Any advice for helping 7-month-old sleep at night?
ByMy 7-month-old was doing well for awhile, only waking one time around 3-4 in the morning for a feed and then going back to sleep in his crib. NOW, he wakes up at all sorts of random times (11:30, 1:30…). I know he shouldn’t need to eat during the night still at this age, but I usually end up breastfeeding him anyway just to get him to go to sleep.
I thought that I would be okay with the cry it out approach, but so far I haven’t hard the heart to do it. I’m just so tired that I end up having him come to bed with me after he wakes the first time each night. I never thought I’d be into cosleeping, but I found that i was so tired in the middle of the night wakeups that I was almost falling with him in my arms, so this is safer for us. I’d really like to get to where he could sleep all night in his crib without waking, though – any advice?
I should add that he IS teething and also learning to crawl, so lots of changes going on with him!!
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3 Comments
April 25th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
My kids did the same thing! My first one I just did the same thing you’re doing and let him come to bed with me, my second was doing that too and I would just give him his pacifier and he would go back to sleep. He’s 3 now and sleeps pretty good in his own bed. You’ll have the hardest time getting your baby back to his/her own bed once you start co-sleeping. I couldn’t bear to let them cry either.
April 25th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
my son is 8 1/2 months and just started sleeping through the night (or only waking once for a bottle and diaper change) about a week and a half ago. up until then he woke on average 3-4 times per night. it had been very tiring! is your baby teething? i think that may have been my sons problem. because its only been a few weeks since both of his bottom teeth fully came in. i think his gums were really bothering him and night and now that they arent he is able to sleep better. try tylenol before bed and baby orajel on his gums when he wakes and try finding other ways to sooth him back to sleep other than just using a bottle. i think thats another thing that helped me also. even though i was so tired, i finally convinced myself to start getting up to rock him back to sleep instead of just giving him the bottle so i could get back to sleep.
April 25th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
I’m having the same problem, now compounded with him sitting up and not able to lie down again. We did sleep training at 4 months. I have a hard time with the crying to so we modified it a little. The first time it was for a nap. We put him down and walked out of the room. Of course he started screaching, we gave him 30 seconds then went back in, picked him up, calmed him down, put him back in his crib even as he started crying, walked out, waited 30 secs…. if he calmed down or the crying changed at any points we started the 30 seconds over so by the end we were only going in every 2-3 minutes. That first time took 35 minutes. That night he went down with 2 minutes of fussing. It took about 5 days and we increased the time increments to 5 minutes, we also stopped picking him up to comfort him because my back was killing me. Eventually we stopped going in and that worked well. I do still nurse him to sleep for naps and night, I also feed him twice at night per docs orders (he is 7 months). But it was one to two night wakings, quick feed straight to sleep, until about 2 weeks ago, now it is multiple wakings and more feedings. I refuse to bring him to bed! I think it has something to do with a developmental milestone, less sleep, their body trying to work out what they are learning. Try the sleep training, start with small increments, you’ll get comfortable with it and see how much better he is for the extra rest. Just keep in mind it isn’t a one hit wonder. We’ve had to redo it a few times after a cold, teething, now with this sitting up and going into put him down, we’ll have to do it again once this stage is over. But it is worth it, better for both of you! Goodluck.