7m old has never slept longer than 2 hours..when will it end?

[AnonymousTipper87]

Hello everyone

My baby is 7m old and has never slept for longer than 2 hours (no exaggerations). He wakes like clockwork every 2 hours during the night and more recently it is every 1 hour.

We have transitioned him to his own room after being in the beside me crib for the first 6m of his life but are really struggling with the constant back and forth of getting up to settle him.

For background I have breastfed him since birth, he is currently weaning which we thought would help him feel full and potentially sleep longer but it has not worked yet. When my parent look after him, he has some formula alongside pumped milk and many people told me he would need a "top up" to sleep longer, but this also doesn't work. He still wakes up every 2 hours. He refuses to have formula if he knows I am around and I cannot feed him any because he would rather have the breast.

He has absolutely never ever slept longer than 2 hours before waking and I really am starting to get distressed.

Furthermore, he will not self sooth and I have tried my hardest. Putting him down drowsy, placing him in the cot when he's asleep, comforting him when he cries but then putting back to try and get him to fall asleep on his own etc. he has a comforter now in his cot but this doesn't seem to help, we play white noise, he has a special song that helps him fall asleep when he's really playing up but he will never fall asleep without being in my arms or my husband's, unless in the pram or car.

I am finding it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm worried Ive done something wrong along the way which has made him like this. He is so attached, and that's fine, but I worry we will be doing this for years.

He is not teething. He already has 4 teeth and I can deal with teething but why is it every single night that he does this, since a newborn?

Does anyone have any recommendations? I have stopped offering the breast when he does wake up until I feel like he does need to feed.

Has anyone experienced similar? When did it end?

Mine's still going strong at 10 months, sorry. I'm not going to put him in his own bed until it gets warmer. Every 2 hours is bad enough, but getting up in the cold would be horrendous. Plus in our bed when he starts to wake up I can often feed him straight back to sleep so none of us get too awake. If yours is in another room, he has to be awake enough to shout loud enough to wake you, so will be hard to get back to sleep, then you have to wake up fully to get out of bed so you're more disturbed.

The most helpful thing I've been told is that every child sleeps eventually. It will come

I don’t have any advice I am sure you have tried everything.

One of mine didn’t sleep for more than 20 minutes for the first 10 weeks - it nearly killed me. Sleep experts the a lot - no chance. At 10 weeks they slept for 2 hours stints but no more. They are now a teenager and sleep though the night!

If you need to - get someone to have them for a couple of nights so you can rest.

unfortunately not much advice but I have a 10 month old and we were in the same boat - also breast fed. The only things that have helped us are placing her on her front - this gets slightly longer stints of 4 hours.
Although I haven’t stopped feeding her overnight completely (health visitor said this shouldn’t be done until 12 months) me and husband take it in turns to settle her so that she’s only feeding every other time. Sending positive thoughts your way - this too shall pass!

Does he definitely need milk? I had a similar situation with DS. He woke constantly wanting to feed, also every one to two hours. I was a zombie. In the end, I followed advice on here and offered him only water when he woke. He was cross about it for a couple of nights, then started sleeping through completely. It was an absolute miracle.
However, he was a bit older, around ten months. He is 15yo now so I don't remember how long babies need to eat at night for but I do still remember that insane relief when he started sleeping through!

Mine was like this. Co-sleeping was the only way I survived, and i wish I started it earlier. Would that be an option for you?

Mine grew out of it around 15months

what is distressing you so much? Is it the lack of sleep - can you get more sleep if someone else does some of the wakings
or is it thinking you’ve done something wrong - you haven’t this is just some babies, he’ll grow out of it. I’ve never heard of a 14 year old waking for a feed every 2 hours.
it’s tough, so solidarity, but it will end.

I do hate to jump on the cosleeping bandwagon but it does make life much easier if you don’t have to get out of bed and walk to another room every 2 hours.

Thanks everyone. I guess it is just my son's temperament. There is so much information out there telling me he should be sleeping longer (and I know he should) but maybe it's just not how he is built (yet!). I have been questioning if there is something wrong so it is comforting to know others have been there or are there.

@MountainBiker we have co slept and we do feel more rested somehow however he still wakes every 2 hours even doing this! I worry that he will get so used to self soothing himself. He also contact naps in the day for the most part, which is where he gets his best sleep.

@Bluegowndance thank you. I think it is a bit of both. My husband works away so sometimes I go 2 weeks without the extra help which is hard and my parents work so they can't be here a lot of the time to support me at night.

I think sometimes it can feel very lonely and like I'm going through this alone as my friends don't yet have children so I have no morale support from them or any understanding of how hard it can be!

Thank you 😊

I’m sorry I’m not sure this will help, but mine woke every 2 hours until he was about 1yr 10 months, and then he just started sleeping though. I kept him in my bed till then as couldn’t be bothered trekking up and down to him. I didn’t night wean but obviously once he stopped waking he stopped feeding. He still wakes occasionally but I can’t remember the last time (nearly a year later). I would say I’m not sure that there’s a ‘should’, he’s still a baby and he’s just doing what babies do, please don’t worry yourself about that.

Mine was old enough to read, play and colour before he did. Not helpful I know! 🙈

Personally I would (and did) cut back on night feeds. Do anything you can to settle him over night but don’t offer milk unless everything else has been tried.

Could your partner do a night for you do you at least catch up on some sleep?

This was my son too. It improved once he was mobile and wearing himself out, and slept better. I think it was about 14 or 15 months. (Sorry). He had some digestive issues - horrific colic - and a very very active brain. Just a very restless chap.

We coslept, and I survived by going to bed twice a week at 8pm. It was a life changing decision, as I got so much more sleep, albeit interrupted.

