7 month old inconsistent with self settling

Submitted by Ariane on Sun, 07/15/2012 - 11:50

Hi there
I am desperate for some advice with my 7 month old daughter. We have been trying to teach her to self settle for some weeks now. Sometimes she is put in the cot awake and rolls over and goes to sleep. But other times she will cry for 20-30 minutes before she goes to sleep. We go in and pick her up after about 10-15 minutes as trying to settle her in the cot only gets her more worked up. She sleeps at 0900 and 1300 during the day, between 40 minutes and 2 hours. Bedtime is 7pm. She will wake up between 21:30 and 23:00 and will go back to sleep with a feed (I am sure she is not hungry). She would then do the same thing at 02:00-0300. If I am unlucky she will again wake up at 0500 and will want to stay up or I could feed her again to put her back to sleep. I have stopped the 2am feed, but she takes an hour to get back to sleep. She doesn't cry the whole time, but will just nod off and then start to cry again. Because of that awake time she will now sleep longer and have a breastfeed at 0700 which has always been her breakfast time.

I am unsure on how to proceed. I cant handle all the crying, it is making me an emotional mess. But I would like to get her to sleep through the night and most importantly go to sleep without big crying sessions. We have a great bedtime routine and day time sleep routine. She has a comforter, we don't use a dummy and I would prefer not to. She only takes 5-7 minutes to complete a feed, so to shorten night feeds gradually seems futile. We have started using a night light with no change to her habits. She has solids three times as day, but is not a great eater. She also has reflux and has failed attempts to cease medications, but is symptom free whilst medicated and an extremely content baby when awake. Lastly if ever I stand next to her cot when she is crying to try to stroke her, sing to her, pat her etc she only gets her more irrate.

I would be eternally grateful for any advice.
Cheers
Ariane

‹ 10 month old waking at 4 7 month old waking in night and won't settle herself. ›

Hello,It is always stressful

Submitted by Juliet on Mon, 07/23/2012 - 13:04.

Hello,

It is always stressful listening to your baby cry but try to remeber she will do it at bedtime because she is tired or cross that she is not getting what she wants eg. breast feed. Ypu have a great routine and i can give you some pointers to help with her sleep.

I think the fact that your daughter gets irritated by you trying to help soothe her to sleep indicates that the best approach for her would be the cry down method. It does involve crying as do all the sleep training techniques but it is very effective and you get good results in a few days.

The fact that she can roll over and go to sleep some evenigns shows that she can self settle. On the other evenings it could just be that she is over tired. With sleep training you need to be consistent in your approach so that your daughter knows what to expect and the crying will get better and stop. The thing to do if she is crying is not to pick her up - not only does this offer a reward to the crying but it is not helping her to go to sleep and you then have to put her back in the cot and re-start. You have a lovely routine so put her in the cot as usual at 7pm say night night and leave the room. Then wait for 5 minutes and go to the door way or where she can see you - do not pick her up but offer brief re-assurance tell her it is night time and then leave. Repeat after 10 minutes. Repeat after 15 mins and then every 15 mins until she cried down - she may cry down early in the process. When babies are crying down they are soothing themselves to sleep and if you go in you will distrub her. You can use this technique at bedtime and all through the night until around 5am when it is hard to re-settle with crying down. From 5am see if you can leave her to self settle for up to a maximum of an hour. You may only be able to leave her 20 mins the first morning but try and extend this by 5 mins each morning to a maximum of an hour. In the early morning if babies see parents they think it is time to get up so by leaving her you are not stimualting her and giving her the chance to fall back to sleep.

As for the feeds at night you are right she will not be hungry at 21.30 and 23.00 if she is fed at bedtime. I would give her at least a 4 hour gap from bedtime feed to next feed and do the crying down if she wakes. You have stopped the 2am feed and it probably takes her an hour to settle as she is so used to feeding she finds it hard to do it but does manage eventually.

For a 7 month old total sleep time is around 14 hours split between the night and naps - if she does 12 hours at night she will only need a total of 2 hours for naps bt if she does less at night she will need more for naps.

Hope that helps.

Kind Regards

Juliet