Seriously need help...8 month DD2 will not sleep through

[yummymummy327]

I need some help. My DD2 is 8 months old and will not sleep through the night! I'm up at least 3 times a night. Is this normal? Does anyone have any advice on what I can do. She doesn't really take naps during the day and when she does they are 15 minute jobs. She has always been a very clingy baby with me. She wouldn't even let dh hold her until she was 12 weeks. I'm at my wits end!! Help

How are you feeding. ?? Both my boys were only ever b-fed til past a year. (solids too of course but no formula) Total nightmares at night until I did the 'cold turkey-scream it out' thing at about 1 year DS1 and 18 months DS2. Worked a treat!! Full nights sleep only a few days later! Proved they weren't actually hungry!

Most friends f-fed babies sleeping through at only a few weeks or months. [envy}]

One colleague of mine (who is a bit of a dimwit ) claimed her babies slept through from 7 to 7 from 6 weeks!!!!!. ADmitted she was a lazy cow and wouldn't get up for them, though!!!!!!!!!!!

Not all 8mo babies sleep thru.

Is she feeding big style when she wakes? You could go cold turkey and see if she gives up (worked with DS1 at 7mo)

If you are bottle feeding, I used to water down the feed a little each night so that in the end my ds was drinking really weak milk. He then gave up thinking he was getting anything decent in the night and decided not to wake up! At the same time I practised the controlled crying thing at other times in the night. Within the week he slept through.

If you are b feeding, I suppose she is old enough not to need nutrition in the night, so controlled crying seems to be the best bet (from what I've read on MN anyway)

Good luck!

Hi, check out the 'sleep is for the weak' thread on 'sleep' - you'll see its very normal (although not much fun!).

And my baby is ff, don't think it makes a difference. Unless bf mothers are more likely to respond to babies cries and ff mums to try cry it out routines or something (ie, nothing to do with the ff).

I would say sleeping through the night at 8months is quite unusual. Totally sleeping through (i.e not waking at-all, 7-7 style) anyway.

Yummymummy, you have my sympathies... DS is 7.5 months & is up at least 3 times per night too. He just doesn't seem to need much sleep. Only has a 20 minute nap during the day (and only started having this at 6 months - I'm guessing the "sitting up" makes him more tired!). He goes to bed at around 10pm, then is up at around midnight, 3am, 5am, 6am, 7am ....

I've never managed to let him cry it out and besides, he's in my room so I still wouldn't get any sleep! Plus I can't bear seeing him get all upset. He is also still breastfed & his night feeds never last more than 10 mins. I co-sleep so I can snooze while feeding.

He's totally different to DD who slept 12 or 13 hours at night from 9 weeks as well as having 2 or 3 two hour naps during the day!

Was hoping he'd get better once on solids, but it hasn't made any difference - he's actually got worse! Going back to work in 3 weeks & dreading the fatigue!

I know how you feel. My dd3 was a terrible sleeper - I think at 8 months she was up 3 times to breastfeed between 7am and 7pm. My dcs 1 and 2 were great, so I thought I had the sleeping thing cracked. I found it much harder to leave her to cry than with the others, for some reason. She was often in my bed with me, as I was so knackered from being up in the night then having to get up to take the others to school etc. I was all prepared for controlled crying when she suddenly improved and at about a year old stopped waking at all in the night. So you never know, things may improve soon. This too shall pass!!

Thanks everyone for your responses. She was Bf until she was about 3-4 months old but had to stop because thats all she did! I would feed her, put her down for a nap (as she fell asleep) then she would wake up the moment she was down and then would only stop crying if I fed her. It was more comfort feeding but it was driving me mad lol. So She went onto bottle.

I stopped giving her milk at night about a month ago, but still didn't help. I guess I was spoiled because dd1 slept through at 8 wks from 7pm-6am. You know strange thing is, dd2 started to sleep through at 12wks then after 2 weeks she was up every 2-3hrs. I'm going to give the controlled crying a go and see what happens. Wish me luck!

my ds2 is JUST THE SAME. 7 months and up 2-3 times a night, I have just stated to water down his feeds, he has a 2-3 ounces a time, ds1 is 5 and off on school hols and DH away mon - fri so I am exhausted, once DS1 back at school and dh at home a bit more, we are going to be tougher and be able to get into more of a routine, till then, I am powering on through! He also screams his bonce off when left alone