7mo sleep nightmare. Don't know where to begin.

[PopsicleToes]

I'm really getting desperate. I don't know how to get my nearly 7mo DS to sleep at night (without an hour of cajoling and copious amounts of tears). Apologies in advance for massive post.

His sleep has deteriorated over last 3 weeks and now wakes every 1.5-2.5 hours at night between 7 and 5.30, and cries unless fed back to sleep and held for up to half an hour afterwards. Often as night wears on he is increasingly difficult to get back to sleep no matter how much boob/cuddling I do. DP sometimes succeeds in rocking him back to sleep (while standing). He wakes and wants boob so often that he frequently soaks his nappy and clothes.

Around 2.5 months he stopped falling to sleep on boob and we had to rock him to sleep, and have basically had to carry on with that since. I thought I was getting somewhere with a 'gradual withdrawal' approach, reducing the rocking, lots of shush-pat, but it's all gone to shit and he now alternates between wanting to feed to sleep and only falling asleep through rocking. I would be fine with feeding him to sleep for now but that is also more and more like a fight, with him tugging, clawing at me and grabbing handfuls of boob (i'm covered in scratches), crying if he comes off or if I take him off because he's hurting me.

I get that he is going through lots of important milestones at the moment and i think he also has a tooth about to come through any day now, but I just don't know what to do to improve things. He's ok during the day, happy as long as he's being entertained pretty much constantly or carted around outside.

One of the root problems I think is that he just cannot relax at all without major intervention from me. And even then he doesn't wind down gradually. He just fights the tiredness until he can't keep his eyes open any more, and even then usually he fights a bit more...

He has 4 x 40min naps with 2 hours in between approx. I have tried putting him down sooner, makes no difference to length of nap, but if I put him down before 2hrs are up he will just fight sleep until he gets to around 2hrs.

So in a very long-winded way, I guess I'm asking how do I get him to sleep with a bit less drama, and to sleep for longer stretches? I don't think I have unrealistic expectations. I would happily spend 40 mins or so settling him each night if there were no tears, and even a few 3-hour stretches of night time sleep would be bliss at this stage. Please help me!!

I will report back!
We are braving a night away from the next to me cot and sleeping with boob in mouth
Have progressed to the travel cot next to my bed and will see how we go. Then will move to his own room - hopefully!!
He won't have a dummy despite lots of trying so that's not an option
I feel like it could be a loooonngg night!

Talked to the health visitor today which was quite reassuring in the end, she said she thought much of the sleep/feeding difficulties are down to the teething, and once it's passed I should be able to try some sleep training methods.

Annarose sounds like great progress. Hopefully DS is not far off putting his own dummy back in. However we are stuck with him in our room for the foreseeable future so we will just have to work with that somehow. I'm sure that as even Ferber, the controlled crying dude, says his methods are compatible with co-sleeping, we will find a way.

Hmmalittlefishy good luck! Let us know how it goes 👍

I had a shit night yesterday including one marathon feeding stretch from 1-3!!! And he was a right grump today too but then somehow his sunny side came through and he was all gorgeous smiles and babbling and I forgave everything instantly 🙈

I have no new amazing tips but one thing that helped me persevere when my heart was breaking was to recite mentally 'If I give in now I made him cry for nothing'. I did a variation of the techniques above- gradual withdrawal with lots of reassurance and never left him to cry alone, but its still so hard . You have my sympathy

AnnaRose some of your tips sound excellent, I am taking notes! I am wondering though about leaving baby in bed with a bottle on their own, isn't this a choking hazard...sorry to put a downer but just wanted to mention...

It doesn't go into the mouth any deeper than a dummy though so unlikely.

Tonight she actually fell asleep with it in her mouth! And was asleep for an hour before needing resettling. And that was it! Just one time! (And I was literally only in 5 mins)

She woke briefly at 11.30 but half asleep found the clip and shoved the dummy back in and I didn't have to go in.

