8 month old sleep problems- HELP!

[Takemetothelakes45]

Sorry for long post…

DD has always been ok at sleeping- used to do full nights untill about 6 month and always been 1-2 wakes a night minus teething periods and illness. Did not transition into own room untill recently 8 month old as was heavily reliant on feeding to sleep.

As it goes, DD is down to sleep at about 7pm and usually has one false start (not sure if this is part of the issue) and some general grumbling at first but is generally ok at self settling and will settle very easily for me or my DH - some times a hand on the chest or a head stroke will do it.

But come the first wake up of the night I am struggling to get her to stay asleep in her cot. I will say this is usually 1 am is so she has been asleep 5/6 hours at this point. I usually start off with nappy change and feed. Goes back in fine. Then within ten mins of me going back to my room (after seemingly being asleep) she will rattle and move. I allow her some time to settle herself untill she starts crying. Will often try in cot settling or a bit of a rock which again will always quite easily and quickly put her back to sleep. Then again, she is awake within 10 mins or so again of being put down and sleeping in her cot. Eventually I will bring her back into my bed where she will happily sleep untill my DH wakes her to get up and ready for work 7:15 ish (I am usually out walking the dogs!).

I think my questions is, is this a phase / part of 8 month sleep regression? Should I be more persistent to re settle her in her cot? Anyone else experienced similar?

Please NO suggestions of sleep training. I am not desperate enough to try this yet so all comments of the like will be politely ignored 😊

To be honest I don't think this is a problem at all! Your daughter sleeps 12 hours a night with maybe 2 wake ups, the first of which is really easy to resettle. I would thank my lucky stars if I were you and continue to do what you're doing except maybe stop the middle of the night nappy change? Is it really necessary? That will be disturbing her/waking her up more I imagine ever.

If you don't want to sleep train and I agree I wouldn't in your shoes then the only other thing you could do is persevere with the cot around 1am. Depends on your willpower but I imagine that could be very frustrating and a lot of up and down. If you know she'll happily sleep another 6 hours in your bed it would be hard not to just cave and bring her in after a couple of attempts!

I think you are probably right! As a FTM I see so many things about independent sleeping and self settling I think I have worried myself into thinking I’m going to create bad habits letting her back into our bed. As you say, it’s very hard to persevere with it when I know there’s a very simple solution at 1am for an guaranteed further 6 hours of sleep 😬

Will consider the nappy change! It is always fairly full but could probably last the night. Thank you’