The good news is that he is a totally normal man who has slept brilliantly since the age of 3. It just took him a looong time to get there. And ds2 slept far longer too (though only ever until 4.30 am. Agh!)

Mine was almost 2.5yrs old. We are another co-sleeping family. He had a brief stint of choosing his own bed for a few months at about 18mths but then I fell pregnant and literally overnight he was back in my bed again 🤦🏻‍♀️

Have you tried Ferber yet?

Mine were around 2yrs old when they slept for longer than 2hrs. But they then slept well and never woke before 8am either.

I think my reward for 2hrly wake ups was late-sleeping toddlers.

Mine changed around 12 months (I also night weened them and stopped feeding to sleep) but I think she just aged out of waking up multiple times a night.

she still isn’t great and wakes up once a night and has to cosleep after that wake up but it feels light years away from what it was!

You absolutely haven’t done anything wrong, some babies are just like this. DD was exactly the same until about 18 months when it was almost like a switch flipped and she started sleeping through the night. She’s 3 now and has been mostly fine ever since (unless ill or hitting a development phase) so I promise it will happen eventually ❤️

In my experience, however you teach them to fall asleep is how they need to resettle when they stir in the night.

If you get them to sleep with you, then that is what they need throughout the night.

So decide carefully what will work for you - some families prefer to feed or cuddle to sleep, cosleep, some prefer them to fall asleep with a dummy, a comforter, in a cot etc.

Oh I feel for you, my little boy was exactly the same! I could set my watch by him waking at the two hour mark - and from 5am onwards I could never get him back to sleep unless I held him. He was formula fed, so it makes no difference!
We used a sleep consultant at 8 months and it was the best thing we did - she overhauled our routine and we sleep trained. He slept through from the first night with two dream feeds and by the end of the week we had dropped all feeds.
Another option to get more sleep would be bed sharing - my friend found the wakes disturbed her less and she could settle her baby more quickly if she didn’t have to get up. Bed sharing wasn’t for me as I couldn’t get comfortable and I have friends with 6 & 11 year olds that still bed share with their parents so I was reluctant to start! 😂

My little boy is 8 months. He slept ok with one or two wake ups till he turned 4m. He had his final jabs and overnight he started waking every 2 hours. I can see how many times I’ve woke up overnight and it can be anywhere from 4-10 times. It’s awful. He’s still in his next to me as I can’t face keep going into his bedroom and I am dreading going back to work on no sleep. I no longer breastfeed in the day instead he has 3 meals a day and 2 bottles. He was feeding 5x a night and I’ve cut it down to 2 or 3x now but he’s still up loads! My next step is to stop overnight feeding and offering water and adding one more bottle in the morning. Deep down I feel like there is a reason he wakes a lot and I believe it is discomfort as he does sleep better if he’s had calpol if he has seemed off before bed. We have had various issues with ear infections and tonsillitis and he also suffers with constipation which lactulose doesn’t really help with! I feel like it’s just something I’m going to have to get through and hope there is light at the end of the tunnel.

My first went from two hourly wakes to sleeping through at 12 months. My youngest has just started sleeping through after regular wakes and midnight parties age 2 and 8 months… We tried everything but now I realise they just get there in their own time. We co slept with second as just did what it took to get more sleep

You shouldn’t cut night feeds til over 12 months; milk is their main calorie source til then. There s no evidence that giving formula makes them sleep longer. It sounds entirely normal; you haven’t done anything wrong. If cosleeping gets you more rest / sleep then just do that. It’s not worth Worrying about the future, just do what works now. We’ve always cuddled / fed / coslept and our toddler has gradually slept longer of her own accord. ‘Self settling’ cant be forced, they’ll get there event

That is really hard. I think there comes a point where that level of waking isn’t sustainable for you. When it happened with us I knew the choices were to either co-sleep or sleep train, or else I wasn’t going to survive! Sleep training guidance says that 2 hourly wakes as usually linked to sleep associations because that’s the length of a baby’s sleep cycle. So baby is used to you settling them a particular way, and so wants the same at every wake (breastfeeding). This isn’t necessarily a problem, it’s just whether it’s manageable for you. If you can teach him to self settle (and in our case, this meant Ferber check-ins) then night waking should improve within a few days. And it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, Ferber dropped our night wakings down to feeds twice a night, and I’m still breastfeeding once a night at 15 months old… or, you can embrace the co-sleeping and not worry about it! It’s totally normal, especially for a breastfed baby. Think about how many people rely on dummies for their children’s sleep for years!

I know you probably feel like you’ve tried everything, but following a really consistent, gentle sleep training programme is what worked for us. ‘Trying everything’ can actually be worse because the baby just gets confused. Babies naturally have to wake up between sleep cycles for safety, but the trouble is, they look for all the same sleep cues to get themselves back off to sleep. Only once you get to complete self settling can they do that consistently without properly stirring.

At 7 months they won’t need a feed every two hours, probably once or at most twice a night, so moving from feeding to sleep to something else will be your first step.

We used Hannah Love’s ‘stop feeding to sleep’ course for my first, then also used her book for the second, as this was written in between. She also has a free workshop and some more hands on sessions too. She’s an absolute miracle worker - a fully trained paediatric nurse and ex nanny, so knows her stuff.

Her methods involve no leaving the baby to cry at all, you’re always comforting until they don’t need it anymore. It takes really gentle steps to move from your ‘safe space’ (what you do now to get them to sleep) gradually to them falling asleep in the cot. She says starting with naps is the easiest, then bedtime, then middle of the night. It’s slow and gradual but really effective.

That's nonsense on the night feeds, sorry. Our DS stopped night feeds at 4 months and continued to grow on trajectory no problem.

If they're still needing night feeds then they're not getting enough calories during the day.