7 month old doesn't sleep at night

[Islandmama]

Hello all! I came here for guidance when my second was 5 months old (he is now 4) and got some amazing advice! I now have a 7 month old that I am afraid I have created some very bad habits with and I would like some help to get him on the right track. My little guy seems to be a textbook baby but will only nap/sleep in his bouncy chair or next to me in bed. He is breastfed and hates pacifiers. We have started solids but he's not a huge fan and is only recently starting to eat with any enthusiasm. We had no routine at all (third kid, I was exhausted ) until a few weeks ago when I started implementing EASY. He responded well and his naps are more regular but he cannot fall asleep unless my husband rocks him up and down the hall for 15 minutes or unless I nurse him to sleep. Sometimes he needs both!! At night he will go down for a couple of hours but then refuses to go back to sleep until 4am! Nothing will put him back to sleep. I am thinking he is overtired because I wake him at 8am and wake him from his naps after 2 hours and he is not getting that sleep back at night because he wants to stay up and party with us? We have spent 4 hours walking, rocking, nursing and he just won't do it. He even gets cranky because he's tired but he won't go to sleep until he is completely wiped and pretty much passes out in bed next to me. I want to transition him to the crib and I want him to sleep at night! But not sure how to go about it without upsetting him or doing CIO which would devastate me.

Here is his routine:

8am - Wake up, nurse
8:30 to 10 - play, eat breakfast (maybe)
10am - nap in his chair (he goes down very easily for this nap - just a few minutes of nursing or rocking)
12/12:30pm - wake up, nurse
12:30 to 2:30/3pm - have lunch, play
3pm to 5/5:30pm - nap (harder to get him down for this one)
5:30 - wake up, nurse
7pm - dinner, bedtime routine
I nurse him after his routine and he seems to nurse and snooze for up to half an hour then my husband has to rock him for another half an hour before he goes to sleep in his chair
Two hours later he is up again and will sometimes go back down for an hour but usually won't go to bed until 4am.

We have two older children - 4 and 9 and would love to have a better schedule so we can spend time with them and each other and have this little guy sleep at night so we can do something other than rocking/shushing/walking a cranky baby around the house. We tried moving him to the crib and he was pretty annoyes and became hyper vigilant - his eyes would snap open as soon as we began to put him down. The past couple of weeks I have been putting him in it to play so he associates it with a happy place. But not sure where to go from here. Should we shush/pat? PU/PD? Modified CIO?

HELP!

[becj86]

Hi, welcome back

I'm sure you know we won't advise any form of CIO or CC here, as it breaks the bond of trust with your child.

I think the main thing here is that your baby is getting too much day sleep and much too short A times. Really, at 7 months, a child with reasonably high sleep needs might have an A time of 3hr and you've a baby who's taking a 2hr nap 2hr after waking in the morning. Of course part of this is that he's having such a disrupted night but the way to fix that is to extend that morning A time, take him outside so he knows its day time and his body can start to regulate better.

My suggestion would be to do something like this for a week, record what happens and then search for patterns to make changes that may be required:
8 - WU
11 - nap
12:30/1 - WU
3:30/4 - nap (3hr A time here)
5:30 - WU
8:30 - asleep in bed.

If 8:30 is too late a BT, I would suggest doing this routine but shifting it back by 15min/day by waking him earlier each morning until you get to a preferred WU/BT.

He is probably horrendously OT from having such terrible nights (as I'm sure, are you). I think whilst you're doing this daytime routine, you will likely have to APOP the naps to get his body into the rhythm of napping at these times but I think once he's awake more than a 3-4 month old, he will probably sleep better at night.

Are the nights any worse since introducing solids at dinner time? if so, you can probably stop those for now - the feeling of having solids going through the digestive tract is new at first and can cause sleep disruption. Its not essential that he has 3 solids meals/day at this age.

I don't think with a routine such as what you're currently doing that its fair to try to do shush/pat or PUPD with him. You'd be expecting him to sleep when he's not tired which is probably why you're having to rock/feed to sleep. Stick with your getting to sleep methods for now and spend a week with 3hr A times, then we can tweak the routine and start any remaining sleep training that may be required. Generally once the routine is suitable for the child, the sleep training is much easier if not unnecessary.

