What is causing these night wakings??

[JEmommy]

I have a almost 7 month old baby boy who has never slept thru the night. I have been following the EASY routine for a few months. Here is our daily routine (give or take an hour). For awake time we usually play on his play mat. He also loves his jumper! He already has started solids and we do that three times per day about an hour after nursing. I am breastfeeding and he usually eats about 15 min. One side per feeding.
Wake 7:00 nurse
          8:00 solids
Nap 9:00 (2 hrs)
        11:00 nurse
         12:00 solids
Nap  1:00 (1.5ish hrs)
         3:00 nurse
5:00 he occasionally naps here but not always. When he does I do t let him sleep more than 45 min.
          6:00 solids
Bath   7:00
           7:30 nurse quietly with nightlight in room
8:00 sleep


We are really really struggling with night wakings. To begin with he has never slept thru the night. When he was about 4 mo we started pu/pd and we learned to fall asleep without being held. However he wakes up on average about 8-10 times per night. He wakes up fussing and I immediately go to him to shush/pat and put his paci in. The longest I have ever let him cry is just a few min. If I let this happen he wakes himself fully and it takes longer to get him to sleep. I can't figure out his mantra cry. Or maybe I just can't stand to hear him cry? I know he needs to learn to self soothe but how long is too long? More recently he has started actually waking and won't go back to sleep unless I nurse him to sleep ( I know!).  Most mornings about 5 I just bring him to bed with us and he sleeps so good!

He does use a paci but I try to limit its use. He sleeps in his crib in his own room now. We made the move about a month ago. He doesn't use a lovie. Also he is teething and starting to crawl. We used to swaddle. But stopped about a month ago when he started rolling to belly. He is usually a good napper and sleeps deeply without waking frequently (on average).

I am absolutely open to ANY and EVERY suggestion!!!
Thank you so much for reading this long post!!

[Kellyjs]

Hi and welcome to BW!

This age is a tricky time for sleep as there's so much developmental stuff going on. The first thing that jumps out at me is that your A times are quite short for a near 7mo. Many are averaging near the 3hr mark rather than 2. It does depend whether or not you feel your LO might be HSN though? (High sleep needs) as you are getting some decent naps in there. I wish mine would've napped that long at 7mo.. We were plagued with the 45mins nap monster!

I think you may need to look at increasing those A times so you can look at dropping that last CN. That's quite a lot of day sleep for a 7mo so it may be impacting the nights and causing him to wake. That being said, you aren't having long drawn-out NW's so a Slow push in A times might be ideal.

It's really difficult to know how long to leave them to self-settle tbh. I think it's an individual thing. I too know that's it's just easier to go in and do a quick ssh/rub rather than have DD wake fully. As long as he knows how to self-settle when going to sleep in the first instance I think then they are capable of doing so during the night too if needs be. The more frequent crying NW's could be more from the discomfort of teething.

Ok, back to the day time. How do you feel about pushing those A times by 15mins, holding for a few days, then increasing again to get to at least 2.5hr A time? The reason we hold for a few days is so lo's can get used to the new times without becoming OT. You may find he will get grumpy when it's the usual time to go to bed, but this can be learned behaviour. I used to carry DD around for those last 15mins pointing out things in the house I needed to clean whilst she was asleep (sad, I know!), but it was low-key. Those 15mins used to be more hard work than the other 2odd hrs!

It will mean you will need to cap that CN to keep to a reasonable BT. I'd cap at 30mins initially and actually bring that last A in so it's shorter as many lo's can't do such a long A on a short CN. So maybe 1.75hrs max?

Eventfully what you want to work towards is something like this:
Wu 7
Nap 1 10-11.30
Nap 2 2.30-4
BT 7

Bear in mind that many lo's don't fall into this regular pattern, mine didn't. Took me a while to figure out she wanted a long first A and a much shorter A to bed, but it's just trial and error until we find out what your LO likes best.

Hth, here's some links you may find useful in the meantime x

All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months

Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!!

Typical Amounts of Day and Night Sleep

[JEmommy]

Thank you so much for your response!!! I have been doing as you suggested and he only woke up THREE times last night. Thank you!!

[Kellyjs]

Amazing! I hope it gets even better for you. Pop back if you need to x