8 month old baby still restless at night
Discussion
Same as everyone else has said really and I feel your pain. My son, now 6 years old, used to wake 5 or 6 times each night until he was about 18 months old. I felt like a zombie all the time. Then it got slightly better, but it wasn't until he was 3 years old he regularly slept through. Like one of the other posters above, he has also now been diagnosed with fairly serious food allergies to nuts, eggs & sesame seeds. So could have been something that my wife, or he, was eating.
Yes it takes it's toll on your sanity, your work and your relationship! But we managed to hang in there. Now we have a 9 month old daughter and she's better, normally wakes up once or twice a night, sometimes sleeps through. Took us 6 years to have the second child because we weren't sure we could deal with it again!
Everyone tells you it will get better and it will, but there are no guarantees about when. I adapted my routine to start and finish work early and then go to bed as early as I could to get my sleep, because I knew I would be up very early every day.
Yes it takes it's toll on your sanity, your work and your relationship! But we managed to hang in there. Now we have a 9 month old daughter and she's better, normally wakes up once or twice a night, sometimes sleeps through. Took us 6 years to have the second child because we weren't sure we could deal with it again!
Everyone tells you it will get better and it will, but there are no guarantees about when. I adapted my routine to start and finish work early and then go to bed as early as I could to get my sleep, because I knew I would be up very early every day.
Huntsman said:
Baby's don't read the books or mumsnet or PH!
Have you tried co-sleeping in your bed? I know alot say its dangerous, but worth trying, it may be the little mite is lonely.
Ours is 8 months corrected, 10 months actual, will go 5 mins in a cot but most of the night in our bed.
We had the same thing with our 10 week premature boy. Wouldn't sleep through in his cot, but co-sleeping really helped.Have you tried co-sleeping in your bed? I know alot say its dangerous, but worth trying, it may be the little mite is lonely.
Ours is 8 months corrected, 10 months actual, will go 5 mins in a cot but most of the night in our bed.
Maybe pre-term babies are lonely at night! All that time being checked regularly in the neo-natal ward?
throt said:
You need to start off the way you mean to go though. So many parents make a rod for their own backs.
Too much Nanny Culture from parents theses days. Some kids when they hit 3 years wear the trousers, they got the silly parents on pieces of string.
A lot of that. ^^^^Too much Nanny Culture from parents theses days. Some kids when they hit 3 years wear the trousers, they got the silly parents on pieces of string.
Also stress at home won't help either, if the child isn't sleeping then everyone gets ratty and stressed because they are tired, kids sense this and the vicious cycle continues.
I know some kids have deeper issues that may cause poor sleeping, but surely not as many as you hear when you hear about poor sleepers.
All my relaxed friends have had good sleepers, the stressy ones (my brother in law) and the ones that make things harder for themselves with molly coddling and pandering etc (my sister), tend to have poor sleepers.
throt said:
You need to start off the way you mean to go though. So many parents make a rod for their own backs.
Too much Nanny Culture from parents theses days. Some kids when they hit 3 years wear the trousers, they got the silly parents on pieces of string.
I agree. We made so many mistakes with our first son and as a result, gave in to what was "easier" at the time. That meant he wouldn't sleep unless there was total silence and he also slept in our bed until he was 3! My 8 month old is set in his routine for now and goes in his cot in his room at 9pm and comes in with us for a morning snooze about 5 or 6am. I'll not allow him to sleep in our bed through the night like I did with my first. They learn very quickly and also learn that if they whinge and you give in, they get what they want and keep on doing it. Just makes matters worse.Too much Nanny Culture from parents theses days. Some kids when they hit 3 years wear the trousers, they got the silly parents on pieces of string.
KernowSid said:
Huntsman said:
Baby's don't read the books or mumsnet or PH!
Have you tried co-sleeping in your bed? I know alot say its dangerous, but worth trying, it may be the little mite is lonely.
Ours is 8 months corrected, 10 months actual, will go 5 mins in a cot but most of the night in our bed.
