Tips on getting 8 month old to sleep more...

ironman1

Hopefully someone can help! After nearly eight months our first baby still hasn't slept a full night. He is a great kid, always smiling and everyone loves visiting him etc but the only downside is he'll wake at least twice a night.

My oh is on Maternity and spends every day with him. He is crawling and is very lively. Every night he has a bath about 6pm after his dinner and then drinks 6/7 ounces of SMA full blue milk. Then he'll sleep till about 11pm, in his own room. Then we'll give him more milk and if we are lucky he'll sleep till 4am (never later) and just wants to get up and play.

Don't get me wrong we love being parents but it causes me to be shattered at work and the oh is constantly tired and gets moody.

Any advice would be welcome. He is teething but doesn't wake crying just banging about in his cot shouting! My oh is a qualified Nursery nurse so I don't really get a say when it comes to ideas etc. But would love some on here!

THANKS

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nonnatus

Maybe put some favourite toys in the cot and then (horror of horrors) ignore the crying and whingeing unless it escalates to a point where the little guy is clearly distressed?

It's a problem at that age because they can't tell the time! If you wanted to be hardcore about it, you could do some positive re-enforcing. So make sure the room is dark like it would be at 4am (!!) and get a night light on timer. Have it set to come on and immediately enter the room, make a fuss of baby etc. Practice this A LOT until the little chap starts to associate the light coming on with the house waking up in a good mood. Then start having the light come on a little further from 4am until you get to a wake up time you can all live with.

It's all very Jo Frost and certainly takes patience but it also worked on my dogs!

FBaby

To be very honest, I'm not sure there is a miracle cure. I've been there with my two children, both were bad sleepers as babies and it was hard, especially as I went back to work when the first was 9 months old and the 2nd was 5 months.

What you could try is gradually shifting your babies bedtime. Maybe he just gets enough sleep from 6pm to 4am. I know this is not easy, tried with mine because they get set with a particular time and will end up very cranky and then struggle to go to sleep anywhere which can result in an even worse night, but if you do it very gradually, say 10 minutes every 3-4 days, it might help.

Good luck, mine are now 12 and 9, they didn't start sleeping past 7am until recently and look at me, I'm the one up

ironman1

Sounds worth a try, thanks! I think we are to blame for always picking him up when he makes a noise. But I just cant bare to let him cry! He starts the choking sounds and really goes nuts.

But as I said i'm not after miracles, he's a baby but we know so many other couples who reckon their babies of the same age sleep like 7-7am!
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spaghetti_monster

Hi there,
Just wanted to say that I've got every sympathy, although no bright ideas, sorry! Babies are all so different and there are so many ideas of what to do...

Mine is currently 10 months old - happy, smiley, generally quite calm in nature, doesn't cry much, lively and active, eats and drinks well. But he only started sleeping through about a month ago and actually I don't really know why!
When I would look around for ideas you read loads of stuff "I did x/y or z and he started sleeping through the very next night!!", none of which really worked.
I guess he just started doing it in his own time!

My only useful advice would be to perhaps take turns with your OH and sleep the odd night in spare room/sofa where you can't hear him so well and get a good nights sleep in.

Just to add: mine sleeps through from about 8pm - 7ish. Although today it was 6am and another day this week it was 5am (teeth!). So I guess if I put him to bed at 6pm he might well be up at 4am!

SammyD_2

To be blunt, and it is not what anyone wants to hear, but to a large extent it is just plain luck. While you can do everything you can to promote sleep, which is what others have already suggested, I don't think there is anything else you can do. My son was exactly the same, woke at 11, 2 and then up for good at 5. He then settled to a routine of waking at 6 (with the other two wake ups as well). He is exactly the same now as he was then (he is 8!). My daughter was the opposite, but did not sleep through the night til she was 18 months but is a consistently good sleeper.

