6.5 month old has had terrible sleep the last few weeks

[bmclean]

Hi, I've read every sleep thread on every forum for a 6-7 month old and I cannot figure out what to do. I feel like I may just have to accept that my baby is just not a great sleeper.

Background: co-sleep (for our sanity), EBF, 7 months old, contact naps (for our sanity).

She used to sleep through the night from 8 weeks but as soon as the 4 month regression hit she has never been the same. We are up at least 10 times a night soothing her. sometimes you can pat her butt but often you have to stand up and rock her. If i knew rocking her to sleep would have caused me so much pain I never would have done it - it seemed harmless when she was sleeping through the night early on.
Sometimes she can do 3 or 4 hour stretches in the night but I don't know what causes these stretches. I have obsessed over her schedule and tried to replicate things when I think they help - but we then get another unpredictable night.
I have tried to hack her day schedule in every way possible: increase day naps, decrease day naps, increase wake windows, decrease wake windows, follow cues, stick to a schedule, increase feeds, increase solids etc. I wish I was able to sleep train but I just can't, ignoring her cries goes against every fiber of my being. If it was developmental I would be able to accept that, but it has lasted too long to feel developmental and we have had only 3-5 'good' nights since that first regression period.
She is an early riser and an early sleeper usually 5:30am-6pm. She was on a 3 nap schedule but it started to affect her night sleep and interfere with her bed time. she would go to bed late after a nap but still wake at 6am so I just accepted that she is telling me she wants to sleep at 6pm.

Sorry for the long post but basically I am looking for a last shred of hope, what can be going wrong? Anything can help - at this point I am just sick of researching every second of my day to fix her night times.

6pm seems quite early , is she actually tired at that time or just fussy and needs a change of activity and stay up for an extra hour or so to increase the build up need for sleep ? Have you started solids , that can affect sleep too. Also an ebf co sleeping mum and it’s full on isn’t it xx

Thank you so much for reaching out, yeah there is definitely a variety of factors. I really wish she could sleep later, 6pm cuts all of our events and nights out very short - we usually can't take her anywhere at night because she gets so angry.
Unfortunately we trialed a later bedtime but she was either 1 of 2 things:

• Would be over tired because her last nap finishes at about 2:30 (just based on a 6am wake up and 2-3hr wake windows). So bedtime later than 6pm was far too long wake windows before bed.
• Would be under tired and a late bedtime around 8pm (just because we would give her an afternoon cat nap to make up her sleep) Then she still wakes up at 6am.

So I thought I should accepted that she is different than these sleep schedules online and likes an earlier bedtime.

Couple of things: what happens when you put her down when napping? Have you ever managed part or all of a nap non-contact?

When you co-sleep, is any part of your body touching hers?

It sounds like her cue for combining sleep cycles might be contact if you're still doing all contact naps. So I would say either work on helping her nap/sleep without contact, or try put that contact there in the night. You can let me know if I'm on the wrong track!