We had the same thing with our 10 week premature boy. Wouldn't sleep through in his cot, but co-sleeping really helped.Have you tried co-sleeping in your bed? I know alot say its dangerous, but worth trying, it may be the little mite is lonely.
Ours is 8 months corrected, 10 months actual, will go 5 mins in a cot but most of the night in our bed.
Maybe pre-term babies are lonely at night! All that time being checked regularly in the neo-natal ward?
With ours (just turning 10 months) we found putting her in her cot and letting her grumble a bit if need be worked the best. Constant picking up and rocking and attention just kept her awake and made her more grumpy. We didn't let her cry indefinitely but gave it a few minutes before checking unless super angry. From 3 or 4 moths of age she would happily settle to sleep at 7pm and not wake up properly til 7am or later the next day. Can't remember the last time she needed a night feed.
So maybe try this?
So maybe try this?
C0ffin D0dger said:
ISO51200 said:
Hey all,
Not sure if I'm posting this for advice or more for moral support lol, but our 8 month old daughter wakes around 5-6 times a night, someone I was speaking to the other day said their 11 week old was sleeping through
The lack of sleep is starting to affect everyone in the house, it's testing our relationship to its limits
Is it normal for her to still be this restless?
I've stayed in the room to see if its noise related but there's nothing there to set her off.
Yep, perfectly normal, I haven't had a proper nights sleep in over 5 years, you get used to it in the end. Everyone says it gets easier but then you do something daft like have another one, and then even when that one is three it sometimes still gets up in the middle of the night shortly followed by the click of the light switch on the landing and it arriving in our room to get into bed. This is followed by me departing to get into its bed (buy full sized single beds for your kids as soon as they are out of a cot). When it eventually cracks sleeping through then I'm sure we'll have other stuff to keep us awake and then before you know it they'll be going out of an evening and you'll be waiting up for them to come home or worse still having to go and pick them up from somewhere.....Not sure if I'm posting this for advice or more for moral support lol, but our 8 month old daughter wakes around 5-6 times a night, someone I was speaking to the other day said their 11 week old was sleeping through
The lack of sleep is starting to affect everyone in the house, it's testing our relationship to its limits
Is it normal for her to still be this restless?
I've stayed in the room to see if its noise related but there's nothing there to set her off.
Many people also tip toe around their sleeping babies "don't flush the toilet, the baby is sleeping", "can you talk quieter, the baby is sleeping", "don't slam the door, the baby is sleeping", "be quiet when you go upstairs, the baby is sleeping".
They then end up only sleeping when it is deathly quiet and any tiny noise wakes them, we could hoover our kids room when they were asleep and they wouldn't stir.
They then end up only sleeping when it is deathly quiet and any tiny noise wakes them, we could hoover our kids room when they were asleep and they wouldn't stir.
ISO51200 said:
Someone I was speaking to the other day said their 11 week old was sleeping through
Some people love to play up their babies 'achievements', don't forget that.We had a friend who said theirs was sleeping through, but they meant going to sleep around 11pm and waking at 5am! Ours was going to sleep at 7pm, waking at 10-11 and again at 4-5, then waking properly at 7 at the time, which isn't 'sleeping through', but I know which is better for the parents!
The only thing to consider is whether what yours is doing is 'normal' or whether there's a cause you can fix. Ours got much worse around 4 months because my wife's milk supply dropped, the waking was 'normal' for a baby of that age, but was basically caused by falling asleep when he hadn't finished feeding. A bottle made a huge difference.
HTP99 said:
All my relaxed friends have had good sleepers, the stressy ones (my brother in law) and the ones that make things harder for themselves with molly coddling and pandering etc (my sister), tend to have poor sleepers.
Even that is a sweeping generalisation. Our VERY stressy daughter has a daughter who did the sleeping through the night practically from day one thing - could be fed without properly waking up. Now she's like an angry teenager if you wake her in the morning!Our other daughter is the epitome of calm, but her daughter is an extremely random sleeper. One night she'll sleep fine the next she'll be up three or four times - she's 21 months old and has always been the same.
