Night wakings

[Millie1501]

Hey, I am at a loss with the nights we are having atm. My little one is 8 and a half months old. He has slept through the nights at times but it is not consistent so we have had night wakings most nights since he was born. But they have been especially bad since mid September where he wakes for over an hour and we can’t get him back to sleep. It was 5 hours two nights ago which was the worst yet. I am familiar with sleep regressions but this has been going on for six weeks. I don’t think the length of his naps are the problem as he does about 3 hours a day over two naps. His last wake window is between 3.5-4 hours. He is teething quite often but he hasn’t been teething the whole of the 6 weeks and we have had plenty of teething from when he was 2 months old and it hasn’t caused these types of night wakings before. He doesn’t usually get upset unless you try and leave him in his cot so maybe separation anxiety. We have tried some forms of sleep training, gradual methods do not work for him as he will not settle if you are in the room, he only settles if you hold him and rock him. But if I do anything where I’m near the cot and he can see me he just sits up and tries to interact. We tried controlled crying for about a week and things improved for a few nights but then got bad again, I got so stressed with it we had to stop. Any advice on what to do? I am really struggling and I am wary that these night disruptions are not good for my baby at all. He ends up tired and cranky after particularly bad night.

My daughter was like this and we realised all she wanted was not to be left alone at night.

We ditched the cot around 8 months and put a double mattress in her room. We transitioned from rocking her to sleep to laying down next to her until she fell asleep. We'd leave the room once she was asleep, have dinner and enjoy our evening.

If she woke up either me or hubby would go in to settle her. If she went back to sleep quickly, great, we'd come back to our own bed. If not, no problem, we'd just sleep with DD for the rest of the night.

I'll be honest, there was a phase when she was teething that even laying next to her didn't work. She wanted to be rocked in the rocking chair which is the only way she would settle and not cry. Anbesol is great for teething.

She's now 18 months, but still needs someone to fall asleep with. We just lay on the bed with her until she's asleep and most the time she'll do the whole night with no wakings.

However, now we have a newborn who I cosleep with, DH cosleeps with DD. It's the only way any of us get any sleep and I do enjoy the cuddles.

It is great that works for you. I have tried lying or sitting beside his cot but he just keeps hitting his head off the bars trying to interact with me. When we lay him on our bed he will not settle, no way he would fall asleep on it. The method that works on getting him to sleep is carrying him upright against the chest and walking around his room or gentle rocking. We have been doing that for a long time and although that meant he sometimes woke expecting that to get back to sleep, we didn’t mind, we took turns doing it. And we didn’t get many wakings and he wouldn’t be awake now. The problem we have now is he’s awake for a very long time and this method that always worked for getting him to sleep isn’t working. Nothing else we try works including milk, dummy, comforter or giving him pain relief if we think it is teething. I do not know what to try anymore.

*wouldn’t be awake long I meant

Oh I'm so sorry about that.

I've had my fair share of tough nights and it isn't easy.

I can't really think of any other solutions since it seems you've tried everything I would have thought of doing!

When you're rocking him and he isn't settling, is he crying or is he calm but just not falling asleep?

It varies, sometimes he is calm and it seems like it is working but wakes when you try out him in the cot. Sometimes he’s calm but very awake and other times he moans while you rock him. He either doesn’t fall asleep on the chest or he does but wakes every time you try and lay him down. It feels like he’s just really fighting it even when he is clearly tired.

I would try maybe capping the last nap maybe if you haven't tried that yet? My 5mo naps around 2.5-3 hours in the day so your 8mo having the same amount of day sleep sounds like it could be too much. He might just be lower sleep needs than the average what the recommendations are based on. Or try a later bedtime. Or try both! Split nights often mean there isn't enough sleep pressure to get them through the night.

Yeah I have read about split nights and we have moved his bedtime to later. It is usually around 8-8:30 now, before all this it was between 6-7. I think if we move it any later we will have a very over tired baby. His last nap yesterday was half an hour and we still had a 2 hour wake through the night. We cannot really make that last nap any shorter as it should be at least half an hour. I really don’t know how to fix this.

I don't have any answers but wanted to send solidarity as we're in a very similar position. DD is 8m and doing split nights with wake ups 2-3 hours per night. Nothing that we have tried yet works. She was up 1:30-4:30 this morning, then slept til 6:30am and is still up now!

I have an almost 9 month old and we were having split nights for weeks until I realised that 2.5-3 hour naps is waaaaay too much daytime sleep. We now do 30/45 minutes in morning and 1.5 hours in afternoon. If she's had an awful night and is exhausted we will allow her to go to 2.5 hours as a maximum. This has fixed our split nights.

@Q2C4 I am sorry to hear that you guys are having this problem as well. It is so exhausting isn’t it and frustrating when all the usual stuff that used to get them to sleep does not work. How long have you guys had this problem?

