8 month old multiple wakes

[User0658]

Does anyone have any tips to help my 8 month old sleep. I keep considering a sleep consultant but I'm not willing to do CIO and he can self settle so I don't know if this would even work.

I'm not sure where I am going wrong, he is down to two naps a day now

7am wake
7:30am bottle 7oz
8:30am breakfast
9:45am 1.5 hour nap (self settles)
11:30am bottle 7oz
12:30pm lunch
2pm 45 min nap (self settles)
3:30pm bottle
5:30pm dinner
6:30pm bath and ready for bed
6:45pm bottle
7pm asleep (falling asleep having the bottle but laying down as he's falling asleep)

Then we still have the 10:30pm dream feed, which we have been trying to drop for a while. We went cold turkey for 2 nights and this was unsuccessful so we are instead dropping the oz slowly.

He is waking multiple times a night. It's not hunger. Sometimes he can settle straight away and others it can be an hour long battle.

Can anyone see where I am going wrong? I am going to try and push back the last nap as I'm thinking maybe he is over tired slightly by bed time but would this be causing this frequent wakes through the night?

Any other suggestions welcome

Have you ruled out teeth and temperature? We find that we need more layers than the guidelines say to keep our 8mo cosy. I'm no expert but your schedule seems reasonable, we are similar but with shorter morning nap and longer in afternoon, our feeds vary.

That's a very good routine, and similar to what I did. I would say the afternoon nap is very short, I had this with my lo. So at 8 month I think it was I moved the 11am bottle to after lunch to ensure lo nice and filled. I gave a snack and some water at 11am. Initially she wanted her lunch earlier, but now lunch 1215 ish, then bottle 1.30pm then left over milk at 2pm before sleep usually a few oz.

Also at 8 month my lo for a few weeks woke a few times in night because she was going through developmental stuff, sitting, and now we're on to standing I just make sure she has lots of time in day to practice and that helps. I never go in if she wakes unless she starts crying. Sounds mean but me going in makes it worse.

Another tip but it's a dangerous one is shorten the morning nap to encourage a longer afternoon one....
And another way is 1115 till 2pm is 245mins Wake time- maybe push nap later? Say 215/230pm?

I'm nervous to cap the morning nap as then he might also have a rubbish afternoon nap and will be even more over tired

Today I'm doing lunch before his bottle and increasing the oz and trying to drag the last nap to starting at around 2:15pm.

He's just cut 2 teeth so don't think that's the issue. Plus sleep has been bad on and off since he was 5 months old. We've only had a few nights that he has slept through in that time..

The theory behind the morning long nap is they feel they can get a long nap in morning if they don't sleep at night. I understand why you don't want to cap

Give it a go and let us know how it goes

Sounds normal to me. Babies just wake in the night.

@Greenmarmalade I'm not expecting no wake ups, but him being wide awake for over an hour I'm thinking something must be off

So I managed to drag the nap out until 2:15pm today and then he napped for only 35 minutes so I'm in no better position in regards to this last wake window.

I'll try again tomorrow

Good luck 🤞 I would consider the morning nap being too long though.
Give it a few days of 215pm sleep, maybe little longer some 8 month old can do 3.5 wake time 🤷🏼‍♀️ my lo can if need be, when 8 month. Not all the time though. Along with feed before nap see how it goes.

Middle of night waking is normally when I researched - overtired, undertired (very rare unless early morn and putting bed super early) not enough calories in day or developmental 🤷🏼‍♀️

Will lo have another cat nap about 430/5? Just to hold off the overtiredness

@Fancyties it's a miracle, I've managed to get him back to sleep. Our neighbour is doing diy right next to his room so I think it woke him. I'm going to give him another 10 minutes and then we have 3.5 hours til bedtime!

It's impossible now to get him to have a third nap unfortunately.

The other day he did have a car nap at 5pm but wouldn't go down until 8pm but then slept through! But I can't go out driving everyday in rush hour to make this happen haha.

