7 mo sleep has gone to shit

[fluffybunny98765]

My almost 7mo was a dream sleeper from about 2-6 months old but is now a nightmare overnight. He had been sleeping from 7pm-5am, waking for a feed then back down til 7am. Perfect. Then lots of things changed and he has been feeding at 11 and 3 then up for the day between 5 and 6. And also in the last few days his 3am wake has been for 90mins. There were so many changes I'm not sure what I should be tackling.

• he turned 6 months so we started solids. He still isn't eating much food but is probably taking less milk (breastfed) so could understand if he's then hungrier overnight.
• illness, he's been full of the cold for the best part of 3 weeks and spent every night last week waking for a feed then coughing until he brought it back up again.
• holiday, we went away for a few nights and the sleep routine went a bit out of the window.
• development, he's started crawling and pulling himself up to stand and climbing on everything

He has a dummy.
Naps during the day are fine, usually 3 (short morning, big 2h after lunch then quick afternoon nap) he is either fed to sleep or pushed in the pram. I also have a toddler so can't always dedicate a long time to getting him to sleep for a nap hence the pram. He has on occasion self settled at bed time. He's still on our room in a bedside crib, hoping to move him in with big sis in the next few weeks, but don't want him waking her up as she's a really good sleeper and would hate to ruin that. We don't have a third bedroom. Although if this continues I'd be willing to move house 😂

The last few days have been the worst. Up at 3am for a feed then wide awake for up to 2hrs and crawling around our bed grabbing hair and faces and squeaking like mad. He has then had a massive 3hr morning nap which I don't feel is the right thing but it gives me a break and let's him catch up.

That's long but hopefully answers any questions. If anyone has any advice it would be very much welcomed!

Now advice but suffering similar with my 6mo. The 6 month sleep regression IS A THING imho!!!

4am wake ups roughly for about 2 weeks 😭

Started reintroducing a dream feed at 11pm, will be giving a second dream feed at 2am to trick their body clock to sleeping another three hour chunks to 5am. Was going to do it last night but promptly fell asleep after the alarm went off

Up for the day between 5+6 is normal and nothing to moan about however xx

I'm no expert but when my LO was doing this - 7pm till 5/530am it was suggested later bedtime 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️ I hated it as lose ur evening a bit but in end my LO has generally gone to 6 to 7 now. We're not perfect by any means overnight as we have a regression, learning new skills etc. I see her sit up and down up and down up and down some more in the night 😂

I used to do 9am nap - cap at an hour. I know this is mean, but the theory is that this nap is extension of night sleep, especially 3 hours long. If LO waking at 5am, they say get to close to 9am before putting them back for a nap but probably a long time from 5am, but get as close as possible. At 5am, feed if needed. But don't leave the room keep dark, minimal eye contact until 7am, do everything to keep and get them to sleep. Even if you have to rock them etc.

I did 9am nap. 10am awake. 1230pm/1pm nap, as long as needed. She usually had till 220pm/230pm the 445 another nap until 515pm, usually woke her but if other naps were poor I may give a bit longer. Bed 745/8pm.

It can take a few weeks to make any difference from what I was advised. Think it took about week and half. And yep we had a grumpy baby and was hard but worth it.

Waking in night - either not enough calories in day, what's your feeding schedule? Overtired. Undertired. Or developmental.

As you can tell I have researched a lot about this 😂

The only thing I would say is as LO has been unwell, I wouldn't try changing or cutting too much sleep as I'm under the impression they need that sleep to recover etc?

Yup starting solids is a shitter. It will settle. And then get worse again. And then improve. Ad infinitum.

My 4yo is still awake rn 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thanks everyone. Forgot to add that he's teething too which could be part of it.

I think it's developmental as the second he wakes he flips onto his front and starts crawling. Like now he knows how to do it it's all he wants to do.

I've also wondered if he has a food intolerance. He had yogurt before bed last night and wondered if it had given him a sore tummy. Avoided dairy all day today.

@Fancyties feeding schedule varies. Had it going well when he was on 4 naps a day as he woke and fed and was then rocked to sleep rather than fed to sleep but the timings for 3 naps haven't worked so well. Then add in solids. Today he fed at:

3am milk
4am milk
5.45-7.15 sleep
8am porridge
9am milk
10-10.40 sleep
11am milk
12.30pm lunch
1.20pm milk
1.30-2 sleep
2.20pm milk
4-5 sleep (had to wake him)
5pm milk
5.30 dinner
6.30pm

That's probably more frequently than usually for milk but lots of trying to boob him back to sleep unsuccessfully. He would usually have a much bigger midday sleep but today obviously not!

He went down at 7 this evening. Fingers crossed for a better night. I'm heading to bed myself just now just in case we're up and partying from 3am again! Wish me luck!

How'd it go @fluffybunny98765?

@Fancyties

How'd it go *@fluffybunny98765*?

Bed at 7. Fed at 1 then back to sleep Awake at 4 for two hours 😭 then had another 45mins but I had to wake him up for the day at 6.45 so that naps would work around his swimming lesson this morning.

I've been reading up on split nights. Seems like that's what we're dealing with.

Hopefully doesn't last long. We're at 2 weeks split nights. Though lo in different room to us and she's pretty quite and just practises so I leave her to it, I sometimes don't hear her and only know she's awake as my Oh is awake and heard her. She will call me if she needs me. Good luck 🤞