How do your 7 month olds sleep?

[Blodwyn831]

I'm interested in what others are experiencing. My gorgeous 7mo ds wakes a lot. 5 -6 times a night or more. Some nights it's hourly or less, good nights he gives some 2 and 3 hour blocks which we see as a success. He's never been a good sleeper. We've done a bit of gentle sleep nudging (no crying) to get him going down awake. He's ff and he recently stopped demanding a second night feed so we only do a dream feed at 11 most nights. He resettles really quickly with a dummy most times thankfully. He goes to bed around 7.45pm and I bring him into bed with me in the morning about 6am to keep him sleeping till about 7.40. Problem is I find it really hard to get back to sleep in the night knowing he may wake in an hour. Thankfully my partner does the first half of the night to give me some solid hours otherwise I'd be a walking zombie. What are your experiences good and bad and what's your setup? Any tips? Xx

DC1 would have been waking a lot at that age and it got worse a few month or two later with the 8 month regression

DC2 I think was waking 3-4 times, he's nearly 9 months now and down to 2-3 wakes, regression is kinda happening but no big deal.

I know what you mean about not going to sleep when you know they'll be up soon, been there. I bedshared with DC1 so that my sleep efficiency was as good as it was going to get

Thanks @olderthanyouthink good to know we're not alone. When did your DC1 start sleeping better? Did you try anything and did you use a dummy? Considering getting rid of ours.

For us 7 months was the turning point for close the door, 12 hours asleep with zero wakes. It’s the magic age for replacing their own dummy but they’re not great at finding them at that age though so I would always scatter 10 around the cot plus a very dim night light. Then give any noises a minute or 2 before going in to give him chance to sort himself.

Thank you @RandomQuest that gives me hope! I'll try and get some dummy training on the go

My first baby was sleeping 7-6.30 and my second baby 7-4, bottle and back down til 8. Both sleep trained and on strict routines

My 7 months old is BF, goes to bed between 7-8pm, has a feed between 4-5am and sleeps until about 6.30am. Breakfast at 7am with family, has his first nap at 8.30ish.

He doesn’t wake for food, occasionally wakes because of wind or wants a cuddle. Has a dummy.

We were also on the up around 6/7 months with much less wakes and stopped feeding overnight completely. She hasn't cracked putting her dummy back in yet so we still have to go in occasionally but it is literally just to put the dummy back in, so it's not too bad.

Is he too hot? Our daughter started waking a lot again a month or so back and I realised we needed to change what she was wearing at night as she was getting bigger and was too warm with all her baby layers, plus the temperature was staying higher overnight?

If you know he's not hungry, stay consistent with how you're resettling him and try not to pick him up. His bedtime sounds quite late - might be worth trying an earlier one? Confusingly a later bedtime can cause earlier rises. I think you can realistically expect them to do around 11 hours overnight at this age but not much more (in most cases). Our bedtime is at 7 and she is usually awake by 6.15 but stays in her cot happily until we get her up at 6.45.