Need help with our 7 month old daughter and her sleep

[triumph123]

We are having trouble with our 7 plus one week month old and need help.  Molly is currently teething (no teeth showing yet).  She eats formula and solids.  Right now she is having trouble napping - she is not consistent.  Over I think she gets about 1.5-3 hours a day. At night we usually feed her 150 ml and food (about a total of 6 tbs of various veg., fruit, and chicken baby foods.  I bath her then give her another bottle around 6:45.  She usually goes to sleep around 7 (fairly easily).  Most of the time I will feed her a dream feed around 10-10:30.  She then will usually sleep to about 2-2:30 but sometimes she wakes at 12:30 crying, my wife or I will comfort her sometimes she goes right down again but other times she may be up for 1-1.5 hours.  Same might happen at 2-2:30 then she will sleep till 5:30.  We have started to try and feed her at 12:30 and 2:00 if she is awake and she has been drinking up to 120 ml each time.  By 5:30 my wife will feed her formula again and then try to get her to nap by 8.  Today she was not successful, she did not go down.  She will be fed at 10 with formula and solids.  Wait two hours and then hope she goes for a nap.  When she awakes around 1:30 we feed her around two and then a formula snake around 3:30-4:00.  She might go for another nap around 4-5.

[elmarie]

Hi and welcome to BW 

I am not sure if she has been sleeping through before this?  Reading your post it does sound as if the teething has something to do with it.  It does take a couple days and they can really go off track when teething.  Have you maybe tried giving her pain meds or teething gel ?  It also sounds as if she could be going through a growth spurt if she is taking in a full feed during the night.  Usually an indication of a growth spurt is that she will wake radomly and not the same time every night.  this should however also only last a couple of days.

Here is the kind of routine you should be looking at at her age:

7am wake
9am  sleep (1.5-2h)
1pm sleep (1.5-2h)
Between 5-6 catnap of 40ish min to get through supper and bath time
7.30pm bed
11.00pm dreamfeed (until 7-8 months or when solid food is firmly established, so you may want to let this go shortly)

At her age providing that she is getting enough calories during the day(except as mentioned if she is teething , ill or going through a growth spurt) shouldn't need a feed during the night.  I wouldn't feed her during the night and use pu/pd instead. I think maybe you and your wife have become a prop, and it could be that she wants mom and dad around to get back to sleep. What you aiming for is to teach your dd to self-sooth.  This is where pu/pd or shh/pat may work

HTH 

[triumph123]

Thanks HTH, your pattern that you suggested is what we are working on.  As you mentioned perhaps the teething is affecting her solid intake during the day.  We had been using the pu/pd but she still stays awake.   Giving her food at night sometimes helped her to fall back to sleep.  This morning my wife was trying to put down for the morning nap around 8 but she would not go down.  My wife tried to leave her for 10 min but she escalated and I picked her up.  She then was inconsolable for 20mins.  I kissed her on the cheek after she seemed to calm and then she reacted (not her normal smile)and started to cry.  I thought then it might be her teeth and we gave her tylenol.  finally I had to go to work and my wife took over after a bout of frustration.  My wife fed her at 9:30 and she fell asleep for 2hrs. She did eat some solids when she woke. I came home from work to help, we went for a walk and now my wife is going to feed her.  Who knows what will happen next. Ugh.

[elmarie]

Would you mind posting her routine for us as it is so we can have a peak at it