Desperate times - baby now not sleeping through

[Natreynolds]

Hey everyone, this is my first post on here but have heard it’s a really helpful place so here I am!

I wondered if anybody had any advice. I was incredibly lucky (never took it for granted for a single day) that my baby girl slept through from 9 weeks until about 8 months. She’s 10 months now and for the last 2 months she has gone from doing 7-7 to waking twice in the night. We currently put her down at 7, then dream feed her at 9.30pm, then she wakes at 3 for a bottle then sleeps till 7. I feel like I’m doing something wrong or missing something as a first time mum? Whereby she has gone from sleeping through to this. The reason I’m feeding her is because she started nursery a few months ago and has been sick ALOT so hasn’t been eating a lot and hadn’t been drinking much milk at all in the day so when she wakes in the night she’s so hungry and I’d feel awful just letting her cry out knowing she’d barely had any food etc in the day. I understand it’s probably a mix of sickness, teething and a growth spurt but do I just continue doing what I’m doing?

Sorry I meant to add, I’m back at work full time now in a very demanding job so I am really struggling under the pressure at work whilst being so sleep deprived. Feeling pretty awful.

You are not doing anything wrong. You were lucky for 8 months. I think you are still lucky now. My daughter woke up at best 3 times a night until she was 4 and at worst hourly.

Can you take turns doing the 3 am feed. Then at least you ate getting a full night sleep every other night. Also, take turns to sleep in at the weekend.

It maybe that she needs more calories in during the day to ensure she sleeps through.
Maybe that she needs the comfort as she adjusts to be in childcare full time and away from you.

I feel like I’m doing something wrong or missing something as a first time mum?

You’re missing the fact that your baby didn’t sleep through from 8 weeks due to anything you did or you being a great mum, it’s just luck. Baby sleep isn’t linear, nothing physically or developmentally was preventing the sleep before but things change.
You just need to roll with it to a certain degree.

You had a massively lucky 8 months! I don’t know of any babies that slept through early and always did it - the bad sleep always comes 🫣 From a work perspective, you’ve been a bit spoiled but you do get used to it and learn to function.

Babies gonna baby, OP. I don't believe that what we do to influence their sleep really has any impact.

My first never slept through the night until he was about 18 months old but there were definitely times when it was better and times when it was worse. When he was 3 months old and only waking twice in the night and then going straight back to sleep after a feed I felt fine. When he was 10 months old and he was awake every night from 1-4am (and like you I was back at work) I felt delirious with tiredness.

Sometimes I think that babies who go to childcare during the day wake up at night because they want to hang out with you.

This will pass.

It’s normal, it’s a phase. She’ll grow out of it.

That sounds pretty good for a 10 month old, she’s only doing one proper wake up at 3pm and then back to sleep until 7am. Mine still does this a lot at 16 months, and my 4 year old didn’t sleep through until she was 3. You were very lucky for 8 months but one or two wake ups per night really is normal and isn’t a bad nights sleep really.

Omg I wish my baby only woke once in the night 😂 I don’t think the feeding at 9:30pm really counts as a wake up during your night so she’s only waking once. Our almost 7 month old has never slept through the night and we consider a 3 hour stretch to be amazing! He currently wakes up pretty much hourly but he’s a baby and that’s what they do!

we split the nights so my husband does from 10-Feed (about 2am) then I take over then the following night we switch. Would that be an option?

im sure your baby will grow out of it but at least you’ve got 6 months of good sleep to get your through 😂you do get used to the lack of sleep as well!

Yeah she refuses her food and her bottle a lot in the day now which she never used to do, but that came before I started feeding her at night again. I feed her at night because of that so she doesn’t go hungry. Good to know it’s normal, when you a first time mum you just don’t know what you don’t know! And I wondered if I was missing something because there was a change. She was waking twice in the night but I dream feed her at 9.30 so that it’s only once.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom I do wonder if anything we do even impacts their sleep too. I think it’s just dependent on every baby and they are all different

There’s just so much pressure on woman when they go back to work to step up, and I keep making mistakes where I’m so tired which then that knocks your self esteem and confidence a lot

@BillyBoe46 yeah we’re doing to start doing that. Not sure if anyone else has this, but there’s this under lying anxiety of just the fact you know you are going to be woken up as well, so I’m awake a lot more than she’s awake 😂

I’ve gone back after the r two maternity leaves and I would say take it a bit easy at work for a year or so and don’t try to take on too much, there’s plenty of time for that later. Use the time to get used to working and parenting as it is hard, and then go full out later on.

I had this SO badly when he was first born. Like you’re just lying there waiting to be woken up. Our boy was literally going 1.5-2 hours between wakes for weeks and I would spend so much time awake it was a joke. I ended up on sertraline because of the sleep anxiety and it made such a difference 🙈 wouldn’t recommend getting that bad haha

😂 it’s like some sick horrible joke isn’t it!