Weirdly when they stay with us (we have them for a night or two every week) I sleep better - when they're not here I wake around 3.30AM and struggle to get back to sleep but when they are here I sleep until the alarm.
My first son, from a previous relationship, we did things equally as parents. If she was working late and he started crying and didn't need feeding, changing or comforting then I just let him cry it out. By the time he was 12 months old I'd weaned him off his dummy, he was sleeping in his own room and he would sleep the night through. Piece of cake.
Contrast that to my current relationship and our two and half year old. My partner insists on doing everything, I don't get a look in, she molly coddles the s
t out of him. Any suggestion over the last two years plus to just let him cry it out was met with disdain. As a result, he's an absolute nightmare.
He has never had day naps, honestly, it's like he's on speed. He's up at about 7.30am (often earlier) and that's it all day, non stop. We put him to bed around 7.45pm and he's usually asleep for about 8pm-8.15pm. Most of the time he doesn't want to go to sleep, I swear he'd stay up 24/7 given the chance. He usually wakes up again around 12.30am and she brings him into our bed. Quite often he will wake back up around 3am and could be awake for another 2 hours or so.
And that's progress.
Up until a few months ago my partner wouldn't even move him into his own room and prior to that he was in our room, would be asleep for 7.30pm, awake again at around 9.30pm, up till we went to bed at midnight and then up again repeatedly throughout the night. It was exhausting.
Like someone said, people make it harder than it needs to be. Ideally I wanted him in his own room when we first moved into this place 18 months ago so that he'd settle into a routine earlier but what I want is largely irrelevant so everything has to be a million times more difficult than necessary.
Contrast that to my current relationship and our two and half year old. My partner insists on doing everything, I don't get a look in, she molly coddles the s
t out of him. Any suggestion over the last two years plus to just let him cry it out was met with disdain. As a result, he's an absolute nightmare. He has never had day naps, honestly, it's like he's on speed. He's up at about 7.30am (often earlier) and that's it all day, non stop. We put him to bed around 7.45pm and he's usually asleep for about 8pm-8.15pm. Most of the time he doesn't want to go to sleep, I swear he'd stay up 24/7 given the chance. He usually wakes up again around 12.30am and she brings him into our bed. Quite often he will wake back up around 3am and could be awake for another 2 hours or so.
And that's progress.
Up until a few months ago my partner wouldn't even move him into his own room and prior to that he was in our room, would be asleep for 7.30pm, awake again at around 9.30pm, up till we went to bed at midnight and then up again repeatedly throughout the night. It was exhausting.
Like someone said, people make it harder than it needs to be. Ideally I wanted him in his own room when we first moved into this place 18 months ago so that he'd settle into a routine earlier but what I want is largely irrelevant so everything has to be a million times more difficult than necessary.
Some babies just won't cry it out, though. We tried this with our first, but he just became increasingly hysterical for hours and hours and hours, every single night, to the point where he was going to rupture something, or have some kind of accident. It was utterly, utterly, unspeakably unbearable. It was becoming cruelty, pure and simple. We had to find another way, it just didn't work. For weeks we tried letting him cry out. Week after week. Months maybe even. It was so long that he was eventually old enough to stand up in the cot. We were slowly turning on each other, almost murderous and suicidal with exhaustion. This was not a piece of cake. The only other option was acceptance of the situation, and letting him grow out of it, which took years but was preferable to running the risks of the child damaging his self in his rage. I just wish we hadn't tried to follow the cry-it-out advice for so long. We wanted it to work, it just didn't. I think the neighbours (semi-detached) were on the point of calling the Police/social services.
We're all OK now, he's 11, the second one is 8, and they're fine.
We're all OK now, he's 11, the second one is 8, and they're fine.
SilverSixer said:
Some babies just won't cry it out, though. We tried this with our first, but he just became increasingly hysterical for hours and hours and hours, every single night, to the point where he was going to rupture something, or have some kind of accident.
I'm sure you did this but Google controlled crying. You're not supposed to let them get hysterical.Sheepshanks said:
SilverSixer said:
Some babies just won't cry it out, though. We tried this with our first, but he just became increasingly hysterical for hours and hours and hours, every single night, to the point where he was going to rupture something, or have some kind of accident.
