What am i doing wrong??? 8mth old sleep pattern

[appletree]

I am starting to get desperate for some sleep, what on earth is going on with my 8 month old? For months and months now he has been waking up spot on 10pm, 1am, 4:30am, 5:30am and 6:30am.

Not a single stretch of 5 hours to be seen! I have friends with newborns and younger babies getting far more sleep than i am.

From day 1 he has self settled in his cot, goes to bed at 7pm with a nice night time routine of bathtime, boob at 6:30, quiet play time, saying good night and lights out. He has no problems self settling so i don't understand why he keeps waking up at night and not going back to sleep without a feed!

I am starting to get frustrated and don't know what to do! The only advice i got from the CHN at our 6 month check was that so long as he was in our room and i kept going to him and feeding him nothing would ever change. But i want him in our room, and feeding him is the only thing that gets him back to sleep! I bring him into our bed at the 4:30 feed because he won't go back to sleep after this one, then i have 2 kids in bed with me, so i really am not getting ANY sleep from this point on in the night.

I would love some suggestions on what i can try?

[beckoes]

i remember at 8 months old DDs sleep when crazy and it felt like it was worse than when she was a newborn. i think your doing the right thing and as much as it doesnt help in anyway, i think its pretty normal for some children to have a hard time sleeping through the night. DD used to be in her own room at 8 months but the sleep got SO bad that i ended up bringing her back into my room so i could get a bit of sleep and id bring her in with me on the first wake up, i got a bit more sleep and the wakeups thinned out a bit. hope it gets better for you soon.

[sloane]

i don't think you're doing anything wrong.

i have done exactly the same as you & while i still get frustrated & DS' sleep still isn't great (at almost 18 months), we have definitely seen an improvement in the last month or so. yes, it's taken a while but we've gone from 1.5-2 hourly wake ups all night to now getting a 4 or 5 hour first stretch (then back to 1,5-2 hourly) and last week we even got 8-5.

we haven't really changed much - i think things did improve once we put DS on a mattress on the floor of his room so we can lie next to him to settle him.

have you checked out the no cry sleep solution?

night weaning may help but i think they need to be ready & imo, 8 months is still too young.

ultimately, i believe they do it when they're ready (unless you want to force the issue with less gentle methods)

[~Kim~]

appletree, you aren't doing anything wrong at all.
Like the PPs said, that is an awful time for them sleep wise. They are learning so much that their little brains just can't shut down of a night time. Plus they are growing/developing more than they can intake...means lots of extra feeds.
You are doing exactly what he needs.

[MummaSue]

DD is 8 months old too and her sleep is NUTS! She's waking 2 hourly in the night. We co-sleep so it's not a huge problem but I'm starting to look a bit tired LOL.

I also feel your pain on getting bubby back to sleep. She won't be settled any other way than feeding. And at the moment I'm not game enough to try other ways because I fear she'd be awake for the day. When she has recovered from her cold, I am going to follow the No Cry Sleep Solution to the letter - I have our plan written out (haha, I know how naive I sound) and am hoping that something changes. I don't mind the night waking, I've come to accept that this is the way things are but I'd like to have some other strategies in place to see if she can get back to sleep without feeding or sleep for longer spells. The thing with DD is though, she has massive feeds in the night! She's genuinely hungry!

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