8mo sleep - desperate for advice

[Viola1256]

I've posted before about my LO sleep. It has always been tricky. She self settles for naps and bedtime in her cot. Goes down awake and we have an established pre sleep routine and she will usually take herself off on 5-10 mins.

HOWEVER, she was never really able to resettle after a sleep cycle so was waking every 45 mins or so for naps and every 2-3 hours overnight. After 6 months the odd day nap started lengthening and we resorted to some sleep training at night and introduced a dream feed. Started to see her doing longer stretches and sleeping 7-6ish with dream feed and a feed at 3am ish.

She then had a bug. High temperature for 4 days. I ended up doing lots of contact naps in the day and staying with her at night.

2 weeks later and she is still going to sleep happily by herself to start but has woken screaming hysterically every 90 minutes throughout the night. And I mean screaming. It's a cry we've not experienced before. When we were sure whe was over the bug we tried to do sleep training intervals again - going in to reassure her at set times but not picking out of cot. But the crying kept escalating and I really struggle with it.

Last night she wouldn't even have a comfort boob feed (she is ebf) and ended up in bed with us after hardly any sleep from 1-4. Co-sleeping isn't something we want to pursue.

What could be going on here and how do we navigate through it?!

Ahhh bless her, maybe the 4 days she was poorly had set her back. We had a Terrible time with sleep until 6 months when we used a sleep coach and did sleep training. (Timed intervals) it did take quite a while and hearing her cry was awful. Some nights my husband and I couldn’t even speak or eat dinner after she went to sleep because we were so upset but slowly, things improved.

You say she is EBf, does she have solids? Could she be hungry? We were advised by our sleep coach to give her protein at every meal to keep her full

Co-sleeping was the only way for us, I’m afraid. If you go down the BF route, then babies need feeding more often during the night, which they prefer in the comfort of the family bed.

Teething is very painful at 8mo so I expect this is a factor in her disturbed sleep. The Dr Jay Gordon night weaning method is excellent but not for babies under 1: betterrestmethod.org/sleep-methods-and-consultants/jay-gordon/

Random high-pitched crying is usually teething ime. I'd pop on some teething gel or give calpol next time it happens and see if that helps her settle.

Thanks for the replies!

She is on solids and generally taking to it well. Having 3 meals a day now and I make sure they are all balanced.

She has always been a bit of a snacky boob feeder and I've no issue with continuing to feed overnight as necessary but every 90 mins is not hunger at this age I don't think! Especially when she doesn't then want to feed or feed for long.

We tried calpol at 3am last night but didn't seem to make a difference but she was also really overtired by then I suspect which becomes a vicious cycle!

How important is a set daytime routine at this age? I've tried to follow similar timings but naps can be so random that every day is a bit different although she is still on 3 naps a day with around 2.5 hours sleep overall. I've tried to make this longer in case overtiredness from the day is causing night wakings but really struggle to extend them.

What time are her naps?

She wakes anywhere between 6 and 7. Try to keep first nap at 9am regardless. Usually 35 mins these days.

Next nap around 12.30. Again, of late only 45 mins or so though occasionally 1hr 10.

And this is where it gets tricky as I'll then take her out in the pram to try and catch up on sleep in the afternoon if she has had poor naps so she often does another hour or so anywhere between 3 and 5pm. Never naps later than 5, bedtime at 7pm (or a little earlier depending on last nap)

It might be the last nap causing your problems - I had the same problem at 7 months so dropped to 2 naps. She wakes between 6 and 6:30 and first nap is around 9:30 and she’ll sleep until 11 then second nap is at 2:30 and wakes at 4 bedtime is between 7 and 7:30. I was putting her down at 2 but now she’s 11 months I’ve moved it to 2:30. When I first dropped the 3rd nap I moved bedtime earlier for a few days until she adjusted but it really helped with her nighttime sleep.

Thanks @Vicky1989x. Was your little one reliably sleeping for 90 mins at naps before you went to 2? My concern is if I space it like that and she just has 40 odd minutes each time that's really little daytime sleep

@Viola1256 Not at first, sometimes she’d only sleep for 45-50 minutes in the morning so I’d bring 2nd forward and then bedtime forward but it didn’t take long for her to reliably sleep for 90 minutes!

Worth a try!

My daughter was a snacky feeder too. Waking every 90 minutes could be a habit, although she isn’t taking any milk or taking much she may just enjoy the cuddle. I can only speak from experience and although timed intervals was very hard, my daughter (now 17 months) is a brilliant night sleeper and we are so glad we did it.

We wouldn’t feed during the night until after 3 hours since she went to sleep and I used to time the night feeds and gradually reduced them by a few minutes every couple of days.

You have to do what you feel comfortable with though xx

Thanks @Sallyjwoods. Appreciate your insight. Out of interest, what timed intervals did you do and how many nights for you see improvement over? I know the worst thing is to be inconsistent with it which one probably been guilty of, which means all the tears amount to nothing.