Hello,
This is my first post on Mumsnet, I’m currently having issues with my little ones sleeping. He is 7 ½ months old and has always had to be rocked to sleep at night and for his daytime naps. Mainly because he suffered with silent reflux as a baby and it wasn’t picked up until he was 4 months old.
His sleeping has always been hard work and both me and my Husband are feeling very exhausted, his current night time routine is as follows;
5pm – Evening Food - Solids (currently weening).
6:30pm – Bath time
7:00pm – 7oz bottle feed
7:15pm – Bedtime
10:45/11:00pm – 7oz Dream feed
Bedtime at 7:15pm is sometimes straight after his bottle, if not it’s a case of gently rocking him to sleep in my arms which can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. Once he’s down, he then has his dream feed and generally goes down for the night as both go to sleep.
However, recently he has been waking in the night, very upset and being really difficult to get back down. This process can take anywhere up to 2 hours, with a combination of rocking cradled, gentle rocking whilst on the shoulder, and if all else fails he has another bottle. We have also tried putting him in our bed to see if it helps, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. This has become really tiring as we’re generally both up in the middle of the night, taking it in turns trying to settle him back down. But he cries, pulls his head back, kicks and generally is very unsettled. When trying to cradle him back we try the dummy but he pulls this out and throws it down.
This theme above can happen during his lunchtime nap too, when he should usually be down for anywhere from 1 to 2 hours, he wakes up and is very difficult to get back down, trying the same methods as above.
I’ve got to the point where I’m considering a sleep consultant as I just don’t know what to do, he’s eating fine and is a happy baby during the day. But night times are getting harder and harder and worry with me going back to work in the near future it’s going to be very difficult to work with the lack of sleep.
His general routine in the day if this helps is as follows;
6:00am/7:00am – Wake up and bottle feed 7oz.
7:30am/8:00am – Breakfast (solids)
09:00am – 30minute nap
11:30am – Lunchtime snacks
12:00pm/1:00pm – Lunchtime nap 1hr to 2hrs.
4:00pm – Afternoon nap of 20mins if needed.
5pm – Evening Food - Solids (currently weening).
Any advice or pointers to help out a fellow Mummy would be greatly appreciated.