7 month old wakes every 45 - 60 mins through the night

[Mumie]

My 7 month old - who used to sleep really well util she was 5 months - is now waking every 45/60 minutes all night long. She doesn't feed when she wakes; I stopped nursing her through the night last week because she would only suck for a few minutes then drop off so I felt it was a habit rather than hunger.

We are trying the "gradual retreat" approach (since last Friday) that I read about on other threads and using this she will settle down but still wake up an hour later. My dh and I are taking shifts so that we can get some sleep but we are both wrecks at the moment

Any advice please?

GR can take some time to work. I did not use it but wanted to bump for you!

The 45 - 60 min thing is her sleep cycle and it sounds like she needs to learn to self settle. Do you bf to sleep? If you do work on that too as once they can settle then they can settle when they wake in the night more easily.
HTH

I do bf to sleep - I know I shouldn't. I work and I like to bf her once we are both home again and then for bedtime.

I have no idea about how to help her to settle on her own. We have tried letting her cry for 5 minutes but I hate it - plus we always find her standing in her cot holding onto the rails and I can't see how she's going to sleep from that position. Is letting her cry the only way?

Persevere with the GR first as it is much gentler. With CC leaving her to cry for 5 mins may not be long enough, you will have to keep going in and lying her back down and it is hard on all of you.
I did/still do BF to sleep if she is poorly or wakes in the night but I did use CC for bedtime which in turn helped the night waking.
I did it at 6m though so she could not move about the cot and had tried the other approaches first.
GR at bedtime might be the answer - Try to feed until nearly asleep then pick lo up and wind gently (my DD will stir a little) then lie her down (hopefully awake) then use the GR.
I found by getting the bedtime sorted out the night wakings reduced dramatically and I still feed her if she wakes as I assume she is then hungry/needs the cuddle time. She is one very soon and am going to send DP in to settle her then as I think she is old enough now. Will miss the BFing to sleep though - she is lovely!

Someone else may have more experience of GR working for them, I know lots of people it did work for.

Meant to say that once she is a little older and eating more solids she may well fix this herself with just a little nudge from you. If she slept well before she may well remember how to do it herself.

I like bfing dd to sleep too - although tonight I took your advice and made sure she was still a bit awake before I laid her in her cot. It took about 30 minutes but she did fall asleep and has been asleep for over an hour now. This might not sound like much but it's the first time in about 3 weeks! I'm not expecting miracles but at least I got to eat my dinner today.

Also gave her some calgel which seemed to help her relax. Normally when I give it to her she just eats it but today she let me rub it on her gums so maybe she is starting to teeth.

Solids are not really happening yet, she's got very little interest - or maybe it's just my cooking

30 minutes is good! Did you stay with her etc?

Did she stay asleep? Wake less? I hope so. The trick is - apparently - to be consistant and do the same every night so she gets used to the new way of doing things. Gradually she will take less and less time to settle. I also found that having a strict time to go to bed did not work as somedays she is more tired than others so occasionally she goes to bed at 6.30ish others it is nearer 8. I have learnt to read her body language. If I try too early she won't settle and if too late she falls asleep before she has finished feeding and wakes again after 45 mins for more milk.

Hope you get more of your evenings back soon!

She went down about 7.30 then needed to be resettled about 9.30 which is the longest she's slept in a while at that time. Then milk at 10.30 and so she bf to sleep which was a mistake as she was up 20 mintues later!! But I persevered, didn't pick her up, just patted her and make shushing noises and she went to sleep and only needed resettled twice more until 6am which is 5 less times than the night before, hooray!

Also when she woke during the night she was a lot less upset so she settled fairly quickly which was great. BUT that is just one night, who knows what tonight will be like.

She will learn really quickly I am sure Even a small improvement is moving in the right direction. Hope tonight goes well for you!

Another not so good night, but dd has a stuffy cold and mucus in her chest so we having to use an inhaler, poor thing. So I'm going to stop GR until she's better.

Actually even though she was sick and restless she still slept better than last week. I've been giving her a babymassage and it seems to also relax her - I tried in the past and she hated it but now she quite likes it.