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December 2010 Moms
Seven month sleep problems? Not just you!
I've been chatting with a lot (over a dozen so far) of veteran moms and dads and we've discovered something the "experts" fail to mention:
Right around 7 months, for all our children, their sleep has gone to hell in a handbasket. Babies who routinely slept thru the night were suddenly waking up at least once, if not more. Babies who would easily put themselves to sleep suddenly were fighting and screaming their way to bed. Babies who could easily be soothed back to sleep with replacing a nuk or gently rubbing their back suddenly needed a full bedtime routine to fall back asleep.
I haven't seen anything in all of the literature (HSHHC, Ferber, Sears, etc.) about this. They all trundle on blithely thru the 6-9 month phase, saying that babies in this age group should be settling into better sleep patterns, blah blah fishcakes.
Except experience doesn't seem to be bearing this out. Oh, they talk about teething and all that jazz but none of them mention 7 months as a specific trouble time. Yet all of the moms I talk to have. ETA: And there wasn't a common thread - like all were teething or all were learning to crawl or something. They were just all 7 months when it started.
And all of the moms I've talked to say that it gets better when you figure out what is going on. The common thread was that you can't change your baby, so you need to change what's going on around them. Those who sleep trained said that this time around sleep training didn't work for them during this time frame. That they had to figure out what was happening and either help change the environment to fix it or just tough it out. So there's that, if you're finding yourself baffled as to why it's not working.
Things mentioned to help:
1) Get strict about the bedtime routine. And make sure the entire routine takes place in the bedroom (or as much of it as possible).
2) Figure out your child's lovey (nuk, blankie, whatever).
3) Babies understand a lot more than you think, so use key words and phrases to help them settle. One mom suggested that the last thing you say to them ever night should be "Now find your [insert lovey here] and go to sleep." She said, after 3 days of using that, her daughter would reach for her nuk, put it in her mouth and zonk out. Almost like a post-hypnotic suggestion.
4) At this age babies can only be awake for 5 hours, max. So if you take the time your child last woke up (say, 3pm), add 5 hours on that and that's when they need to be asleep again. Adjust your bedtime routine accordingly.
5) Analyze your child's room and make adjustments to the environment to ensure better sleep - blackout blinds, moving or removing the nightlight, moving the crib away from the door, etc.
6) If you have particularly mobile/active kids, make sure they're burning off enough energy. I'm considering finding a gym with a pool so we can take B once or twice a week.
7) Don't fight your child. If they're squirming on your lap and thrashing about, maybe they just need a bit more quiet playtime. Fighting with them just works them up more. Also, don't try and turn a non-snuggler into one (I do this 
).
FWIW, for us it seems to have been doing two things:
1) Moving
the night light across the room. About a month ago we dropped his
mattress and removed the bumpers because he was standing on them. This
led to his night light shining much more light in his crib than normal,
making wakeups more likely. I feel like a total moron for not trying
this earlier.
2) Put half a dozen nuks in his crib, scattered around so that,
wherever he is when he wakes up, he can find one and soothe back to
sleep. I heard him stir up twice but he quickly found a nuk and went
back down in less than a minute.
Granted, it's only been one
night but B went from waking up 3-4 times a night for the last 2 weeks to sleeping from
7:15pm to 5:30am. And he had gotten good naps at daycare, so it wasn't an overtired sleep.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Seven month sleep problems? Not just you!
Oh. One mom swore by a webinar she took at https://swellbeing.com. She said it was the best $35 she's spent, ever.
I'm going to be emailing the principal to see when their next available one is (currently there's one from this past May on the site).
food blog | garden blog | curly dogs blog
Great suggestions! I'm not sure what's going on with M... He's a pretty good sleeper, but only sleeps in 6-7 hour stretches and I'd really like to extend it because almost as soon as he's up for the day, he's ready to go back down for his morning nap, but he won't go down right after he wakes. He needs to play first.
He's never been a pacifier kid, but maybe if I stuck some in with him, he would find comfort or self-soothing throughout the night.
Anyways, thanks for posting!
