8 and a half month old not sleeping through the night

[katherz]

Hi,

This is my first post and am desperately hoping someone can give me some advice. I have an eight and a half month old baby (have 2 children under two) and he has never slept through the night. When he was first born he only woke up once through the night but now wakes up three times a night as a minimum (sometimes more) and will not go back to sleep without a feed. (I was breastfeeding but he is now on formula and has a breastfeed once a day in the morning.)

I desperately would like some advice on how to get him through the night as I have not hand more than 4 hours sleep together in 8 and a half months, my husband and I were so tired by the constant waking and worried that we were disturbing him through the night that we are now sleeping on an air bed on our living room floor. When he wakes up he has at least 4 ounces of milk before falling back to sleep. He eats loads through the day so I don't think its an issue with lack of food but am worried about cutting out his feeds at night as don't want to not feed him if he is genuinely hungry. Should I control cry him, my health visitor has suggested this but as I have two young children if I leave him cry I just end up with two children awake rather than one

Any ideas gratefully received, thanks x

Probably not what you were hoping for but my DD is 8.5m and I still feed her 1-2 hourly through the night, some are big feeds and some are just to go back to sleep. My lifesaver has been cosleeping and the lying down feed. so its an option, but perhaps not that desirable .....But when it works well its like she and i barely wake, so it feels like i sleep for longer lengths

If he is eating well in the day, that is reassuring. With both of mine I still did a feed at bedtime at this age AND also the 11pm dream feed. If they woke at anytime after that I would offer bonjela teething gel first and see if they'd go back to sleep. Often they would. I preferred to not give them another feed after 11pm until 6am if possible. Maybe 5am if desperate. It was a stage with both of mine and before long they stopped waking at 2 or 3am completely.

You could try offering just water, they won't like it but it is effective

If poorly I always gave milk if they woke distressed and re-trained once better. Just so you know. I didn't want to be cruel as milk can be so comforting if feeling rubbish.

Both mine dropped the 11pm feed before turning age 1, just weren't interested anymore in it. I just let them drop it naturally if that makes sense?

sorry you probably don't want to hear this, but my 21mo has slept through once ever

Read this thread here it'll make you feel like you're not the only one.

As well as these lovely ladies on here.

As your baby is bottle fed most of the time, co-sleeping wouldn't work for you on feeding them lying down as tiredpooky suggested, so you can both sleep. Well unless you started BF again at night

Co-sleeping they do tend to latch on and off more as they smell your milk, but that's not applicable in your situation really.

Sorry - cant offer any advice. But it will get better - you need to grab sleep when you can and go to bed when they do so you get a number of 2-4 hour slots!! We have 3 dds - dd1 didnt sleep through till she was 4.5 years old and even then it was erratic. dd2 was about 1.5 years, and dd3 is still not at 4.5 years old!! They all went through a stage of getting up at 4am too (and no sleeps in the day or anything - they were up and awake and ready to go). You will get used to it and it will gradually get a lot better than it was. Our saving grace was that one of us would sleep either downstairs on the sofa or on their floors once a week and respond to children and the other would get a full night sleep once a week. It helped no end to just accept that some children need less sleep and find ways to get enough yourself. Even now dd1 and 2 need far less sleep than most of their friends and dd1 is a very disturbed sleeper. I think a lot of it is genetic - I am a crap sleeper and always have been - apparently used to read till about 2am when a child and then sleep for 5 hours and then be up to start the day!!

Thanks for all your advice and support- good advice teaandcakeplease. I did controlled crying with him last night and was the first night that he didn't have abottle after 11.30, did take me over an hour and a half tho. I really don't think he's waking cos he's hungry I think its gone to just waking up out of habit expecting a bottle. Hopefully tonight wil be better!!

That's good

It takes a few days usually to break a habit.

Some mums are much kinder than me and continue feeding at night for a long long time though

I'm just mean As long as I know they're eating well in the day, in a good routine and I've given them pain relief if teething, I always pushed on through with PUPD if not due a feed