7 month old waking every 2 hours

[Mamamia2]

My 7 month old son is sleeping in his cot beside our bed. He goes to bed at 7 and wakes at 11, 1,3, 5 and 7. Mostly, I have been feeding him together him back to sleep. I also bring him into our bed at 11 and he often stays there until morning. Even as I write this I realise I have given him so may bad habits! He used to sleep though the night when he was 3 months old. His day time routine is as follows:
7: wake and bf
8: breakfast
9.20: sleep usually for and hour or more
11: bf although he sometimes doesn't want this
12: lunch
1.30: sleep
3: bf
5: dinner
6:bath
6.30: bf
7: bed

Needless to say, I'm very tired! I hate to see him cry but I do want him to sleep for over periods during the night. Thank you for any advice!

[mamakasi]

mamamia2

I can't give You advice as I am new here and new to BW but I can tell You that I know what You are going thru. My DD is similar age to your son, she is 6,5 mo and up to 3 mo she was quite a good sleeper. But then everything changed, she started waking up round midnite and every 1/2 hr later, so b/c I desperetely needed some sleep I used to take her to our bed and give her breast. After some time I ended up with a child demanding BF all the time, so I did a sort of "open bufet" and during the night she could eat whenever she wished. (I weaned her off night feeding with the use of paci so now she is paci addicted:()

Two weeks ago or so she started waking up screaming every few minutes all night long. I've read BW solves all your problems and even the first night was an improvement. The only thing I did that night was to stay with her until she falls asleep deeply, that night she woke up 4 times and I just shh/patted her and didn't take to bed. I also had to work on naps. It has been 6 days and she stays in her bed and sleeps almost thru the night.Almost:) but it is a huge difference.

I don't know exactly what helped, maybe just the fact I gained more confidence after I'd read the book, so as I said B4 I can't help You, but I hope You find comfort seeing that there are absolutely crashing examples of accidental parents as me still doing some progress over just a few days( touch wood!). Hope someone will help You

[lawell]

Mamamia - we have a similar situation but have worked hard and gotten our LO to sleep for a 5-6 hour stretch almost every night. We're still struggling with wake ups from 3:30-7 a.m., but 10-3:30/4 is usually good!

We've stretched his awake time to 3 hours in the morning and 3.5 in the afternoon, so we don't have the big 4-hour stretch before bedtime. Honestly, I cannot figure out over-tired or under-tired, so I may be off, but I wanted to share because naps and some nighttime sleep are going well for us!

This is our EASY:
E - awake and nurse 7 a.m.
A - play, eat breakfast at 8 a.m., play
S - 10:00-11:30 a.m. nap
E - 12:00 p.m. bottle
A - play, eat lunch at 1:00 p.m., play
S - 3:00-5:00 p.m.
E - 5/5:30 p.m. bottle or nurse if I'm home from work
A - play, eat dinner at 6/6:30 p.m.
7:00 start bedtime - bath, books, singing and cuddling, back rub, sleep
usually wakes up 2 times between 7:30-10 p.m. - is up trying to crawl or sitting up (We're not as concerned about this wake up time because he goes right back to sleep if we lay him down and rub his back for a minute.)
10/10:30 p.m. "dreamfeed" - he wakes up for this
sleeps great between 10 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. - then wakes for 1.5-2.5 hours - usually back to sleep for at least 1.5 hours before waking at 7:00

I'd love to hear more thoughts from others!

[Mamamia2]

Thanks so much for the replies girls. It's great to know I'm not alone.  I do think I need to rethink the routine during the day.i think yours would work for us iawell. Thanks for posting it.

[Bex09]

Hi there, it sounds like you have become a prop and your DS needs you to settle back to sleep, either with a feed or in your bed. You can change this by finding another way to settle him. So shush/pat and PU/PD if needed. Then use this to resettle your DS if he wakes. If you still want to offer a NF then pick a time and don't feed before that time. So if he feeds at 11pm then don't feed until at least 3 or 4am. How does that sound?