Help! 8 month old suddenly waking every two hours through the night again!

[emskaboo]

Hi All,

We've been working hard at the whole helping him settle to sleep himself and with the help of NCSS and Andrea Grace he now settles to sleep himself with minimal patting etc in his own cot. But the last four nights he has woken up every two hours and it is driving me spare (he used to wake just at 11ish, 3ish and 5ish. The HV insists I need to stop feeding him at night, my mum reckons it is just teething and will pass and I'm so tired Ican't think. Any advice?

Should I try and stop feeding him, I'm knackered anyway so what the hey, and if I do any advice on how? (He's on three meals a day solids and he bfs four times inc 11pm.)

anyone?

Try adding a solid supper before bedtime. A yoghurt is good. Definitely don't go back to feeding during the night.

I reckon there's a good chance your DS is slap bang in middle of a sleep regression. What's a sleep regression? I didn't know what they were until I read about them on another site (which I also love) called Ask Moxie. Attempts to insert link moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/02/qa_what_are_sle.html

Basically they are a developmental spurt thing and kick in most viciously at 4 and 8 months. The idea of sleep regressions makes a lot of sense to me and certainly affected my DD hugely. Whilst knowing about them doesn't stop them from happening, at least there's some comfort to be had from knowing it's not something you're doing/not doing and that basically it will right itself.

Have you tried just leaving him a bit to see if he settles himself again? Or is he screaming the place down? He may have got used to getting picked up again.

I had a similar thing with my first at about 7 months or so and was advised to basically try and get as much food him in the day as possible, including as I said a supper, we found a (full-size) yoghurt was least hassle to organise. Although it meant yet another feeding time it was worth it for better sleeping. And it worked, baby slept.

There's always controlled crying or something similar, depending on your willingness to do it. Or just go through your patting routine each time in the tnight. Certainly they say they shouldn't need to wake for food after six months.

Hope you manage to find a solution. It's so tiring it impacts on your whole life. Good luck.

Thanks for the link, very interesting, does make me feel less pants! The yoghurt is a good plan too, maybe I should do this just before his bath? He just won't resettle on his own, and I'm a big girly wuss who can't let him cry (have done a bit through total sleep induced inertia and it doesn't help!) I think we're going to try resettling without feeding if he wakes within 1.5 hours of a feed and see how that goes, wish me luck!

Hi emskaboo just wondered if things had got better - my ds has been doing exactly the same for a month - last night first night he didn't wake up - but before that 3/4 times a night needed to be re-settled - am so tired but am hoping last night was the beginning of a new phase! I have tried everything - less sleep in the day, more food, slightly later bed time, nurofen etc etc but nothing seems to make a difference. Anyway hope life a bit better for you both now.