8 month old waking at night lots - advice?

[Mangomumma]

DD (8 months) has always woken up a lot at night. She naps well & happily goes into her cot awake & goes to sleep by herself at bedtime. We've had the odd 5-6 hour stretch but she usually wakes every 3-4 hours. Recently though, she's been doing 3-4 hours at first then 1-2 hours for the rest of the night until morning. The worst night she woke up 7 times! I'm exhausted and due back to work soon so would really like a bit more sleep, I don't need miracles just some decent chunks of sleep. She's combi fed & has formula in the day & is breastfed at night & first thing in the morning. A month ago she would be obviously hungry when she woke but now she feeds quite slowly & it seems more for comfort. Has she become dependant on the boob for getting back to sleep? She loves her food & is growing well. Should I consider some night weaning / sleep training? I'm not really sure where to start. DH is very supportive & happy to help out.

I am sure this will prove an unpopular opinion, but my eldest DC was the same at 8 months and we decided (after a lot of research) to do controlled crying. (I was certain it was comfort not hunger and that DC just wanted to breastfeed for comfort.)

It’s not for everyone, and the first two nights were hard. But by the third night we had cracked it and my DC (now nearly 8) has been a fabulous sleeper ever since. I don’t regret it and don’t believe it has done any damage - we are very attached and DC is a very happy and content child.

Good luck whatever you decide. It’s so tough when you don’t get ever a 3/4 hour stretch - but it won’t last forever.

@Anon992 I'm not totally against some harder sleep training. 8 months of rubbish sleep is not fun! How did you go about it? Did you go in in intervals or just leave them to it? Did you do it or your husband/partner? I've read about so many different versions I'm not sure what to try.

@Anon992 I'm not totally against some harder sleep training. 8 months of rubbish sleep is not fun! How did you go about it? Did you go in in intervals or just leave them to it? Did you do it or your husband/partner? I've read about so many different versions I'm not sure what to try.

I can’t remember where I read up about it, but basically when DC cried we would wait 2 mins, then open the door and say something like “shhh, it’s ok, I’m here, it’s sleep time now, night night” then wait 3 minutes then go back and say the same thing, then 4 minutes etc but no longer than 4/5 minutes. The idea being that they learn (a) that you will never abandon them, you do always come eventually, but (b) it takes more and more effort, and it’s not worth it as they don’t get any food. It’s very different from cry it out/just letting the baby cry. (I knew we were so tired we didn’t have the energy to try pick up/put down or shush pat etc.)

As to how we approach it - I seem to remember my husband went in whilst I cried in the other room with my hands over my ears and tried to block it out! I was pretty exhausted and it was a horrible first night (think DC woke 3/4 times and was up for half an hour each time). But it got better so quickly and the third night there was barely a whimper.

I would say though that they recommend you are absolutely certain before you chose to do it. If you try for an hour, or one night, or whatever and then relent and feed then then you have just taught them to persevere with the crying and that you will give in eventually.

We saw really quick improvements - ie sleeping 11 hour stretches - it made me and DH so much happier/more patient parents, and DC was happier too from being better rested.

I would say gently night wean before any sleep training. It’s more kind for the baby. I highly recommend reading ‘solve your child’s sleep problems’ by Dr Richard Ferber which details how eating during the night can affect your baby’s body and therefore sleep (such as stimulating the digestive system which is otherwise quite inactive during the night and releasing hormones which raise the body temperature which would otherwise be quite low during the night making your baby more likely to wake up).

Feed her more. To be honest I found a bottle last thing and breast in the day worked for us. Is she wet when she wakes?

I think sleeping through is a natural development that all babies achieve at different times.
DS woke regularly until 18 months and then just suddenly started sleeping through.
IMHO I've no idea why parents would choose to let their baby cry in order to train them to sleep

One of my babies woke 8 times a night. With that kind of sleep torture I couldn’t keep going and I think it’s unfair to be expected to just wait it out until the baby’s sleep naturally improves. Driving a car becomes dangerous and mentally things just went downhill.

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'm not usually one to let her cry, but when you're regularly being woken 5/6 times a night it gets a bit much. I'm not sure how I'll drive & do my job safely when I go back if I'm this tired. I'll do some research & come up with a plan with DH.

My dd is 10 months old and just woken again an hour after a feed and screamed like she was possessed when I tried to comfort her back to sleep with no boob. She can't be hungry that soon. I managed to calm her down a few times but she was so angry. In the end I gave her the breast and she nursed and went to sleep.

No advice but came on to post about this and your post came up.

After reading this thread I almost feel as though it’s something I could of written word for word myself in regards to my current situation with my own DD. She is also 8 months old and just as you described your LO, has always woke a lot throughout the night. Exact same length in sleep stretches and in the same pattern too, except we tend to have periods of wakefulness (1 - 2 hour) to contend with between 1-3am almost every single night too .

I really can sympathise with you @Mangomumma, it’s hard bloody work especially when having to cope with it for 8 looooong months consistently.

I too am seriously considering sleep training as I’m not sure how much longer I can withstand being so intensely sleep deprived but have no idea where to start.

Whatever you decide to try, I really hope that it works out for you and she’s sleeping better soon. .

@oneseriouslytiredmumma
Nice to know we're not alone
Good luck to you too!

Hi there, same here. 8 months old waking 5-6 times per night. Tried gentle sleep training: put him down awake, let him put himself to sleep. In my experience, he seems pretty much untrainable in a sense that he changes soo much so quickly that it feels like I'm dealing with a different person every 3 days. Yet, I'm still trying cause there were nights when it helped and he managed to fall back to sleep on his own.
I wouldn't try cry out for now. When he cries before going to sleep the fluids block his airways and later THAT wakes him up.
I don't feed him every time he wakes up just around midnight and 4am.
I'm currently building a list what may be the problem and tackle them one by one. Things like dry air, room not dark enough, temperature, length of naps.
He shows genuine signs of sep. anxiety even during the day as he's getting more mobile and less boobs so it can be that. However, he's sleeping like this since he was 5months old. As if he never recovered from the first big sleep regression and since just keeps battling the next ones.

My LO went through a phase of really disrupted sleep around 8 months, it got better around 10 months, although he was still waking 3-5 times a night to be fed back to sleep. I decided to night wean, started at the far end of the night, so wouldn't feed him past 5am, then 3am etc. Cuddled, sang, brought him downstairs for playtime, just didn't feed him. A week later he was waking once a night. Another week and he slept through and probably another month before he reliably slept through every night.