7.5 month old. horrible sleeper. could really use some advice!
My 7.5 month old slept wonderfully in a bassinet next to our bed until 4 months old. Then one day she started waking up every hour. So, I started bringing her into bed with me so that I could nurse/calm her more easily and get some sleep. We've been bed sharing since then. We just got settled into a new house and I've been putting her in a crib for her first sleeps. She has bedtime at 6-6:30 and nurses to sleep. I put her in her crib, and she usually sleeps anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour . I go up and can get her back to sleep once without picking her up, and I get another 30 minutes or so. After two times of going back up to her, she will not sleep without me. Third time I always have to stay. She was nursing freely during the night, but we've cut that back to about every 3 hours, which is harder on me cause then I have to pick her up every time she wakes up. My goal with that is to get her used to less food and hopefully eventually less waking. So, she wakes at least 4-5 times a night. The past 3 nights, she wants to play around 1am and last night I couldn't get her back to sleep (anywhere but in my arms) till 5am. My husband is not helpful at all at night. At first, I didn't need him to be, but now I do. Unfortunately (maybe cause she's not used to him or maybe it's just the age), DD cries even harder anytime he goes to her in the night instead of me.
Naps are also really bad. She will not fall asleep on her own AT ALL and when I put her to sleep by nursing or rocking, she wakes up as soon as I try to lay her down. Even if I lay down with her. Her eyes pop open and she smiles and wants to play. I usually just leave her there till she starts crying, which can be up to 30 minutes. She never just falls back asleep though. Her longest nap for as long as I can remember is about an hour, and that was once when I was holding her the whole time.
Sorry I'm so scattered. If anyone has fixed a problem like this, please tell me about it! Or if you have any advice. Thank you!
Re: 7.5 month old. horrible sleeper. could really use some advice!
As far as the nights go, it sounds like she's going through too many changes all at once: new house, sleeping in crib instead of with you, not feeding her when she wakes at night. Since you can't change the new house situation and it sounds like you'd rather have her in her crib than in your bed, I'd get rid of the not feeding her for now. You want her to feel secure in her new house and new place to sleep, so I'd go back to nursing her to sleep at ALL wakings - or at least picking her up and rocking her back to sleep (ie, if it's only been 30 minutes and she won't nurse again) for a week or two. After that, at 7.5 months old she may decrease her night nursing on her own, at least to a more manageable level like the every 3 hours you're aiming for right now.
Sorry I don't have much advice for naps! DD only naps 30 minutes-ish at a time, although she consistently goes down easily for 3 naps a day in her crib after being rocked to sleep. It took at least a week or two after we first started doing naps in her crib to get to that point.
I wish I had some advice, but I'm in the same boat with my almost 11-month-old. He is still bedsharing, and I'm just about desperate to get him sleeping in his own bed before I totally lose my mind. He stirs and wants to nurse at LEAST 5-6 times every night. Last night he was on me practically constantly. ALL. NIGHT. LONG. And my DH travels for work, so I'm totally on my own right now. The little dude is also a horrible napper during the day. I'm lucky to get 20 minutes out of him twice a day.
I do have a plan, however. My mom is coming next week, and she is amazing with the kids. She's actually the ONLY person who has been able to get the baby to sleep without nursing and lay him down in his bed, so she's going to try to help me 'sleep train' a little. I think it will be helpful to have someone other than myself comfort the baby, and if he knows that nursing is out, he will hopefully settle better in bed on his own. So, maybe if you and your DH could make a plan for the nighttime--say rather than you immediately nursing, maybe he could rock/walk/whatever with her instead and try to get her settled back down that way. Will she take a pacifier at all? (My little guy won't.)
Good luck to you. I know it's rough.