Should I sleep train my 7 month old?

[popcornapples]

I am desperate for help, and so conflicted on this!

My DS is 7 months old, formula fed. He has always been a very high needs, demanding baby but his sleep has generally been ok. He sleeps through about 10:30pm-7am most nights, with a bedtime of 7:30/45.

The problem is once he is put to bed he wakes up every sleep cycle (half hour) unless he sleeps on either me or my partner. Then he gets a dream feed about 10/11pm, and once he is in his cot after that he self settles like magic. So it’s just the first part of the evening that’s an issue.

It’s my fault for getting into a bad habit with his naps, he would wake up after 30 min and I would let him sleep on me so he could have longer naps. I have stopped this today with the hope that eventually he will just nap longer naturally by himself in his cot.

I rock him to sleep for all naps and bedtime and it’s just not sustainable. He is a chubby lad and very heavy, my back is suffering. Also I am so tired of evenings spent listening to white noise with the tv on with subtitles.

The trouble is, I love our cuddles; and I don’t know if I can handle hearing him cry for an extended period of time. I tried controlled crying to extend one of his naps one day (pat and ssh) and he cried for an hour. He had a lot more left in him too, I gave up after that because it was just too hard.

Should I just bite the bullet and sleep train? If not, what should I do?! I have read so many conflicting things, some say it’s cruel and others say it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. Which is it?!

No. I'd say his sleep is very good for that age. He's still tiny. Why put him through distress.

How many naps a day is he having? What time does the last nap finish? Might be something simple as tweaking his naps to get him to settle at bedtime.

At 7 months my DD was doing the same.. I tweaked her naps and she started settling much better at bedtime.

@Vicky1989x he had three naps a day before - first nap he would wake naturally, second I would hold him to make it 1.5-2 hours, third would be an hour or so. Last nap would finish about 5, maybe 5:15. Today I didn’t let him sleep on me at all and he only had 30 minute naps, 4 of them. His awake window is 2 hours, maximum 2.5. He has always needed a lot of sleep and gets unbearably cranky when he is tired so it’s very obvious when he needs sleep; that and all the usual signs, rubbing eyes and yawning etc. I can’t extend his awake time, I’ve tried! How did you manage to tweak the naps?

Depends what you mean by sleep train- doesn't have to be controlled crying and there are gentler methods to use.
I sleep trained DD about 5-6 months. Honestly using it to extend naps is probably the least effective and I've never gotten it to work. I would start with getting him to fall asleep independently, so at bedtime and start of the nap. Once that's working he's more likely to nap for longer.
What I ended up doing is pre-nap/bedtime routine e.g. bath, song, feed, whatever you want to signal it's time to sleep. I'd then cuddle til drowsy then put down in the cot while still awake. I stay in the room where she can't see me (room is dark) and comfort if she gets upset, generally pat and shush in the cot, then leave her.
She took to it quite well though (I generally can just leave the room and leave her to it) and different babies need different approaches. I wouldn't leave him to cry and cry but a little grumbling or on/off crying is probably unavoidable unfortunately.
Make sure everything else is on point first re routine and that he's properly re asdy for sleep- worst for me was when I put her down before she was properly tired and she'd just get upset.
Also I still sometimes cuddle her to extend naps so wouldn't worry about this to start.
Take it slowly and give him time to adjust- you may still need to settle him sometimes at the start but he might surprise you!

@popcornapples She was having 3 30-45 minute naps a day, last one ending about 4:30/5pm and would not settle at bedtime at all until 9/10pm. I decided to drop the 3rd nap and lengthen her wake windows slowly for the 2 naps. It took a few days to a week and an earlier bedtime for a little while but she started sleeping for 90+ minutes for each nap and settled a lot quicker at bedtime.

She was grumpy for a few days whilst adjusting but she was much happier.

I've just "sleep trained" my 7 month old DD as she was waking every hour needing to be rocked back off to sleep.
There was no crying involved and she's gone from waking every hour to waking once or twice a night.
We did gradual retreat starting with rocking less, putting in cot awake and then started the chair method.
It's working really well, not all sleep training is cruel and involves crying.

Mine was exactly the same, waking regularly until 10/11 feed then by 8 months settled earlier and I hadn't changed a thing. I think she just got better at self soothing.

Can you manage with your evenings like this? Can you keep putting him back in his cot through the evening? Can you try the dream feed earlier?

I found sleep changed lots from 6months - 12 months and if he sleeps through the rest of the night that sounds pretty good to me. If you can manage for now, personally I'd give it a bit longer and see if he gets better on his own considering he can do long stretches the rest of the night. However, I can imagine it feels quite frustrating on an evening.

@trayciegold81 lol!

Thanks everyone for the advice. I found it really helpful. I think I’ve identified a few things I was doing wrong and agree that the key to longer naps/sleep is putting him down a little bit awake.

I’ve stopped holding him for naps and after his bedtime. If he wakes up after 30 min from a nap then I just get him up. If he wakes up after bedtime either me or OH will go up and settle him back down. I’ve been doing it since I posted and I’ve seen an improvement in naps - some are 1.25 hours now!! And bedtime he still wakes up frequently but I have noticed it is getting less and less. The only thing is he gets more and more grumpy throughout the day with very short naps but hopefully this improves.

I also spend much less time rocking him to sleep, and have been really surprised at how quick I can put him down - gone are the days of rocking him vigorously for 10 minutes, I just do it till he closes his eyes and goes quiet and he goes down a treat (most of the time).

So you were all right in a way - I didn’t really need to sleep train but to gently ease him into a new routine. I was making my life difficult for no reason!

I will hold off on controlled crying or anything like that because I think he just needs a bit of time to settle into his new routine.