Help, I think my baby is broken

[GreyStarz]

I think my baby is broken, he won’t sleep for longer than 1-2 hours at night which has been going on since he was 3 months old (he’s now 7 months). He naps fine in the day, two naps in bed each anywhere between 1-3 hours with a catnap in the afternoon if he needs it. He loves his food and eats three small meals a day with us. His bedtime routine is bath, feed, puzzles downstairs with his brother then upstairs to be fed to sleep in the dark with white noise.
I feed him to sleep at every wake up. A good night is at least 5 wake ups, a bad one is 10+.
I have tried formula before bed, no protein after lunch, calpol, no afternoon nap, wake times from 2-4hours after the last nap, no white noise, continuous white noise, early bedtime (6pm) late bedtime (8pm) and nothing makes any difference. I am so desperate to get some sleep and I feel like I can’t cope for very much longer as things are. I really don’t want to leave him to cry but are there any other options? Any help would be great thank you for reading this far!

Do you need to feed him to sleep for his naps and before bed as well? It sounds like a self-settling thing. And when you feed him to sleep at night do you feel like he's having a proper feed or just a snack for the comfort.

If it is that he's waking up and wanting you to comfort him back to sleep then there's various options depending on your parenting style...

You are literally describing my baby 2 months ago. She's now nearly 9 months and has finally started doing 3-4 hour stretches at night without me changing anything about feeding her to sleep or her bedtime routine etc. If you can stick it out I honestly believe it'll get better on it's own in time but as PP said there's lots of things you can do to change things depending on your parenting style.

I found this gave me a lot of comfort
kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/sleep/

It's so hard though, sleep deprivation is horrible.

I had to sleep train DS1 at 3 and a half months old because he woke up every 30 to 40 min or less if I fed him to sleep. I think their brain changes at about that age and they start doing sleep cycles, it then depends how light a sleeper they are whether you can get away with helping them to sleep, DS1 is an extreme light sleeper! Fortunately at 3 months old it was easy and gentle and he didn't have to cry at all with pick up put down method and a sleep comforter that smelt of me. I took it a bit for granted though as it was so easy, and at 6 months old I needed to redo it due to a combination of helping him to sleep a bit more during him having a cold and then travelling and him being unsettled. At 6 months old he had to cry a lot and it was horrendous, but I got through it by telling myself there would be less crying in the long term because he was waking up all through the night crying for me anyway without the sleep training, whereas afterwards he would just do little shouts for my attention when he woke for a feed. I can't offer you an alternative but just wanted to say if you do go for the sleep training it's worth it afterwards and sending sympathy

I co-slept with my baby / toddler in order to get more sleep. He settled much better when I was there and we got 4-5 hours unbroken eventually. But yes I remember the 60-90 mins max I used to get (and only if he fell asleep in my arms/ on me) . No one believed me at first how hard it was. But I understand co-sleeping is not for everyone.

Thank you all for taking the time to reply, particularly the KellyMom article. It makes a lot of sense and I feel much better knowing that I'm not the only one going through this! I don't think that sleep training if for me so will try to wait it out.

I started co sleeping with mine at this age as she was exactly the same. It made all the difference to my sanity! I'm afraid she stuck to that pattern for a couple of months, but I often couldn't tell you how many times she woke as I'd cuddle or feed her without really waking up,and we'd both drop off again within a minute or two.

Incidentally. I never did sleep training. She's now 22 months and feeds to sleep still at night and most nap times. She has one night feed now, which occasionally she doesn't bother with and which doesn't bother me at all. The only time she reverted to that kind of night-from-hell behaviour was when her first molar came through.

I spent a lot of time second guessing myself and wondering if she wouldn't learn to self settle, or would always wake during the night if I fed her to sleep. Maybe if I'd done sleep training I wouldn't be awake once a night, but she settles so quickly I don't find it leaves me tired, and I've never felt it was the right time for sleep training. You don't have to do it if you don't want to.