Getting 8 month old to sleep through the night

[odiebush]

I'm so tired. DD is 8 mos and is still not sleeping through the night. For a while there she would sleep from 9pm to 4 or 5 am then go back to sleep for about 2 hours but now she's gone back to waking up at 2 or 3 to nurse and then again at 5 or 6. She still goes to sleep at around 9 but I'm not ready to sleep until 10 or so. I also have a hard time going back to sleep after she wakes up so it means that on a good night I get maybe 4 hours of good solid sleep most of the time less. I have to get up at 6:30 to get the other kids off to school.

I've had dh just go in her room and try to rock her back to sleep but she's made it clear that I'm the only one she wants. I'm at the end of my rope. I'm one of those people who doesn't function well without at least 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep so it's been a very LONG 8 months.

HELP!

Paula

[jknyc]

I'd put her to sleep much earlier, like 7 pm. She might be over tired. And make sure she is taking 2 naps during the day. And then you need to decide if you can handle crying or not. I do think that's the only way to get her to figure out how to do it on her own. If that's not acceptable to you, then the other option to get more sleep would be co-sleeping.

[odiebush]

I've tried putting her down about 8pm but with older kids involved in other activities I'm often finding myself getting home about 8 or 8:30 then having to put her to bed. It doesn't happen every evening but often enough that putting her down at that time is really hard to do.

Also she won't take 2 naps at all. I've tried but she just cries. She will sleep for about 3 hours every day but just all at once.

Thanks for your advice. I'll try to make it happen and see if we can do something to change this. We are on spring break this coming week so it would be a good time to try. We don't have much planned.

Paula

[jernlor]

Well, from one sleep deprived mommy to another...m

My ds is 14 months old and still not sleeping through the night but here are some of my thoughts, FWIW. First, I think that 9 is way too late for her to go to bed but I am a big proponent of putting kids/babies to bed early. I put my little one down at 7, and have ever since he was about 3 months or so. So that is one thing I would try is putting her to bed earlier, read Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Healty Babies (or something like that) for some additional ideas but he is also a huge proponent of early bed times.

I also think that night nursing at this age is more out of habit (comfort)than out of need. I know that my ds was about the same age as your baby when his night waking increased and he also wanted nothing to do with dh, just made him more mad. I think I more or less fed the issue but getting up with him and nursing him when he wanted. We ended up trying to let him cry it out when he was about 11 months old. It was AWFUL. He is very stubborn and I won't give the gory details but it was miserable and basically even after several weeks of it, only got him down to waking once, which compared to where we had been was an improvement. If you do want to know how we did the CIO thing, email me. There are tons of books out there on different techniques but basically they are all the same IMO.

So I think that unless you are willing to do some sort of CIO then it will be a difficult habit to break, sorry I can't offer better advice. My ds is 14 months and I am still nursing him and he wakes at least once a night to nurse, STILL and I don't see that stopping until I wean him. I have just accepted it at this point. I am, however, chronically sleep deprived and have been for 14 months, though it is better than a few months ago. I "feel your pain" so much it isn't even funny. My dd slept through the night at 8 weeks so this has been such a different experience for us.

Good luck with whatever you do and I hope you start getting some sleep soon!!

Lori
Jace 1/22/08

I'm so tired. DD is 8 mos and is still not sleeping through the night. For a while there she would sleep from 9pm to 4 or 5 am then go back to sleep for about 2 hours but now she's gone back to waking up at 2 or 3 to nurse and then again at 5 or 6. She still goes to sleep at around 9 but I'm not ready to sleep until 10 or so. I also have a hard time going back to sleep after she wakes up so it means that on a good night I get maybe 4 hours of good solid sleep most of the time less. I have to get up at 6:30 to get the other kids off to school.

I've had dh just go in her room and try to rock her back to sleep but she's made it clear that I'm the only one she wants. I'm at the end of my rope. I'm one of those people who doesn't function well without at least 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep so it's been a very LONG 8 months.

HELP!

Paula

[Reese14]

The book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

Really worked wonders here with both of my kids.

