8 month old waking frequently in the night

[AJ2024]

Hi all,

My DD is 8 months old and up and til this point she is waking up each sleep cycle at night. I would like to hear your experiences and what next steps should I take to try and make this a little better?

I'm not sure what it is. She eats her solids well in the day 3x but has been on a bottle strike and will only be fed in her sleep. Sometimes she just wont take the bottle after multiple attempts whilst napping. I'm not sure if its hunger because when I reinsert her dummy she goes back to sleep and only really cries for food in the morning but I could be wrong in this.

She rarely connects sleep cycles in the day, maybe occasionally if I give her the dummy, pat and shush her in time. Shes also low sleep needs so might sleep 8-9 hours at night with 30 mins naps thru out the day. So I'm aware there could be lots of factors affecting night time sleep.

So what do I tackle first?

Give her more food or bottles in the day? Sleep train? Get rid of the dummy?

Send help as we're tired over here 😅

I had the same thing and tried absolutely everything, ultimately mine was not able to settle himself independently so we did some gentle sleep training (pick up put down) and although not perfect, it really helped him to learn to settle himself. We did also ditch the dummy on advice from the HV but not sure if this affected sleep or not.

Where is she sleeping? Is she in a cot? same room as you? her own room? Co-sleeping?

I was you a few years ago. For us it was a setting issue - he could only go to sleep with a feed, so was up after every sleep cycle. I trained him out of the dependance so he could fall asleep independently - once that was done, he started going longer at night and would have 2 hour naps during the day.

At night I used a pretty gentle method - we were in a flat at the time so I felt bad for the neighbours, plus my husband has a physical job and really needs rest. So on a wakeup I'd go in, white noise on, and pat him reassuringly. If that didn't work after a while, I'd pick him up and rock him gently. If that didn't work, feed and try again next time. After about a week he was sleeping through.

Good luck with whatever you do 🌸

@ANightingaleSang shes in a next to me crib in the same room. I have tried co sleeping and it didnt work for us unfortunately. The plan is to have her own room but want her sleeping longer stretches before that.

8 months is pretty old for a next to me crib, you may find in a cot or especially a cotbed, they can self settle after a good wriggle around - can put several dummies in to help them find one in the night as well.

How many naps and what wake windows do you follow?

@Ihatewinding

Shes awake roughly 2 hours ish at a time, sometimes 2.5. With 4 naps a day. I tried extending wake windows only to see fire and brimestone😅 I havent been successful in shortening them either. Naps are normally 30-45 mins, morning nap is longer with a resettle sometimes. She naps in the crib most the day with one contact nap later in the day.

I'm slightly confused. Is she only awake for 2 - 2.5 hours in the day between naps? Or is that at night?

I don't know what the norm is (and before anyone comes at me, I understand every baby is different) however, I can share my approach in case it helps.

We wake at 5am - (that's me doing the waking because I need to get up early Because we co-sleep she will wake too but only for an hour, then she will go down again for 1.5 hours, so the day begins at 7:30.

First daytime nap is somewhere between 11:30 - 12:30 and will last for 1.5 - 2 hours. (She sleeps on the floor in her playpen, I'm usually cleaning or doing washing etc)

If we are out sometimes she will have a second nap at around 4:30 for half an hour. But I try to keep her up until 6:30. I would then say she goes down for the night. She wakes up when we go to bed, and has a feed at about 9 pm. We usually have a story and cuddle but she's only awake for 45 mins or so and in a sleepy state.

At the moment she has been waking up 2 or 3 times in the night for feeds (growth spurt) before it was once at about 1 or 2 am.

I don't use set times or nap windows, I just let her sleep as and when she needs it.

For us, co-sleeping was the solution but I appreciate that didn't work for you. I bought a cot to toddler bed for my DD which we haven't used much at all, she does prefer it to the Moses basket though. It might be worth trying to transition now. She may prefer it and sleep better.

