7 Month Old WILL NOT Sleep - Day or Night

[ExhaustedDadof2]

Hello!

Help required – our 7 month old daughter will not sleep through the night and I’m at the end of my tether with exhaustion!

Our first daughter (2y6m) was/is a dream for sleeping generally – bed by 7, maybe wakes once or twice through the night but goes back down easily enough and has done this since 3 months! Lucky, I know…

Our second daughter has just turned 7 months and continually wakes and cries 2/3/4/5 times a night for a feed. I’ve checked with my wife (who is still breastfeeding) and she does feed, doesn’t just use mum for comfort. What do we do?

We’ve tried expressing into a bottle, the baby won’t drink it – just works herself up into state by which point mum comes and in feeds her! She won’t settle herself!

We’ve tried a sippy cup through the day to get her used to that – still doesn’t work – just chews it, then throws it away.

I’ve tried to settle her with a hug etc – she does fall asleep in my arms, but the minute her head touches the mattress when being put back down she screams!

We’ve also tried waking her for a feed at 2300 to try and encourage her to sleep until morning…still no luck – perhaps a little better, waking maybe twice.

Baby does not sleep through the day at all (not for the want of trying – she just screams until we go get her!) and the night time routine looks like this: 630 Bath, 715 Feed, 800 Bed.

Then generally, 1130 scream…and so it begins!

Any ideas? We’re all exhausted.

It’s affecting our lives as we cannot really go out for a night as we fear the baby won’t settle or feed from anybody but Mum!

Thank you!

No suggestions but my 7 month old son is similar he's not breastfeeding but has lots to eat drink, he's fretful at night and has taken to waking between 3-5 for over and hour after being fed chatting etc however he's so tired he won't sleep! Not sure if overtiredness a problem not very good during day either !

Nearly seven month old here and even the co sleeping cot is not enough, he's often, usually asleep on our bed in our arms, and despite that wakes up every 2-3 hours (5am how lovely to see you again).so no advice, but you are not alone vibes.

Mine wakes at least every half hour and he's one. It's hard isn't it?
You can either try sleep training, which is awful but usually works or you adjust and work around it. Ifthe baby is sleeping 8-11:30 that's a decent chunk of sleep, one of you needs to sleep then, then you swap. Both of you need to work to get the other a decent few hours every night. That may mean you barely see each other or sleep at the same time but you have to find ways to cope.
Baby WILL settle for you. but may take several hours on several nights or even weeks to work out how. Dark room, baby on chest, sing quietly. It can't all be on mum to settle by feeding. She will break physically and mentally on that little sleep.
Try sleep training. It didn't work for us but it does for most.

My DD is only 5 months but up until recently was exactly the same, would fall asleep in my arms but the moment you tried to lay her down she would instantly start screaming. We just got a sleepyhead cushion though and I think gradually things are getting a lot better. At first she woke up every hour and wanted to know I was there, but now she is going longer and longer stretches (5 and a half hours in one stretch tonight) and has begun to settle herself too. I cosleep (the sleepy makes this feel so much safer) and breastfeed. Now she doesn't want to sleep on me any more and when I lay her down she wriggles and goes straight off to sleep.

I suggest you work on encouraging really solid day time naps, which will help the night time. She should be having two really decent naps plus possibly also a short late afternoon catnap if needed. Rule of thumb around that age is 2-3-4: first nap is maximum two hours after waking for the day, next one three hours after waking from the first nap, bedtime is four hours after waking from second nap (with short catnap in between if needed). This will counter any overtiredness and allow her sleep better at night. The frequency of waking you describe each night sounds fairly intolerable, you must be exhausted and so must she.

You only mention breastfeeding but not solid food. Presumably she is on solids at 7 months? Not easy I know but encouraging her to take plenty of solids during the day may help with the nighttime hunger. I know this goes against the baby-led weaning ideas of letting them eat as little or as much as they manage without spoon feeding or encouraging but a 7 month old waking five times a night to feed sounds like she could benefit from a much greater daytime intake.