One of the main points in the book is to put them to be really early. If they get overtired, they are actually unable to sleep as well. I would try putting her to bed at 6:30-7:00.

As far as the CIO in the book, you have to do what is comfortable. I did very minimal CIO but it did work. Older DS was waking 8-10x a night from 4-6 months old and I thought I would lose my mind from sleep deprivation. Doing a max of 20 min of CIO just a few times and an early bedtime worked wonders. He slept through the night--12 hours straight without waking--within one week. It was amazing how it fell into place. From that point on, he was a great little napper/sleeper. I always got him to bed before he got tired.

Good luck--it is so hard when you are sleep deprived.

[augie]

Oh, I feel your pain! It is so hard. I need my sleep too. I will echo the importance of the early bedtime. With both of my boys - once the bedtime starts creeping later the morning wake-up time starts creeping earlier . . . then naps start getting shorter . . . then middle of the night wakings start happening - it quickly becomes a vicious cycle.

But getting baby down early with older sibs is hard. Sometimes my dh and I will split up and he'll finish up swimming lessons with older ds and I'll head home to get the little one to bed. We try to not mess with the bedtime more than once a week if possible (sometimes it's not).

HSH/HC is a great book - and doesn't really put a lot of emphasis on CIO if that's not for you.

Good luck!

[jamielea]

If you just can't bring yourself to do full CIO, this might help at least get rid of one waking. If she usually wakes at 2:00, do not go in until 2:15. Let her cry for 15 minutes. After a couple nights she we start waking at 2:15 on her own. Then push it to 2:30, and so on in 15 minute incriments. This is what I did for my son until I was ready to do CIO at about 18 months. HTH

[odiebush]

A question about CIO. How do you do it without waking other siblings? I've done it a few times and she wakes up her 5 y/o brother in the next room.

Also putting her to bed so early would mean that I would never get to see my other kids practices, lessons, games or concerts. For example, I have never even met ds's trombone teacher because of the baby. His lessons are too late in the day. We have these activities at least 2 or 3 times per week. Dh does help some but there are nights he has to be away from home and I'm stuck doing it all alone. I try not to over schedule my other kids but with 3 others and they have one activity each plus a church activity per week it really adds up! I can't say that they can't go to such an activity because I have to be home to put the baby to bed. They need to do the things their friends are doing too. I have a 15y/o and a 12 y/o in addition to the 5y/o.

[Reese14]

I'm sure it is tough with older kids

You are running after dinner to activities with kids that age so the only suggestion I would have would be a tag-team with DH. My situation was easier because my older DS was only about 4-5 when we had to do sleep training with my little guy-so no night activities at that age.

Last fall my older DS was in a sport and my 4.5 year old STILL needed his early (7pm) bedtime. I found another mom and carpooled with her. It was easier for her if I took the kids to the sport and she brought them home. It was a win-win and a perfect carpool match.

As far as CIO, here's what I did with my older DS, if I remember all the details correctly...LOL!

DS was 6m and getting up 8-12x a night. It went on for 2 months. I was seriously losing my mind from sleep deprivation. I gave him a bottle, rocked and calmed him and put him in the crib. If he woke up within 3 hours, I let him CIO 20 min. If it was after 3 hours, I went in and fed him. I had no problem with feeding him through the night if he was hungry, but going in to soothe every hour got real old real quick.

After a week of doing that, he just stopped waking at all. Not even for a bottle. I was shocked it worked so well. I would have found it a success if I was only getting up 2-3x a night. LOL!

I really truly believe the most important part was putting him to bed at 6:30-7:00pm. He never got overtired that way and fell into a really great cycle.

Good luck. This is so hard. And I can see how complicated it is by the age span of your other children. I think it does make it much harder for you to balance their activities with the baby's bedtime.

Hang in there!

[anncook158]

Co-sleeping essentially means sleeping in close proximity to your child. It may be in the same bed or just in the same room. There are some ways of co-sleeping that families use. Some tips and aspects about co-sleeping are here: http://motherhow.com/a-co-sleeping-w...t-appropriate/