This is the lovey part. B's "lovey" is a nuk. He's never been a fan of stuffed animals or blankies for snuggling with but he loves him a good binky.
So that's why they suggested figuring out what that "lovey" is and then making sure they have access to it at all times at night so they can use it to self-soothe back to sleep.
The other thing the mom who took the webinar said is that, at this age, there are 4 reasons or interrupted sleep:
1) They're overtired - at this age they need at least 12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. If they don't get it, their body starts producing cortisol, which keeps them up and leads to interrupted sleep. This may also be why CIO at this age has poor results (at least among my friends and family) because that also leads to an increase in cortisol production. So the idea of trying to keep them up during the day so they'll sleep better at night (Ferber) is pretty much bunk. Minimum 12 hours total sleep, awake no more than 5 hours at a stretch.
2) There's some major physical, social or emotional development going on - growth spurt, separation anxiety, learning to crawl/climb/etc, learning to tandem play with other kids, etc.. This is where looking at their routine and sleep environment becomes important.3) They're teething - not much you can do here but comfort and maybe medicate.
4) They're sick - again, not much you can do here but comfort and maybe medicate.
food blog | garden blog | curly dogs blog
AJ gets major seperation anxiety now! It started last week! It breaks my heart when I leave him at the baby-sitters! As soon as he looses sight of me he cries
He does this with daddy too.
Plus, he is sick right now with some crappy stomach virus!
What has helped him is a little blankie he loves (the blue one in my siggy picture). He bunches it up into a ball and hugs it like a pillow!
He sqeezes it too. We tried a stuffed animal and that didn't work, he likes his blankie! He's totally going to be like Linus on Charlie Brown!
Eh, we sleep trained at 4 months since we had a TON of sleep association/waking issues and he's slept like a champ ever since. He's 8 months old and we never had any issues last month.
But ever since 4 months we've had a pretty solid bedtime routine and even though there is a blanket and lovey in his crib the thing that really puts him to sleep is his thumb.
However, we are still toothless and no signs of any coming soon. Apparently I was a late teether and didn't get my first tooth until I was 11 months old - so it looks like DS is taking after me. I'm slightly terrified of how teething is going to affect him.
Thanks CDL- I like all the info but particularly like your term, "blah, blah, fishcakes". I am going to work this into a conversation today.
You saw the bags under my eyes today huh? I'm.so.tired. I think we are going to try to move the crib somewhere else in his tiny room. It backs up to the bathroom and every time we shower/pee/brush our teeth, he wakes up. So not fun.
Yeah, we had already added in an extra meal for B before I started talking to people. My thought was if he's waking to feed at night then maybe he's not getting enough solids during the day. It didn't help with night waking BUT he does seem to be napping better during the day, so I'm calling that a win as well.
This is the first time since he was born that we've had such a consistent problem with sleep. He'd go thru fits of a couple days here and there, usually with growth spurts, but nothing so bad or prolonged. I'm really, really hoping that we've turned a corner here.
food blog | garden blog | curly dogs blog
My LO doesn't seem to be catching on to the lovey thing. She has a lovey that she uses sometimes, and she has a wbbanub that she uses.... sometime. But nothing is a reliable soother. She even sucks her thumb during the day but never to soothe at naptime/sleeptime. I don't get it!
And 5 hours would destroy my child. The longest she can stay up for any length of time is 3.5 hours before bedtime and she's still a cranky mess by the time she goes down. During the day she is happy with 1.5-2.5 hour stretches before melting down.
agreed ...O's max is 2.5 hours. if he is up longer than that, he will likely not nap, or wake up very shortly after falling asleep. who are these 5 hour babies??
also, i didnt realize ferber advocated for keeping your child up in order to sleep at night..i thought he just warns that if they get TOO much sleep during the day, then they will start shifting night sleep to day sleep. for us, its a tough balance. O needs good naps, he will not get through the day without them. but if he sleeps any more than 3.5 hours during the day, he starts to wake up earlier. ok...now im rambling.
good post, thanks for the info!