On that night he woke a few times but was able to settle himself back to sleep. However if he is going to bed after a long stretch of being awake/going to bed really tired he wakes up and cannot get back to sleep himself and then screams. This is what makes me think perhaps it is the overtiredness..

Yah that's good news to hear lo went back to sleep. Yeah my lo was same with the 3rd nap.

I always wake my lo up by 4pm if not awake then she has clear 4 hours before bed. But only in past week she done that.

Last night was better. Normally he wakes up 2/3 times between 7-10pm screaming and we have to resettle. But we didn't have any of that. He woke up at 12:30am and took me 30 minutes to get him back down, which is an improvement on the last few days when it had taken an hour. His nappy then leaked so he woke up at 5:30am but got him back to sleep until 7am.

Fab news!

How'd it go today @user0658?

Pretty much same as yesterday, woke up just before 3pm but this time I couldn't get him back to sleep . He just doesn't want to sleep past 3pm anymore. So might put him to bed 10/15 minutes earlier then will of been awake 3 hours 45 minutes. Wondering if this is a common theme I should move bedtime forward to 6.30pm..

Try a 630pm bed time see what happens. may end up with early wake up, but then you might not. I have put my lo to bed at 630pm before 🤷🏼‍♀️ woke at 645am.

Other mn may have other suggestions, I would still try and resettle if lo wakes early from pm nap. Are you still doing milk before nap?

@Fancyties we always have to wake him up in the morning at the moment so hopefully wouldn't affect the morning too much.

I've also dropped a bottle past 2 days..

Now doing:

7am - Wake
7:30am - 8oz Bottle
8:30am - Breakfast
9:45am - Nap for 1.5 hours
11.15am - Wake
11:30am - Lunch
1pm - 8oz Bottle
2:30pm - Nap for 1 hour (if I'm lucky)
3:45pm - Wake
5:30pm - Dinner
6:30pm - Bath
6:45pm - 8oz Bottle
7pm - Sleep
10pm - 6oz Bottle

Tomorrow we have baby group so I'll have to wake him after an hour of his first nap, be good to see if this resolves the issue with the 2nd nap.

Yep it will test the theory. Good luck 🤞

It's v hard but developmental hope things start to improve again soon

www.google.com/amp/s/sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/07/24/the-rollercoaster-of-real-baby-sleep/amp/

@milkieway that's interesting (but also depressing haha) thank you.

@Justyouraveragedad I'm pretty sure that's spam so I've reported you

Just baffles me how everyone says their baby sleeps through from a very young age. Are they all liars? I'm starting to think they might be haha.

Last night was about the same, 2 wakes in the evening and then 1 wake at 4am but took a long time to get him back to sleep (over an hour)

We've never really had good sleep apart from a patch before he started rolling over whilst he was in our room. Probably this was about 3 months, he would still stir but because he was so close I could quickly pop his dummy in.

He is a very determined baby so always wants to be learning something. At 8 months he's already starting to cruise along the furniture. Rolled over, crawled earlier etc. So I don't think this helps but obviously I'm pleased he's developing well.

We were hoping to have another baby soon but not sure how I'd do with them both tag teaming me 😂

I do think people lie about it, literally my lo only been consistently sleeping through past couple weeks with no wake ups. But still It can go wrong. The other day she only had 45 mins in afternoon - not her full 1.5 hours. She was literally a night mare all night as she was overtired.

Sounds like you already know baby is overtired. It's the second nap that needs to be longer and I know you know that.

@Fancyties yeah definitely I think it is over tiredness. I've got to cap the first nap today by 20-25 minutes as I've got a baby group so be good to see if that improves things. If not going to bring bedtime forward.

Thank you for all your help

So it's 3:08pm and he's still asleep. He did start stirring at 2:30pm and put the fear in me haha. Might have to start capping the first nap everyday if this works!

Going to wake him at 3:30pm and then 3.5hours until bedtime!