7 months - no longer goes down and stays down at night

[mairm]

Hi my son is 7 months old and is no longer staying alseep at night.   :cry: He has always been very good at going to sleep at night (for a short while with a bottle when younger and for the last 2-3 month with no feeds).  He has been going to bed after a 7pm bath since he was a few weeks old.  He sleeps 1.5 hr morning and 2 hr afternoon the majority of days and doesn't seem refreshed without these lenghts of sleeps (he is pretty active).  I would say he is a good napper and having watched his sleepy signs for a few weeks we seta  routine with him which he thrives on.  He goes to sleep with us shading his eyes, in his own cot (in his room), with a soother which he usually spat out once he got drowsy since 5 months.   Once he was on three meals he slept right through after a 7pm bath and bed routine until 6am.  He goes to sleep with either Mum or Dad.  He slept through for 3 weeks and then when he hit 7 months started waking 40 minutes after going down for the night crying.  Now he used to wake/goes into light sleep 40 minutes after going down but mostly always went back to sleep with no attention from us by making noises to himself.  Now he doesnt go back to sleep after 40 minutes after going to bed at night.  We were going into reassure him quickly/put soother in but he started waking every hour then (don't think it was teething as Calpol didn't help).  We leave him for 5 minutes each to time to try to settle himself before going in and let him have a little cry (he often giggles between crying and there are no tears) and this got him waking 2 times after going to bed then sleeping through but we can't seem to move him past these waking these 2 times ... any suggestions? Thanks Mair

[SandyGal]

Hi Mair 

You said that ds is falling asleep with you or dh in the room? If that is the case, that may be the part that needs to change. Babies do start waking more often in the night around his age and if he needs you to fall asleep (even if it is easy), he is going to be getting you up starting now and continuing on. How is he if you don't shade his eyes for him? Can you just stand in there with him and will he fall asleep that way? Let me know and perhaps we can help you with a plan to get him falling asleep on his own. That may cure the night wakings.

[mairm]

Dear Sandy,
Thanks for your offer to help - we tried the soother removal method posted here so baby fell asleep without his soother and then he slept straight through only making 2 squeaks in the night (we didnt have to go in or do anything) ... next we would like to get him off needing us to shade his eyes ... we do now leave the first second he closes his eyes ... before he gets properly off the sleep ... but any suggestions would be great.  thanks mair

[Gigismom]

hi
if you have time, check out the "babies of oct/dec" thread in the eady forum.  there are LOTS of moms with babies your age experiencing the exact same thing.  we are one of them.  for us, we just let her cry 5 mins, go in and briefly comfort, repeat.  this has worked well.  once we started it, it took only about a week.  she still wakes and cries but the last couple of night, she has put herself back to sleep without us.  i think at this age, it has a lot to do with teething, separation anxiety, and increasing mobility.  it is frustrating i know!