8 month old waking more and more, why?!!

[Jasperjonesc]

Hi all,

So my 8 month old this past week has started waking 2-3 more than usual, its absolutely horrendous! has anyone any experience of this increased wakenings at this age and how did you cope, did it improve on its own or did you need to do some form of sleep training?

My son is breastfed 4-5 times per day plus has 3 meals a day. He goes down at 7, having had 2 naps per day of 3 hours ish total. He has a dreamfeed at 11ish.
For a good 2 months he'd only been waking around 3.30 or 4am for a feed before going straight back to sleep.
Now he wakes anywhere from 12.30/1, then 2, then 4, then 5. Its creeping back up to newborn days!

He IS teething right now and we give him nurofen before bed to help....

PLEASE tell me this ends soon? or is this something that needs some kind of parental influence to stop, ie cc which i'm hesitant to do in middle of the night.....

Thanks.

Sounds like the 8 month sleep regression, hopefully it will pass

Two daytime naps of 3 hours each is probably too much now he's a bit older. And breastfed babies don't tend to sleep as well as bottle-fed (a generalisation, I know!). Is it time to put him on the bottle?

Do not listen about 'putting him on the bottle' - in a few months you're going to be wanting to start ditching bottles anyway! Plus if they're on 3 meals a day anyway it's not like they're a newborn. And two naps totalling 3 hours is fine.

What are you doing when he wakes up? Try to focus on resettling without feeding. I had to send husband in to do this, patting and singing gently, as my son would just get more upset if I went in and didn't feed. At almost 11 months though, we finally now seem to have ditched the night feeds as a result.

Otherwise then yes, it might be the teething, and it will pass.

Teething and the 8 month regression often combine which sucks.

I thought the sleeping better on formula was a myth

Mines went through this aswell at exactly 8 months. He was also teething and I believed sleep regression played a part also in the end. At first though, I thought he may have been going through a growth spurt and may have been hungry so was feeding him. Previously to this he had been sleeping through with no night feeds so After a while I think he got used to the company and it became more habit than anything else so I started just going in, giving calpol, cuddling and consoling until he was calm then putting him down awake then each time after that I would go in, lie him down, give him his dummy and shush him in his cot u til he was calm and leave. I only picked him up the first time to give calpol and a cuddle, after that I left him in his cot. I was sure that he wasn't hungry by this point though so it may be a little more difficult for you as your LO is/was still waking for a night feed. Sorry if I'm waffling and this isn't much help. Just wanted to reassure you that it's quite common at this age and you're not alone. It's horrendous and seems never ending. He started sleeping through again about 10 months so there is light at the end of the tunnel, hang in there

Following as I have exactly the same situation (the same baby?!). We've had up to ten wake ups this week. Our eldest wasn't a great sleeper but night-weaned about 9-10 months, her sister is still feeding every time she wakes. It's tricky because if I don't, she wakes up properly and sings at me and wants to play

Thanks all; somewhat comforting to know this is normal but I do long for a bit more sleep, especially as my boy has never been a particularly great sleeper. I've started to avoid certain mums whose babies have been reliably sleeping 11-12 hour stretches since 8 weeks just don't want to hear it haha.
Yes nap wise my boys on 3 hours total per day, usually 1 hour in Am and 2 in afternoon.

Whenever he wakes I tend to either feed if its been more than 2 hours since last feed (I just want him to go back to sleep as quickly as possible but know this is probably too much feeding wise). If its evenmore frequenly than every 2 hours i'll shhh and stroke his head until he calms down. Thing is, I usually end up feeding again anyway as its not often that just shhing etc will placate him and the crying can just escalate and go on for ages....ugh.