8 month old sleep help please...any ideas gratefully recieved

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DD is out 3rd DC and thought we had it sussed by now but no. She has alwas been a poor sleeper but improved when I weaned her. Has slept through the night maybe 10 times. Was ill with tonsillitis last week which seems to have put her right out of routine and the last few nights have been dreadful. She wakes frequently in the eve and DH settles her back to sleep, if I go to her she gets frantic for milk (plus I do the night shift so...)DH out weds eve so I tried to settle her without feeding and she just got in a state. Couldn't settle her with a cuddle so decided to try comfort, put down, leave 5 mins or so, repeat etc. This went on for 4 hours by which time we were both desperately upset and I 'gave in' and fed her. I know how awful that sounds sad and am so upset by it. It was all for nothing. She is now hardly settling in her cot at all and last night slept in with me as I was so desperate to get some sleep. I have started ff during the day (started yesterday) for various reasons.
She just wants to be cuddled up to me snacking through the night which is just not practical for me, I need some sleep.
DH is upstairs settling her again now (3rd time since 730) but this is not a solution.
I cannot let her get into the state she did the other night but I can't go on as we are. Help please.

what's the longest she sleeps at a stretch once she is settled?

Our ds2 was similar to this. I'm afraid he only slept through at 16 months after a few months of various methods and changes.

I don't know if any of this will help but I'll tell you what we did.

Does she settle to bed at the start of the night? Our ds wouldn't self settle and i had to feed him to sleep. I stopped
Doing that so would feed him, then read story then put him down. We then were at the point where we had to wait until he was asleep then creep out.

We tried to then get him to go to sleep without having us in the room by just standing/ sitting in the room till he was calm and sleepy then each night moving closer to the door. We tried this for quite a while but he was a stubborn monkey and thought it was a game despite no eye contact from us. It got to the point we were standing waiting foe him to settle for up to an hour and he would keep getting up and down and laughing

At this point we decided to do a little bit of controlled crying (as much as I hate the idea and name of this we were at the end of our tether)So I would put him down, kiss, cuddle then wait outside for a few mins, he would cry and get up then I'd go in, not say anything, lay him down and leave again. This time I would wait a minute longer before going back in. After about 5 nights he would cry for about2 mind then lay down and go straight to sleep

The next challenge was the night feeds. He kept waking to feed and I was ready to wean him off these as he was eating plenty in the day. He would cry and scream ridiculously if we tried to settle him in the night without a feed.

We decided to go with a very gradual approach. What we did was to start timing his feeds, they varied but were about 10 mons on average through the night. I then made sure I fed him for no more than 10 mins each time for a few nights (dh would time it then I'd take him off and dh would put him back in his cot) he would cry for a few seconds then just go to sleep, I think the crying was more him being disturbed from being cosy as he was fine once cosy again in his cot.

We then set about reducing the time of each feed by 1 min every few nights. When we got to the point that feeds were only lasting 2-3 mons we found he was waking a bit less anyway as he didn't have as much incentive. We left the feeds like this for a few weeks before plucking up courage to stop all together. We decoded one night to stop and when he woke for his feed we just waited before going to get him. After about 2 mons of crying he just went back to sleep and only woke once that whole night. He did the same the next night then after that has slept through! He still occasionally wakes in his sleep as Los do but never really cries, just grumbles and drifts back to sleep.

Ok, sorry this is sooo long but it was along process. Hope something in here helps. If not I'll cross my fingers for you that you find your own way

(apologies for any spelling mistakes, my phone auto corrects me!)

My baby is 12 months and I tried this approach cos it was what the health visitor recommended but I gave in after one night cos it didn't work at all and was really stressful. I just feed him a bottle when he wakes up, usually two or three times in a 12 hour sleep, and put him back to bed and he goes back to sleep. It doesn't always go like that, like when he's teething he can be up a lot more. Why are you ff in the day? Could it be that you are not producing enough milk for night feeds? I breast fed completely for 9 months and I have to say my baby has not settled any better with formula. Loads of people told me he would be fuller etc but I think it's just a myth.

I feel for you, it must be exhausting.

I don't know if this works or not, but it is what I did for my DS who is now 7 months and sleeps pretty well.

