Question about sleep for a nearly 8 month old

[Humv]

My DS is nearly 8 months old and started sleeping through from 7-6.30ish at around 6 months. He developed a chest infection a couple of weeks into this and took a couple of weeks to recover but gradually went back to sleeping through again. However, every hour or so all night he will cry for a few seconds or scream once or just make any sort of noise, all night. Is this ‘normal’? I guess what I’m asking is should I be worried that he’s not getting a proper full nights sleep or is he still asleep when he is doing these things? I’m a really light sleeper and on top of that have some bowel issues which mean I use the bathroom around 5 times a night which is why I’m either awake when he makes the noises or he wakes me up making them.

How do your babies sleep? Is it literally a case of putting them down and not hearing a peep from them until they want a feed or it’s morning? He didn’t used to be this noisy so I don’t know whether it’s something I should be concerned about in terms of him getting a good nights sleep.

Thank you!

I think around this age they start getting nightmares - so that's probably what you are hearing. He will still be asleep, and I'd say it's developmentally normal.
My just turned 9 month old hasn't slept longer than 4 hours since she was born. And is usually up every 2 hours. What's your secret?

Thank you for replying drinkyourmilk.. ah I’m sorry, it really is quite soul destroying when they don’t sleep! As much as it’s slated on here, we did controlled crying because he was waking up every half an hour for his dummy so we had to get rid of it for our sanity! I think once he’d gotten over that, he was waking once for a feed but we gave him water for a couple of nights and he decided it wasn’t worth waking up for! He really wasn’t drinking anything for his morning feed when he had a night feed though so we knew he didn’t really need it. Bloody hard work though!

Doesn’t it feel like every time you get into some sort of normality some regression hits? Bring on the 8 month sleep regression eurgh!

I didn’t realise they could have nightmares so young, at least he’s still asleep, I worried he was waking all night.

I didn't really notice the 8 month leap (maybe because her sleep is already shocking? ). 4 month nearly killed me.
So it may not be that bad.

4 month was hellish! Haha I love my son to bits but having a baby is nothing like I expected!

Don’t worry, when your daughter sleeps through you’ll do what I did and panic that there’s something wrong and still wake up every two hours out of sheer habit

However, every hour or so all night he will cry for a few seconds or scream once or just make any sort of noise, all night.

I would worry if this is all night long. Literally from going to bed every hour for the next 11-12 hours.

It is not unusual to have times when sleep pressure is lower, so it's more difficult for baby you get to sleep or stay asleep. Usually this is early morning, from 4am or so. It would be normal to struggle to link sleep cycles easily in the early morning, after a period of solid sleep for several hours. It might be 3-4h of solid sleep, or it might be 8-9h, but certainly a block without any between cycle disturbances. If these disturbances are happening hourly from 7pm, that's not normal.

It sounds like your baby isn't able to seamlessly link sleep cycles. A baby not getting enough calories would behave like this. Or a long term, exceptionally overtired baby. Or a baby know pain. If it's none of these, then I would be looking at helping baby get into a much deeper sleep than is currently happening.

Thank you fatedestiny.. I think calorie wise he’s doing okay, and he has anywhere from 2-4 hours of naps a day. However, for the last couple of nights he’s been having closer to 4 hours of naps a day and been much, much more silent at night, maybe a couple of noises during the night? So you might have hit the nail on the head with that one. I’ll keep an eye on it and try to keep his naps as long as possible as he clearly needs them. He’s also a little constipated at the moment so might be uncomfortable- gave him some prune purée in his porridge this morning and some 50/50 mix of fresh orange juice and water so hopefully it kicks in soon. Thank you for replying

My 8 month old will maybe cry out once or twice a night while asleep. This is a relatively new development. So from my experience it’s normal.

Thank you mrsbriteside.. it seems to have settled down to a couple of times a night so hopefully nothing to worry about!