@sunflowerandivy thank you for the advice. His second nap is usually short but his first nap is often long. So maybe that first morning nap is too long and I need to start capping that one. So your saying a total of 2-2:15 hours after a good night and 2.5 after a bad night so I will try that and see how I get on as my little one is a similar age.

Thanks & you're right, it's very frustrating. DD has been like this for 2 weeks now but feels more like 2 months!!

@Q2C4 2 weeks is long enough to be dealing with that. Will hopefully end soon if it’s a sleep regression. What’s your day time schedule at the moment? Just want to compare to see if there are similarities with ours

Our whole schedule has gone awry basically because DD is exhausted during the day and also sometimes she has 3 x 40 mins naps (or 2 x 40 min naps and one 20 min nap) but other times one 1.5 nap and one 30 min nap. She always sleeps in the pram which is another complicating factor.
Roughly, she gets up between 7-7:30am (or 6am, or 4am, or 1am!!), nap at 10:30, nap at 2:30-3pm, sometimes short nap at 5:30pm, bed at 8:30pm. Wake ups usually at 11:30pm and 2am minimum. On a good day she is back to sleep in 30 mins. On a bad day she is up for 3+ hours.

How about you?

Also DD is now refusing milk in any meaningful quantities from late morning til bedtime, then realizes she is starving and downs 3 bottles at once.

@Q2C4 i feel for you, that must be exhausting. It doesn’t sound like she’s getting too much day time sleep from your schedule so not sure why you are getting split nights. We sort of have a schedule but the days vary a bit. My little one usually get up between 7 and 8am, first nap about 11, that one is usually the long one, from 1.5 to 2 hours. The second nap is usually about 4 for 0.5- 1 hour. His bed time is usually around half 8. He wakes up at least once, usually for 1.5 hours, last night was 2 hours and a few nights ago was 5 hours (absolute killer). He sometimes has two or three wake ups but usually only one is a long one. I think we are going to try make the first nap shorter and see if that makes a difference. But I know a lot of things happen around this age like sleep regression and separation anxiety so maybe that’s what is happening with you little one.
Oh that sounds frustrating with the milk. Do you think maybe too many distractions throughout the day? We have had phases where there has been a lot of milk refusal and feeding him in our bed with no stimulation, blinds shut, lights off etc has helped at times.

We are dealing with a different beast now though - early wakings (4:45 / 5am)

@sunflowerandivy ouch that is early. We went through a phase of 5am starts. Luckily it just started to get later and later by itself, moved to around 6 then 7. Hopefully this is short term for you guys and it fixes itself.

It wouldn't be so bad if it were 5:45 or 6 but 4:45/5 is a killer. Woke up at 5 this morning having done a HUGE poo. Then was so happy to be awake.

We had a split night last night too. First time in ages but naps were absolutely disastrous yesterday! Kept waking up after 30 mins so had to give a late rescue nap of 15 mins in sling!

@sunflowerandivy oh that is rough, early mornings and a split night. It’s a constant battle managing the naps so they sleep well at night. Our lives revolve around that atm so I feel for you.

I disagree with needing better naps to sleep at night. My DC were both absolutely terrible nappers but slept all night. I think 3 hours nap is far too long if he's waking at night. He probably needs one long one at lunch time. Encourage him to push through in the day and then get him to bed earlier in the evening. Really wear him out especially in the afternoon. Lots of fresh air and out of the house.

Sending solidarity OP my 8 month old is very similar though she will settle a bit better if I bring her in bed with us. We also have a next to me forever which is useful to try and transition her in to but tbh she stays asleep longer when she’s cuddled up with me. It’s nice but exhausting! Are you breast or bottle feeding? If breastfeeding, I usually sleep in just a cardigan so boobs are out and she can get milk with minimal disruption. I’m still exhausted but it’s better than it was! She has literally never slept through the night her whole life. 3-4 wake ups is a good night for us…

I just really don't know how to fix the problem. It's not a case of sleep training as my girl can go into her cot completely awake and self settle. She does this for 90% naps and bedtimes.

@Subnauctic i have started to wake him from naps so that his morning nap is an hour and a half, his afternoon nap is half an hour. This has improved things a bit as the wake ups haven’t been as long the past few nights. He did attempt to get up at back of 5 this morning though, we managed to get him back to sleep in half an hour since he had woken but only for another hour.

@Puddlepup i have tried putting him in bed with me but he can’t stay still. He just gets really hyper and wants to crawl around the bed lol. I’ve never heard of a next to me forever cot but I will check it out, may be worth a try especially with separation anxiety. We are bottle feeding at the moment but he doesn’t tend to wake up for milk. Oh I do feel for you, my little one doesn’t sleep through often but at least sometimes it happens. It sounds exhausting but things will get much better.

@sunflowerandivy that is really good that she will self settle. It sounds like the early wakings could be just a phase. We had one this morning funnily enough. Not sure if it’s over tiredness or under tiredness anymore lol.