Jeepers Hubble I just saw your post - wakes every half hour for a year? That must be incredibly exhausting. How on earth do you cope? Sorry if that seems rude, I'm just astonished that you seem so cheerful and together in your post, and you are getting close to zero sleep.

I don't cope. I've considered killing myself several times. I'm currently listening to him scream in his cot where I've put him because he's been scratching and biting me since his dad brought him in at 4am. I'm utterly broken. He's a lovely kid but lack of sleep is awful. I can't take it and frankly I feel like throwing myself off the roof.

I often ponder killing myself but then I worry the baby would be left alone before his dad gets hope from work and what if he was delayed or something? He has to be safe...
I see why sleep deprivation is used as torture. It's brutal. We have no family help as we are abroad and no childcare as it's all state allocated and we've been in the queue over a year.
I can't cope, but there's no help available so I have to cope.

I'm so sorry you guys feel so low, I've been there in the first 3 months of my babies lives. I too felt like jumping out of the window! All is good now I just wanted to say, please please get some help. Anything is better than feeling almost suicidal, sleep training has to be the way forward, I honestly would spend a bit of money on a sleep consultant, I just feel for you guys It's so awful. Sleep training has got to be better than feeling like you can't go on! Best of luck xxx

My first baby woke up every 45mins for the first year and multiple times a night until age 2. PP if you're feeling suicidal something needs to change urgently- does co sleeping help at all? I remember fantasising about throwing myself down the stairs I got so tired. My GP was helpful - can you speak to a doctor? Mine actually prescribed a sedating anti-histamine for my second baby who was also a non-sleeper. He needed it for other things too but she picked out the one she thought would make him most sleepy.

OP - have you tried keeping baby downstairs until you go to bed? Feeding if possible to stock up. I found it helpful to encourage constant feeding (baby almost asleep) for 2-3 hours just switching sides, then putting baby to bed when I went to bed, which sometimes got me a block of sleep for the first part of the night. Sometimes.

If baby wakes when they touch the bed can you have them already in a blanket that you keep them in in bed, so they don't notice any change of temperature or sensation on their skin as you sneak them in?

We've done sleep consultants and sleep training. A whole week of controlled crying did nothing but give him a fear of going to bed. The consultants all had a variant on 'have a good routine then do pupd/gradual retreat etc and remove sleep props.' Nothing we weren't trying to do already or hadn't read online. None of it worked, some of it made things worse. We were advised to remove the link between sleep and milk by taking him out st the same time each day in the pushchair- all that happened was he stopped sleeping in the pushchair at all.

All fine for linking sleep cycles and kids who just want to get up and play but did nothing for ours who wakes right after he's put down.

You might need to go to your local hospital and throw a hissy fit! Go in hysterics say you can't go on you know there is something wrong with your son maybe they will do some scans he could have something wrong with his digestion? Or say you demand to go into a sleep clinic as you are losing the will to live.

Somebody has to help you if he is literally not sleeping at all.

Op - try this:

Feed her really well just before bed. Lots of fat and protein. Tire her out in the day with being outdoors. When she wakes, she gets you, not mum. Offer water and lie down cuddling her in a dark quiet room. If you need to hold her for a few hours then so be it. You're just teaching her she doesn't need milk to sleep.
Don't cut out all the night feeds at once - pick an interval you know she can go without and then the next wakeup after that she gets a feed then you take her back and get her to sleep.
This is the only thing that's helped us. It is tough on you both - if you can take a couple of days off it might help. After a week of this our son was able to go most of the night without milk.

I would definitely get her checked out physically too. Ear infection, teething, wind, reflux - can all lead to this disturbed sleep.

Oh gosh Hubble, I'm so sorry you feel like that. You have obviously tried everything you can think of to solve the sleep issue and I have no suggestions but I really do think you should make a separate appointment for you with a doctor and ask what on can do to protect your mental health under this extreme strain. Tell them what you have written and how stressful it it. You need to have support of whatever kind for you as you go through this. Feeling suicidal is extremely serious. Please ring your doctor, the Samaritans, whoever.

Please try taking baby to a cranio-osteopath