Not much help just in the same boat, my 8 month old wakes every 2ish hours in the night, im very lucky if she hits 2.5 hours tbh, she is efb and i have pushed her cotbed up against our bed and taken the side off so i can slide her back into her cot when I’ve finished bf but 9/10 we end up co-sleeping as im so bloody tired and end up falling back to sleep with her feeding lol she naps ok, lately its been up at 7ish (im up at 6 but leave her to sleep) nap for 1.5hours at about 10-10:30, and another short nap 30-40mins at about 4-4:30 and bedtime at 8, 🤷🏻‍♀️no idea where i am going wrong just guessing she hates sleep 😂 like i said no help but feel for you OP xx

So are you trying to feed her every 2-2.5 hours while napping? She probably isn't hungry tbh, especially if from your windows I'm assuming 4 naps? With 3 meals she probably could do with less bottles/volume, could be why on bottle strike, or teething, etc.

All babies are different but we are on 4x8oz (6:30/7, 10:30/11, 2:30pm/3ish, split feed between 5:45/6ish then 6:30/7ish) and one meal only (noonish) at nearly 8 months. I found sleep improved once stretched feed and wake windows. My son would take small feeds and never seemed keen when having shorter naps and frequent feeds. I forced him to drop the 4th nap at 5.5 months which meant he dropped a bottle and he then fed better in the remaining bottles (actually more over 24h period with less cajoling). Then worked on weaning 3:30/4:30am feed by reducing by an ounce every 2-3 days, then after few weeks did the same with the 10/11pm feed. This led to bigger bottles in day. Also what size teat are you on now? We are on the X mam teat so he doesn't have to work so hard and takes more that way.

I found the longer naps didn't come until stretched his wake windows slightly. Still on 3 naps but I cap naps to 1h15/1h/30min or 40min/1.5h/30min if first nap doesn't extend. Max 2h45 ish over the 3 naps and tweak the second nap so always have 30 mins for the 3rd nap which I usually have to wake from. I think won't be long before try moving to 2 nap days though.

We did gradual retreat so he sleeps independently for all sleeps, maybe some extra cuddles needed if overtired/teething/digestive upset or if slept too long for 2nd nap and resisting 3rd nap. He can replace his own dummy - I did dummy replacement training in the day and worked a treat!

Hope this helps. Feeding strikes are shit though. When he moved to bottles after a nursing strike at 4 months we started on 7 as replaced breastfeeds and then stayed on that number too long I think.

Tire her out physically during the day. My son didn't sleep through the night until he was 11 months old, which coincided with when he started walking.

4 naps is a lot for an 8mo, should be on only 2!

I'd do some research on gentle sleep training methods and see if you can find one that works for you. It sounds like she just needs some help linking her cycles together.

@Ihatewinding yeah so she takes about 3oz with each nap. Shes never been a massive milk drinker. Even before solids she never hit the 'recommended' amount and preferred smaller amounts more frequently in the past. Shes on a medium teet from NUK but I'm suspecting I should move one up.

How did you stretch the wake windows? I'm worried to make her over tired, I've just been following her cues up until this point and assumed she would drop naps and all when ready

@SaveMeFromMyBoobs how did you go about transitioning to 2 naps? Was it gradually or just cold turkey??

Ahhh my son was similar with 3-4oz feeds until we got down to 5 bottles, did my head in! So how many bottles and when? I suspect if you can stretch the wake windows to drop a nap then can consolidate the feeds as well. If she takes solids then could skip a bottle even. I did find needed to balance until got right volumes, e.g. if did a long nap so drained a bottle and gave 2 extra ounces then next bottle would be worse, so if just accepted what volume could finish so would drink evenly for rest of day, e.g. 55554 rather than 63646, etc. Varying solid intake might add a layer of difficulty though ngl!

I use Huckleberry and then cap naps as per info I got from Reddit/other sleep resources.
I would try 3 naps first otherwise probably asking too much wake window increase wise and also while work on consolidating feeds, as she won't sleep longer periods if she's hungry. I found things much easier when stopped doing EASY tbh. Also experiment with the larger teat too. You may find you're only on 3 naps for a week or so given her age and likely readiness for dropping to 2.

And yes gentle sleep and dummy replacement training will help alongside the above. I recommend gradual retreat but depends on your baby. White noise makes a big difference with our son as well.