8 month old still wakes during the night

[Riomoo]

Hi ladies, this is my first time writing on here and I hope I get some insight.

My little girl is 8 months old and is still waking every hour/ hour and a half during the night. She’s never been a great sleeper but as you can guess I’m exhausted!

During the day I put my little girl in her cot leave and she will put herself to sleep with no problem. She only has 2 naps during the day and they usually last 40 mins to an hour. However on a night she won’t put herself back to sleep when she wakes. So she will just cry.

We have a stable bed time routine which we have done since she was 3 months old.

Btw I am breastfeeding her and when she wakes during the night she is usually fed back to sleep. I think this may be the problem. But I dont know. I just need some help.

Any advice is appreciated!!

You’re not going to like me but we had this around that age. My DS woke every 40 mins day and night for about 2 months. As he was my second and we coslept anyway I decided I could just wait it out. If he had been my first I’d have been really worried though.

If you do want to try stuff consider reading The Gentle Sleep Solution, lots of ideas though no quick fixes. It includes ways to address feeding to sleep, if you want to.

If it is fairly recent, could it be she is cold, so waking fully?

I have no real advice but want to say you are not alone! All my NCT group seem to have perfect sleepers.
My 8 month old is fed 2 times a night and wakes an additional 0-2 times. On days when he's teething he can be awake for hours.

We used controlled crying at 6 months which reduced the wake ups from 5 to 1 per night within a few days but then with teething etc we have slipped a bit as it's hard to know if he is in pain.

As you are breastfeeding it's unlikely she will let you get away with no feeding her so I would try getting her dad to do alternative wake ups. If she knows she's not getting fed she might not wake up.

Good luck!

She’s done this since she was 3 months old. Before then she only woke up twice.

I’ll have a look at that book. Thank you x

@chunkymonkey123 I feel like I am the only one as all of my friends have perfect sleepers.

I also used controlled crying at 6 months old and it reduced to 2-3 hours. But it didn’t last long. She also has been teething since she was 3 months so maybe it’s that. The idea about her dad trying is a good idea. I’ll try that tonight. Thank you very much

You say ‘still waking’ in the night as if your baby is broken! She is totally normal, they all sleep through at different ages x

@crazycatlady5 please don’t be rude. My child is far from broken. Infact she’s perfectly fine. However, babies her age don’t to tend to wake every hour. So I’m asking for some help that may make her sleep longer during the night. But how selfish of me to want to seek help for the benefit of my child and not wanting to be woken up every hour for 5 months due to exhaustion.

Actually they do tend to wake quite a lot still, there's another sleep regression

@Amaiyah2017 I’m confused. Are you Op with a name change?

Also, how was my post rude? I was trying to encourage you that there’s nothing wrong with your child. I know loads of mums who’s baby’s wake that often at that age. Months 7-8 were particarly rough for me, with mine waking sometimes every 45 minutes. I thought it would never end, but at 10 months she’s now waking twice, sometimes once, between 7-7.

It is normal, not sure how you could have read my post as rude.

Look up the 8-10 month sleep regression.

However, babies her age don’t to tend to wake every hour.

They do. Big separation anxiety phase coupled with development leap and growth spurt. You just have to rode it out. It isn’t something you can fix.

I’m afraid this is fairly normal for breastfed babies. My twins were exactly the same.

It got a bit better by 12 months.

Oops, please ignore previous post it’s on the wrong thread!

Some other poster on this forum has given a link to a blog that I found interesting and useful (actually, more useful than Sarah Ockwell-Smith's mantra that you just have to ride it out):

www.preciouslittlesleep.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/

In summary, a baby who wakes up two or three times a night at 5 months may start waking up every 45 minutes - 1 hour at 6-9 months after they develop object permanence.

The only way to "fix it" (i.e. to reduce the number of night wakings) is to help the baby find an independent settling mechanism. Many sleep training methods effectively "force the issue" in less or more gentle ways.

I do not agree that we should avoid babies' tears at all costs. My DD sleeps really well but her gross motor skills are below average and she often screams for her toys instead of making an effort and crawling to them (she can crawl and she is a master in getting where she wants by rolling). No, I do not give in to her immediately and yes, I do encourage her to get what she wants on her own. It may be "heartbreaking" when she start screaming for toys (she is very loud and very stubborn) but I do know she will eventually crawl/roll/scoot to her target destination.

She only has 2 naps during the day and they usually last 40 mins to an hour

So your restless issues at night are due to over tiredness. Baby is not having enough daytime sleep, that's where you need to focus.

You say you just put baby down and leave. That's good in many ways, but perversely it is also detrimental to extending naps. You need a comforting method that you use to resettle baby back up sleep.

Could you do the second nap in a pushchair? You can then rock the pram back and forth to try and get baby to go back to sleep into a second sleep cycle?

If not, could you stay in room as she naps in the cot (maybe reading on a chair nearby). Then as soon as the first indication if stirring, pat and shush to try and get baby back to sleep before properly waking.

You ideally want the second nap to be over 2h long. If it's shorter than that, assuming a third nap at teatime.

Feeding to sleep is likely to be the problem. She's probably getting the bulk of her calories at night.

At eight months (assuming not prem and no other issues) she should be big enough not to need a night feed at all. If there's not an incentive of food available, she might be willing to settle by herself.

I had this at 4 months where my DS was waking every hour. I disagree that it’s a digression but rather I had created the issue because I had fed/walked or rocked to sleep, so he never knew how to get to sleep by himself.
I therefore started to put him down to sleep sleepy but awake. I was lucky and cracked it in just one night and since then his been a great sleeper. There are always strong views on controlled crying etc but it’s not ideal for anyone if no one is sleeping!

I'm going through very similar at the moment so really welcomed seeing your thread. My LO is 7 months tomorrow. She's never really slept through although we did have a patch where she only woke twice in the night - now it's every hour sometimes every 20 minutes! I feel like it's all my fault as I have fed her to sleep so don't think she knows how to self soothe - annoyingly she did seem to when younger. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to break it. CIO is not for me. I put her down sleepy but awake and she just flaps around then blows raspberries in a very cute way and the babble just escalates until she is shouting for me to pick her up. Am exhausted and annoyed with myself for walking into this. I know why it happened - your told when dbf to feed on demand which is what I did and then never made that switch to not doing it through the night. It's really starting to get me down.

Is she taking solid foods too? She probably just wants mommy comfort.. it does seem a lot though at 8 months. How do you function properly? I have never breastfed (well I did until the mid wife told me i was doing it wrong so I panicked and put her on bottle) so I'm not sure if there is much difference is sleep with breast fed/bottlefed babies. have you tried putting one of your tops near to her to comfort her incase it's that what she wants? My little one sleeps with a comforter plus her dummy?

Solids aren’t anywhere near as calorific as breast milk or formula. Weaning often affects sleep. Depriving a baby of food if it is hungry is beyond cruel.

It’s an enormous misconception to think 8 month old babies must go 12 hours without any sustenance. No fluid or food. Yes, some do sleep through the night - leave them to it and enjoy it. But those that don’t and want feeding, it is cruel to refuse. Yes, sleep deprivation is horrific. It really really is. But it is all part of being a parent. There are so many ways to ensure you get more rest that don’t involve distressing a baby.

I really do feel for you and fully understand it’s a totally different level of tired