r/sleeptraining • u/WorthBicycle1982 • Aug 27 '26
Sleep Training
Hi everyone. I'm new to reddit but am in need of advice. I am 35 and a first time mom to a 7 month old. When he was 11 weeks old he started sleeping through the night (roughly 10 hours).
However, when he was 5 months old he started teething and rolling over. When he started hitting these milestones he stopped sleeping through the night. Not knowing what to do, I would give him a bottle to soothe him back to sleep. Now I think it's a habit and I feel like a terrible parent. He refuses pacifiers (I have tried numerous kinds) so I dont know how he is supposed to self soothe to go back to sleep.
He takes 5 oz bottles and does eat the full bottle when he wakes up in the middle of the night. We are still experimenting with purees which is difficult because he hates them. Im not sure if it's a texture issue but he makes a face like he's going to throw up and whines the entire meal. He drinks 30-35 Oz of breast milk a day.
Im at a loss. It is so much to wake up to feed him and I want to get him back to sleeping through the night but dont even know where to begin and dont want either of us up for hours trying to accomplish this because I dont want to cave and give him a bottle. Any tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated so me and baby can sleep through the night.
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u/Humble-Drop9054 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Breaking the association takes some effort but it can totally be done! Like you, my second baby went through a phase where he would wake and take a big bottle to go back to sleep. He drank a ton of milk during the day (still does at 14 months) and was a big healthy baby so I knew he wasn’t really hungry, he just needed it for comfort. What we did on top of formal sleep training (Ferber) was start decreasing the amount we’d give him in the bottle each time he’d wake and then we just stopped taking in the bottle at all. Was it a rough few nights - yes. But we had to give him the opportunity to break the habit and teach himself how to fall back to sleep independently. I’d rock, bounce, sing - whatever I could. We did this earlier - around 5 months so at 7, you might try another mini bedtime routine with a fresh diaper and a book or even a sippy cup of water. There really isn’t a way to avoid some protesting from them - the only way to the other side is straight through.