8 month old waking for two hour windows - please help!

[Zebracowfish]

Hi,

My 8 month old DD has always been a terrible sleeper. She wakes up a lot in the night, isn’t good at napping on a schedule etc

The past couple of weeks we’ve moved her into her own room because she can standup so could no longer be in the next to me crib (with sides up).

She now wakes multiple times a night but specifically around 3-5am is wide awake and impossible to get back to sleep.

She also is hard to get down to sleep - I have to walk back and forth in the room holding her and it can take around 30 minutes minimum even though she’s so tired. She will also only let me put her to bed, and is hysterical if my partner tries.

i aim for her to have two naps a day - one around 2.5 hours after she wakes up, and one about 3 hours later. The first one usually happens but the second is very hit or miss.

I don’t really mind what time she goes to sleep - as in if it’s 8 or later because she’s not tired and has ended up having a later nap. But I really want to fix the waking in the night for 2 hour periods.

Does anyone have any advice please? I’m really struggling and due to go back to work in a couple of months. I haven’t sleep trained because she gets very upset very quickly. Sorry if I’ve missed anything out.

I've read that a way of tackling split nights is by waking the baby up after 30 minutes of their first nap. So if they wake 3 til 5, at 5 when they fall asleep wake them up at 5.30. I know it's brutal because then it means you can't really go back to sleep, but I've seen it enough times to think there must be something in it!

Sorry, it's so tough. My 9 month old regularly wakes for the day at 4.30, but then he's tired quite quickly and I'm thinking just bloody sleep then pal 😂

I can also relate, my boy sleeps terribly at night and is a rubbish napper, has to be bounced to sleep on an exercise ball, absolutely would never ever fall asleep on his own! It's a lot x

Ah thanks both! It’s nice to know I’m not alone as well - most of my friends have great sleepers so their advice is just to read a story, or bath before bed (we already do this) so it’s hard for them to relate.

Maybe it’s better we just start our day earlier then rather than being up for the 2 hours and then going back to bed.

Oh dear, those suggestions are very unhelpful when you have a baby who is a really difficult sleeper!

It would be brutal to get up at 3am, but maybe try capping that first nap and see? What time does she go to sleep at bedtime?

Thanks for you suggestion, I’ll give anything a try.

I aim for her to be in bed by 8pm but it’s so hard to get her down sometimes that after 45 mins of trying we’ll just go back downstairs and try again a bit later. She really fights going to sleep at night.

Split nights are often a sign of trying for too much sleep in 24 hours. If she's hard to get down for some naps or bedtime, that would also fit – if you're genuinely not tired enough, it's hard to fall asleep.

Both of mine are low sleep needs, and would have needed longer wake windows by 8 months, more like 3.5-4.5 hours. How long is she napping for? If she doesn't need that much sleep in total, long naps can mean a very late bedtime to get enough 'awake time' in. I think at that age, mine were doing something like 1.5-2.5 hours total nap time and then 9-10 hours overnight (7 to 7 is a complete myth in this house unless someone's ill).

Thanks that’s really helpful! I think she must be low sleep needs too.

she has between 1.5-2.5 hours nap per day - but sometimes after the last nap of the day it can be 5 hours+ to get her to sleep.

To be honest because of the split nights recently it’s been even harder to manage the naps because she’s having a sleep after 5am - and that kind of throws everything off. I’ll take some of the advice about cutting down any day time sleeping and starting the day earlier and see if that helps.

Are they near to 9 months @Zebracowfish? There is sometimes an awful sleep regression at 9 months and this could just blow over on its own.

The other thing to consider is smell. Have they gone to sleeping next to you to sleeping in a room with freshly washed bedding? It might just be that they’d be more reassured if the room smelled a bit more like where they were sleeping before, so out a set of their bedding in your bed so it smells reassuring to them and then put it on their cot.

@BunnyRuddington shes 8.5 months - so it could be that?
And yes she was always in the next to me crib right by our bed. That’s a good suggestion thanks, I’ll try that too.

I cut naps yesterday and extended the wake windows so she went to bed later and she slept for 9.5 hours (with two wake ups but back down after milk) so that was a massive improvement. Hoping for the same again tonight!! Thanks for everyone’s help!

That’s a huge improvement! Long may it continue

That's great! It can take a week or two for them to really settle into a new routine, so don't worry if it's a little up and down as long as things are getting better overall.

Thanks everyone!! Yeah hopefully it just continues now - but you’re right, it’s always up and down with sleep.

Just found this from googling, our daughter exact same age has started this too! Solidarity, it must be a thing.

Oh no! Definitely must be a thing then - take it you’re up with them now too 😂

Yes I was. 2 hours every night atm 😂