I'm sure you did this but Google controlled crying. You're not supposed to let them get hysterical.We've got an 18 month old, he's a good sleeper, all through the night now, but we quickly managed to get him to a point where he'd wake just a few times between 8pm and midnight, then sleep all the way through from an early age.
Each baby is unique, so I can only speak from our own experience, but we:
1) established a routine early. His afternoon nap is 1pm-3pm latest (so he doesn't sleep too much during the day), evening meal always 5pm, plays until 6:45pm, in the bath at 7pm, clean nappy, bottle of milk, asleep for 7:30pm. Wife was the big driver behind this, I wanted to be a bit more free and easy, but I have to say it works.
2) gave him a dummy. I know this is a moot point, but after a few nights of trying to tough it out when he was first born I said to my wife "they wouldn't sell loads in Mothercare if people weren't buying them" ... he took to it right away and it does help soothe him. Only has it in bed, we are aware of needing to wean him off it at some point.
3) make sure he's not too hot. My wife constantly put too many layers on him in bed, I guess just maternal instinct to keep him warm. She finally listened to me that the poor little bugger might be cooking, so now he just has a sleepsuit and a (TOG dependent on season) gro-bag.
4) Bonjella'd him. At 8 months yours is likely teething, we found a pea sized bit of Bonjella on the gums each night helped.
This book contains a lot of great advice, and is relatively light going. Probably the best 2 quid we've spent on anything baby related.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baby-Book-How-Enjoy-Year/...
Hope that helps OP.
Each baby is unique, so I can only speak from our own experience, but we:
1) established a routine early. His afternoon nap is 1pm-3pm latest (so he doesn't sleep too much during the day), evening meal always 5pm, plays until 6:45pm, in the bath at 7pm, clean nappy, bottle of milk, asleep for 7:30pm. Wife was the big driver behind this, I wanted to be a bit more free and easy, but I have to say it works.
2) gave him a dummy. I know this is a moot point, but after a few nights of trying to tough it out when he was first born I said to my wife "they wouldn't sell loads in Mothercare if people weren't buying them" ... he took to it right away and it does help soothe him. Only has it in bed, we are aware of needing to wean him off it at some point.
3) make sure he's not too hot. My wife constantly put too many layers on him in bed, I guess just maternal instinct to keep him warm. She finally listened to me that the poor little bugger might be cooking, so now he just has a sleepsuit and a (TOG dependent on season) gro-bag.
4) Bonjella'd him. At 8 months yours is likely teething, we found a pea sized bit of Bonjella on the gums each night helped.
This book contains a lot of great advice, and is relatively light going. Probably the best 2 quid we've spent on anything baby related.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Baby-Book-How-Enjoy-Year/...
Hope that helps OP.
Edited by PurpleTurtle on Wednesday 21st September 16:14
Edited by PurpleTurtle on Wednesday 21st September 16:15
Another vote for normal.
Try anything you like, but basically having a baby means you're going to be a bit fked up for a while. What's that phrase, something like when you're going through hell, keep going. It will get easier, eventually.
We're expecting twins this time. I probably need to look at wills just in case I don't make it.
Try anything you like, but basically having a baby means you're going to be a bit f
ked up for a while. What's that phrase, something like when you're going through hell, keep going. It will get easier, eventually.We're expecting twins this time. I probably need to look at wills just in case I don't make it.
18 month old here who still wakes maybe 2 times a night, but generally if she has some milk settles herself.
She used to wake 5-6 times previously, so this is an improvement.
Generally does 19:15 to - 6/6:30, sometimes 7. Although today I had to wake her up at 7:40 to go to nursery, mainly because she was awake form 2-3 screaming her head of because we wouldn't let he rout to play.
She used to wake 5-6 times previously, so this is an improvement.
Generally does 19:15 to - 6/6:30, sometimes 7. Although today I had to wake her up at 7:40 to go to nursery, mainly because she was awake form 2-3 screaming her head of because we wouldn't let he rout to play.
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