FX we can get LO sleeping so you can sleep xx

[Islandmama]

Thanks so much for your reply. Yes as I was reading over my post I realized napping 2 hours after waking up is crazy but he is always so tired after only getting a few hours sleep the night before, I didn't even realize his A time was way too short 

I have never done CIO and the thought of it made me sick so I am glad to have some guidance for other ways to get him to sleep! I am terrified actually of having to put something in place other than rocking/nursing as I feel as nothing will work and he will end up super upset. I should mention this is my second marriage and he is my first baby with my husband. My previous husband was very absent and I had to do everything alone so my first two babies were a little more independent by necessity. My current husband works from home and is always around to help out and in the first few months he pretty much never put him down so my LO is used to being held and rocked and cuddled all the time. Never thought that would be a bad thing but here we are!

I have a question about night time: when he wakes up at night and refuses to go back to sleep, we lay in bed with him and watch tv or bring him into the living room to get away from the small space of our bedroom. Is that okay, or are we making things worse? I always wonder if we should sit with him in the dark for the four hours it takes to get him back to sleep (ack!)

Our living situation makes things a little difficult - baby is in our room until we move to a bigger place and my sister is crashing on our couch while she finishes school so I am worried it will be hard to implement things but fingers crossed! I will follow the routine you suggested, starting tomorrow

[becj86]

Ok, so it is best if he wakes in the night to keep him somewhere dark so he learns that night is a thing - If you have him up for 4hr with TV on (which emits blue light and reduces melatonin - sleep hormone), you're shooting yourself in the foot, really. Much as its boring for you, keeping him in the dark and not interacting beyond singing or saying a sleepy phrase and providing comfort is best. It *should* also reduce the time it takes for him to go back to sleep. Do you think he's got discomfort at that time of night? Is he sleeping in a different position at night compared with during the day?

I often find that babies who have a routine that works for them take very little if any training. Having never fallen asleep on his own, it probably will be required if that's your end goal, however if your main aim is to get him sleeping at night and napping reasonably in the day and you're ok with feeding to sleep, you may find that you get to a stage that you're happy with.

Am I right that you want to prioritise getting sleep at night? That seems like the most pressing concern from your posts.

[Islandmama]

Yes that is our main goal! We will cut out tv/activity at night time, thanks so much. This morning we slept in and coslept/nursed for probably the last time, and my plan is to implement his new schedule on Monday. Will check back in after a couple of days 

[becj86]

Fingers crossed for you, keep us posted

[Islandmama]

Just wanted to give an update (and vent a little). We have been doing the schedule you suggested pretty successfully. After 2.5 hours of A time, he gets VERY cranky and we have to do all kinds of tricks to keep him awake and happy, which is understandable, I'm sure he's still adjusting. Night times are better in that he doesn't stay up all night anymore. During NW we can usually convince him to go back to sleep. However he is now NW every 30 to 45 minutes and it is exhausting. Sometimes my husband can get him back down, other times he won't calm down unless I go in and nurse him. Once I go to bed he happily sleeps next to my boob all night 

Do we just continue and hope things improve?

[becj86]

Can you post what your day looks like now, in EAS format?

How long is he napping?

Are those frequent NW in the early evening? If so, that sounds like OT (I can get a better idea of why when I see the EASY for a day or two). OT isn't in itself a bad thing - it suggests he is tired from the day you're now doing and he's still in the process of re-equilibrating when he takes his sleep.

It sounds like you might have a BF to sleep prop - is he an independent sleeper? Is that something you're wanting to achieve?

[Islandmama]

Just wanted to post a quick reply before I go to bed - he is up and waiting for me. I will post his schedule for the past few days tomorrow. He naps for 1.5 to 2 hours most times - 2 naps a day. Tonight wasn't so bad - he was up every two hours. We definitely have an issue with sleep props - he won't go to sleep unless my husband is rocking him or I am nursing him (or in the stroller/car seat). He still sleeps in his chair or in bed with us. I would LOVE to get him sleeping in the crib and falling asleep independently. I am guessing the frequent NW at every 1 to 2 hours are because he can't put himself back to sleep after a sleep cycle?

