To post here because I'm desperate for help with sleeping (or not) baby!

[Halllllp]

My 8 month old has gone from sleeping pretty well (about 8pm to 6am) to suddenly waking up at 3am and screaming the place down because he wants to get up for the day.

I struggle to just leave him to CIO at all, especially at that time as it wakes the whole house up. I go and shush and then go back to bed when he's quiet again but he'll start again the minute I leave.

He will eventually go back to sleep after about 2 hours of this up and down but only after I've relented and given him milk and cuddled him back to sleep, until about 8 but this battle every night is killing me. Sometimes he'll just be babbling and playing about in his cot for even longer afterwards but will cry again if I leave him to go back to bed.

I'm going back to work soon!

HELP.

Sounds like a classic 8 month sleep regression OP! It will pass. Do what you need to do to get everyone through it and hold on to the fact that it will not last. I always felt like that was my life forever when DD had a shit period of sleep so just remembering that it will change eventually might help a little.

Totally normal sleep regression. Not much you can do.

You mean you have no magic solution for me? Very disappointed haha.

Thank you! Should I scrap the bottle do you think? I don't want him to get used to having one in the middle of the night, I just get desperate!

This sounds like split night. You can Google it. I would look at day time sleep and see if you can reduce it (maybe not). I’d water down the bottle (safely) to make it less appealing or replace with water. We used to make a floor bed next to the cot so at least we could doze while the babbling continued. This too will pass.

Mine had this - she was hungry! I gave her a bottle at 1am for 6 weeks then she just went back to sleeping through.

Personally I’d give a bottle, wind, nappy change & pop back in bed and see what happened

Have you tried giving water. This is probably not approved of but I started leaving a babybottle with water in the cot - my son would suck on it and fall asleep - think he was thirsty.

he started sleeping better after this - but I think it's fairly normal to give milk still at this age - if it works- why not see if giving milk changes the pattern.

They always sleep through in the end OP! You will get there - when I went back to work I remember hiding in the toilet with my head leaning on the door I was so tired I couldn't even speak to people .

She’s 8 months old. Feed her and cuddle her back to sleep. Easy!

As a precious poster said, I would feed, wind and change if that's what's helping baby go back to sleep. It won't last forever.

Please don't water down bottles or anything like that

Yeah 8 months is still tiny, I was still feeding DD back to sleep at night then. I'd continue with the bottle at that age and try water in a few months for the next sleep regression

Could also be a growth spurt so waking up hungry, which will pass soon too.

Could you co-sleep? I do anyway, which meant that at that age I could at least semi-doze whilst my dd babbled away next to me (but we have a floor bed so she was not going to hurt herself if she fell, but I knew what she was doing anyway).

If utterly desperate I'd put Bing on my phone. But I knew it was two hours tops, so gritted my teeth and got through it.

If they go back down after a bottle, just give them the bottle first before fannying about with everything else.

Think about it this way, what do you do when you wake up in the night hungry or thirsty? What happens if you try to ignore it and go back to sleep?

I'd do change, bottle and cot. Keep the room dark. No playful chatting, keep it boring.

I'd allow a couple of mins crying whilst I stood outside the door and then go in pick up and cuddle and place down again.

Sleep training. There's a lot you can do, you don't have to just tolerate this.

Ferber method is great and has a lot of evidence behind it. You implement your sleep training method every time baby goes down for a sleep, be that at the start of bedtime, start of a nap, or the middle of the night when they wake. Gives them space to learn how to fall asleep independently. Currently by cuddling him back to sleep in the middle of the night you're reinforcing the expectation that that's how he will fall asleep when he wakes, so of course when he wakes up he cries for and expects that.

It might wake the rest of the house while you're implementing it but it doesn't usually take more than a few days/a week. I recommend joining a sleep training group that's evidence based. Respectful Sleep Training/Learning is a good one. Baby is plenty old enough to learn how to fall asleep independently and learn that night time is for sleeping. It can be difficult to do but in cases where a baby is having really broken sleep or the parents aren't coping or it's affecting everyone's ability to rest/sleep and in turn affecting your energy levels it's often the kindest thing for all.

We sleep trained at six months, our situation was much much more extreme than yours (waking every hour or two all through the night needing to be rocked or fed back to sleep, for pretty much his entire first six months) but within three or four days he'd learned how to fall asleep on his own, he understood that once he went into his cot it was sleep time, and when he woke in the night he'd make a few noises or roll about a bit then go straight back to sleep. Wake up at a decent time rested and happy and smiley.

He's nearly two now and his sleep has been excellent ever since, he runs to get his sleeping bag for bedtime, waves good night, nods off before we've even got the monitor on and he's asleep until 6-7am. Best decision we've ever made as parenting. We teach our children lots of things, how to eat, how to use a toilet, how to walk, how to be kind and empathetic, how to share... we also teach them how to sleep whether we do it with sleep training or not, by the expectations we have of them and the assistance we give them to sleep. Might as well teach them good sleep habits which will set them up for life. Good sleep is so crucial for wellbeing at all ages.

