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14 month old only sleeping 8 hours at night

4 replies

MrsCremuel · 08/07/2020 06:05

Any advice or experiences? DS tends to go to sleep around 7 and wakes at 3am. Husband can get him back to sleep but then wants to be up at 4.30. I can cajole him into a light doze in the boob for an hour. We are shattered.

He feeds to sleep easily at bedtime. The early wakings mess with the schedule and so it often changes depending on wake time. He usually has one 2 hour nap morning/lunch time but if he wakes too early he has 2. This makes for a long day though due to his last wake window being 5 hours so bedtime these days can be 8.30. Still up at 4.30.

We use white noise and blackout curtains. At a loss! He has always been a early riser but usually got 10-11 hours and up between 5.30 and 6.

OP posts:
BabySleepTeacherUK · 08/07/2020 10:41

How would you feel about night weaning and stopping feeding to sleep?

The route cause of the problem is feeding to sleep. The body's natural pressure to sleep is lowest in the early hours of the morning, so this is the time when it's hardest to go back to sleep If waking fully.

The issue comes from baby entering the light sleep phase in the early hours (as is normal) and then when briefly waking between sleep cycles, instead of settling back down baby is waking fully because settling back down is not independant, and needs breastfeeding.

If you don't want to seperate sleeping and feeding, I would suggest cosleeping with free access to breast. This can allow baby to feed without disturbing you so you both get the most sleep.

MrsCremuel · 08/07/2020 13:15

@BabySleepTeacherUK think I might have to try that. My husband can get him back to sleep sometimes, but not at the 4.30 wake. When I try he headbutts and batters my chest until I breastfeed. My husband usually works till 7.30 which clashes with DS's bedtime so I do bedtime.

What should I do - lay him in the cot after a feed and ride out the moaning/crying?

OP posts:
pinkcarpet · 08/07/2020 13:20

No advice sorry but I would love my DD to be sleeping 8 hours straight. The longest she's ever slept is 6 hours but its more like 3 or 4 hours. She fall asleep on her own so I would disagree with pp saying that weaning at night will help. It might help, but it might make no difference. Weaning did nothing for my DD sleep and now when she wakes it is even harder to get her back down and there is a lot more crying!

BabySleepTeacherUK · 08/07/2020 18:03

[quote MrsCremuel]@BabySleepTeacherUK think I might have to try that. My husband can get him back to sleep sometimes, but not at the 4.30 wake. When I try he headbutts and batters my chest until I breastfeed. My husband usually works till 7.30 which clashes with DS's bedtime so I do bedtime.

What should I do - lay him in the cot after a feed and ride out the moaning/crying?[/quote]
It will be easier all-round if your husband could commit to doing bedtime and night wakes, even if just for the short term. There's no battle to not feed then, if you arent there. He could do with taking over for ideally 3 weeks, but at least a week. No reason he cant take over longer term too, if you're going back to work or similar.

Essentially yes, you just lay him in the cot and ride it out.

The manner in which you ride it out depends on your parenting style. Some stay in the room comforting, some come and go from babys room. Some ignore, some actively work to settle baby, some do it cold turkey others do it slowly and gradually.

No judgement from me which you go for, it depends on your family dynamics. What is important though is that whatever method you choose, that you have the emotional resilience to see it through. Half-done sleep training whereby you give up on an approach or chop-and-change approaches end up having worse outcomes in the long term. You need to be really consistent, and allow for about 3 weeks of consistency before you can expect to see significant changes in the long term.

As pinkcarpet alluded to, there might be other issues to solve here too. But they all all, without exception, be best solved by first having a baby that sleeps independently. You will also need to look at daytime sleep, to ensure baby is not getting over tired *which is very likely in your current situation) and also in the first year of weaning, diet plays a big part in sleep too - getting enough calories is important and is more difficult to manage when baby gets these from early solids and milk.

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