8 month old sleep - anyone overcome this problem?

[Perseo]

My son is just 8 months old and since about 6 months we have had real problems with his sleep patterns. Up until then he was great - he was sleeping from 7pm to 6am with a dream feed at 10.30pm (he is breast fed).

He had a couple of bugs at 6 months and since then his sleep at night and during the day are all over the place and I'm hoping that someone can give some hope that it can get better.

At the moment he goes to bed after a feed at 6.30pm (he goes down drowsy and I leave him to fall asleep which he does) and goes off easily until usually after midnight at which point he starts waking at random times and we cannot get him back to sleep. Last night he was awake at 12 then again at 1.30 until about 4 at which point I took him into our bed, he slept til 5 and then we started the day! During the day he will only nap out on a walk in the pram or in the car but again he falls asleep easily. If I try to get him to sleep in the house he fights it, crys and gets very stressed, even if he is rubbing his eyes and ready to sleep. Usually I give up after about an hour of trying and go for the pram / car solution just to calm him back down.

I feel really guilty and helpless most days because if he has slept badly at night I have no clue when he'll be sleepy the next day and how much sleep time he needs, my life is more chaos now than when he was newborn.

He is eating solids and having breast feeds 3-4 times a day, eating really well and gaining weight. I feed him at night when he wakes but it doesn't seem to send him off again. Teething gel doesn't make a difference.

If I leave him to cry but sit by the cot saying reassurring things he cries even more and gets really stressed and then it takes even longer to get him off - how can he learn to fall asleep when he's stressed?

We're exhausted and I feel terrible because I can't help him out or think how to get around the problem. I'm also getting really worried about fixing it before he pulling up in his cot as then I'll have more problems to work around.

I'm so sorry this is such a long post but has anyone had these sorts of problems and solved them without all the crying?

Hi, no advice really just that something you said struck a chord with me, about feeling like its worse now than when he was newborn, i was crying to my H/V exactly the same thing last week about my 7 month dd. She has woken every hour through the night for the last 3 months bar 3/4 nights. she takes at least 1 -2 hours to get her to go to sleep (rocking/feeding/mix of both) and she always has to go in the pram or car for her long afternoon nap as she just wakes anywhere else.
mine cries hysterically if i try the shh pat thing/pick up put down it just frustrates her that im not feeding her if im there and no one else can settle her but me. its soooooo draining.

ive come to the conclusion after spending £40 on dana oblemans sleep solution, reading every post about sleep problems i can find, going to a sleep clinic reading baby whisperer/contented baby and trawling the internet for help...
that i dont think you can get them to settle if they are that way inclined the only thing you can do is let them cry it out (either staying with them or leaving them)or stay with them and do whatever it is they want you to do (boob/car/pram/rocking/bottle).
I gave the cry it out thing 3 nights and felt physically sick and vowed never to do that again. some people and their babies get through it with great results but its not for us.
all i seem to read is that 'its a phase' loads of people never did sleep training and have posted that their babies eventually grew out of sleep problems etc.
dr sears is a pretty good read about gentle ways of getting baby to sleep and experimenting with distances that you sleep from your baby etc. (sorry im no good with computers so i cant link it).
if you or someone else comes up with an answer not involving crying or sleeping tablets i'd be over the moon.

Thanks - I tried upping his milk during the day yesterday and last night he did at least go back to sleep without being fed both times he woke. I'm going to try the wake to sleep idea to curb the midnight wake up tonight and then try PU/PD next week with hubby's help. Hope your little one improves soon, its no fun for anyone

x

We've had similar sleeping issues with our DS since he was about 6mo. He's just turned 10mo and we've done PUPD for the past week. I was a bit anxious before starting it as we would have liked to avoid going down the sleep training route and hoped he might have grown into a better sleeper. It wasn't happening so we thought we'd give it a go and it's gone really well. He slept through the night last night from about 745pm until after 6 this morning and will now settle down fairly quickly without a feed if he does wake. I'm sleeping for longer periods thanked cant believe how I managed to basically get up and feed back to sleep sometimes 2, 3, 4 or more times a night for the past 10months. I've posted a bit more under the "first night of PUPD" thread..

Try and put him in a rough routine. As they get nearer to 9 months, going by cues doesn't work as well. So put down for fixed naps, first one about 2 hours after waking, next one about 3 hours after last nap. You might need to flex a bit but you're gradually aiming for fixed nap times.