Seven-month-old still waking frequently at night, what else can I try?

[Summersun91]

I posted back in February as my baby had started waking up between 6-10 times a night at 3.5 months. She’s now 7.5 months and since then there has been no improvement. The last few weeks she has actually woken fewer times (5-8), but she no longer feeds to sleep so I can be up for an hour after a feed trying to get her back to sleep.

She goes to sleep independently at bedtime in her cot. She is formula fed during the day and BF at night (4/5 times).

I am my wits end, I need sleep and I don’t know what to do. The only thing remaining I haven’t tried is Ferber which I didn’t want to do but I can’t keep going like this.

I’ve tried settling without feeding for 20mins if it’s a short sleep and she just cries (or wakes again 5 mins later). I’ve tried Cosleeping which stops the crying but doesn’t stop the wake ups and she wriggles all night so I still can’t sleep. I can’t get her to sleep in my arms and transfer as she never goes into a deep sleep. I’ve tried varying nap times and total nap sleep but makes zero difference. I can’t usually nap during the day as I have a toddler as well. My partner tries to help but he can’t settle her either.

A typical day/night was like this (yesterday):
Wake: 6.30
Nap 1: 9.30-10.30
Nap 2: 1.30-3.30
Bedtime: 7.00
Wake 1: 9.20 (fed and I went to bed)
Wake 2: 11.35 (tried to settle for 15 min, she fell asleep then woke 10min later, fed at 12.00)
Wake 3: 1.30 (fed)
Wake 4: 2.45 (tried to settle for 20min, failed, fed, tried to put down to sleep for 20min, gave up at 3.40 and brought into my bed where she was quiet but wriggled for an hour)
Wake 5: 4.50 (fed in my bed, she went back to sleep and wriggled/cried intermittently for an hour)
Wake up 6.00

So I’ve been awake since 2.45 as I can’t sleep when she’s wriggling next to me, with a couple of hours of broken sleep before that.

I’m losing my mind. What else can I do/should I try Ferber? I don’t want to listen to her crying but I’m desperate for some sleep.

Ask your health visitor for advice not an online chat would be my first suggestion as you need a professional to help you understand what has driven the change in behaviour and make sure nothing important health wise. You should have contact details with your baby info in not use GP

Then if all is well yes use Ferber but properly and not meaning leave child to cry for ages by themselves

I'd try pick up/put down before leaving to cry.
Get partner to do all wake ups.

At this age I'd do set feeds in the night, 10-11pm and 2-3am and any wakes in between dad goes in.

He can settle her as she won't stay awake forever, they both just need to learn. The key with pick up/put down is they fall asleep in the cot.

Thanks, I had the health visitor round yesterday but she just told me to accept the situation and cosleep to maximise sleep. As I haven’t found Cosleeping particularly helpful she didn’t have any other suggestions.

Also to add I’ve been to the GP and they said nothing is wrong with her and some babies just don’t sleep.

We had a similar set of circumstances with our first where night wakes increased. We decided around the same age as you are now that he was growing well, ate really well in the day and so decided to stop night feeds. We suspected that being fed was waking him up (he got used to having milk every time he woke so had settled into that pattern).

We started offering water at night wakes and did the gradual retreat (disappearing chair) method. So he was soothed/comforted but not picked up. We did this over the course of about a week I think and I was actually quite shocked at how quickly he started to improve his sleep. By the end he started sleeping all the way through and aside from teething/illnesses he didn’t regress again.

I really worried about any negative affects of this type of sleep training but it’s wasn’t cry it out, it was quite gentle but did involve some crying. To reassure you he’s 6 now and most cuddly mummies boy who often gets into our bed for a cuddle so hasn’t negatively impacted him.

I would add that speaking to your HV is also a really good idea and what works for one won’t always work for others

Ask for another health visitor- and say what you have just said.