Will let you know more of what is happening tomorrow (almost 2am here)

[becj86]

Alright, I shall leave you some links to read so you've some sleep training methods to consider:
What does a good wind down consist of (Includes 4S ritual)
10 reasons (other than hunger) a baby can wake at night
Shush-pat - How to
Pick Up/Put Down (PU/PD) - Everything you ever needed to know!

These are not no-cry solutions but they are ways for you to teach him how to sleep. Its a skill, consider teaching a child to read - it takes time and they learn a bit at a time, not overnight. At this age, he will likely need the sleep environment to stay the same throughout the sleep - essentially, LO will stir, assess that they are in the same safe secure circumstances they were when they fell asleep and go back to sleep or wake up and scream - self preservation.

[Islandmama]

Hi there! Here is his routine this week:

8am - WU, nurse
10am - breakfast
11am - Nap
1pm - WU
2pm - lunch
4pm - Nap
5:30/5:45 - WU
Bedtime - 8:30
(No dinners)

In between naps and meals we have been trying to keep him active on his mat and in his bouncer. We take him for a walk too although we're in Canada and sometimes it's too cold.

In terms of the methods you posted, I am nervous to try shush pat, as too much shushing has always seemed to annoy him. He responds well to some singing and humming, but usually when his dad rocks him, he does it in total silence, which baby seems to respond well to. When I rock him, he needs a few words and murmurs of reassurance. But I also worry that PU/PD will overstimulate and confuse him. Not sure what route to go. Either way, when do you recommend we try it? By Monday he would have been on the schedule I posted for a week - is that long enough for him to get used to things before we try to sleep train? I should mention that today he was happier and only a little cranky for naptimes.

Thanks for all your help

[becj86]

You can modify Shush/pat to singing/humming/low voice of reassuring 'sleep phrase' instead of the shushing.

You should not try PUPD until you've tried something else consistently for at least 2 weeks and seen no improvement.

How have his nights been on that new routine? Is he napping 2hr and waking himself or you're waking him?

[Islandmama]

Since the new routine, he is waking up on his own at night every 1 to 2 hours. There has been improvement, because before he was waking up and refusing to go back to sleep for hours. Now he will go back to sleep if I nurse him or his dad rocks him (he usually will not go to sleep if I rock him for some reason). But still night wakings every 1 to 2 hours, sometimes even after 45 minutes.

After naps, and in the morning at 8am, I always have to wake him up. I guess he is still adjusting? Is Monday too early to try to get him into the crib? And when we do start, should we do it for naps or for nighttime?

[becj86]

I think he is still adjusting - you need to have a plan and be ready to stick to it for 2 weeks at least and do the sleep training for naps and night. I would suggest when you do nights, you pick an interval at which you're prepared to feed and any wakings between those, dad takes, at least for the first week or so til we see how LO goes with the new expectations. So, if you decide to feed only after 4hr and BT feed is 8pm, dad would do any wakings before midnight, the waking after midnight is yours - you feed and put back to bed, then for the 4 hours after that, dad does those. What you're aiming for here is to have him wake only when hungry. You don't want to be trying to get him back to sleep while he's hungry but equally you don't want to get him in the habit of eating every 1-2hr in the crib when you're doing all the hard work to get him to sleep there.

Since its a new environment for him, it might help if he spends some wind-down time there before naps so he starts to associate it with sleep.

This is a big change for your little fellow. He will likely cry as he will be frustrated and confused as to why the rules have suddenly changed on him - it is his means of communicating, you are not hurting him provided you are there and helping him through the process.

[Islandmama]

Ok great! We have a couple of events happening in the next two weeks including his brother's birthday party so we have decided to continue keeping on the EAS schedule you suggested, and then sleep train starting two weeks from now, when things are less busy. I will post an update on how it goes. Thank you for all your help and guidance. Tracy's book is wonderful but sometimes all the info is overwhelming, I appreciate being able to get advice specific to my little guy.