Looking for some sleep advice for our 7 month old.
Through the night she sleeps in her next to me in our room and will usually sleep from 10pm - 7/8am with just the odd grumble or so. Throughout the day she has her naps in her own room in her cotbed and we put her in there in the evenings, around 7:30pm - 10pm/when we go up to bed. I only move her to our room at 10pm as she still has a feed at this time to keep her going til morning. I'm aiming to move her into her room in the night once she's dropped this feed or outgrown her next to me, whichever happens first!
Her naps have always been hit and miss since she was around 5 months old, lasting anywhere from 30 mins to an hour, she has 3 naps a day and I make sure she doesn't sleep past 5pm. We've got her on 2 solid meals a day, breakfast and dinner and we offer her 4/5 bottles throughout the day (EFF).
For the past week or so it's been getting increasingly harder to get her down for naps in her room in the evenings. Tonight we took it in turns comforting her for 2 hours until I gave in and just brought her downstairs. Night before I sat on the floor in her room for an hour before she fell asleep. I'm exhausted as it's not much different for her naps in the daytime, I feel as though I spend the majority of my day trying to make her sleep! I know if I lay with her in my bed she would go straight to sleep but I feel like if I make a habit of that it will cause problems later on. I'm really hoping this is a phase that will go quickly but I'm really struggling and completely dread the evenings now.
As well as this she's become less willing to be held by others, apart from her Dad. She will cry when anyone else holds her so I feel like I'm just not getting much of a break at the moment. I adore her but it would be nice to just have 5 minutes to put the washing out without hearing her cry!
She hasn't had any teeth come through yet and as far as I can tell she's not teething so I don't think she's in any pain. I make sure to change/feed her before she goes into her bed in the evening, ive tried white noise and giving her a comforter that I've slept with - ive even tried lying her on a top I'd been wearing that day!
I don't want to do cry it out, no judgement for those that do, but I just can't bear the sound of her crying. Any tips on what to try or reassurance that it won't be like this forever.