Please don’t limit night feeds under 12 months. She is having too much day sleep when combined with a 7pm bedtime. You are expecting she is going to need 14-14.5 hours sleep within 24 hours which is very high sleep needs. I’d cut day sleep to 2 hours max and do 7.30 bedtime; she needs to be much tireder fkr the night. Average is 11-14 hours within 24 hours so you need to aim for more like 12-13 hours overall. Very few babies need 11-12 hours overnight plus 3 hours of naps. HV are useless for sleep advice in my experience and mine actually said I should stop night breastfeeds which is dangerous advice. They just tell you to do cry it out/

Honestly baby will sleep through when baby is ready and there really isn't anything you can do to change that. When that happens varies enormously by each baby. Your GP is correct what your baby is doing is normal for your baby.

But you need some sleep so I'd suggest that DH needs to take a night or two of night feeds using expressed breast milk or formula so that you can get a rest.

Absolutely agree with @Peonies12 - you are expecting too much sleep. She is taking the awake time she needs back in the middle of the night. If she is going to sleep independently and still waking like this it’s because she needs the time awake.

being awake builds adenosine in the system which is what builds sleep pressure. If she’s not awake long enough for this to adequately build then she won’t have enough adenosine to stay asleep for decent chunks of time.

the best thing to do would be track every minute of sleep she has over the next 5 days and average it to give you her sleep needs per 24 hours, and then cap your naps and night appropriately.

If you don’t want to do that then cap your night at 11 hours max, cap day sleep at two hours. I would expect 1-2 wakes for feeds at this age, it’s too early to night wean. If you continue to get frequent wakes and false starts like this then shave off 15 mins of sleep from your night until it stops.

do not apply Ferber or any other sleep training method until you have sorted your schedule, applying a sleep training method to an undertired baby is not fair and will be upsetting for all of you. I say this as a huge supporter of appropriately applied sleep training.

The reason so many people fail at sleep training and think it’s cruel is because they try to sleep train undertired babies and they cry for ages.

best of luck.

theres a lot of nap time during the day, and an early bedtime for that age baby. I’d try cutting the second nap to an hour and pushing bedtime back to 7.30pm. She’s treating the first bit of sleep as a nap rather then bed time probably.

Thanks for your reply . I have wondered about giving water - not for all wakes but if she wakes after an hour for example. That’s good to know it worked for you.

I don’t think I’ve really understood the disappearing chair method - usually she is crying in her cot with her eyes shut so can’t see whether I’m sat anywhere in a chair or not! Was he awake and not crying so he could see you then?

Thanks for your reply.

Huckleberry (plus other internet sources) suggest 14 hours of sleep a day is normal for a 7 month old, so I have 11 at night and 3 during the day. That being said, the 11 hours at night is not actually 11 hours - if she wakes up 5 times minimum 20mins each time that’s 9 hours 20 a night at most, plus one of the wakes she’s usually awake for an hour. So I was going by total asleep time is less than 12.5 hours, not total time in bed. Is that not the right way to measure it? I wouldn’t mind at this point if she slept more and was up at 5am for the day!

However it is a fair point to try to limit the naps to 1 hour each. Some days she does only have 1 hour per nap and it makes no difference to night sleep, but I have not tried it consistently every day.

So we used the following method which is a really rough guide from memory that you can tweak.
We positioned a chair right over the cot so we could reach in, followed our usual bedtime routine and put him into his cot.

We then did 2 mins of putting hands in and comforting, be it bum patting or hand on baby somewhere and at the same time did gentle ‘shushes’. We then took hand away but kept the shushing sound for 30 seconds, then put hands back in for 2 mins. We did this until baby was asleep the first night.

2nd night we did the same but 1 min on and off until asleep.

3rd night we moved the chair back a bit and shushed and only went over to pat bum every couple of mins and only if he was crying.

4th night say goodnight and move the chair further back and only shush if baby is crying.

5th night say goodnight and move chair back with shushing only when baby cries.

6th night we sat by the door and just the occasional shush.

I was really surprised by how little crying there was as baby was soothed quite well by pats and my voice and very quickly was able to settle themselves being aware that I was still there and close.

If they woke in the night I followed the same method and again, quite quickly the sleeping stretches got longer.

Id have a look online for a more detailed method as this is from memory and a good few years ago.

Our HV advised us that the best time to teach a baby to self soothe to sleep is between 6-12 months with the caveat that every baby is different! I co slept with my second until he was 16 months and then followed this method but he was a pretty good sleeper and barely fidgeted so that worked for us the second time around.

