Any ideas... What can we do to change this sleep problem?

[zambooloo]

Hi wise mnetters, my 8 month old dd sleeps from 6.45ish to 11 or 12 without waking then proceeds to wake every hour through the rest of the night. We feed her before bed then at a dream feed at about 10 and again at about 2 - she is still having a lot of milk as she hasn't taken well to weaning at all.

She has 2 naps, one at 8.30 for an hour and another at 1 for 2 hours. She has bath, bottle, bed at 6 and goes down fine at about 6.45. Other problem is she wakes at 5am and will not go back to sleep until her nap at 8.30.

This is driving me a bit crazy & I'm going back to work on Monday - any ideas? Thank you!

I'm guessing here, but maybe because she's drinking so much at night, that's why her sleep is then disturbed? Does she have very wet nappies as a result or need it changing? (as clearly either would disturb her sleep).
Can you gradually reduce the size of the feeds? Or have you tried not doing the dream feed?
As far as the 5am waking goes, it sounds like that's when she's ready to start the day - if you want a later start she might need to gradually go to bed later. Sorry, prob not what you wanted to hear!
Total sympathy though, ds2 woke up for hours during the night, started just before I returned to work... Good luck :)

Btw by posting, I'm in no way claiming to be one of the 'wise mnetters'
Also, i think there's a "sleep" section on here, you might get more help if you ask for the thread to be moved there?

Why don't you put her to bed with you at 11pm so that she does her 5 hour stint then when you need it? And feed her lots between 6 - 11!?

To be honest it all sounds normal. For a start, at 8 months solids haven't really kicked in yet - solids taking over from milk is a gradual process and isn't really happening until 9months so you can expect another month of proper night feeds. 5-5.30ish is also a pretty normal wake up time.

I would be inclined to drop the dream feed and see when she wakes up hungry on her own. You may find that giving her a feed when she wouldn't normally be wanting one is actually disturbing the pattern of her night. At this age I would certainly be expecting three or four feeds a night, but more like 11, 1 and 3. Then awake for the day at 5-5.30. You may have to start going to bed a bit earlier, but 5am isn't an unreasonable start.

Could it be she is waking when the sun comes up? It might be worth investing in blackout blinds, we did and our DS now wakes at 6-7am instead of his previous 5-5.30.

try pushing the morning nap back so that it's closer to 9.15/9.30ish and gradually reduce to 45 mins to help with the early waking (this worked wonders for us!). Does your dd fall asleep on her own or use a dummy/ fall asleep while feeding?

Sun isn't coming up till 6.20ish at the moment so it's unlikely to be that.

I'd drop the dream feed. The only point of them is to try to get an uninterrupted stretch of sleep when you go to bed and since it isn't working, I don't see the point of interrupting baby's rhythm.