How to cope when baby is up at night?

[MBM]

Hi all,
This is my first post on mumsnet. So please forgive me if I am doing something wrong. 🙏🏻

So lately I have been struggling to deal with my 8.5 month old DS who has be waking up around 12:30 am for a few nights now. He goes to bed around 10 pm and is up by 7 am and he naps for 3 hours during the day.
Since my DH goes to work at 7am, he is really tired to watch DS at night. I am also exhausted as DS demands a lot of attention during the day. Not only is he up at night, but he also scratches, bumps his head against mine, pinches and leaves me with bruises and scratch marks. During the day I can handle this level of activity, but at night, I seem to be annoyed and angry. Sometimes I just want to scold him. I know this is bad and I feel guilty. But I am sleep deprived and exhausted. 😵‍💫
Maybe it is sleep regression or teething? I am not quite sure. Calpol doesn't help. It looks like he wants to play and seems rather active. Please help me. How do I handle this situation?
Thank you for reading.

10pm is quite late maybe he is over tired?

True. I will try to get him to bed earlier. Thank you.

I think at that age I aimed for 19:30 bedtime, probably with 7am wake up and two daytime naps of 1.5 or 2 hours. So I would guess he's overtired.

Not surprised he isn't sleeping well - he must be shattered if he's not going to bed until 10 and is awake a lot in the night. They need 11-12 hours overnight and 2-3 hours worth of naps at his age. Some more. If he's up at 7am, nap at 9.30 for 30-60 mins then second nap at 13.00 for 120 mins, bedtime 7-7.30pm. Some babies might still need 3 naps at 8 months but most start to manage 2.

In the gentlest way possible, I think you might be expecting too much from an 8 month old. My 10 month old still wakes up most nights. I don't think my DS reliably slept through until about 18 months.

It's really tough but it won't last forever.

Makes sense. But if he falls asleep at 19:30, it is usually a nap and he is up in an hour. What am I doing wrong?

When is his last nap and for how long? At that age they need one short nap and one long nap and then they should probably be up for 4 hours or so and then its bedtime. If they treat it is as a nap, make it dark and boring and then it will set them circardian rhythm after a few days/week or so.

But also why are you being hit and pinched all day? Your child is old enough to be told no, gentle hands, and for you to move away when they do this. I'm on child no 3 and having bruises and scratch marks isn't really the norm.

I expect it will take a while to reset his schedule and as another poster mentioned, he might not sleep through at 8 months. But basically I'd pick a bedtime (e.g. 19:30) and treat any wake ups after that as night time wakes. So minimal interaction, try not to pick him up if you can get away with it. Depending on weight/how much he eats during the day then only one milk feed per night or night wean him (but it's normal at this age to have milk at night, I only night weaned mine because they ate loads in the day and were chunky babies!)

We co-sleep since he doesnt sleep in the cot. He also never liked the moses basket. We tried several times to get him to sleep in the cot and he would be up in 15 minutes.
So at the moment, I lie down beside him during naps and co-sleep at night. I am basically nap trapped. If he manages to sleep at 20:30, then I must also call it a night.
Anyways, I will try to include more daytime naps and aim for an earlier bedtime. Thank you

I agree with bringing bedtime forward. What I find helps me when I'm struggling in the night and DC isn't wanting to sleep is to take them downstairs, get myself a warm drink, abit of quiet TV that is boring for DC and let them play for half an hour. I sometimes find that resets them then they are ready to go back to bed and I find it easier than the relentless rocking, trying to latch them on, singing ect. You have my sympathies, it is so hard. My 18mo is currently going through a no sleep phase and I feel like a zombie.

Ofcourse, DS wakes up 2-3 times every night for feeds and I am alright with that. But for the past few nights, he has been up for 2+ hours around 12 am, just active and almost wanting to play.

They go through lots of different phases.

You need to adjust his whole day time routine, stick to it and he should be in bed 7-7.30pm. He should get used to it quite quickly. Try a short 20min nap around 9.30, and a nap after lunch at like 12.30 -2/2.30. Do a nighttime routine like bath at 6, story, milk, bed 7/7.30.

Breakfast, morn snack, lunch, afternoon snack after nap, dinner.

Good luck.

Thank you for your suggestion.
The last nap is around 18:00 for an hour.
He does pinch and scratch me and I do say no. I am really hoping he will stop as he gets a bit older.

There are a couple of things about him that really tires me. For e.g., he doesnt drink formula when awake (only dream feeds), uses me as a pacifier (no dummies), doesn't like the pram or car seat (screams the entire time), only co-sleeps (no sleeping in a cot), etc.

The only concern is we are co-sleeping. So I should be in bed as well. But great suggestion. I will make it as boring as possible and maybe he will sleep through. Thank you so much :)

Yes. I am definitely going to adopt a strict routine. A nighttime routine also sounds good. Thank you for your response. :)

Yea. Agreed. I will be doing that. Quiet play time instead of lulling him/pretending to be asleep. Thank you for that wonderful suggestion.

I also just saw you were co-sleeping but would you try putting him down in a cot and then if he wakes he can come in with you. You need a bit of a life too.

He might actually sleep better in his own bed x

I think I am going to try that once again. Hopefully he likes it this time around. Thank you :)