7 months old and STILL not sleeping through the night

Hi Ladies,

My Noah and Sophie turned SEVEN months yesterday :babyflips: I can't believe it. Overall they are great kids, they have their moments of course like any set of twins :laughing:

I know they are capable of sleeping through the night b/c they have, not often but they have. My pedi said to leave my DD when she wakes up b/c she doesn't cry out. However after hearing her struggle around her crib for over an hour, I'm not sure what to do. Usually I check on her and give in to feeding her after about 1.5 hours.

DS on the other had can self-soothe sometimes but other times he babbles and babbles or gets stuck on his tummy and is upset and holy crap if he sees me there (I try and hide :laughing he screams bloody murder.

What the heck am I supposed to do?? I can't seem to ignore them very well, although I am REALLY trying too !! CIO isn't the issue with my DD b/c she doesn't really cry out at night and DS just seems to scream LOUDER AND LOUDER

 

This is hard. I had a 7 month STTN and 10 month STTN. Many on here had much older STTNers. If you don't get the call from them for a night feeding, I would concentrate really hard on letting them self soothe. I know it is sooooo hard, but if they are not crying irately, let them work it out a bit until you feel you need to go in. If Sophie is not crying and just babbling or grunting, I would let her. She is just making her nest or practicing some skill. If they practice STTN once in a while maybe you are on the verge of it being every night. Hang in there momma!

 

I wish I could help you, but I have one that just gets more worked up all the time.. no ability to self soothe. We finally figured out that two minutes of rocking him just to get him to calm down was the only way to go. Maybe he needs an extinction method, where you go in and just help him calm down a bit first? And if he's just babbling in there.. I won't even walk by their bedroom door just in case! I have found myself locked in my own room MANY times :laughing:

 

The big thing is to not have them see you! I know-easier said than done. I agree with Jessica and Betsy-you might just have to do the extinction method. I think if you keep going in there, whether it's after 15 minutes or after 90 minutes-they are going to expect it. So they will happily play along with you. Babble, cry, etc. They'll continue because Mommy will come. How much are they eating when you do feed them?

With my boys, I did CIO at six months. One night. So I had it easy. When they woke, it was out of habit. They were eating a minimal amount or just playing around. So I stopped that. Annabella was different. Six months came and went. I didn't do CIO with her. I just couldn't. She was my last child, and she also would NOT let up with her cries. But the kicker was that she would eat a full bottle. Every time. So whether she wasn't getting enough during the day or what I don't know. I did find that when she seemed to eat more throughout the day, she slept better at night.

You might want to try cio. I left the house when we did it with the boys. I couldn't bear to hear it. So if you can go to the basement, to the store, or outside, it might help. Good luck! It sounds like they are almost there!

 

What if you shut their door and turned off the baby monitor? That way, you wouldn't hear the rustling, babbling, and small fussing - the stuff you shouldn't be intervening on anyway. Not sure what the layout of your house is (and how thick your walls are!), but we definitely hear acutual crying through a closed door with no monitor in our home - especially at night when the house is silent.

 

I have a mobile with a remote control and small rotating light.....so they cannot see me. The light allows them to see their pacifier (sometimes they can't find it in the dark) I also leave little toys/rattles in the crib so if they do wake up they can play and then fall back to sleep.

Good luck!