7 month old terrible sleeper! HELP!

[oss48]

Hi!

Looking for advice. My 7 month old baby is a terrible sleeper, he was great until the 4 month sleep regression and we have never recovered from it.
He is breastfed on demand, eating 3 solid meals a day (he eats loads! ) has 3 naps a day and is the easiest baby during the day. Come night time and this all changes! I can get him to sleep relatively easily, bedtime is calm and consistent, however for the first 2 hours he wakes every 5-20 minutes! He eventually settles for longer but will wake every 1-2 hours. We are at breaking point and struggling to function like normal human beings in the day.. we also have a 3 year old! It has got to the point where something needs to be done.
I normally feed to sleep but have stopped that the last few days. We put him in his cot to begin with but after a while we give up and end up cosleeping with him.

Any advice?? CIO is something I’m not prepared to do!

I have no advice sorry but just to say I feel your pain. We also have great naps etc in the day and dd puts herself to sleep for every nap and bedtime but is awake every 2 hours at night. She is also 7mo and also used to sleep great before the dreaded 4month sleep regression. Fingers crossed we both come through this asap.

I also feel part of your pain. Only part because I have one baby and can't begin to imagine what it would be like with any more children. 8 month old, breastfed on demand, 3 meals a day although most eventually finds the floor, 2 naps, co-sleep, fed to sleep 90% of the time for bedtime and any wake ups, the other 10% of the time when he isn't fed to sleep makes no difference to how he sleeps, he wakes every 20 minutes to an hour. Been like this for what feels like 13 years. Also not considering any 'sleep training' as I believe he will get there eventually when he is ready. Are there any signs that he is ready to drop that 3rd nap?

Try dropping a nap and spreading out the other 2. I never let my DS sleep past 4pm, he'll still wake sometimes between 3 and 4am but 9 times out of 10 he sleeps through the night.
Watch me jinx that now!! 😂

@loluandlale that's interesting about not letting sleep past 4pm. Our 2nd nap is almost always past 4pm as we are late risers so I might have to give this a go to see if this makes a difference.

@ChrissyxJingle
Yeah we call it a 'danger nap' if my DS goes down after 3pm 😂

It just means for us the time between last nap and bed time is 2-3 hours so he's got a higher chance of sleeping through the night. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but he'll only ever disturb once and will go back down straight away.

I've been having similar issues with my 7 month old and could have written the OP earlier in the week. However, it turns out that she has an ear infection, which I didn't know anything about until Friday when her ear drum perforated and loads of gunk came out. I had no real clue she was poorly as she was fine and happy during the day, but I have seen people suggesting it on other similar threads

@loluandlale oh we are in full blown danger nap territory everyday 😂 can I ask what time does your DS wake for the day please?

We also used call it a danger nap if it was past 3pm - he then just wouldn't go to sleep.

Although our DS didnt sleep through until he was 13 months old (sorry OP).

I agree though drop the 3rd nap and dont let the last one past 4pm.

@ChrissyxJingle

So up any time between 7-7.30 I'm extremely lucky if he gives me a 'lie in' until 8! 😂
Routine nap at 9.30 (or 2.5hrs after he wakes up) I let him sleep, if he needs it he needs it.
2nd nap at around 2-2.30 and again I let him sleep but no longer than 4pm. 2 reasons... 1. Getting close to the danger zone and 2. It gives him time to play before dinner.

He will sleep for 10-12 hours solid in the night.
We just found what worked best for our little one, currently we're changing it to dropping the morning nap now and whole milk before his nap and we're extremely lucky he's just going with the flow!

@ChrissyxJingle

I must add not every day is perfect, we have some days where he will sleep in the morning and then be a complete poo in the afternoon and absolutely refuse his 2nd nap so I just improvise and do a slightly earlier bed time.

I feel for you!
Mine did exactly this until I stopped bf at night around 16/18 months- I couldn't take any more! DC still woke LOADS until about 3 1/2 just for reassurance really.

Currently ttc and if I'm lucky enough to have another my plan although easier said than done is that I won't do night bf from 3 ish months (once bf flow flow established) as I really believe for me what I did was counter productive.
Baby would wake 10/11pm, I'd feed, baby would sleep so I'd go to bed myself. Baby would wake about 12/1am, only thing that would settle was bf so again both fall asleep. Often baby waking when being put back in crib/ cot and being unsettled which would get worse- only thing to settle was bf. This went on until 3/4am when I'd then be awake worrying about being so tired the next day. (I was back at work full time when baby was 6 months).
I stopped feeding every time baby woke when around 12 months but it didn't stop the waking. Being fully weaned definitely helped me stop bf and I think if I had another chance I'd do a formula feed or 2 at bedtime/ in the night.

You do what you need to to get by. I ended up co sleeping on the floor some times but it wasn't proper sleep as I was too scared to move (everything was made safe) but not ideal.

It was hard as all my close friends bottle fed and their babies slept for long periods at night. I believe bf is best but now they're all older there seems no difference between the bf and formula babies which makes me lean towards this decision.

I'm not a believer in cio also.

Hope something there helps!

@loluandlale wow, 10-12 solid hours. I can't ever imagine getting that although I'm hoping we do get there eventually! I often get a lie in until gone 9am so I guess it's not all bad but I think that's due to the amount of time awake in the night.

@ChrissyxJingle

You know sometimes I'd prefer the lie-in because I'm definitely not an early bird!! 😂