I think the better thing to do is to focus on strategies so you can cope (eg take turns getting up) rather than put your energies into something that you cannot actually control like getting your little one to sleep. It is a hard time, and you have my sympathies. I was comforted once when I read a piece saying the times spent with your baby in the middle of the night when you feel like you two are the only ones awake will be some of your treasured memories. And it was right, even if it didnt seem that way at the time!

madnessandmayhem

ironman1 wrote: »

But as I said i'm not after miracles, he's a baby but we know so many other couples who reckon their babies of the same age sleep like 7-7am!
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I bet these are the same parents that reckon their children can recite the periodic table by heart from 18 months and speak 24 different languages by 5??!! lol (I am only joking I do know SOME babies sleep that length of time!)
As you said he is just a baby, and all babies are different. the important thing is not to worry about what other babies are doing.
Does he have a comforter-dummy, bottle etc that he relys on to get to sleep?? if so, he could be waking and not being able to settle himself so he is waking you up to help him. If he is waking up genuinley hungry, have you tried giving him a bit of weetabix/porridge before he goes to bed??
You totally have my sympathy-ds 3 is also 8 months (well 8 months tomorrow!) and he has not been sleeping well at all lately, but he is teething and has a cold, so I will let him off lol
usually he would wake once-we have had about 3 nights where he has gone all night, but there was no pattern to it at all lol. But the past 2 weeks he has been waking twice in the night, then up at 5, which takes it's toll!
I found that once my older 2 boys got to around a year, they were less interested in milk, and ore interested in food which really helpes their sleeping!
So hang in there-it really wont last forever!!

(oh, and if you do stumble across a magic formula to get him to sleep all night, PLEASE let me in on it!!)

Phils_debt

My dd is 4 and she still wakes up :rotfl:,our dd 10 used to sleep from 7pm till 6-7am from a week old ;some are sleepers some arnt we have a mix.
In the 4 years i think that i and dd(4) have had about 12 nights unwoken

The wife on the other hand is a heavy sleeper so doesnt experience it or very good at pretending to be asleep lol

Spendless

I've got a nearly 12yo boy who has started sleeping 'properly' these Christmas holidays.
From what you're saying your LO sleeps from 6pm-11pm (5 hours) and wakes for a feed then sleeps again till around 4am. That's upto 10 hours in total with a break in the middle. I think you need to look at changing his bed time to one that suits you both, bath-time too if that is what makes him drowsy -otherwise you'll not keep him awake after one.

Carl31

we had this problem for ages, although our little-un was older than 8 months
We got a sleeping bag for her to sleep in, and used Jo Frosts technique of staying in the room and gradually moving out. It takes perseverance, but it does work. all kids do the choking and sick thing, you have to hold your ground
I can safely say after a week or so of getting up and using the technique and sleeping bag, she now sleeps right through and has done for a while. Still has a little paddy at bedtime, but only for a minute or so

pukkamum

You really need to treat the 4am waking as you would a 2 am waking you wouldn't get up with baby and start the day at that time.
I would also stop giving milk in the night at 8 mths i assume baby is eating three meals a day and should not need the extra milk, baby has now got used to being fed to go back to sleep.

As far as letting baby cry, you say you could not bear to let baby cry but a lot of babies will always cry when getting themselves to sleep, it is called crying down and is a way for baby to release excess energy before sleeping, a little like us tossing and turning.
If you can't listen to her crying then i suggest sitting by the cot for a few nights, whilst baby cries this way you can 'read' her sleep signals ie you can tell by the pitch and tone of crying whether she is actually upset or just crying down.

My LO has always cried herself to sleep, i sat by her cot for a good few nights and by observing her i realised that a lot of the cries i heard when i would have come and soothed her by picking her up etc were cries she made just before sleeping so i know now that when i hear that cry she is just getting herself back to sleep, and had i come in and picked her up then the crying routine would just start again.

This is a method i have always used in my maternity nursing too and does work with perseverance and patience, it can also help to have a tag team approach with your other half as it can get a bit much sitting by the cot whilst they cry i usually find a signal through the monitor to the parent downstairs to take over is essential.