Going back to work + sleep training my 8-month-old baby

[mackoo0524]

Hi everyone, really need some advice from mums who've successfully sleep trained their babies... I'm going back to work soon and my 8-month-old DS is still waking up 3-4 times a night :((( DH can't really help with night feeds but I won't be able to cope with waking up 3-4 times a night AND working full-time during the day soooo I think I'll have to sleep train him!!!

At the moment, he wakes up for the day around 7.30am, has a 60-90minute nap around 10.30, another shorter nap around 3.30, and goes down for the night around 9pm, which I know is late if I put him down earlier, he would get up in the morning at 6!!! I can never get him to sleep more than 10 hours or so at night.

So after 9pm, he usually wakes up around 1am, at which point I'd feed him (only 3 ounces). Then he sleeps for another 3 hours or so, wakes up around 5am, at which point I'd feed him again (only 3 ounces), and bring him into bed with me. He usually wakes up again around 6.30 or 7 but I would pat him on his back to encourage him to stay down for a bit longer. And this would be a fairly GOOD night! On a bad night, he would wake up a couple more times but I never feed him more than twice a night. BUT on the other hand, he can sometimes do a 6 or 7-hour stretch, which is DIVINE but this only happens very rarely, maybe once in a fortnight!!!! He regularly did a 6 or 7-hour stretch when he was 3-4 months old but for the last few months he's gone back to doing just a 4-hour stretch :(((((

I'm not opposed to CC - in fact I did CC when he was 3 months to make him sleep in his cot and it worked well. But now I don't know if I should do CC and cut out all night feeds, or still feed him once or twice a night, but try to extend the first stretch at least?

I'm not that 'greedy' - if I can make him consistently sleep a 6 or 7-hour stretch at the beginning of the night I'd consider that a success!!!

Really not looking forward to waking up 3-4 times a night and working a full day so am quite desperate now please share your advice/ personal experience with sleep training. Thanks in advance!

Hey I know this is an old thread but just interested to know what happened? My almost 8 month old dd is having a similar sleep problem, goes to bed at 7.30/8pm and wakes at 1am and 5am for feeds but often doesn't finish the bottle and only has like 2-3oz out of the 5oz I offer. Sometimes she does finish it though so it's hard to know whether to cut the feeds out. She also has a habit of actually fully waking up after drinking the milk about half the time and then rolls around in her cot shouting for an hour or two. Lastnight she woke at 1 for milk and shouted until she went back to sleep at 3am. I've tried patting her bottom and not giving milk which works half the time but even if she goes back to sleep it's only for up to an hour before she wakes up again whereas if she has milk she'll go 3 hours. I don't do well with not enough sleep and I've not had a full decent nights sleep in weeks now. Just don't know what to do. My dh also would never let me just let her cry it out as he's a really overprotective dad and would just make me feel like I'm a rubbish selfish uncaring person for not just giving in to her and giving her milk. Plus she's in our room with us and he has to get up for work so can't let her cry much as he needs to sleep too! :(