7 month old - suddenly difficult to settle

A little over a week ago, DS decided he didn't want to go to sleep at his usual time. We have had the same bedtime routine since he was 3 months old. He would go to bed around 7pm and wake 4 hourly for a feed. Lately, it has been taking 3-4 hours to settle him and get him to sleep each night. DH works nights, so its all up to me. He had 2 teeth come through 2 weeks ago and I dont see any others, so I dont think it's teething. He is very clingy at the moment too, and during the day time he isnt happy unless he is on me or I sit with him on the floor.

No amount of patting, singing, talking, rocking is working and I am exhausted. DH left for work at 7pm tonight and I was almost in tears because I knew what I was going to be in for for the next 3-4 hours, and so far he hasn't disappointed. I can't put him down as he just screams straight away and he wont have a bar of me trying to settle him unless I pick him up.
I feel more tired after this last week than I did in his first couple of months.

Is this normal? It just seems like such a long time to try and get him to sleep, and I am at a loss as to what else I can do.

:hug: hun im having similar issues to you, its very stressfull

:hug: I would guess separation anxiety. It's often quite bad around 6-8 months I think. Not sure there's much you can do about it though. Probably the more mum time he has the quicker it'll pass.

ETA - thought of a few things

First - relax about it. (ha ha ha.... i know..)
SEcond - if he's not settling within 20 minutes, give up and do something else for a little while, then try again
third - try a different routine. This actually helped us a lot. We started walking him to sleep in the evenings for a while till this phase passed.

It's hard isn't it :hug:

we are going through the same thing here.... since DD was about 7mths also her sleep has gone right out the window.... she used to go to bed around 630/7pm after her last feed and quite often fall asleep on her own or on the boob but now she won't have a bar of it, the last few weeks we've struggled to get her to bed before 830pm. it's tiring....

I am just trying to stick with the same night routine we've had since 11wks and hoping it passes soon.... I think it's the separation anxiety thing they go through.... they are scared we won't come back...

Even in the middle of the night after her feed she won't go back down so she's been doing a bit of co-sleeping with us just so i can get more sleep!! :rolleyes:

All i can offer is hugs :hug:

I hope it does pass, and sooner rather than later! He finally fell asleep at 10pm laying on me. I put him in his cot and he woke up at 10.30 and I have just spent the last 15 minutes settling him again and he's now in our bed. We co-sleep most of the time anyway, but he wont even fall asleep on the bed easily if I lay with him (this always worked in about 5 minutes flat until recently!). I think the heat this week has probably made things even harder. Poor little man doesn't know what's hit him.
I really hope we can all get some sleep soon. :) I'm off to try and get some now, if I can find a spot in the bed. How can such a little person take up so much room? lol

:lol: last night DD was all stretched out in our bed and DH had to go into the lounge and sleep on the couch :redface: (I felt bad). They do take up alot of room huh!?

Hope you get some sleep. I'm off to bed too. I need some sleep badly!

I've got a thread going on this too Megan, I think it must be the age. My DD is 7 months old too and it seems to be a common age for sleep problems to pop up.

Fingers crossed it passes soon for all of us! ;)

I was thinking about this a little more and realised that because of the separation anxiety and because DS knew that bed time meant we were leaving him, we kinda had to 'trick' him into going to sleep. That's why changing the routine and mixing it up a bit really helped I think - lulled him into a false sense of security...
Anyway, hope you guys get a bit more sleep soon

I like marcellus' suggestion of taking a walk or similar. Maybe you could try putting him in a baby carrier (like a Hug-a-bub or similar) for a little while? That way he will still be close to you but you can get some things done. The gentle rocking rhythm might help soothe him and if he drops off you can then gently put him to bed. Hope it passes soon!

For those of you with bubs older than 7-9mths, did you find around this age you had to change your babies routine to help them get to sleep more?

I'm not sure if I should be sticking with the same night routine for DD or doing something different..... :doh: any suggestions?
(hope you don't mind me slightly hi-jacking Megan!)

Since about 7-8mths DD has been wanting to go to bed later and later.... now like 830pm :o and it's sooo hard getting her down.... she screams and only way to get her to bed is waiting for her to be fast asleep on us before transferring her. She was always good at falling asleep on her own up until the last couple of mths.

I haven't changed DD's routine from when she was born (except we've added teeth brushing now, for obvious reasons :D). But that doesn't mean you shouldn't! Bedtime did get a little later, around 7:30pm (but not until after she was about 2). Whatever works for you, hun. :hug:

My general rule is if things are working, don't change them. If you've tried and tried and tried and they're not working, time for a change... (there's just only so many times you can bang your head against a wall)
When we've changed DS' routine at times, we've often found that we can revert back to the old routine once things settle again.

Thanks Marcellus :) I like the idea of trying to change up our routine a bit. Now I just have to figure out what to do. Usually I can get him to sleep straight after his bath, but he wakes up 20 minutes later and that's when our 3 hour battle begins.

DH took him for a short walk a couple of nights ago but that seemed to wake him even more. Just to be difficult, he doesn't sleep in slings, pram or his car seat! He rarely self settles and I'm not sure how to encourage him to do that without letting him cry (which I don't want to do).
I roughly worked out that over the last few nights, DS has been averaging 9 hours sleep in a 24 hour period. I have just spent 1.5 hours this morning trying to get him down for his morning nap and he's been asleep for 20 minutes. I just hope he stays there for another hour.

One thing I am thankful for is that in the middle of the night he goes straight back to sleep after a feed now that we have finally mastered the art of feeding while laying down.

I hope all of us struggling with sleep at the moment find a solution soon.

I'm back....again

Sounds like he needs a little nap before bed - I take it he's not have good day sleeps either? DS used to do this too - for a while we just worked it into our bedtime routine...I'm trying to remember exactly what we did though.

Some ideas:
What time is the bath? Could you do it a bit earlier - work it into a late arvo nap, then an hour or so after that try for bedtime...? not ideal, but might be worth a try.
Or, take him for a walk right after the bath - since he's used to sleeping then, he might get used to falling asleep in the stroller...

When we took DS for a walks in teh evening, we left the seat upright and gave him a bicky to munch on - so as not to alert him to our intentions...he fell asleep slumped over sideways with bicky in hand.

That's good about going back to sleep so well during the night - thank heavens for small mercies, hey?

His bath is usually between 6-6.30. Straight after dinner. We're doing BLS, so he desperately needs one after that! ;)
Day sleeps are a bit hit and miss. Some days he's really good, other days like yesterday are terrible. He will usually have a 30 min nap late afternoon and wake around 4-4.30. I give him a b/f then we have some nappy free/play time until about 5.30, then have dinner, bath, book, cuddles. I think tonight I will try dinner, bath and then a walk in the pram. We live in an area that has dirt roads, no footpaths and is very hilly so even that's not an easy task!

oh, that is so true about the mess!

Well if you try different things you might eventually hit on something that works (for this week at least:doh:)
good luck