It's not about your baby choking on the bottle teat, the risk is your baby choking on the milk.

I hope you don't mind Popsicle but I've been following your thread for much needed help as having near identical problems with my 6 month old DS. He's never been a great sleeper but I can't go on like this and there's been no improvement. My DH and I haven't shared a bed for months now as with the constant night waking and feeding I find that we all get the most sleep when I'm not worrying about keeping him awake too so I'm sleeping in the spare room with DS.

Anyway, I have been following FATE's advice to the letter and to my amazement DS has been settling brilliantly in his cot using her advice, both at bedtime and for daytime naps. I have upped the breastfeeding frequency during this day and he's now feeding approximately every 1.5 hours however this is now meaning that he is waking up even more frequently at night expecting another feed. Last night I think the longest stretch of sleep I got was just over an hour between this and reinserting dummy. What am I doing wrong? He's definitely getting a lot more calories in the daytime. It's only day three I suppose but I don't want to make the situation worse!

During the day he is getting three hours of sleep spread across three naps with no longer that two hours in between naps. Bedtime is strictly 7pm.

Cailler, how would you feel about night weaning? I think you probably need to night wean to solve this.

Just offer alternate ways of settling in the cot, but not feeding. You can do this yourself but it is often easier if Dad takes over night wake ups until established. It may involve little night sleep for a week or so, but it is doable if you feel ready.

Night weaning is a psychological thing as well as a physical thing though. Your baby will be biologically able to not be fed in the night and in your case baby has alternate comfort mechanisms - but these together don't necessarily mean you are psychologically ready to night wean your baby. Maximising your sleep dispute night feeds might be a better option.

I am wondering though about leaving baby in bed with a bottle on their own

I would suggest the greater issue is teeth hygiene. A drink in bed is a hard habit to break. But anyone with teeth (babies, children, adults alike) should not drink anything aside from water after brushing teeth at bedtime.

We switched to warm water in the bottle at around 12 months old with DS. It still works like magic with him though and he's 2.5 now. Though it's only about 2oz of warm water now but it still crucially gets us out the door!

Thank you so much for coming back to me. In theory I like the idea of night weaning, I don't think it can be good for DS to have such broken nights either. With night weaning would I have to go cold turkey or can I just reduce to one or two feeds? I can't imagine going from where we are at the moment to getting him to go through a whole night with no feed.

I was hoping this would just come naturally as his digestive system matured but it doesn't seem to be doing that, we really haven't made any progress since he was about six weeks old, so I think I'm going to have to take action at some point. I don't want to end up with problems down the line, you mentioned it will be harder to get them to sleep independently when they are older. It's just so hard when you're so sleep deprived and you know that a quick feed will get him to settle for another hour or so!

Hi

Personally I went cold turkey at 7 months with both. But have to admit it took a good week or wobbles before I decided (in sleep deprived tears) to just do it. I knew they were feeding V well during the day. I was also on formula at that point and they seemed to be taking V little during the night so I suspected they no longer were that hungry.

But even then I said to myself if I had to feed them I would, big deal. I would just try to keep the dummy in instead.

3 nights later they had resettled with a dummy each time. So I said that was it, I wouldn't go back to night feeds.

I'd love to say their night wakings stopped but of course they didn't. It took a lot more (see my previous post). But it was the first definite step along the road.

Thank you both so much for taking the time to answer my questions today. I have just put him down for the night keeping with the new routine and not feeding to sleep. I'm not sure if I'm quite ready to start the night weaning tonight but you've both given me so much confidence and a plan for when I am.

A common way to Night wean is to reduce the feeds slowly, so it's the same as reducing quantities with formula feeding but you do it by minutes.

So if a typical breastfeed is 15 mins, you start by reducing it by 1-2 mins per night, resettling in the cot at the end of the feed. It helps the baby's appetite adjust more naturally so they feed more in the day, plus your boobs adjust slowly, preventing engorgement.