8 month old troubles

[NKBH]

God I don’t even know where to start!

My baby is 8 months old in a week, her sleep has got progressively worse since about 5.5 months.

• We moved her into her own room and for a couple of nights she slept 7-5 or 7-6 no problems. Then she would wake up any time between 1 and 4am and only go back to sleep in my bed until 6:30/7am (before this I had never coslept). A month ago she got a sickness bug and started needing a bottle at 3-5am again, she’d dropped this 2 months before. In the past 1.5 weeks when she goes to bed at 7pm, she will wake up after 30-45 mins, 45 mins is the latest and I’m aware this is after 1 sleep cycle. She wakes up crying, we go in and resettle and she will go back to sleep but continue to wake up repeatedly until she comes in bed with me. Last night she came to bed with me at 7:40pm because I have no willpower left. She now wakes up between 5-6am.
• She seems tired all the time, cries when she wakes up from naps, rubs her eyes constantly but fights every single nap.
• She will now only nap on me, until about 6 months she would do car/pram naps and do a long nap in her cot every afternoon, she’d done this since 6 weeks old.
• She now hates the car, as soon as I strap her in and she realises we’re going somewhere she starts scream-crying, unless someone sits in the back with her. This started 3 weeks ago and I have checked the car seat is comfortable, given her toys to play with, I only have nursery rhymes on, have tried putting her in tired, not tired, just had a bottle, nothing makes a difference.

I’m out of ideas, I have no idea what to do. I have tried more sleep in the day, less sleep in the day, earlier bedtime, later bedtime. Her bedroom is 21 degrees, blackout blind, white noise. I just don’t know why she can’t link her sleep cycles, this has never ever been an issue. When we put her down for bed she goes in the cot awake and we sit next to her cot until she falls asleep (usually 10 mins start to finish). She has a long wake window before bed, usually 2.5-3 hours but I make sure if she starts yawning we start bedtime routine.

Is this a phase? Am I doing something wrong? She eats solids really well, nothing in our routine has changed. I just want to spend some time with my husband or at least get a bit more sleep.

Desperate for help x

Time to sleep train. I promise future-you will be so grateful.

My child slept through the night from 3-5mo. Then suddenly didn't. I assume it was the "famous" 4 mo sleep regression a month late. So I'd assume your experience at 5.5 mo is this. We never found any reason for it.

Sleep gradually improved,then declined again around 9mo. DC didn't sleep through the night again reliably until aged around 1.5. It was all good again until around 3yrs and then they developed nightmares and anxiety and now still doesn't sleep through at 4.5.

The only things we found that made it tolerable for us were co-sleeping, letting go of the expectation that I'd get anything done in their supposed nap time, and going for a 30min bumpy walk somewhere quiet once a day - we'd recline the buggy and do it at the same time each day and they usually did sleep. I'd leave them outside once I got home if they were still asleep.

It sounds normal to me. It is frustrating though.

Could your daughter be car sick?

I really recommend Sound Asleep Guru on Instagram. She’s got sooo much free advice on her page and it’s all evidence based.

You are not doing anything wrong at all, it’s just what babies do.

Do what works best for your family and not what you think is the ‘right thing to do’. For me that was accepting things as they are and co sleeping to prioritise my own sleep. For others that might look like sleep training.

Not having an adult evening together is really hard but I promise it’s not forever.

Keep going, you are doing a fantastic job!!

We fully co slept from about 5.5months to 9 months, and now she does the first part in her cot. When we first tried leaving her upstairs it went terribly and I'd spend my whole evening trying! So she contact napped in the evening with us downstairs until she got too nosey and distracted, so then around 9 months we started doing an 8pm bedtime (asleep around 8:30pm) and it just clicked straight away and she often slept in her cot with no wake ups until between 2-5am. Now it's got a little worse again around 12m as her teeth are coming through and she usually joins us in bed around 12-2am.

They go through so much learning new skills, developmental milestones, separation anxiety, teething, possibly growing pains, illnesses etc that sleep is never linear. Not having evenings is hard but it won't last forever, so if contact napping and cosleeping is what works for now then I would go with that. I could never do any form of sleep training and our sleep has had patches of being great, you don't need to listen to sleep consultants that say if you don't do x y and z, your child will never sleep. I do know people who have had success with sleep training so you can of course go down that route if you choose too, but it's just not for me personally.

I had one who did not sleep. She is a grown woman and still does not do much sleeping! So I haven’t much advice other than she will move out and you will miss the company!
Do you think she could be be too warm? I think the advice is between 16 and 20degrees c and depending what she is wearing she could be overheating.

I was also going to suggest she might be too warm as 21 is slightly above the recommended room temp for baby to sleep in. What is she wearing?
Sorry I don’t know what else to suggest as it sounds horrendous and like you have tried lots of different things.
One thing I did try when my baby was having trouble with short day time naps was trying to get in there before the end of a sleep cycle and gently patting her as she was starting to stir. This seemed to help her settle back down into another cycle. Might work with night sleep too? Failing that, you might need to consider sleep training and don’t feel guilty about it. I have a feeling once you sort night sleep her day sleep will follow.

Thank you for your reply, sounds like you’ve had similar to us! Co-sleeping is fine, I’m just in so much pain in my neck shoulders and back and I wake up constantly to check she’s still breathing, so it’s not great sleep haha!

She’s definitely learning a lot at the moment and her top teeth are coming through, it just feels as though this has lasted so long now that I don’t even know if that’s the cause.

I won’t ever leave her to cry for any amount of time so I don’t think sleep training is for me, it just feels really hard when you’re in it doesn’t it?

It ranges between 20 and 21, she wear a vest, sleepsuit and 2.5 tog sleeping bag. She’s always been on the cooler side, I’ve had to add one more layer than guidance says or she cries from being too cold!

Thank you for the tip about patting, I fear I would spend my entire night doing this! She starts nursery next month and that will change absolutely everything so I think I’m just going to try and hold out until then.

Thank you for replying ❤️

I also don’t feel like I could sleep train, but there are more gentle ones out there eg care it out sleep consultant who you can find on Instagram (but be wary because there are also lots of ‘unresponsive’ coaches out there too). It has to be a voice you resonate with! But appreciate it can be very expensive for 1:1 calls.

My 10mo wakes every few hours and always has. Sometimes won’t go back down and lots of 1 hour stretches currently. It’s really hard but I also trust that it won’t last forever - teething almost constantly at the moment which could be making it particularly bad. I haven’t tried a gentle consultant but am thinking about it after age 1