Argh need sleep!

[ftm45]

My 7mo ds has never slept for longer than 2 hour stretches at night time. And that's if we are lucky! I am exhausted and honestly at my wits end! Any advice welcome!!!

Hi, what does your baby nap like? Do you have a bedtime routine?

Sorry but this sounds completely normal to me (three kids). None of mine have reliably slept before the age of 2.. though I don’t believe in leaving them to cry.
My 22 month old has slept through the night about 3 times in his entire life!
Your baby will get there, they are very young.
Keep going to bed early yourself to cope!

Have you tried

1. Bedtime routine. Wind down period, bath, massage, feed, sleep?

1. Milk coma. A nice big feed to knock them out for a bit

1. Dummy

I can't pretend we're getting uninterrupted sleep at 7 months but it's not every two hours. Asleep by around 8, generally a grumble or two before 02:00 which is solved by returning the dummy and potentially a major grumble at 04:30 - 05:00 which is fixed by putting him in our bed until 06:45-07:00 when he's awake and clawing at our faces.

Hey, yes we have a bedtime routine that we stick to every night. He naps once in the morning for around 2 hours and then again in the afternoon for about the same.

I feared this was normal, all I seem to hear from other mums is how well their babies sleep! We are still bfeeding so not sure if that makes a difference.

We haven't tried a dummy, my worry with that is that he won't take one, we tried to introduce the odd bottle but he wasn't having any of it.

Can he / does he go to sleep by himself ever?

If not, this is probably the problem, he doesn’t know how to get back to sleep at the end of each sleep cycle without your help. Teach him to go to sleep by himself and it will be like magic... there are two ways to do this, controlled crying (quick but involves crying) or gradual retreat (much less crying but very slow and they may be teething or ill etc by the time you make progress)

Going to sleep by themselves doesn't mean they stop waking up every two hours. (Ask me how I know, at 3.40am )

Yes my lo at the same age is very similar in his habit’s. On a good night I’ll get a four hour stretch followed by 2, then 1 hour, then annoyingly another good two hours but by that time another one is awake!

I had this problem with ds. I either gave him a bottle or some purée before the 10 pm feed so he’d sleep until about 2.

No advice, just sympathy! My 8 month old is the same. Currently reading "The Gentle Sleep Book" by Sarah Ockwell-Jones, which so far, is very reassuring (and very well researched/evidenced) so it all sounds pretty normal unfortunately.
And with that, I'm going back to bed!

Don't mean to sound rude but it does make me laugh when people think a bedtime routine will suddenly make a baby able to link sleep cycles together. It might make it a bit easier to get them to sleep in the first place (perhaps) but it won't alter their ability to go back to sleep when they wake up! We had a bedtime routine from about 6 weeks, made no difference whatsoever.

From experience, putting them down drowsy but awake (or even wide awake) also isn't the holy grail people suggest it is either. You can have a go OP, and you never know, it might work, but my DS could self settle like a champ without crying at all, I don't think it made any difference.

So I know I sound defeatist, but while you can try out some stuff, and it might help, sleep is developmental and unless you do controlled crying (and repeat it, often, every time they're teething etc.) then waiting it out may be the only other option.