7.5 month old self settles for naps/bedtime but still wakes multiple times a night

[Belle82]

Hi all,

My beautiful baby girl is 7.5 months now, still breastfeeding but trying to convert to hypoallergenic formula (she's allergic to a lot).
She can self settle generally very well, for naps and bedtime but through the night she will wake up 5/6 times and won't go back to sleep without help . Which entails me putting my arm around her and head next to hers(she's still in the next to me cot) which is the cutest thing ever but is also hindering her from moving into her cot, because I can't lean that far over the cot to do that when she's in there. I'd love to keep her next to me until she was 18 but I don't think that's normal , plus she's 75 percentile so growing out of the next to me very quickly.
Any advice would be massively appreciated as she and I are suffering from not getting a single good nights sleep in months.
I don't know if sleep training through the night would work?x

Sleep training likely won't work at that age.

Her sleep pattern is also entirely normal, I know that's not what you want to hear!

You could always take the side off a regular cot and lash it to your bed frame. That's what I did. It becomes a supersize next to me cot and works great.

Watching with interest! My 6.5 month old goes down for naps and bed time very easily too but will wake at night several times and I struggle to settle her. My DH has to put her in the carry cot pram and rocks her back to sleep in another room order for me to get some sleep. She's nearly too big for it though so need a new strategy!

Could it be possible that actually you are waking her up? My LO is almost 7 months and still in the next to me but with the sides up and on the other side of our room and I find she sleeps much better. I think us rolling over in bed, DH coughing etc. used to wake her up but now she isn’t quite so close she sleeps better. Also someone told me they can smell your milk!! (Don’t know if that’s true though!)