If baby's hungry, feed them.
Don't water it down - they're too young.

Also it's not safe to bedshare at this age, it's not safe until over two. It's always saddening to see bedsharing recommended as a solution to sleep issues when the consequences of bedsharing can be so tragic.

@girlmom21

If baby's hungry, feed them. Don't water it down - they're too young.

I agree, if baby is hungry in the night they require feeding.

That can go in hand in hand with sleep training. You feed them and then put them back down awake and implement the sleep training method.

Sleep training doesn't have to mean not feeding or seeing to your baby in the night :) My boy still had a night feed until around 9-10m after sleep training at six months.

At 8 months I was still feeding back to sleep. Like previous posters, if he's hungry he's not going to be able to fall asleep.
Try giving the bottle straight away for a few days and see how it goes.
It might be a growth spurt and after a week or so he may go back to just sleeping through.

I have a baby the same age OP. He's always woken once in the night (between about 11 and 8) for a feed. Just because your baby wasn't hungry or thirsty before, doesn't mean he's not now. A growth spurt maybe. Or a sleep regression. Where once he slept through, now he finds himself awake and notices he's peckish or thirsty. Just as I do sometimes.

This too shall pass!

@ChameleonKola

Also it's not safe to bedshare at this age, it's not safe until over two. It's always saddening to see bedsharing recommended as a solution to sleep issues when the consequences of bedsharing can be so tragic.

Absolute rubbish - please don't scaremonger. Do the research, which says that co-sleeping, when safe sleep guidelines are followed, is perfectly safe. The safe sleep guidelines are important though.

@Somethingsnappy

Doing the research is incredibly important. You’ll note that the NHS, the Lullaby Trust, and the AAP strongly advise against bedsharing. The Lullaby Trust offer guidance to reduce the risks if you do choose to bedshare, that’s a harm reduction approach taken because they understand that despite the evidence and guidance a percentage will still go ahead and do it. Here’s some evidence, don’t take my word for it. It’s tragic you think that sharing safe sleep advice that saves lives is scaremongering. I’m guessing as a bedsharer it’s hard to stomach the facts. You’re free to do what you like with your own child, that doesn’t negate the evidence sadly.

Bed-sharing is the single greatest risk factor for sleep-related infant deaths.

More than 69% of all sleep-related infant deaths are associated with bed-sharing.

pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/134/2/e406

Even absent all other risk factors, bed-sharing nearly TRIPLES the risk of SIDS, plus adds new risks for suffocation, strangulation, and other types of sleep-related infant death.

bmjopen.bmj.com/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=23793691

The most conservative estimate shows that the risk of suffocation is 20x higher when infants sleep in adult beds instead of cribs.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/

Bed-Sharing Raises SIDS Risk Fivefold, Study Finds
www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=170003

Factors Associated With Infant Bed-Sharing
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5308437/

For sleep-related infant deaths, bed-sharing is greatest risk factor
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/279572

Perhaps you will be open minded enough to take on board research, given that it’s important to you.

@ChameleonKola. Thank you for the links. Yes, I am familiar with most of them. As most parents that safely co-sleep with their babies and have done the research know: statistics around SIDS deaths that occured whilst co-sleeping are all counted in one big melting pot, which includes having fallen asleep with a baby on a sofa or armchair, falling asleep whilst holding baby in their arms, parents who smoke, drink or have taken drugs whilst co-sleeping. Sadly, all these factors hugely raise the risk of SIDS. If parents follow the safe sleep guidelines strictly, co-sleeping is a perfectly safe and evolutionary normal way of doing things. In fact, in many parts of the world, where breastfeeding and co-sleeping are the cultural norm and in whose culture drinking and drug taking is absent, deaths from SIDS whilst co-sleeping are almost non existent.

P. S. Sorry about the thread derailment OP.

Yeah, it's hard.

But another way if looking at this is that you've had a good run of sleep, and that's great, but jow you are back (hopefully only temporarily) to having a waking baby, which is probably more typical, than their previous sleep pattern.

I'm 4y into post children sleep now, and with mine (2&4) the sleep comes and goes. Appreciate it when they sleep, and appreciate that it won't last forever when it doesn't.

I wouldn't expect an 8m old to sleep through though, so you got lucky for a while, and thats great.

My 4yo started sleeping through at 2.5m (then stopped), a year (then stopped), 3 (then stopped). My 2.5yo started sleeping through at 2, but after several months of stability, we now have a range of good and bad nights.

Thank goodness for caffeine.

What happens if you just give milk right away and cuddle? Night feeds are absolutely common at this age - DD still had a night feed until she was 1.