Sleep training 7 month old
My LO had bad eczema starting around 3 months, and by 4 months he was rubbing his face/head so much that he was waking himself up, sometimes within as little as 10 minutes after being put down. We felt that we were unable to sleep train at 4 months because he was actually experiencing a lot of discomfort. In order for both of us to get at least some consecutive sleep, we started sleeping in shifts and the other one would hold LO. He has also been nursed to sleep from the beginning, and still is for night time sleep and all naps. I have tried putting him in his crib at night recently (his skin is much better) but the maximum time he will sleep is 1hr - he can't put himself back to sleep.
At night he sleeps from around 7pm - 6am. He typically wakes up around 12am (which is when we switch who's holding him) and I nurse him back to sleep. He will usually reattach at various times between 12am - 6am, but usually does not wake up.
I feel like his wake windows are short for his age, and I wonder if I should try adjusting anything during the day before tackling night sleep. He usually starts his first nap around 730am, and it's between 30min - 1hr 30min. After that nap, he is awake for 2 hrs max - sometimes I can't even stretch it that long. Then he will sleep for 1hr 30min - 2hrs. After that, awake for another 2hrs, and then nap for 30min - 1hr. I've read that at his age his total daytime sleep should be 2.5-3.5 hours. A lot of times we get to 4-4.5 hours. Should I be stretching his wake windows or waking him up from naps? He is always so cranky when I do either one, so I figure he needs the sleep, but I don't know. I also don't know if this crankiness is due to teething or being tired, but either way he wants to sleep a lot.
His awake time before bed is 2-3 hours depending on his last nap end time, but he is almost always cranky by then which makes it hard to do a bedtime routine other than putting on pjs and diaper change as fast as possible and then boob (I know I have to switch these around).
Posted Mar 8, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC
FWIW my son had ezcema starting around 2 months. Once we sleep trained, it completely disappeared. In fact, it was one of the first things noticed after starting CIO at 5 months. He never slept longer than 45 minutes at night and his naps were 20 min average. After night 2 of CIO, he went to 2 hour naps and gradually began sleeping longer windows at night, waking only to nurse. Ezcema gone and never came back.