We would put him down to bed for a nap / night time and leave the room. When he started crying (which he always did) we'd time it for 40 secs then go him put our hand on his chest, shush and / or pick him up if he was really upset. When he calmed down we'd put him back down and leave the room. This time we'd wait 60 seconds before going back in. We'd keep doing this until we got to 2 mins at which point we'd know it wasn't going to work that time (and feed him / bring him downstairs). Was heart breaking if he got to 2 mins as meant he was really upset. However it did make me feel in control and that I was doing something that would hopefully work. After a week or so he'd go down easier, usually not getting past 40 seconds of crying. Now we rarely have to go back in to his room after putting him down the first time.

I honestly don't know if any of this helped him sleep well at all but it did make me feel I was doing something and he does sleep well now so maybe??!

He started sleeping completely through the night after we started giving him formula in addition to breastmilk and moved him to his own room. Again, don't know if it helped but maybe?!

Well formula is harder for babies to digest so sometimes they sleep for a long period whilst trying to digest it. However, it is not guaranteed that a bad sleeper will suddenly sleep through once on formula. Many find it makes no difference at all. I think once Los get a bit older, sleep problems are more about habit than anything else.

Dal Thanks so much for taking the time to write this. I think I have been looking for an instant fix but reading your post makes me realise that slow and steady could be an option... I do feed her to sleep in the evening and during the day I either feed her to sleep or she drops off in her buggy so she has never really had the opportunity to learn to fall asleep. The idea of feeding at night but reducing the time each feed sounds good, I will try that too.
I guess I've just been hoping that it will all sort itself out (had few problems with DSs) but looks like I need a plan of action.

Yes, I thought ds2 would sort himself
out too but as he got older I realised he'd just got in to bad habits. I think him waking a lot with reflux when younger didn't help, he used to feed back to sleep to comfort himself and neutralise the acid I think.

If you think about it all your lo knows is what she's been doing so far and naturally gets frustrated if you try and change that. That's why I went with a gradual approach with ds, to start building new habits over time

Ps. Should add that I am pretty sure My LO wasn't getting enough milk from me during the day and that is why I think formula might have helped in my case (he was born in the 98th % for weight then dropped to the 75th for 5 months while I breast fed then went back up to 98th when I started giving him more formula)

haylo started trying to ff in the day because I'm going back to work in Jan and she will go to nursery for 2 days a week and I want her to be able to be comforted by a bottle when I am not there otherwise I would continue to bf in the day. Its also a bit because I need her to be a little less reliant on me as mummy=milkmachine which I has no problem with for 7 months but don;t feel its doing her any favours now. She has 2-3 good meals a day so I'm pretty sure she's not hungry, just wants to feed for comfort. Although she is teething so probably pretty uncomfortable poor girl.

mummmmy I often leave her to grizzle for five minutes or so but she continues until it turns into proper crying and then sobbing. If I put my hands on her in her cot to comfort or try and hold her hand she just gets more and more cross.
I suppose I know that the two ways forward are
A) slow and steady gradual approach
B) cc Which I'm not ready for - have done with older child but shes too small IMO.
Update: went upstairs and took her off DH who was asleep in our bed with her. Put her in her cot and ten mins later she woke again. She's now feeding for a change

It sounds like you've got a good plan! Wishing you the best of luck and it'd be good to know how it goes.

If you need some support/advice while implementing your plan of action, I can highly recommend Wendy Dean. Saved our sanity. Buy the baby sleep system book (about a tenner in amazon) - it has an online support forum called baby sleep answers - you get a login with the book. There's free advice through the forum but if you pay about 25 quid the author of the book will do a 3-day consultation with you (over Internet) - can do a 7-day one too for twice the price. I found it so helpful to have an expert to give advice on how I was doing every morning. We were at the end of our tether with DD who hadn't ever slept through the night until 11 months, but didn't want to do cc. Wendy formulated a plan for us and supported us through implementing if and it sorted out her sleep and gave me the knowledge/confidence to tackle future hiccups. Good luck, and hang on in there. I know it feels lime you will never be out of this phase but you will be sleeping through the night again soon! DD has slept brilliant for past year and half

Thank you MamaMia I didn't know such a thing existed- it's good to know in case things get desperate.

Quick update- first night was pretty awful and did about 2 1/2 hrs of settle /leave 5 /settle /leave 5. She was v cross but not ' beside herself' generally pissed off I think . She then slept until 6.
Put down awake for day sleeps and settled within 5 mins (3 days in a row). Much tighter routine and sleeping her main day sleep in her bed. 2nd and 3 rd night woke once but settled within 10 mins or so (DH nearly ruined hardwork by trying to cuddle her to sleep, dragged her off him big softarse and then she slept through until 515 ish.
I feel human again. Thanks for support.