Why does my 8 month old sleep so much worse in the second half of the night?

[IlanaK]

Ds3 has never been a good sleeper. For the first 6 months he was in bed with me feeding through the night. From 6 months, we moved him into an Amby hammock by the side of our bed. He is in a routine now where he goes to bed after a feed between 7:30 and 8pm. He will then normally sleep around 5 hours. He then wakes and needs a feed to get back to sleep. I take him into bed with me to feed and then dh puts him back into the hammock. He settles immediately so long as I have fed him. But after this, he will wake every two hours on a good night and hourly on a bad night (like now!). So, why can he do 5 hours in the first half of the night, but get so unsettled in the second half?

I am sure it is not milk he needs by the way. He eats well during the day.

Hello IlanaK, I'm not sure if this helps at all but my son did exactly this until he was about 5-6 months. One good stretch then rubbish after that - and the good stretch was invariably before we wanted to go to bed! But slowly it just started getting longer - I didn't do anything in particular. A couple of times he went til midnight, then 1am, then back to 11ish... and so on and so on - one step forward and another back, but the second stretch of the night seemed to be getting longer and more consistent too. Now at 7 months he's waking once - but starting the day at 5.30am! I know my boy is younger than yours but it does sound like a very similar pattern...

Now we're down to just one waking I actually feel ready to finally tackling the feeding to sleep thing and last night didn't feed but sat and shhed him / stroked his head for what felt like a very long time. It's hard but I do think it's working - he just went down for a nap very very peacefully.

Sorry, not a technical explanation but at least it bumps your post for someone else who knows more!

I think it's normal for babies to have their best stretch of sleep when they first go to sleep. DS2 does this, a long stretch followed by shorter ones (he's 3 and a half months). If you're tired, can you go to bed earlier to make the most of his 5 hours stretch? I think the idea is that the first stretch gradually gets longer.