How did you sleep train 8 month old?

[Skyla01]

I've been co-sleeping with my 8 month old since birth. For the first 7 months, overall, this was working for us as a family. However the past month sleep is getting worse, my baby isn't always going back to sleep etc etc. It isn't working any more, I'm very tired and starting to struggle. My partner isn't able to help much as I've been dealing with almost all the night time sleep since birth. I'm going back to work soonish and I need to free myself up in the evenings, and get proper help with the night shifts.

Can anyone who has done sleep training around this age tell me what method they used? I did some fairly gently sleep training with my eldest, so am familiar with the different techniques. Just feels a bit daunting having to do it again. Feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Don't want to sleep train really, however don't think it's good for me to continue as I am.

I’ve not trained my current almost-8 month old, and trained my middle child earlier (at 5 months)… but have you considered giving baby their own room? Before Christmas mine was waking up to 4 times a night but we travelled and due to logistics he had his own room, and I’ve since moved out of his room now that we’re back home, and he’s down to zero to 1 wake up. I think we were just disturbing each other through movements in our sleep.

What happens for naptimes? Presumably you aren't co-sleeping for those?
I'd work to set up a similar bedtime routine so baby can sleep in its cot either in your room or in a different room in the first instance.

@Monket haven't thought about that- might be a bit of a jump to go from co-sleeping to own room? I guess my plan would be to get her sleeping in cot in my room then moving her.

@Seeline she doesn't nap in cot. Best naps are in buggy. Otherwise on me, in carrier, in car. We used to enjoy a co-naps some days (I could catch up on some sleep too), however now those don't work either as she wakes up after 10min or so crying. It would be ideal if she would sleep in cot for naps too. I sometimes try feeding her to sleep then rolling away for naps (when my eldest is in the house too) but she's never stayed asleep longer than 30min that way, often shorter. I think I need to work on her self - settling and currently she depends on feeding to sleep.

Mmm, true… but then again if you do that then you have two transitions instead of one abrupt one (but possibly one welcomed by baby if you’re the source of disruption!). We are lucky to have space for a single bed in with the cot so I moved rather than baby. Also my baby has a soft muslin thing that he uses to snuggle up to, and it’s very handy for chucking at him and signalling “okay, go to sleep now”.

In your shoes I think… I would probably do it all at once on say a Thursday night so you have the weekend to deal with any challenges, get a cot set up in a separate room, let baby play a bit in it, put any teddies or a top that smells of me in there too. Then feed, cuddle, and the standard going in at 1 min, 2 mins, 4 mins of crying. And I’d work really hard on timing of the initial pit down - very sleepy but not actually asleep.

@Monket
Sorry to jump on someone else post!
This is exactly what I hope to do with DS 9 months who currently co-sleeps.
How did/do you deal with wake ups after the first initial put down?
The same method?
Our son does the initial put down amazingly but then wakes multiple times in the evening and at the moment he needs to be cuddled to soothe him.
In the evening he is alone in our room in his sidecar cot with white noise.

I moved my son into his own room at 5 months old. We were disturbing each other. He was waking 5-6 times a night. He's mostly slept through since then with just the odd wake up when teething/poorly.

I tried him napping in the cot during the day first but that didn't work very well. However he was settled in his own room within a couple of nights.

We put our ds on a mattress on the floor in our room around 8/9 months and slept in our bed, getting in with him to settle when he woke. Then moved that mattress into his room around aged 1. He's still on it now and we still go in probably once a night ISH to settle him, then leave him and come back to our own bed. He never ever comes in our bed so I'm taking it overall as a success!

@jenn88 Sorry, took a while to reply! Well unfortunately my pride came before a fall and DS has been up 2-3 times a night for the last couple. At the moment I’m bfing at each wake up… I think he might need a more protein-heavy dinner (school run interrupts afternoon nap so he struggles to have a proper evening meal through tiredness sometimes) and I think he might be getting cold. Going to try to sort those two issues first.