And both of mine where having similar naps in the day time so I don’t think they’re having wildly lots of day sleep.

I’m wondering if the formula/breastfeeding pattern has something to do with it. Long time ago now but I exclusively expressed for a year, and read something about night milk containing hormones which keep baby alert (in case of sabre toothed tigers). I used to give night milk in the day and day milk in the night - HV thought I was mad but I think it did make some difference. Maybe your night time breast milk is the equivalent of a shot of espresso?

Would you not just co sleep from the beginning of the night? I did with mine, it was my only way to get any sleep and I sleep trained at 18 months with disappearing chair method which worked super quick (with twins!) but it feels quite young to be doing controlled crying, she just wants mummy by the sounds of it.

We had similar issues
and consulted a sleep consultant. He wasn’t getting enough sleep and was overtired. Sleep begets sleep!
our son was still having 3-4 hours of naps during the day until at least 9 months. He went to bed at 6.30pm.
have you tried an earlier bedtime? She told us that if they’re overtired when they go to sleep cortisol is released in the body and that causes frequent wakings and or early rises. Think about when you’ve been so tired during the day and feel like you could sleep standing up but you aren’t able to go to sleep until bedtime, when you get to bed are you as tired as you were earlier or do you struggle to sleep and have a restless night?

Sorry I have re read that’s she’s very fidgety, I know it’s so hard! Maybe at the first wake up from 9 get her in bed with you and see how it goes as they’re generally fidgety towards the morning as not in a deep sleep! It will get better, no toddler wakes up all night sleep trained or not you’re just in the trenches x

Honestly just roll with it. My youngest didn’t sleep through until he was 7 years old let alone 7 months. I actually put his cot in my room and slept with my hand on his back for about a year. Eventually when in a bed he was old enough to get out and climb in with me. He got there in the end. I stopped worrying about what other children were doing and just focused on just making the best of it.

Honestly, I think you are expecting too much. You said the HV and GP acknowledge nothing is wrong. Some babies don't sleep. I had 2 that didn't and were well under the recommended sleep needed for babies at their age. Nothing I tried worked to change it so I just rolled with it from 6 months with my eldest and birth with my youngest.

It sucks and its hard but it does pass eventually but you can't predict when. I still have nightly wake ups with my youngest who is just over 4 years old. It's meant years of 7pm bedtimes for me as well to compensate for the wake ups (as soon as my eldest got out of it my youngest arrived) but that is 100% better than being sleep deprived.

Huckleberry and online routines are famously built around high sleep needs babies! If it’s only 12.5 hours total then I’d try sticking to that and see how it goes. Maybe try 2 hours day sleep and 11 at night to start with; and be strict with getting her up 11 hours after bedtime so do 7.30-6.30am. You need to make change for a few weeks to see results.

Mine was the same (from birth to 8 months when we sleep trained).

We used a sleep consultant - initial discovery call she told us to cut the day sleep down and have at least four hours of wake time before bed. So we had one 45 minute nap and one 90 minute nap. Doing this alone was life changing because he then started doing 6 hour stretches (our record before that was 3 hours which he did once at 8 weeks). We then properly sleep trained a few weeks later and he’s slept through ever since (2.5 now).

I think the FF in the day could be contributing to the amount of wake ups, as she only has the nights to built your supply up.

Feed every time she wakes up. No point in trying to settle her without a feed, she is too young. Daytime sleep is too much, drop 1/2 hr from the second nap and see if you need to bring bedtime forward, but you may not need to. If dropping nap time doesn’t work then play around with bedtime. My son was a low sleep needs baby, I followed Huckleberry but I saw that my son only needed 11-12 hours when the app said 14.
but most importantly manage your expectations. Babies just don’t sleep.

Honestly, sounds pretty normal to me. My little one didn't sleep through until she was close to 2 and even now ay nearly 4, she wakes up occasionally.

Is there a reason youre FF in the day and not at night? I wouldnt stop the feeds as it sounds like she's hungry overnight still.

Mine used to wake twice a night at this age for a bottle. If you already use formula in the day, have you tried formula at night to see if it fills her up more and keeps her asleep as she's completely full?