Seven-month-old waking every one to two hours, feeling exhausted

[proteinballs]

Oh I'm losing my marbles slowly, not had a good night since I was pregnant. 7 month DS wakes every 1-2 hours, but last night was every 30 mins 😭

I'm pretty good on routine, but inevitably I follow his cues on naps/bedtime. He is EBF.

• 7am wake-up and feed
• He eats banana porridge breakfast
• 9am 1st nap 40 mins
• 12pm lunch snacks bits
• 1pm (ISH) 2nd nap usually about 1hr 30 mins to 2hrs
• 5pm 3rd nap 40 mins
• 6:30pm dinner, shower, nurse to sleep.
• bedtime ranges from 7pm-8pm, depending on the length of wake windows and naps as sometimes he drops to 2 naps.

Wake windows are usually 2hrs 30 mins to 3 hours, sometimes before bed he doesn't want to sleep until he reaches 3hrs 30 mins. He feeds every 2-3hrs during the day, however I find since he's been weaning he's definitely feeding less. During the night he doesn't cry, but he is whining and coughing for comfort sucking and just unsettled. I usually leave him to whine for 5 mins just to see if he self soothes, but he just gets more riled (gets on his hands and knees and rocks the crib). In the end he cosleeps with me, easier for feeding but doesn't stop the wake ups. Pacifiers don't work for him.

I feel like I'm failing. I'm so tired, I cry all the time. Everyone else I know who has babies sleep through the night, I have not been so lucky. I feel like I have to be doing something wrong. The only thing I can think of is that he is developmentally leaping. He is such a happy baby through the day, and very very very energetic.

Ferber hasn't worked for us, I refuse to CIO. I was hoping giving him solids would help, but it's changed nothing. Any suggestions?

Is he in his own room? Moving dd into her own room which was quiet and dark definitely helped both of us sleep better. I think we both used to wake each other up.

Id also stop feeding overnight, cuddles, change nappy (if needed), offer water but nothing else.

I went the other way to the first poster, and bedshared. I found 7-8 months the worst for sleep - both of mine had about a month of waking every twenty mins and it nearly finished me off. If I'd had to get them out of a cot too it would've been too much. They still woke, but could have a quick suck and go back to sleep again.

you are expecting way way more sleep than he needs. Very few babies need 3-4 hours nap plus 11-12 hours overnight. Hes waking as he is simply not tired to sleep longer overnight. I’d cut down the day sleep a lot; do 2 x 1 hour naps and if he needs a 3rd nap; keep it 10 mins. Cap the night after 11 hours.

That last nap is pretty close to bedtime!

I sleep trained my baby at 8 months under the guidance of a Sleep Consultant because I was in pretty much the exact same situation that you are.

She cut my baby down to two naps a day (each last 1.5 hours), with the last nap of the day finishing at 3.15pm which meant he was then awake for 4 hours before bedtime.

The other two things that she implemented that were life-changers were putting baby into his own room, and stop breastfeeding to sleep (she set up a whole new bedtime routine for me).

He was then sleeping from 7.30pm - 6am.

You have my sympathy OP because it’s absolutely awful. I also spent a lot of my days in tears.

That is my next step - see how he sleeps in a separate room. We've had a testy day, very clingy and very punchy mouth so I'm going to try when he's a bit more chill.

Id try and cut the 5pm nap as well- we used to call naps between 4 and 6pm 'danger naps' because they always led to no sleep during the night/a bedtime that would take hours. I co slept as well, my kids didnt sleep for bloody years!

Oh you poor thing. It’s so so tough when you’ve got a non sleeper but it does get better I promise you. Agree with everyone saying the 3rd nap could be problem. You don’t have to do away completely but if he’s falling apart and can’t make it to bedtime, a 10 min cat nap could be enough to see him through and still have a reasonable bedtime. You could also try waking him earlier in the morning and seeing if a bit more awake time during the day solves it. At 7m old we were working towards a 6.30am wake as we knew that’s what we needed for nursery in a couple of months.
My DS was so bad at sleeping but it slowly got better as he got older and now at 18m we have far more good nights than bad ones but I have been where you are and it nearly broke me.

Dunno if it works with ebf but I used to give my babies a dream feed to keep them going overnight. Also solids at six months

I feel utterly broken. I'm hoping for better days, I really want a second baby but this is holding me off currently

Thank you all for your help, we are going to try having a later bedtime, reduce 3rd nap time to 10 mins and move him to his own room soon. I've been an emotional wreck today, it's all got to me. I had somewhat a decent night last night so hopefully these little changes will be productive for DS

It’s the 5pm nap that’s the issue in my opinion.

One thing I kept seeing from sleep consultants was make one change at a time and give it 3-4 days to see a difference. Good luck! We are one and done which we always thought we would be anyway but the sleep has cemented it for us 😂