Sweet Dreams....Not at this house.

[CPAMOM]

Would someone please tell me the secret of getting an 8 m/o to sleep through the night? (DS1 was 2 before he slept through the night.)
Every night between 12 -1 he wakes up and then again between 3 -4....Yes, I feed him because I can't stand letting him CIO. (Oh and btw...tried the CIO and he won...4 hours of crying for 2 nights in a row and I was done.) DH is mad because I keep feeding him, but I don't know what else to do. We have the same bedtime routine every night. 8:30 he is in bed (no troubles there - just lay him in the crib and walk away)...He doesn't take a bottle, so I would have to use a dropper to give him water and he doesn't take a pacifier. Any thoughts?

[ima062002]

It is not unusual for babies to do that. 8 mo is a time for major milestones (like crawling) and for teething as well. Both interrupt sleep easily. IMO you are responding to your baby and I don't really get how your dh can get mad at that. You are doing what you are supposed to do.

If you are getting sleep deprived, can you bring him in to your bed after the first waking? Or put a mattress on the floor in his room and spend the second half of the night with him there?

This won't last forever, you know that from your ds1 ;)).

[CPAMOM]

It really doesn't bother me. I thought that I was doing something wrong in the child-rearing department. I keep hearing from people that their kids have been sleeping through the night since they were just weeks old. Even my ped made a comment that I shouldn't feed him in the night. I know that as he gets old he will do better. He actually just started crawling this week....Oh and no kids allowed in bed....Only on stormy nights and when the bogey monster comes to visit. When he was getting up numerous times a night, we had the crib next to the bed. He is now in his own room across the hall.

[pawprint]

Nah, that's typical. My advice is stop taking parenting advice from your ped, unless you've met the man's kids and are happy with the way they turned out, lol. He's either hungry or lonely, or whatever. At least nursing him makes him go back to sleep!

I know it seems like it will be forever, but I joke with some friends from LLL that when it takes a loooong time for them to sleep through the night it's so much more rewarding than when they do it early, lol.

[whitnessforhim]

I agree with the others and will emphasize that this really won't last forever. I co-sleep with my DD (she's 18mo.) and have always nursed her on demand, even at night which to me is just the most natural thing to do. When I wouldn't nurse her she got upset which meant less sleep for everyone one. I really just see it as something she needs right now for one reason or another; whether its teething, hunger or just comfort. Sometimes I notice that she wakes just to look for me and make sure I'm there.

Although she still wakes a couple times a night to nurse (if she's teething she wakes more) it has gradually gotten much, much better. She use to wake every 2 hours to nurse and did that until just after a year. Now she goes through spurts. She sleep most of the night, only nursing a couple times, for weeks and then she hits a spurt of nursing more often at night. My point is that this will get better with time, maybe not as fast as we'd like it, but it will get better. Hang in there!

[SingingMom]

Why not put the crib back in your room?

Is he teething? Sometimes a teething baby will seem very happy during the day and restless at night.

If your baby is sleeping in four hour shifts, that's actually pretty doable. What I learned to do was go to sleep when the baby went to bed. If the baby went down at 8:00, so did I. Then when she woke at midnight, I had gotten four hours of sleep; when she woke at 4, I had gotten four more. Two four hour shifts worked pretty well for me.

[Peeka2]

My ds1 slept through the night early but not consistently. But Dylan 17 months still wakes up at least once. If he doesn't wake up, I usually do...lol.

All kids are different, I have a daycare child that still wakes up 2-3 times every single night and he isn't breastfed. He is 16 months old. I think some kids just can't sleep that long yet.

[TheLorax]

He's still so tiny, relatively speaking, he's probably hungry if he's nursing well for you. You'll know when it's time to stop offering nursing (if that is what you want to do) at night, you'll know when he's not hungry anymore. Until then, trust your gut.

Really, I can't recommend highly enough moving him back to your room or you to his room until this passes. Both my little ones were over a year before they had good over night sleep, and moving into their rooms let DH get his rest, and they went right back to sleep once they got a pat or a cuddle, and so did I. Everyone is happier when they get their sleep, DH too.

[CPAMOM]

Really, I can't recommend highly enough moving him back to your room or you to his room until this passes. Both my little ones were over a year before they had good over night sleep, and moving into their rooms let DH get his rest, and they went right back to sleep once they got a pat or a cuddle, and so did I. Everyone is happier when they get their sleep, DH too.

We were always waking him up in the morning when we were getting ready for work....and for my 10 pee pee trips in the night! (when will that ever change?) He is across the hall, so it's not so bad.

Good news...I talked over things with DH and we are in agreement to feed him when crys....Hooray!