Why does my 8 month old

[Helpmummysleep]

I have an 8 month old who used to be a really good sleeper, until we put him in his own room at 6 months.

He goes down really well between 6:30-7pm, and usually manages to settle himself to sleep. He will usually wake 10:30-11pm for a bottle, and then settle himself straight back to sleep. This part of his routine I am really happy with. However I seems to wake at 4am every day and not be able to settle himself back off. He doesn’t need feeding so that isn’t the issue, I will change his nappy if needed. He spends ages throwing himself around the cot, taking his dummy out and talking. Sometimes I can get him to resettle himself within 20 minutes or so, other times I will have to get him out and cuddle him. Then there’s days like today where after waking at 4am, I gave in at 5:20am and lay him in the spare bed with me. He was was fast asleep by half past and I was able to move him back to his cot and he’s slept until 7am.

What’s going on for him to be waking at 4am and how do I stop it? Or at least how can I encourage him to settle himself much quicker.

I am going back to work in a couple of weeks and ideally would like it to be somewhat sorted before then.

I think it's pretty normal behaviour fir a baby although I know that it's very tiring.

Does he take a bottle if you offer one? Is the room getting cooler at this time and that's what's waking him?

One thing to try is sleeping with his sheets fir a couple of days so that his cot smells of you.

The No Cry Sleep Solution has a section on early waking which might be helpful too

If nappy is frequently an issue at 4am then I'd be inclined to change his nappy at the 11pm wake up.

I also wonder if teaching a resettle at this wake up (rather than a feed) might help him learn that he doesn't always need a feed in order to go back to sleep.

The biggest factor though might be how long it takes you to get to him to resettle at 4am, given you will be asleep yourself. You don't have to move baby's cot out of your room at 6 months, many people wait until baby is sleeping through before moving the cot - for exactly this reason. If the cot was next to your bed then a quick dummy insert would be significantly easier and faster, resulting in baby not fully waking up.

He does take the bottle, but quite clearly isn’t hungry for it like he is when he wakes at 11.

We do change his nappy at 11, but sometimes changing it at 4 is a last resort too. We are trying to not give him a bottle at 4 and encourage him to self settle like you said, but he just doesn’t seem to be able to do it.

I would have happily kept him in our room for longer, but he outgrew the next to me cot and the bedroom isn’t big enough to have the cot in it, so it just wasn’t an option.

We’ve set the heating so it’s on for an hour from 2:30-3:30am in the hope that a drop in temperature may be the issue, fingers crossed!