Sleep

This is currently happening to me, my little boy turns 8 months on Saturday and has been on and off sleeping terribly for a while. I see that a LOT of other mums are going through the same. Could be teethings but I have also read that there is a sleep regression at 8 months old because of all the new milestone both mental and physical that they are going through. Although they say it’s not as bad as the 4th regression it’s still tough and shouldn’t last as long Hope this helps from another struggling mum 😂❤️

Yes 😩 she’s also decided that she doesn’t want to nap really either

Thank you both. Feel like we've never come out of the 4 month regression 😪 I have tried absolutely everything! Glad I'm not the only one xx

My LO seems to be crying for like 20 seconds then stopping. I think she’s dreaming, thankfully it isn’t waking her or if it is the sleep training is working and she doesn’t need my help to go back to sleep! It’s very odd though

How did you find the sleep training?

Mentally it was tough for those first few weeks, but after 5 months of her constantly crying with over tiredness, waking on transfer, sleep deprivation, PPD with lots of tears from me too things improved from day 1. I still get pangs of guilt if she’s struggling to settle but bedtime taking 5 hours to 5 mins now, we’re all so much happier

@Emma how do you sleep train? Is your little one formula fed or breastfeed? Just generally curious about sleep training, keep seeing people post about it, but also see equally the same amount that sleep training is not a thing. Currently going through 8 months sleep regression as well with 1-2 hours sleep stretches and constant wakes through the night. My little one usually sleeps through the night, so it’s getting really difficult now.

@Lana we did it to go from rocking and transferring to her going to sleep on her own. She would wake up 90% of the time on transfer and even when she stayed asleep it would only be for half an hour. If we held her until after 10pm, fed then put her in her cot she would usually stay asleep by attempt 5 but then we had the week of not wanting to be put down at all. Myself and partner slept in shifts. Enough was enough. We used Ferber, did our routine, gave her a kiss goodnight and left the room. You then go in after 3, 5, 10 mins on the first night to reassure them and it slowly increases. You can do whatever you like just not pick them up with this method. Any kind of touch would make her worse so we just gave verbal reassurance. She cried for 45 mins that first night. I’d say after 20 she kept going quiet, trying her best to go to sleep but then crying again. She learnt the skill very quickly, by night 3 it was 15 mins of whining.

You follow the same for wake ups, but after the first few days we limited the wait time to 10 mins. We’ve had very few since that hasn’t been a feed time. I’ve fed, placed back in the cot and she’s gone back to sleep. She’s breastfed so u can be flexible on feeds. As long as it’s been 3 hours I feed as she often still does a feed between 10 & midnight then early morning between 3 & 6. Feeding does complicate things as you still have a decision to make