daily food/milk/nap routine amd how does he go to sleep at bedtime?

What do you do at the night wakings to get him back to sleep?

In the short term can DH/DP do a whole night while ypu sleep elsewhere just once or twice this week so you can get a full night?

Yes it is normal for some babies.

He's breastfeed which I've had enough of now as its bloody relentless!
Getting him to sleep isn't a problem it's getting him to stay asleep, he just want settling back to sleep all the time with my boob, sometimes he doesn't even fully wake up he's just fussing and rooting for my nipple - he will not take a dummy, I've tried.
He has a pretty good routine, I think! - he's up at 7, a nap at 10 for an hour, another nap at 1.30 for an hour, bath at 6.30 then I take him in the bedroom at 7 and he's normally asleep by 7.30/7.45 - but then he wakes up every 1/2 hours!
Don't have a dp, we split a few days ago and he didn't help anyway when he was here.

I think it is normal, is your baby small? Ours was 4 pounds, she never managed to drink more than a few ounces, up until she was one.

She woke every few hours until she was six months.

Have you tried a dream feed? Good bedtime routine etc?

Sympathies, it is the absolute pits and the reason I will only have one child.

Sounds normal to me, both my BF babies were like this, I cosleep which makes it easier. DS2 has just turned one and is getting longer streches now.
Have you tried to settle without boob?
I hardly wake up with him really, just latch on, quick feed, back to sleep.
Can you feed lying down?

There is a reason that sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. It sucks. But I also had one of those babies who didn't like sleeping. Whilst it is one end of a sleeping pattern, it can be normal.

Try any of the sleep training suggestions, but I'm afraid all that worked for us was time. He slowly started stretching out time between wakes. So once he'd told us he wasn't going to be sleep trained, we modified our sleeping to maximise sleep for adults. And yes, that meant bed at 8 pm, and napping when baby naps. Stuff housework. Sleep is the most important thing.

OK... I know some people say it's normal and it is common enough but it's not something you have to put up with if you don't want to.

I would recommend starting with The No Cry Sleep Solution book as it has a whole section on encouraging them to stop needing a nipple in their mouths overnight - it's habit. It has lots of nice gentle sleep training methods you can try. We had a bit of improvement following the suggestions in that book.

If that doesn't work there are other sleep training methods you can try, but it really depends how hard a line you want (and are able) to take.

Whatever you decide to try, I would make a plan and promise yourself you will stick to it for 5 nights then assess to see if it's helped at all. Then make a new plan and see what works.

Both mine were terrible sleepers and we got ourselves into all sorts of misery with them. They both got sleep trained, the first quite gently and it took about 6-8 weeks to stop her waking every 2 hours, she was 6mo when we started. The second one we were much firmer with, started at 4mo and she was sleeping through in three nights. But that was really harsh and I wouldn't have been able to do it without going through all of the other gentler methods with the older one.

Yes, the no cry sleep solution is good, I can email you a copy if you PM me your email?

No he's not a small baby, it's the comfort and habit of having boob to settle him back to sleep - I need to try and break that habit somehow. I do feed him lying down and we co-sleep but im still exhausted.
Thanks for the book recommendation brie - will take a look.
Will pm you badger, thanks

See, I don't think that it's normal and I don't think you have to put up with it. Both my dc ( one bf one ff,) were sleeping through the night long before 7 months.

A 7 month old baby doesn't need to be fed through the night, and most definitely doesn't need to be repeatedly fed through the night, so I do think you should try some kind of sleep training. It might not get him sleeping all through the night, but I'll bet it improves dramatically.

Good luck.

Unfortunately some babies seem to do this. My Ds didn't sleep through the night till he was around 2, and he wanted feeding every couple of hours day and night till he was 11 months. Dd was sleeping through by 5 weeks.
Ds just fed until he'd had enough, 10 minutes or so whilst dd would feed for at least 30 minutes or longer in the evening, so obviously was getting enough milk so she didn't need any at night.

badger would you mind sending me a copy i will pm you.