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

dibuzz

All mine have been poor sleepers one of whom only slept 2 hours at night although nobody believed me at the time. They didn't sleep much in the day either, with the youngest my health visitor said there's no way a baby can be sleeping so little but declined my kind offer of letting her take him for a night.
Luckily though he did start to sleep through at 12 years old and it did get easier once he could just come down on his own at 4am to watch TV or play with his lego.
Now he's 16 of course, I struggle to get him to leave his bed :mad:
With the older ones I'm sure they wouldn't have been as bad if I'd been allowed to let them cry but I always had to go straight to them in case they woke ex up or I'd pay for it later
My youngest just didn't need the sleep though.

ironman1

So grateful for this advice. Will run it past the missus later. Thanks so much!

dibuzz

Forgot to say, good luck, not all kids are like mine thank goodness

barbiedoll

Yes, he's going to bed far too early, you either get evenings free but silly o'clock wake-up calls or you sacrifice your evenings and get a lie-in. (If you count 6-7am as a lie-in!)

Some kids simply don't need as much sleep as others. My son would not sleep more than 8-9 hours at a stretch and that was when he was two and older, as a baby, he didn't sleep for longer than 4 hours at a time.

Don't put your baby down to sleep after his bath, keep him up until 9pm or even 10pm. Give him another meal or his last bottle and put him to bed. He'll probably still wake up early, his body clock is set now but it will change gradually and hopefully you'll start to get a bit more sleep yourself.

You and his mum have my sympathies, I don't know how my husband stuck with me, I was so moody for lack of sleep, so I do understand how you feel. It does get easier though!

victory

The bedtime is too early, no milk and more runny porridge my health visitor said it lines the stomach more and makes them more sleepy, a soothing bath with lavender to send them blissfully off to sleep, our best tip ever was the porridge we never thought it would work but it did and bedtime more like 7/8pm:D

pinkladyof66

our 3 year old has bath at 6.30pm and is in bed by 7pm and asleep by 7.30 he wakes in the night sometimes to have his nappy changed but apart from that he sleeps til 7am every night. He even has an hour or two kip around 2pm in the afternoon.

Guess we must be lucky

our son has baby lavender bath and also lavender body lotion massaged in to calm him down by the time he has his little drink of milk he is already for bed - however our little one is on the go the whole time he is up.

Try doing some tiring out activities

susancs

victory wrote: »

The bedtime is too early, no milk and more runny porridge my health visitor said it lines the stomach more and makes them more sleepy, a soothing bath with lavender to send them blissfully off to sleep, our best tip ever was the porridge we never thought it would work but it did and bedtime more like 7/8pm:D

Great advice which worked for us too in regard to the porridge. The waking up for milk during the night was because the baby had got into a routinue of expecting it-like as adults we begin to feel hungry often at our lunchtime. Ready Brek Porridge (made with milk) fed just before sleep worked really well as they sleep well on a full stomach.

Ladyshopper

All I can suggest is move bedtime back a bit? Maybe start gradually so they don't notice. Its funny, I was only talking to my DD (now aged 13!) about what good sleepers her and her brother were. They both slept through from around 9 weeks, and from 6pm - 8am, plus naps in the day. I was a great believer in routines, but I do also think there is a certain amount of luck involved - some babies/children seem to need a lot of sleep and some don't. Mind did and still do, they go to bed pretty early and will lie around as late as possible on the weekends/holidays!

*Redhead*

Whisky?

Seriously, I'd try putting him to bed later. We did with my DD, she went to bed about 9pm with a little feed about 3, but then slept till about 8am.

Then we gradually made it earlier, and took out the feed when she was eating solids.

Now at 5 years old she goes from half 7pm till 8/9 the following morning. It does get easier i promise.

sooty&sweep

Hi

I agree with others and say you could try moving his bedtime back a little. Neither of mine went to bed much before 8pm but I'm not a morning person so I prefered to have them round in the evening to get a lie in in the morning.
We used to "force" them to have a decent nap at lunchtime to ensure they were able to stay up a little later. We'd take them out either in the car or pushchair.
We also used to give them their last feed as we were going to bed at 10.30 / 11pm ish rather than waiting for them to wake up. I think they call it a dream/sleep feed ?
Also my son used to fall asleep taking a feed then wake up a few hours later wanting more. So I used to feed first until he'd fallen asleep then change his nappy which woke him up alittle and I could then get more milk down him and he'd sleep longer.

I'm afraid I can only say what worked for me and unfortunately there are no magic solutions. All babies are so different and its about what works for you.

Good luck I remember how hard the sleep deprivation was.

Jen