My almost 7 month old bedsharing baby won't sleep more than a 2.5 hour stretch!

bawags · August 2013

Hi! I'm a lurker here...but I thought I would finally reach out for some help. I have to go back to work soon (I'm a teacher) and need some help getting more sleep. My 7 month old EBF baby won't sleep more than 2.5 hours at a time. She wakes up every couple of hours but only really nurses every other time she wakes up. So I know she can go at least 4-5 hours without eating. How do I keep her from waking so often? When she wakes I only have to roll her to her side, rub her back and offer a pacifier and she'll go back to sleep. The sleep interruptions are really wearing on me and I'm not sure that I can handle it when I go back to work. I won't be able to sleep during her usual nap time since I'll be at work! Help! Do bedsharing EBF babies really sleep through the night?

cpmich · August 2013

Mine slept through the night, it really does depend on the individual. At 6 months old I am guessing it is either the 6 month growth spurt or teething... Or both. Sorry. Hope youguys can get some ssleep soon. Maybe try baby ibuprofen before bedtime to see if it helps one night.

Emerald27 · August 2013

This sounds normal for her age. I'm sorry.

Babies go through phases of teething, growth spurts, and developmental milestones, all of which cause them to wake a bit more frequently during the night. When you go back to work, for the first couple weeks she may wake frequently to nurse, in order to maintain the close connection you two have since you'll be away during the day.

Statistics do show, though, that EBF moms and babies get more sleep when they bedshare, because you're able to get her back to sleep so quickly and without her rousing herself fully. If you had to go to her somewhere else, she'd be fully awake and take more snuggles and comforting to go back to sleep. You'd be more awake too and it would take you longer to get back to sleep.

It's no fun to hear that frequent night waking is normal and common, and some parents do choose to "train" their children to sleep through their natural wakings. It's not a gentle, loving approach, though. If you continue to meet your daughter's needs as you are now, she'll be sleeping longer stretches before you know it. Hang in there!

ReeceFamily · August 2013

DD is just about 7 months and was doing the same thing but worse. I posted about it here, and someone suggested she may be teething. And BAM, she suddenly has two teeth...and is sleeping better! (until she starts teething again...)

pixieprincss · August 2013

Ditto PPs. This sounds perfectly normal. This is why I love side-laying nursing. I latch DS on and go back to sleep before he's even done.

st.augbride · August 2013

Dd actually would STTN on her own in the RNP. But when she outgrew the RNP I brought her in bed with me. She would wake every hour until I joined her and then sleep the rest of the time. Then all of a sudden at 6-7 months, she was waking constantly and even wanting to play at night! And then it just stopped. Now, I nurse her to sleep and she sleeps for 3 hours before waking. I nurse her then and she goes right back. I honestly don't even know how much she wakes at night now after that to nurse since neither of us fully wake up, but I think it's 1-2 more times. So way more manageable! With ds, who was in the crib, he also woke up just as frequently and went through the same phases! He started STTN completely on his own around 14 months when we switched from BM to a toddler formula. So, that makes me think that dd will be similar when we eventually wean.