Help me come up with a plan for my stubborn 7.5mth old

[malibu_nikkus]

Sleep training has always been a battle for us.
At the moment:
He takes a paci, although is pushing it away a lot, but wanting it at the end after having a big cry.
In the day, he will take paci and want me to be next to him to settle. He sleeps about 1.5-2hrs.
At night, it's a disaster...
He will sometimes go to sleep feeding, sometimes not, although lately he totally refuses to go to sleep unless held or fed. He then wakes 2hrly and refuses to go to sleep without a feed. The other night, hubby took him and he wouldn't settle for 1.5hrs. Last night, I tried PU/PD. It took 2hrs. Every time I picked him up, he stopped instantly and would grab my hair to try and settle. He is using my hair as a prop. He slept a bigger block afterwards, but then woke 2hrly after that.

I moved from a 4hrly to 3hrly feeds in the day to fill him up more. The first day I did this, he slept 3hr blocks, but has promptly gone back to 2hrly.

I'm at a total loss. Please help me come up with a plan. I really don't see PU/PD working well for us. Seeing he screams for 2hrs, it will wake the whole house if I try and do this in the night time.

Current EASY
7am wake and feed
8am breakfast
9.00 feed
10-12.00 sleep
12.00 feed
1pm solids
3pm feed
3.15 sleep
4pm wake
6.30 feed then bed
Wakes 2hrly from then

He has food intolerances so I don't feed dinner solids yet to avoid an upset tummy at night.

[malibu_nikkus]

Problem is, during PUPD, he grabs my hand and tries to suck on my finger.

[jessmum46]

Hiya, I think you may have been one of those affected by the move across to a new server as I'm sure you had some replies before!  Apologies for the inconvenience - let's try again shall we?!

I suspect your problem is a bit of a combination of props and possibly some ongoing food issues?  What are his intolerances?  Are you formula or breastfeeding and what is he on in the way of solids?  I feel a bit uncomfortable giving sleep training advice without knowing that any sort of discomfort has been excluded....

Routine has some A times which are possibly a bit short for 7.5 months, but overall I don't think too bad.  I don't think the routine in itself should cause such frequent waking.

If you are certain there is no ongoing discomfort, then really it's about biting the bullet and getting on with sleep training.  There are two ways really - PUPD is more of a quick 'rip the bandage off' kind of thing, painful to begin with but likely to yield results fairly quickly if you are consistent.  A gradual withdrawal approach would be the other option.  That said, 2 hours for a first go at PUPD really isn't bad, I know it feels dreadful going through it but if he's never settled on his own before this just isn't going to be a 10 minute quick fix!  I appreciate the concern about waking others in the house, but you would expect the bad nights to be over fairly quickly, and for a long-term gain that has to be worth it?  I think you have an older LO?  What about some white noise to help them sleep through it?

If you really just can't face PUPD, then a gradual withdrawal would seem to be your other option.  It will likely take (a lot) longer and is not guaranteed to be free from crying, but is a more gentle approach in some ways and would allow you to make smaller slower changes.  If he's used to settling with a feed you can try Pantley's gentle removal plan - Gentle Removal Plan, or if it's more the holding that he is reliant on then you could work on holding to very drowsy then put down, then put down more awake but keep hands on, then gradually back off etc etc

What are your thoughts?